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WWII
World War II began 4.17 a.m. 1 Sept 1939 (This is of course only the "European view"-Japan had attacked China and another view is that it is just a continuation of WWI with better arms) aa
"And while I am talking to you mothers and fathers. I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." Franklin D. Roosevelt (Speech 30,Oct 1940 Election campaign)
"War was in the air again. The Nazis were on the march. How soon we forgot the First World War and its torturous four years of doing. How soon we forgot the appalling human debris; the basket cases-the armless, the legless, the sightless, the jawless, the twisted spastic cripples, those that were not killed or wounded did not escape, for many were left with deformed minds. Like a minotaur ,war has gobbled up the youth, leaving cynical old men to survive." Charlie Chaplain
"The Second World War was as little due to National Socialist theory as road accidents are due to the existence of cars and roads. Accidents are not the result of the driver's intent, but to poor handling and conditions outside his control. The Nazis did not intend war; it came about through mistakes and chance events. Wars, like road accidents, are the result of human mistakes and to affix guilt would be to argue that man controls history." A.J.P. Taylor
" 1934-"A great many Americans believed that nobody should be in the army. Scholars generally held that the country had been tricked by wicked Europeans, and for once the people--7l% of them, Gallup found--agreed with the professors."
William Manchester The Glory and the Dream " "I went up to fathers (Winstons) bedroom . "Sit down, dear boy .I think I see my way through." He resumed his shaving. I was astonished and said: "Do you mean that we can avoid defeat?"-which seemed incredible. He swung around, and said:-Of course I mean we can beat them." Me: "Well, Im all for it, but I dont see how you can do it." By this time he had dried and sponged his face and turning round to me said with great intensity:-"I shall drag the United States in."
Randolph Churchill Winston S. Churchill, vol 6 Finest Hour 1939-41
"This is no war for domination or imperial aggrandizement or material gain....It is a war.....to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man." Winston Churchill (Speech, 3 Sept 1939 to the House of Commons
"The origins of the second World War had little attraction when men were already studying the origins of the third. There might still have been some kick in the subject if there had remained great areas of doubt and question. But an explanation existed which satisfied everybody and seemed to exhaust all dispute. This explanation was: Hitler. He alone planned the second .World War. His will alone caused it "At 12:29 P.M. President Roosevelt entered, still on Jimmy's arm. There was applause. ..a brief introduction by Speaker Sam Rayburn. . .and the President, dressed in formal "Mourning attire, stood alone at the rostrum. He opened a black loose-leaf notebook-the sort a child uses at school-and the chamber gave him a resounding ovation. For the first time in nine years Republicans joined in, and Roosevelt seemed to sense the electric anger that swept the country, and he grasped the rostrum and began: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.. ." Walter Lord Day of Infamy
"From San Lorenzo's Franciscan convent, less than a mile away, the tall bearded Brother Nicola da Mondovi saw the first bombs falling to catch the rays of the sun 'like golden tears. ' For one long moment, all over San Lorenzo, thousands stood staring, watching the spectacle in silent disbelief. Then the bombs struck home . A whistling ear-splitting inferno engulfed the narrow streets of San Lorenzo. More than a thousand tons of bombs rained down on the marshalling yards. Whole buildings disintegrated. Yellow pinpoints of light seared through the smoke like deadly rockets as an ammunition train caught fire. Yards of shining track, locomotives, trees, steel girders and switchgear spewed skywards-to loop in the wires of the tram-cars or land on the shattered roofs of tenements. Rodolfo Coltellini watched 3000 square yards of his piled fuel take fire like a blast furnace, burning with a light so bright he could not watch it. Down the five storys of the Pantanella Spaghetti Factory streamed a molten cascade of red-hot flour. But inevitably some bombs fell wide of their targets, and everywhere there were scenes of apocalyptic horror. Racing for the shelter, Angela Fioravanti saw the terrified carriage horses of the wedding procession rearing and screaming between the shafts in the moment before bombs blew them and the coachmen apart. Through the black billowing smoke, whirling spirals of birds-swallows, pigeons, sparrows-swooped in mindless terror.
Duce! Richard Collier Viking Press
"It was Wednesday, March 21,1945-the first day of spring. On radios all over the city this morning, Berliners heard the latest hit tune: 'This will be Spring without End." Cornelius Ryan (Just as the Russians were moving up 10,000 pieces of artillery)
"So slowly it faded, leaving behind it a whole generation of men who would walk into history looking backwards, with their backs to the sun. Peering forever over their shoulders behind them, at their own lengthening shadows trailing across the earth. None of them would ever really get over it."
James Jones WW II
"I think its pretty obvious that this war is no fun for me. Ive been cut off from the world for five years. Ive not been to a theatre, a concert or a film." Adolf Hitler (Inside Hitlers headquarters) General Walter Warlimont
"I cant understand how all this can happen. Its enough to make one lose ones faith in God!" Eva Braun (a letter written to a friend during the siege of Hitlers bunker)
Read: "Stalins role in the Coming of World War II" by R.C. Raack Book: "FDR: The War President, 1940-1943" by Kenneth S. Davis Book: "Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett Book: "Twenty-Five Yards of War: The Extraordinary Courage of Ordinary Men in World War II" by Ronald J. Drez Book: "Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Summer Welles" by Irwin F. Gellman Book: "The Longest Battle: The War at Sea 1939-45" by Richard Hough Book: "The Second World War in the East" by H.P. Willmott Book: "Feuding Allies: The Private Wars of the High Command" by William B. Breuer Book: "Forgotten Voices Of World War II" by Max Arthur Book: "Thunder In The Heavens: Classic American Aircraft of World War II" by Martin Bowman Book: "Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II" by Laurence Rees Book: "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" by Iris Chang Book: "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire" by John Toland Book: "Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II" by Lawrence Rees Book: "The Second world War In The Far East" by H.P. Willmott Book: "The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War" by Adam Zamoyski Book: "The World War II Reader" Ed. by the eds of World War II Magazine Book: "The Second World War" by Winston S. Churchill Book: "A Question Of Honor: The Koscuiszko Squadron, Forgotten Heroes of World War II" by L. Olson & S. Cloud Book: "Before Stalingrad: Barbarossa-Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941" by David M. Glantz Book: "Kursk: The German View" Ed. by Steven H. Newton Book: "The Second World War in the West" by Charles Messenger Book: "Stalingrad: The Defeat of the German 6th Army" by Paul Carell Book: "Our Mothers' War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II" by Emily Yellin Book: "Fighting With The Screaming Eagles: With the 101st Airborne from Normandy to Bastogne" by Robert M. Bowen Book: "Images of Barbarossa: The German Invasion of Russia,1941" by Christopher Alsby Book: The SAS Encyclopedia" by Steve Crawford Book: "Beyond Valor: World War II's Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat" by Patrick K. O'Donnel Book: "MacArthur Strikes Back: Decision at Buna, New Guinea 1942-43" by Harry A. Galley Book: "The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys" by Stephen E. Ambrose Book: "The Pacific War: Campaigns of World War II " by A. West & G.L. Mattson Book: "The Eagle and the Rising Sun: The Japanese-American War, 1941-43, Pearl Harbor Through Guadalcanal" by Alan Schom Book" The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad" by Harrison E. Salisbury Book: "Voices From The Home Front" by Felicity Goodall Book: War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific" by Oliver L. North with J. Musser Book: "another River, Another Town: A Teenage Tank Gunner Comes of Age in Combat-1945" by John P. Irwin Book: Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences, 1942-45" Ed. by DAvid M. Glantz Book: "Top Secret Tales Of World War II" by William B. Breuer Book: The Field Marshal's Revenge: The Breakdown of a Special Relationship" by Charles Whiting Book: "We Were In The Big One: Experiences of the World War II Generation" Ed. by Mark P. Parillo Book:"Fighter Boys: The Battle of Britain" 1940" by Patrick Bishop Book: "SS Steel Storm: Waffen-SS Panzer Battles on the Eastern Front, 194f3-1945" by Tim Ripley Book: World War II: The Axis Assault, 1939-1942" Ed. by Douglas Brinkley Book: D Day to VE, Day, 1944-45: Uncovered Editions Book: "D-Day, June 6, `1944-The Normandy Landings" by Richard Collier Book: "Biographical Dictionary of World War II" by Mark M. Boatner III Book: "The TimeChart History of World War II" by David Gibbons Book: "War in The Air, 1914-45" by Williamson Murray Book: "Tales by Japanese Soldiers: Of the Burma Campaign 1942-1945" by K. Tamayama & J. Nunneley Book: "Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army" by Evgeni Bessonov Book: "Zhukov: The Conqueror of Berlin" by John Colvin Book: "The Last Mission: The Secret Story of World War II's Final Battle" by J.B. Smith & M. McConnell Book: "Voices From the Battle of the Bulge" by Nigel de Lee Book: "The 100-Year Secret: Britain's Hidden WWII Massacre" by Benjamin Jacobs with E. Pool Book: "Red Storm On The Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945" by Christopher Duffy Book: "Karenini: The Forgotten War of a Nation Besieged" by Dean Chapman (note; this is an area of the world where WWII never stopped-aa)
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