Well you can't blame Hollywood for emphasizing the U.S. part in the invasion, this was their men they were filming after all! Considering how thin the U.S. was stretched at the time with the war in the Pacific, I am surprised they were able to send so many!
They were all some bodies baby, no matter how young or old.
What I most remember is the remnants of the war that were still in place when I was in school, we still had air raid shelters at my Infants and Juniors school and our math's teacher at Secondary school had some facial scars and expected us to have calculators in our heads and come up with the answers in a flash, I get the impression thinking on it that he must have been a navigator. I also remember hearing the Air Raid sirens that they were still testing periodically, also hearing my parents talk about my father having to go on the black market to get dried milk for me. I was born at the end of '49 and I believe I even had ration cards, but I am not sure, but I think rationing was in force for some things still.
I keep thinking that the Great War was supposed to be the War to End All Wars, but it still keeps going on, the Second World War, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and it goes on and on and on.
I am not really surprised that Hollywood mainly shows the American side of the war, as if it only started when they arrived. Although it would be helpful if they didn't keep changing history to make it look as if everything was done by Americans such as the film that showed the capture of the enigma machine from a submarine by an American vessel... When in reality, it was British personnel from HMS Bulldog who first captured a naval Enigma machine (from U-110 in the North Atlantic in May 1941), before the United States had even entered the war.
Considering how thin the U.S. was stretched at the time with the war in the Pacific, I am surprised they were able to send so many!
But then there were also something like 150,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers fighting there, too, as well as airforce and naval personnel. Or do they not mention them in America?
But how good that we learn all the time - I hadn't realised there had been rationing in the USA - thank you for telling me about it.
Many of my teachers had been in the forces, too. But it was something they rarely mentioned, just like your maths teacher. Our headmaster did used to have his DFC after his name on formal documents, though!
And I do think that if we do not keep reminding everyone about the horrors of such total war, where everyone, whether old or young, male or female, is involved, we are likely to repeat it. So I am sad to learn that the history of the causes and losses of WW2 is not taught in your schools as it is in ours.
Yes, there was rationing in the U.S. but I am talking about rationing in England where I was born and lived until I was 21.
To be honest I don't remember them teaching us about the war in school, probably too soon after the fact.
I do remember my uncle talking about heating tins of what they thought was stew of some kind only to find on opening them that they had a nice tin of melted butter! He was in Italy for a time. My dad was in the signal corps when young but developed a hearing impairment, the head phones were not as well made as they are now and he had infections in his ears that damaged to canal and he had to rely on bone conduction to hear.
Yes, that's right the U.S. did not enter the war until November of that year after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
They were all some bodies baby, no matter how young or old.
What I most remember is the remnants of the war that were still in place when I was in school, we still had air raid shelters at my Infants and Juniors school and our math's teacher at Secondary school had some facial scars and expected us to have calculators in our heads and come up with the answers in a flash, I get the impression thinking on it that he must have been a navigator. I also remember hearing the Air Raid sirens that they were still testing periodically, also hearing my parents talk about my father having to go on the black market to get dried milk for me. I was born at the end of '49 and I believe I even had ration cards, but I am not sure, but I think rationing was in force for some things still.
I keep thinking that the Great War was supposed to be the War to End All Wars, but it still keeps going on, the Second World War, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom and it goes on and on and on.
Sorry, climbing off soap box now.
Lynda
Reply
Considering how thin the U.S. was stretched at the time with the war in the Pacific, I am surprised they were able to send so many!
But then there were also something like 150,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers fighting there, too, as well as airforce and naval personnel. Or do they not mention them in America?
But how good that we learn all the time - I hadn't realised there had been rationing in the USA - thank you for telling me about it.
Many of my teachers had been in the forces, too. But it was something they rarely mentioned, just like your maths teacher. Our headmaster did used to have his DFC after his name on formal documents, though!
And I do think that if we do not keep reminding everyone about the horrors of such total war, where everyone, whether old or young, male or female, is involved, we are likely to repeat it. So I am sad to learn that the history of the causes and losses of WW2 is not taught in your schools as it is in ours.
Reply
To be honest I don't remember them teaching us about the war in school, probably too soon after the fact.
I do remember my uncle talking about heating tins of what they thought was stew of some kind only to find on opening them that they had a nice tin of melted butter! He was in Italy for a time. My dad was in the signal corps when young but developed a hearing impairment, the head phones were not as well made as they are now and he had infections in his ears that damaged to canal and he had to rely on bone conduction to hear.
Yes, that's right the U.S. did not enter the war until November of that year after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Lynda
Reply
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