History Forum / War History / World War II / August 2005

Basically a few issues remain in the area of Airborne needs and operations
between myself and Stephen Graham
1. Stephen asserts that 17th Airborne was available for Market Garden and
apparently follows from there that their lack of use was the result of

While watching a WWII movie (Destination Tokyo) there is a scene where
a 3-man shore party is sent ashore onto enemy territory from a
submarine.  They are carrying lever action rifles.  Now, I know this
is Hollywood, and maybe they didn't have the proper weapons in their

I'm searching for books focusing on the participation of the 82nd airborne
in the battle of the bulge. General books or first person accounts of the
fights in the region between  werbomont and the salm valley. Some web pages
can be also interesting ?

In "The Illustrated Directory of Warships From 1860 to the Present" (David
Miller, (Osceola WI USA, MBI Publishing, 2001), I only see two classes of
IJN destroyers that would have seen WWII service -- the Fubuki and the
Asashio.  The previous classes dated back to the turn of the ...

Some random observations...
As U.S. industry mobilized for war in 1940, shortages of critical
materials soon developed and it was clear a priority allocation system
would be required.  By 1942 there were shortages in many in a great

I was under the impression that the song ""Yes, we have no bananas!",
written in 1923, was popular during the war in Britain and reflected
the acute shortage of bananas. However, I have found only one reference
to it, and that's a photograph showing that song title written on a

I stumbled across this on Wikipedia, and had never heard of it. It's
hard to believe 36 Maquis could do this, but maybe they blew up a
bridge the Germans were on, etc. I've never heard of Spaniards fighting
with the Maquis.

Conventional discussion of the end of the Pacific war
generally agrees that there were three ways for the
Allies to end the war:
1) Invade Japan and conquer it on the ground at enormous cost.

The Road to Victory by David Colley from Brasseys.  A history of the Red
ball Express in ETO in 1944.  It covers the men, equipment, routes,
organization, problems, lessons learned and their application to the later
express truck lines of late 44 and 45.  Many personal experiences ...

If you had to build an army of 250,000 men, with your pick of any units
that served with American or Commonwealth forces in WWII, in any
theater or service branch, which units would you choose?  Your army
will replace the U.S. First Army after the Falaise Pocket is

I have been reading some WWII material from an American source and have
noted that the date quoted at the head of the material was shown as being:
12th July 1944.
The normal American date order would be: July 12th 1944.

During WW II there was a huge labor shortage.  Many companies asked
retired employees to return to work to help out.
In those days life expectancy was much less than today and there
weren't as many seniors (over age 65) around.  I was wondering how big

  I know that this book has been mentioned here, along with the assertion
in it that Japan set off an Atomic Weapon that actually achieved
criticality. I remember that some of the more well informed folks here
panned it and effectively (in my mind) de-bunked the A-Bomb assertion ...

I just received a book  Bomber Aircrew In World War II
by  Bruce Barrymore Halpenny on the front of which
is/are photograph/s of bomber aircrew.
There appear to be two distinct styles of aircrew half wing. The one for the