After half a century following the dramatic narratives of WW2, I suddenly ran into new material that underlines basic forgotten facts. I'll mention some numbers by memory that may only be 80% right; better details avail from sources like videos by authors: https://www.c-span.org/video/?418529-10/macarthur-hirohito-famine-postwar-japan (postwar famine rescue) and "Why World War II Matters" (link at bottom).
1) The countries with the biggest kill ratios and who killed most opponents LOST the war. Japan killed 7 for every soldier lost (killed 27 million; mostly asian civilians it was supposedly rescuing from colonial powers). Germany killed around 25 million of Russians alone, famously fencing millions of USSR POW's in cold open air with no food ever.
2) Germany won it's war to create a fascist EU on the continent. After Poland thru France it came to rest (before the push into USSR) with a pacified continental Europe of either puppet or friendly regimes for quite some time.
3) The atomic bomb was less expensive to develop and killed only about half the numbers of a typical conventional B-29 bomb raid. The second atom bomb was dropped against orders for visability, and mainly hit an outer Christian suburb of the city. The B-29 was the most expensive item developed in the war, mostly for ambitious features that might have been needed over Germany but not over Japan. It's early use gave poor results until massive fireraids were tried - personally I think the UK Avro Lincoln could have been enhanced to do the job on a shoestring budget. Our Russian allies stole and copied the B-29 design.
4) The supposedly racist occupiers from US saved about 6 million Japanese from famine and epidemics thru amazing creativity and effort. This was twice the number of Japanese troops lost in the war. Returning troops brought mass infections which were then almost eraticated thru DDT powder etc. Much of the world was starving including Japanese victims like VietNam, but McArthur escalated on Japanese being near meltdown and uprising. If war wasn't ended decisively and for example kept under submarine blockade, the failed harvest of 1945 would have killed millions.
5) Now I forget more important stuff, but will riff a bit on Mr Porsche who besides sport cars designed military vehicles in WW1 and WW2. Legendary successes in first war and interwar, but quite a mess in WW2. The (electric drive) tank named after him (Ferdinand) was a disaster... this after Hitler delayed the biggest tank battle in history for it (and let Ruskies prepare more and win). He wasted lots of development money with other failed results with Hitler both cheerleading and bullying him to alter designs. The bureaucracy hated Porsche because he complained they didn't pay for his torsion bar suspension. The Beetle's legendary "boxer" 4 cyl config engine was designed under duress in only 48hrs! He built a very successful amphibious version of the VW Beetle, whose design molds were destroyed thru a mixup by occupying allies.
6?)
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opDuw4OZ3QI[/ame]
1) The countries with the biggest kill ratios and who killed most opponents LOST the war. Japan killed 7 for every soldier lost (killed 27 million; mostly asian civilians it was supposedly rescuing from colonial powers). Germany killed around 25 million of Russians alone, famously fencing millions of USSR POW's in cold open air with no food ever.
2) Germany won it's war to create a fascist EU on the continent. After Poland thru France it came to rest (before the push into USSR) with a pacified continental Europe of either puppet or friendly regimes for quite some time.
3) The atomic bomb was less expensive to develop and killed only about half the numbers of a typical conventional B-29 bomb raid. The second atom bomb was dropped against orders for visability, and mainly hit an outer Christian suburb of the city. The B-29 was the most expensive item developed in the war, mostly for ambitious features that might have been needed over Germany but not over Japan. It's early use gave poor results until massive fireraids were tried - personally I think the UK Avro Lincoln could have been enhanced to do the job on a shoestring budget. Our Russian allies stole and copied the B-29 design.
4) The supposedly racist occupiers from US saved about 6 million Japanese from famine and epidemics thru amazing creativity and effort. This was twice the number of Japanese troops lost in the war. Returning troops brought mass infections which were then almost eraticated thru DDT powder etc. Much of the world was starving including Japanese victims like VietNam, but McArthur escalated on Japanese being near meltdown and uprising. If war wasn't ended decisively and for example kept under submarine blockade, the failed harvest of 1945 would have killed millions.
5) Now I forget more important stuff, but will riff a bit on Mr Porsche who besides sport cars designed military vehicles in WW1 and WW2. Legendary successes in first war and interwar, but quite a mess in WW2. The (electric drive) tank named after him (Ferdinand) was a disaster... this after Hitler delayed the biggest tank battle in history for it (and let Ruskies prepare more and win). He wasted lots of development money with other failed results with Hitler both cheerleading and bullying him to alter designs. The bureaucracy hated Porsche because he complained they didn't pay for his torsion bar suspension. The Beetle's legendary "boxer" 4 cyl config engine was designed under duress in only 48hrs! He built a very successful amphibious version of the VW Beetle, whose design molds were destroyed thru a mixup by occupying allies.
6?)
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opDuw4OZ3QI[/ame]