WW2 Choice of Theater Operations?

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Gotta chime in WRT the earlier comment about Mac and chow. I've been undertaking an EXHAUSTIVE study--like as in several years of my life's work--of the man, and the record shows that he wasn't exactly eating like a king--when based out of Australia, his normal lunch or dinner was a soup and salad with the Mrs. How much research anyone else here has done (this includes experience), I don't know, but there are a lot of myths surrounding the General, and personalities like his tend to be as polarizing as they are polarized.

PS: My personal weapons of choice would be a 1928A1 Thompson converted back to '28AC (vertical foregrip), and not one but TWO 1911s.
 
Flying

Mom's kid brother was a SeaBee in Pacific during WWII.:)

I was a Radio/ECM operator on a B-29 during the Korean war--flew 35 mission between November of 51 and May of 52.

My choice would be the Pacific, doing what I did in Korea.
 
Being an former Marine, I couldn't imagine figthing as a dogface. Send me too the PTO with a M1 Garand.
 
Canteen Commando

Got the phrase from Bill Mauldin ("Joe & Willy"). That's me. Spiffy uniform, dating Rosie the Riveter while the brave ones are being shot at. "You there! Douse that light." :rolleyes:

I don't think that any fighting was easy whether in was in the hot arid lands of North Africa, the cold wind driven mountains of Italy, the snow covered forests of Bastogne or the numerous islands we forcibly liberated from the Imperial Japanese Empire. Not even being on a ship is safe and if you look at what happened to our East Asiatic Fleet or our cruisers that were annihilated in those night battles or carriers that were ravaged by the Kamikazes, you'd know it wasn't a pleasure cruise. If I had to go, I'd want to hunt U-boats from a B-24 Liberator. At least I'd have a chance of getting home in one piece unlike the flyboys of the Mighty Eighth.

BTW, some mathematician was recently recognized as the civilian equivalent of a serviceman. He flew numerous missions and calculated bomb drops. He wore the uniform, slept in the barracks, attended the briefings, made friends with the boys and saw a lot of them not come home. I'll see if I can get his name later.
 
There were a lot of guys like that, of the military but not *in* the military. They've largely been forgotten, though there was a good John Wayne film about civilian air transport fliers during WWII re-released on DVD recently. The Merchant Marine also saw a ton of de facto combat before the war even officially started for us. Contractors and civilians working for the military and operating on front lines isn't something that started with the recent war.
 
Why is it that he (Lewis "Chesty" Puller) never really got his due outside of the USMC?
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He was fairly noisy, critical of the Army and what David Hackworth later called "Perfumed Princes" in Washington. He was not comfortable in staff work, preferring to be in command of troops in the field.

If it weren't for Korea and his command of the 1st Marines, his career would have been over. After Korea, his career salvaged, he made some public statements that were embarrassing to the Commandant and the Corps.

In a way he was sort of like George Patton, a great troop commander but embarrassing when there was no war to fight.

Pilgrim
 
"Hmm, I think I would want to be an essential war worker stateside."

No, I don't think so. My uncle was declared essential by DuPont and spent the war in Wilmington Delaware. I don't think anybody ever spit on him, but he got dirty, questioning looks everywhere he went, day after day for the entire war.

John
 
Well the inital post said pick a fighting grunt role. I'd much rather have been stationed at some AAA or anti-sub post on the coast of California. Were the vinyards in Napa or Santa Barbara by then?
 
That's my feeling on the matter. This business of picking the coolest theater and choosing your brace of 1911's is pretty silly. You go where they tell you and you take what they give you. From all the accounts I've read of WWII and other wars, there was nothing good about any of them. The tendency to romaticize the experience can get way out of hand.

My paternal grandfather was already in his 40's when the war came and my other grandfather was in his '30's and never got called up. Both did their share of work on the home front to support the war, but I don't recall either of them ever regretting their lack of combat. Only a fool or a madman regrets not being in front line combat.

After reading "Band of Brothers" and " "Beyond the Band of Brothers" I think that if I was dropped by time-machine into 1942 that I would want to be a part of Easy Company, 506th PIR.
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That's insane. I think you need to read those again, more closely. Esp. the parts about people getting torn to pieces. I'm glad the survivors came out of it with friendships, but what about all the dead ones? Some of you folks just aren't gettin' it.
 
lol...stay stateside?Im sure alot of men and women would have prefered that but to choose fighting one of the Axis powers which one would you have prefered and where considering the draft and the need, which in fact really left no choices anyway but for the sake of conversation.

I ask which weapons you would prefere to have carried to see members responses to what they consider superior weapons of the time.Which is relevant to this forum being about firearms and such.

I know the premise of this thread may have sounded silly,but you all have replied with great answers for the most part so far,and the personal photos really brings it on home in a personal way,and has given me a little more insight as to who you are.

Aviaton?,it was'nt my intent to include that option but if there are those that are aviators than actually it is good to hear your preference of aircraft that you would have wanted to fly.

The personal stories you have told,and the photos really are appreciated by me and also the historical info.

here's a question,if a combat soldier went through a certain amount of campaigns (and was'nt wounded) was he aloud to go home like aviators or were they there for the duration of the war?

thanks,Cosmoline I knew some may take this thread the wrong way,tried to word it in a way that would'nt offend but guess I failed in that regard to some opinions.Even if Im the silly one,most responses I think are not.

lordy lordy cosmoline,Im starting to feel like a dumb s*** for starting this,it was'nt my intention to downplay the horrors of war...sorry
 
You seem to be thinking of Battlefield 1942, not WWII

no not at all,after watching the history channel show I thought to myself I would rather have been fighting in Europe,so I posted the same question here,somehow my wording of the post seem to offend some which I appologize for.
 
Of course it's a flight of fancy.. that's why no one picked the eastern front.

My grandfather on my mom's side was in the Navy in the pacific, aircraft carriers I think. His brothers also served in the Navy.

My dad's father served in the Army Air Force as a flight engineer on B-29's. He didn't qualify to be a pilot.

His wife was a state-side nurse in a GI's convalescent home. Her brother, "Uncle Sid" first saw combat in the breakout at Normandy (don't think he went in at D-Day, more like D+3) as a radioman with a couple of stripes. By the end of the war he was serving as an MP, and an officer in the 1st Allied Airborne Army occupying germany. He was killed in late '45 when the shotgun in his jeep accidently discharged. His letter home reflected a side of the war unseen... he was worried about rationing at home (suggested the family buy a cow to get around milk rationing) and thankful for anything sweet sent in the mail.

If I had to go anywhere ETO or PTO or Africa or the Aleutians or where ever... and serve on the ground, by far my favorite WW2 American weapon is the BAR.

I've fired Thompsons and Garands and Carbines and 1911's galore, and while I appreciate the shotgun, the BAR is the weapon that got my attention. Thanks to a rental at an MG shoot I got to fire one... amazing.
 
My stepfather was a B-24 co-pilot out of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. One of his few comments was, "We used them for everything from pursuit planes to dive bombers."

My father was in Europe. He was the officer in charge of the patrol that was first to the Remagen bridge, in front of Patton. When the German soldiers came running back to blow the bridge and the firefight broke out, he said a sergeant with him opened up with a Thompson. My father wasn't sure just who was gonna kill him.

I saw Manila just a few years after the war. Still a mess. Corregidor was a horrible mess. I knew a few who had survived the Bataan Death March; I went to school with some kids that had been interned during the war.

I did occupation duty in Korea in 1954/1955. Getting out and about a bit in the countryside, I learned one truth about something my father had said: What the movies can't show you is the smell of a battleground. Not all that much smell left, for me to worry with, but I can sorta imagine what getting across France was for him. Lotsa rotting meat.

IMO, none of the Theaters of Operation were "better". Desert heat, European snow and ice, Pacific humidity.

Count me in as another BAR lover...

Art
 
We're just answering the question. The post wasn't "argue semantics." And I think guys wishing that they could have done more for their country is admirable. If all you care for is your own ass, that's your cup of tea. I won't mock it and pretend it means I have morals.
 
lionking wrote:
croyance,mentioning that you are of Chinese decent,people these days need to know about Nanking,while the Nazis commited atrocities what the Japanese did gets little attention compared.
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Thank-you, yes people don't know much about Nanking and the various "biological" experiments that the Japanese did. Very much like Mengele. In fact, the Japanese survivors of one of these units wrote and published a pamphlet about the attrocities they committed - old men confessing when they saw the grave coming - and the Japanese government suppressed it. They also highly sanitize their history books - a provision we should have had in the peace treaty was accurate education.

However, there are a lot of things that the American people need to educate themselves on but don't. Some are more immediately relevant. Such is human nature.

This question isn't so far fetched. If you tested high enough, you could volunteer for the Marines or Navy. Likewise if your draft number wasn't called you could volunteer for a branch. If you picked Marines, you would be in the Pacific Theater. I think you could also volunteer for the Merchant Marines (somebody please check) and see what it was like to not be able to fire back. Personally if sounds worse than being in a cramped destroyer escort in the frozen Greenland-Iceland route.
 
I hope I would have the strength and courage to serve as my maternal uncles and grand uncle did, as guerilla fighters in and around Cabanatuan, Phillipines. The one still living, served three years as a messenger, until his fifteenth birthday, when they gave him a rifle and told him he was now "old enough" to kill Japs.

I asked why my maternal grandfather didn't fight in the war. Apparently he was too well known as a plantation owner, as well as having a store in town. After managing to smuggle most of his family into the jungle, he spent the war mostly in Cabanatuan, smuggling out supplies to local resistance fighters.

What weapon? I know it's not the best choice, but I'd like the Ariska my uncle received as a birthday present. It's still in the family.
 
My uncle couldn't get his mother to sign for him to volunteer for the Army early. So he talked her into permitting him to join the Merchant Marine. Then he volunteered for the Murmansk convoy runs. From some of the stories he told about the size of the seas and the weather, it's amazing that the convoys got through even if the Germans didn't locate them.
 
Italy is in Europe. With respect, I'd suggest you read some of the many books written by the guys who were there instead of believing what you see on the 'History Channel'. It's about as accurate as Hollywood movies.
 
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I have flat feet, I'd stay home and watch all the women while you guys are off fighting the war.....:evil: :evil: :evil:

We 50 Freaks have always been lovers not fighters.
 
I'll play in this flight of fantasy.

What? SMLE No 1 Mk 3*

Where? Tobruk, or Imita Ridge.

Why? One was the first place the Germans got stopped, the other was as far as the Sons of Nippon got. Don't want to start a "blue", but in both cases the "stopping" was done by men carrying rifles made at Lithgow. :neener:
 
And I think guys wishing that they could have done more for their country is admirable. If all you care for is your own ass, that's your cup of tea. I won't mock it and pretend it means I have morals.
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I don't have a problem with people wishing they could have done more for their country, but I have to laugh when warm and dry folks 65 years after the fact say they'd want to fight at xyz battle with xyz weapons. These battles were literally hell on Earth. There was not one good thing about them. I'm grateful that brave men did put their lives on the line, but I also have no doubt that any one of them would rather have been somewhere else when it hit the fan. They didn't do it because they thought the guns were cool or the battle was interesting. They did it in spite of the fact that it was unspeakable horror, so that we wouldn't have to fight those battles again. I think part of honoring their memory includes not pretending we could go back in and fill their shoes.
 
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