As my history teacher said when we started our ww2 unit: “We could spend all year on this topic and still barely scratch the surface, and we to condense this into 4 weeks.” Honestly, if my school offered just a course over ww2 I would probably take it. It’s such an interesting topic, and there are so many layers and other things just leading up to it and that came from it. I thoroughly enjoy my history class, it’s one of those subjects that even after I’m done with school I’ll still have a passion for.

@blakedavies9703

Жыл бұрын

My school did essentially have a ww2 class, I passed it 1st time but did it 2 years in a row because I felt I missed so much information so after my teacher told the class everything she had taught the year before she would come over to me and spend the class just talking over so much more stuff. Even after 2 full years I still only just scratched the surface

Pykrete was a real thing they actually wanted to make an iceberg aircraft carrier lmao

"The pykrete" Yes; that happened. The material does exist and has been used in some experimental projects. Back in the day, the british planned to build ships made only with pykrite under the promise that the wood and ice mixture was strong and easy to repair on the spot; unfortunately, the project fell through when it was discovered the many technical issues they needed to solve in order to keep pykrete cold enough to work as intended in something the size of a ship. Project Habakkuk was not "dumb" per se... it was a desperate measure in the border of science fiction for the technology of the time. And I would have loved an aircraft carrier made of ice XD. "Alan Turing" While it's an oversimplified video, we can say that part is a bit... inaccurate. The ones that cracked the german code first were polish matemathicians. The problem was that the decoding of each message could take a lot of time (days... even months; since the codification method used by the germans allowed them to shift the coding system for each message). Having the method to crack the code is useless if you can't decipher only a handful of messages of thousands. Back in the time, there was no faster way to do it than by hand... until along came Alan Turing and the work he belonged to with this idea: a computing machine, in theory, could be programed to used the method discovered by the poles in hundreds of messages at a time; thus speeding the decodification process and allowing the allies to see, almost in real time (by that times standards) which messages were truly important and which ones were simply uneventful reports. Alan Turing would be an unsung hero for two main reasons: his work was top secret and, later on, british law discovered he was gay (a preference punished by english laws at the time). He would end up taking his own life after trying chemical castration to live a "normal" life. "The Battle of Midway" Partially as described; one of the many lucky breaks of the US Navy in Midway was that they had the code to confirm the Japanese Navy was coming for Midway; so they'd set a trap with aircraft carriers nearby to find the enemy fleet and attack it while they were busy destroying Midway. True, once the japanese planes had used all their weapons they needed to return to their aircraft carriers to be rearmed; however, the United States started the battle with the wrong foot... twice. First, many of the planes they had were old models that didn't stand a chance against anti aircraft fire; then what you could call the "main strike force" got lost in the middle of nowhere and couldn't find the enemy fleet. In the end, both failures kind of combined in a spectacular lucky strike: while the Japanese fleet and the aircraft defending it were busy destroying incoming old aircraft (and rearming the aircraft that just had bombed Midway with torpedoes to go out and find the american fleet); the main american attack group appeared from the other side and in less than 20 minutes delivered destructive hits to three of four of the japanese aircraft carriers. While not oversimplified there are a couple of videos by the KZread channel Montemayor explaining the japanese side of the battle (a video that's very interesting, and very long) and Battle of Midway Tactical Overview in the KZread of History Channel, in case you want to react to any of those. "Kamikazes" Fun fact for your students: while airplane kamikazes are the most famous, by the end of the war almost anything army related was "kamikaze" in Japan: they had developed kamikaze torpedoes that had to be driven by a person all the way to the target, soldiers were expected to kill the most enemy troops in hand to hand combat before being killed; the biggest battleship Japan had (the Yamato, with other functional ships) was sent in suicide mission to shell the allied troops landing in Okinawa (the idea was basically to beach the ships in the coast and fire at anything, troops in land, ships at sea, until the last ammunition was used and the last man was dead); even the Japanese Army had developed a plan in which they would give wooden weapons to any men, women, and children in the main islands with the instruction to charge against allied troops that occupied the cities in order to kill or be killed and sell the victory over Japan at an incredible high cost (this was thought in order to intimidate the allies into negotiating peace in more favorable terms to Japan).

@macmcleod1188

Жыл бұрын

The Japanese were also close to launching roughly 10,000 balloons with anthrax against the continental u.s. they had previously successfully started fires in the u.s. this way. The attack was planned for September.

I'm from Hawaii and i actually have a zippo lighter from a man that fought in Midway, he gave it to me as a gift before he went into hospice care. I still remember the stories he shared.

Dresden was not an “innocent city”, although I understand your word choice. Dresden was a major industrial force for Germany

@ArneMHH

2 жыл бұрын

It was just a "legit" target as Hamburg, Hannover or Cologne were... It is a pet trope of the far right that Dresden was nothing but art, culture and shiny rainbows. And that ist was after the war, out of revenge, that 300k died... All bs

@macmcleod1188

Жыл бұрын

"As a major center for Nazi Germany’s rail and road network, Dresden’s destruction was intended to overwhelm German authorities and services and clog all transportation routes with throngs of refugees. The Allied assault came a less than a month after some 19,000 U.S. troops were killed in Germany's last-ditch offensive at the Battle of the Bulge, and three weeks after the grim discovery of the atrocities committed by N (german) forces at Auschwitz."

@macmcleod1188

Жыл бұрын

Couldn't quote the azi word or post removed. So I put N (german) instead.

@LukasZ_77

Жыл бұрын

Bullshit. Churchill himself said he wants to kill at least 600.000 people including many refuguees from Breslau...and if it was that importent for them they could have only bombed the Industry but they didn't. And they knew the war was already won by that point so it was just unnecessary terror unleshing to many civilians including kids...

@ruas4721

Жыл бұрын

Thats why they bombed away civilians, churches, hospitals and many other non military places. Bad joke.

You mentioned in your video how you like to give your kids tidbits of interesting information to keep them interested. Like how the German panzer divisions were actually blitzed out if their minds on pervitin when they smashed into Belgium and France. Well maybe you'll like these tidbits. (I wish there was a Sabaton song for each of these people.) -Mariya Oktyabryskaya lost her husband in 1941. She was so pissed at the Germans that she went and donated all of her possessions to the Soviet Union to make a T-34 tank. She then asked to be allowed to drive it. Surprisingly, she was allowed and was trained to drive it and repair it. She named her tank the "Fighting Girlfriend." She participated in many tank offensives and earned a lot of respect. Unfortunately, she was killed in the offensive to break the German seige at Leningrad. She was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for her bravery. While she did not make it to Berlin with the rest of the Red Army, her tank, the Fighting Girlfriend, made it and fought in that last battle. - Captain Jack Churchill (no, he's not related to that Churchill) also known as Mad Jack always carried his longbow, sword, and bagpipes into battle. During the great retreat to Dunkirk, he shot one of the German infantry square in the chest with an arrow. It was the last confirmed kill with a longbow in a major war. At Dunkirk, he also would leave and go terrorize the Germans and steal stuff off of them. After his evacuation, he became a commando and lead an amphibious commando raid in Norway playing his bagpipes before whipping his sword out and leading the charge. He also went to Yugoslavia to assist the partisan movement and he managed to capture something like 40 germans with just his sword. When asked about why he carried a sword with him at all times he replied, "Any officer without one is underdressed for the occasion." - Ted Roosevelt (the son of the former US President Teddy Roosevelt and a cousin of FDR) also served in WW2. This was pretty big considering he had already fought and was injured as a younger man in WW1. He was 56 years old and had to have a cane as he was riddled with arthritis from his old wounds. He achieved the rank of brigadier general, but refused to stay out of the action and while in North Africa would direct the machine gun fire of his men with his cane. At D-Day, he was the only general from any nation and of any rank to make the first wave landings. He had to convince his superiors that allowing him to go would bolster his men's spirits. He landed at Utah Beach with his group armed with nothing but his cane and officer's pistol. He was informed that the boat had dropped them a mile off course, but undaunted, he took out his map and declared, "Well, we will start the war here then." And he began directing the men and tanks on the beach as well as walked around the beach to get a lay of the land to direct them better. Many of his men were indeed heartened by the sight of their old general calmly walking around and ordering the offensive even while clods of dirt exploded around him. And by golly, if he wasn't acting scared then it must not be so bad. Ted's own son, Quentin Jr, was also fighting on D-Day. He was on Omaha beach though and was not with his father. They were the only father-son duo to make the landings as well. Unfortunately, Ted Roosevelt died a month later from heart problems while still fighting in Normandy. He was reccomended to become a Major General, but died before he got the promotion. However, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery and skill. He is buried in the Normandy Cemetery for the Americans. While his son Quentin Jr survived the war, his youngest brother (whom he named his son after) had died as an aviator over France in WWI. His brother, Quentin, was moved from his original resting place in France and reinturned at Normandy next to his elder brother. So two Roosevelts died in France in different world wars but were eventually brought back together and are resting side by side once again.

@russb24

2 жыл бұрын

Another good one is "operation mincemeat" where a dead civilian was the hero.

@Crazyclay78YT

Ай бұрын

lmao the captain jack one reminded me, you said they stole stuff from the germans, i remember my great grandma telling me stories about how my great grandfather was skiing around, shooting russians and ripping out their solid gold teeth. he made a ring out of them for my GGM and my mom wears it today.

I'd highly recommend Montemayor's videos, especially his video on Midway. He's kind of the opposite of Oversimplified, and does a very detailed and deep dive into single battles in the way, providing a lot of context for each. Both styles have their place, and both are very enjoyable.

@simpleviking

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for your recommendation! Ill add it to my list :D

Prior to the Battle of Midway, naval convention was that Dreadnaught-class battleships were the key to victory; the prime motivation behind new Super-Dreadnaught battleships like Bismarck and Yamato. Midway shattered that perception as neither fleet was able to see the other - though aircraft carriers were considered potent the aerial devastation utterly shifted the paradigm and, henceforth, they reign supreme as *THE* capital ship of the world's oceans.

Overly Sarcastic Productions, Red hosts Myths, Folklore, and Literature, while her friend Blue hosts History and Architecture. Take your pick.

I've seen a lot of misconceptions about the Kamikaze pilots and how they were thought up, and there's a lot incorrect. The men who were trained to be Kamikaze pilots were trained expertly to know and pick their targets and precise locations to hit to deal the most damage, cause fires and explosions on the ships the were the most threat so that other kamikaze pilots could also hit their targets. They also didn't know how many pilots were going to be needed per location and target, since if someone gets shot down, their target would then be left open, and that's why they gave them a full tank of fuel. If you send out too many pilots and over half of them are still alive by the end of the battle, with no way to reach a landing strip or aircraft carrier, it would lead to their loss of life, aircraft, and the months of training that they simply didn't have time to just throw away, plus if you add more fuel to a fire, to bigger the explosion and fire it will cause. There's even a story about a Kamikaze pilot who returned from battle 9 times before they shot and killed him, simply because he wasn't doing what he was trained for. Their culture was huge on tradition, and honour, and that's also why some believe the nuclear bombings was necessary, as a full Invasion of Japan could have made the war last for months to years longer, aswell as losing millions more lives. Japan would have fought tooth and nail against an enemy, but to them, the act of Nuclear warfare was cowardice and they only surrendered because they had no chance to fight it. I don't know if you'll read this but I found it interesting to learn

I think the "innocent" city you meant that was bombed was actually Aachen. It’s a really rather tiny city in the west near cologne and Düsseldorf, but it didn’t really have a large industry besides the production of locomotives and fabrics. It got absolutely bombed to oblivion by the allies on two occasions tho, undetonated bombs are still being found CONSTANTLY, and as someone who’s lived in Düsseldorf and Aachen, on average Aachen had far more of those findings even tho it’s vastly smaller by comparison

@semiramisubw4864

2 жыл бұрын

ah ein düsseldorfer jung.

12:01 even a little mini sub was shot and sunk but it got shrugged off as false until later they found the sub with a shell hole in it ... so that was the 1st shot in that war section !

24:03 I remember seeing somewhere that US commanders estimated that an invasion of Japan would cost around 1 million US casualties, not even counting Japanese soldiers and civilians.

You also got two Japanese soldiers that had hid from the world, on a philippine Island for around 50+years after the war ended. They survived off of plants and stuff on the island, and only showed up outside of a cave when tehy had to. Apparently they didnt wanna get captured, but hid for that long cause they thought the war was still ongoing, since they hadn't heard anything else new.

Hello good sir. Great reaction video! I am a huge WW2 history fan and I am always fascinated by how much I learn each and every time. Please keep up the good work and hope to see you doing more of oversimplifed's content.

Love the videos! I'd be interested in learning more about Swedish history and how it intersects with major world events. This is a perspective that I have not been taught between both American and British schooling.

Midway was also historic because it was the first naval battle fought without any of the ships seeing each other. Air power had become the decisive factor. Greetings from California!

I also enjoyed watching your reactions as well as added information you share 😊👍

Love your channel! I’m an American born Swede, my grandfather was 101 airborne 506 gliders…. I am here because he made it through the D-day landings and the Ardennes forest and all the horror In between. Keep up the great reactions 💗

Would love to see you react to more Oversimplified. 😊

On Midway - you're partially right about the surprise. The plan was that they'd set up to make it look like Midway was just a small part of a bigger attack, knowing that the US would defend the Midway atoll, but wouldn't go full-force in order to defend against "the bigger attack" - and that partially worked: the US scrambled to defend Midway. The IJN's issue was that their plan held critical reliance on three assumptions: 1 - That the US Navy only had two serviceable carriers (partially true - a third was 'battle ready' (read: it floats) just after the start of the battle, and repairs were being rapidly done on the 4th) 2 - That the US morale would be low because of Japan's previous successes against them (it wasn't - the loss of their islands just made the US angrier) 3 (and this is the important one) - That the US would fall for it. Unfortunately for them, US intelligence had partially cracked their naval code, so, like you said, the US saw it coming, and ignored "the bigger threat" and went all-in on Midway. Also, the kamikaze pilots were well trained, elite forces; they weren't conscripts, and, for the most part, none of them were forced into it. And the "only enough fuel to crash" part wasn't true either. Pilots returned all the time - hitting the ocean because there's no clear target is a waste of the precious little resources they had

Everyone's story deserves to be told n taught in history classes in school

Also since japan had no solid way of telling their ppl war was over, some stationed soldiers kept doing their routines for many years. There was a video of a commander telling a soldier in the 80s that the war is over! He been in his forest, patrouling every day!

New subscriber here, love your reaction. Please continue down the oversimplified rabbit hole

@simpleviking

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! Oh I will! :D

Some important numbers you never hear... The US gov/mil estimated that ~5 million Japanese civilians would die if the US had to invade and conquer the Japanese home islands. This was based on their experiences with suicidal civilians in the Marianas and on Okinawa. But the Japanese gov/mil estimated it at ~20 million civilian dead, and deemed that preferable to surrender. Source is 'Embracing Defeat' by John Dover, whose wife I believe is Japanese, which he notes as making a huge difference on getting Japanese source material.

@qwe123303

2 жыл бұрын

This is a nice bedtime story to soothe the American conscience. Truth is they dropped the atomic bombs only six weeks after the battle of Okinawa and dropped the second one after Russia declared war and invaded Japanese territory. They gave comically little time for peace negations especially between the first and second bomb drop. First bomb Aug 6, Russian declare after Aug 8, second bomb Aug 9. Even if you think that first one was justified, there is zero rationale for the second. It was just plain evil. Zero strategy. They gave Japan no time to respond.

@celsus7979

2 жыл бұрын

Im not saying this in support of the atomic bombs, but 2 days is enough to surrender. There was no room for negotiations since the usa insisted on unconditional surrender. Im not arguing the morality or lack of, just the 2 days wasnt enough part of your statement

Really really enjoy your videos man. May I suggest Historia Civilis (ancient Roman history), Mark Felton (World Wars), and Drachinfel (naval history), all of whom make the best possible content in their spaces? I would particularly recommend Drachinfel's two-parter on the Russo-Japanese war, and pretty much everything Historia Civilis and Mark Felton have ever put up.

The part about no o e knowing about the a bomb. So little people knew about it, that when fdr died Truman did even know and had to get cornee by the secretary of war to be brought up to speed.

Interesting fact. Nuclear bombs did not surprise Japan that much. Normal carpet bombing did more damage. Japan wanted to impose combat on land, inflict a lot of damage on the United States, and end the war on its own terms. But after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet troops entered Manchuria and surrounded the Kwantung Army (about 650 thousand people). Even after that, Japan did not see the point in continuing to fight. So the words about "incredible weapons that ended the war" were rather used as propaganda.

@dabosskiller2123

2 жыл бұрын

Right. And the US used two bombs, because they have two bombs. If they had more, they would have used more. As they sad, it was to show their strenght and they want to see how the bombs will worked in a real war situation. I think also that the USSR and their war declaration was the real reason for japan's surrender. War is always bad

My grandfather fought in WW2, and while he was in the Pacific theater he had friends in the European theater. The ones that survived the landings often accurately compared them to a meat grinder. Even with the sabotage behind the lines we just basically threw bodies at the defenses til they broke.

My paternal grandfather was in the danish resistance. He was part of the rescue of the danish jews sailing them to safety in Sweden. Almost all danish jews survived. Also a few allied airmen who survived being shot down over danish territory were smuggled to Sweden. One of my cousins still have my grandfather´s resistance armband and nazi issued fishing permit.

You should definitely react to more OverSimplified videos

About Pykrete and ricochetting , I found this on WIkipedia: "Another tale is that at the Quebec Conference of 1943 Mountbatten brought a block of pykrete along to demonstrate its potential to the entourage of admirals and generals who had come along with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mountbatten entered the project meeting with two blocks and placed them on the ground. One was a normal ice block and the other was pykrete. He then drew his service pistol and shot at the first block. It shattered and splintered. Next, he fired at the pykrete to give an idea of the resistance of that kind of ice to projectiles. The bullet ricocheted off the block, grazing the trouser leg of Admiral Ernest King and ending up in the wall. According to Perutz's own account, however, the incident of a ricochetting bullet hitting an Admiral actually happened much earlier in London and the gun was fired by someone on the project-not Mountbatten."

If it matter for context i'm a brazilian. About the Pearl Harbor "surprise attack" my teachers used to tell that the japanese sent a message to the USA trying to do some diplomacy (if I recaall correctly it was about the control of the pacific) but they never got an answer to that message, so they attacked, and then (like, a day or two later) US recieved the japanese message and were surprised about the late attempt of an agreement.

I also find the battle of Stalingrad interesting, I just know it 10 or 12 years ago that there's a movie called Enemy at the gates which is pretty much it, even the game Sniper Elite 2 was a good game because it was pretty much based of german-russia dog fight

I realy love your videos man ! - too bad they didn't talk about french resistance, just a bit in this video (General Degaulle for exemple). Here is a sub, please keep doing vidéos ! :D

As an Australian, Tobruk is something we're taught and are extremely proud for. We have buildings and streets etc named after it.

by the way, stalingrad wasnt just important cause of the name or the river connection, but it was a supply hub through which ~80% of the ussr's oil supply was coming through and the world had ~50% of its oil from the ussr (as the big oil pools in the middle east werent yet discovered), so if the germans took that supply hub, they would control 50% of the world's oil supply, therefore basically making the wehrmacht fight at fully capacity (since they had low fuel supply since 1941, they had to use fuel, aka the army, sparingly)

@celsus7979

2 жыл бұрын

Hi, a late reply by me but i want to add this It wouldnt give germany access to oil, why would the russian keep sending oil...

@Sev7.

2 жыл бұрын

@@celsus7979 i didn't say they would access it. i said they would control it. if they wanted to stop it, they would. the 2nd part is that if stalingrad fell, there would be very little chance for the soviets to keep the caucasus in their control, as supply and railroad access in general for their redeployment would be very very limited

Montemayor has a great three part video series about the battle of midway that is told mostly from the Japanese perspective. You should check it out. He also has a really good video about Pearl Harbor

A huge factor in the destruction of the carriers at Midway was the fact that they didn't purge their fuel lines. And the u.s. force, some lowly Captain thought of the idea of using neutral gas, I think CO2, to purge the fuel lines and it was accepted all the way up the chain of command rapidly. Is important to listen to people at the bottom, at the point of the spear.

18:32 so crazy that Germany handled all of them alone.

Something that was kinda touched on in the video that you didn’t mention is the Siege of Leningrad. We learned about it in my Russian History class in college. A woman who was interviewed in the documentary we watched remembered how hungry and cold people were… When they completely ran out of food, they ate their pets and horses. Then the rats. Then…I won’t go into detail, but the woman said that children and women were afraid to walk around alone because they were afraid of getting kidnapped. But the people of the city never surrendered. Learning about this in detail was truly impressive and horrifying.

As to Stalingrad, you may want to check out the movie, "Enemy at the Gates". It is a Hollywood movie, and they played kind of loose with the historical accuracy, but I think it did a pretty good job of conveying the "tone" of Stalingrad...in my not so humble opinion.

I tilt my hat to your grandfather. I’m Russian/Ukrainian and now 4th generation American. My family escaped the Soviet Union. What family didn’t make it out starved to death and were killed in Stalins gulags. Work camps for anyone not familiar. It was a terrible fate. Many of my Ukrainian family were murdered.

Ur channel is so interesting, makes me wish I did history 😂

Just found your channel pretty good watching a teachers thoughts on things one you might be interested in is how britain ended the slave trade very interesting video that I did not know about till I watched it and I'm British lol

You should also do a video on the ghost army of WW 2

17:36 my granddad on my mom's side was in the RAF and fought in Burma and was then stationed there

in the conference about pykrete, the bullet did ricochet and hit admiral king's pants but he wasnt injured

Dresden had a lot of factories producing tanks and arms and such things for the German military. The Allies did use fire bombs there though that resulted in a fire storm that caused winds so strong that ripped babies out of their mothers' arms

Thank goodness they mentioned the Canadians with regard to Normandy and at least showed us advancing across Northern Europe. We were critically undermentioned though. We played a critical role at the center of the allied advance through Sicily and Italy, and as we advanced across Northern Europe we took Dieppe, the V2 rocket sites, and did the majority of liberating the Netherlands. To this day the Dutch celebrate Canada when they celebrate and remember their liberation from Nazi Germany. We also played a critical role in training British pilots and contributing pilots to the RAF during the Battle of Britain, as well as shipping food and goods that allowed Britsin to hold out against Germany through 1940-41. Then there's the role we played in the Battle of the Atlantic and getting goods and weapons to Europe safely. By the end of the war, Canada had one of the largest navies in the world due to the role we played in the Atlantic. I know this was oversimplified, but to ignore almost every role Canada played in the Allied victory is kind of criminal...

Midway: The japanes bombed the Islands but the planes of Midway where mostly already in the air attacking the japanse. The planes came back, preparing a second bomb run as anouther airstrike came in and made it clear Cariers are close (What was not expected by the Japanese ) So thes switched rearming from Bombs to torpedos to strike the US carriers. But instead slowed down their rearming with that (Or reset the rearm Timer XD) So the next US strike came and hit them in the rearming procces. The rearming bombers blockade the refuling fighters and the ammuniton and fuel on the deck was a nice adition to US bombs as they hit the japanese carriers...

You had some really great input all over the place but the fact that 2 bombs were dropped were less “the Japanese were too proud to surrender after one bomb” and more “America wanted to show of it mussels to the Soviet and the Japanese didn’t see the difference between the destruction of Tokyo and similar by firebombs and the destruction of Hiroshima by a nuclear bomb, just as more than 99.99% of the world’s population, they didn’t know of the horrors caused by nuclear radiation.

I mentioned what happened to my German family during WWII, but I do want to mention what happened to my American relatives. Pearl Harbor was one of those days that my grandparents remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news. I can relate to that since 9/11 was like that for me. Anyway, so many of my relatives either signed up for the navy or army right away, but not all of them were accepted like one of my great-uncles was denied because he already had too many kids by then and another was denied for health reasons. My maternal grandpa ended up going through Africa into Italy (he got to see the Vatican). Sadly I did lose a few relatives during this war. One of my dad's uncles died on D-Day (my own dad is named after him) and another cousin died in the Bataan Death March. Pretty much all of my relatives though didn't really talk about the war either. They might mention where they went, but no fighting. My dad's father would be int he Korean War and he wouldn't talk about it either.

The fact that Part 1 only covered 2 of the 6 years World War II was fought shows how much happened in WW II.

The Kwantung Army was the largest grouping of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was prestigious to serve in the Kwantung army, soldiers and officers were given the opportunity to quickly advance in the service and have a good salary. The Kwantung Army was assigned the role of the main enemy of the Red Army in the event of a war between Japan and the USSR. In addition, the Kwantung Army, along with the Korean Army, was an exception in the Imperial Army, since, among other things, it had a very large numerical composition relative to other formations. The Soviet Union began the war against Japan, fulfilling the Yalta agreements with the allies. The offensive as part of the Manchurian operation began on the morning of August 9, 1945. The day before in Moscow, the Japanese ambassador to the USSR was notified of the outbreak of war between the USSR and Japan. And although a Neutrality Pact was signed between the two states before the start of the Great Patriotic War for a period of 5 years, Japan, which was an ally of Hitler's Germany and fought with the allies of the USSR, inevitably became an enemy of the Soviet Union. And the Neutrality Pact was denounced by the USSR in advance. Thus, the Japanese side was warned. There are disputes regarding the date of August 19, 1945 and the surrender of the Kwantung Army. Their essence can be reduced to the fact that 64-year-old Japanese General Yamada Otodzo on that day actually signed the act of surrender of the Kwantung Army, obeying the decree of the Emperor of Japan on surrender of August 14, but to what extent the order took effect and whether by that time the main forces of the Kwantung army had been defeated by Soviet troops or only a smaller part of them is not a fully resolved question. In any case, the Japanese continued to offer some resistance to the Soviet troops in Manchuria, but mostly surrendered everywhere under the onslaught of the advancing Red Army troops, who had passed almost a five-year school of the fiercest war in the history of mankind. The defeat of the Kwantung army made further resistance to Japan pointless. Many historians, including Japanese, agree that even the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the American side did not have the same impact on the Japanese emperor's decision to surrender as the defeat inflicted on Japan by the Soviet Union in Manchuria.

Great reaction. There is great documentary about the Midway battle, where it shows the pride of Japanese forces trying to take on the US ships after the initial battle instead of retreat and reorganize proved to be very costly. I've seen people stating that Hitler had the war lost from the beginning because he didn't have the troops or the oil to battle all the fronts, especially in the US, but I've always thought that if Germans had arrived to the atomic bomb first (they had their own project, although not mentioned in this video) and they have completed their B1 intercontinental program (which was the foundation of the Soviet and the American space programs), he could have bombed Washington, Moscow and London with atomic bombs and get every country surrendering. It is scary just thinking about it.

Op reaction Video Sir.

theres a couple good ww2 videos that are pretty good follow-ups to the oversimplified ones. the first is fallen of ww2 that basically counts the casualties, and the other is the insane american plan to invade japan, which shows why the nukes were a better option than a full invasion

@celsus7979

2 жыл бұрын

Ofcourse nukes were a great option to end the war, it doesnt make it less of a warcrime... It was terrorism in the purest meaning of the word. I wonder if japan could have been persuaded to capitulate by demonstrating the power of the bomb in another way, like dropping it on a military base. Even though i consider it a warcrime i do understand why they did it. I might have made the same choice, i dont know. What a choice to have to make. But it feels hypocritical to condemn warcrimes, like we do right now in the ukraine war, while excusing hiroshima and nagasaki. Russia uses warcrimes for the same reason, to terrorize the opponent into submission and shorten the war, lose less troops. (i do not support putin or japan in ww2) What do you think you would have done? Do you think a non-civilian target could have made japan surrender?

9:03 - I love it that when there is a zoomed-in image of the Soviet flag, the hammer in the emblem is crossed with a cucumber xDDD

Despite the importance of the river Stalingrad was mostly just a giant battle of egos. Hitler redirect forces to it mostly because of the name, and the biggest reason Stalin fought to keep it was once agian his name. It was an ego battle that saw the deaths of over a million people.

America could use more teachers like you. Too many of our teachers start off with "I think" and don't let students think for themselves.

Interesting videos! Learned a lot of the broad strokes in these (was never too engaged by history during high school). Two semi-corrections I wanted to make about Japan though: On the kamikaze strategy, it is my understanding that the Japanese air force was running very short on ammunition, fuel and functional planes. So I don't think it's accurate to say they didn't give those pilots bullets or enough fuel for the return to force them to kamikaze / because they were inexperienced and would have bad aim. Their obliterated navy meant they were cut off from their supply lines and manufacturing couldn't replenish munitions. Pretty much they were down to their last "bullets", those bullets being the planes themselves. "When you're all out of ammo, throw your gun at them" kind of solution to the problem. And on the nukes: they weren't particularly pivotal in the Japanese surrender, as their war council was in a gridlock on the issue, and that gridlock remained the same after the nukes. Their use was more motivated by the funding spent in their development, and as a demonstration of power on the world stage, specifically as a deterrent for Russia. Anyway that's just some bits I've absorbed through videos over the years, I could be missing relevant pieces or be slightly off, but the narrative of "Japan still wouldn't surrender after one nuke, hence the second nuke" is just an after-the-fact justification pushed by America to down play the horrific cruelty they enacted for no real strategic reason.

@TheMightyBone

2 жыл бұрын

To add onto why Japan was resorting to Kamikaze attacks - they became the proposed method after the Battle of the Philippine Sea as a result of too much damage to the Japanese Navy (Japan had army and Navy with air as part of the Navy). By that point Japan had no useful carriers nor did they have effective crews to repair and construct new aircraft(Japan had planned on fast war and did not have plans in place for long-term production and training necessary to maintain their air force, a force which was primarily designed around using carriers which were all destroyed); additionally a massive proportion of the veterans in the airforce had been killed by this point and there was no way to get experienced men into the planes even if they could be maintained. On top of this the US's newer planes(Hellcat and Corsair) outclassed anything Japan could make and so they essentially would be throwing planes away if they kept trying to engage directly. Another little tidbit on how Japan got into the position of having no useful Air power later on was in 1944 the US obtained their plans for defense in the Northern Mariana islands in the middle pacific. Plan Z involved Japan winning the war via a decisive battle at these islands, however the plans for Plan Z were obtained by Phillipine fishermen after the Japanese commander's plan was shot down there, but Japan still went through with that plan. The resulting battle at these islands destroyed almost the entirety of then remaining Japanese carrier force and a huge portion of the experience pilots died here as well going up against superior US air - which would lead to the suggestion and use of Kamikazes later that year.

@celsus7979

2 жыл бұрын

They must have been eager to test the effects of this new weapon. I read a theory about why those 2 cities were chosen. Contrasting geographical settings, which would provide additional information about the effects of the bomb. Not sure about that, but would make some sense

In the video oversimplified forgot to say that the Japanese plan was to take out the aircraft carriers because without those they would win but the us aircraft carriers were away doing something else so the whole mission was a failure

React to potential history's operation Barbarossa series

The only source of oil that time was Azerbaijan and oil was delivered by tankers via the Volga river. Even in the hottest heat of the battle the oil tankers were moving.

Kamikaze pilots were actually highly skilled pilots up until about 1944 and 1945 because that's when they were low on soldiers in general.

Yes. Project Habakkuk really did happen. Check Wikipedia on it. (Shooting incident is well documented)

They used Kamikaze for yours during their air raid on Pearl harbor. Which happened at a time before they even started losing large numbers of pilots. So the idea of Kamikaze didn't come up as a city for pilots later in the war, it was used during their actual declaration of war against the west.

They even saw a Japanese U-boat next to pearl harbor right before the attack and it was reported but they ignored it.

Roosevelt died in April of 1945, of a brain hemorrhage. My dad was on the USS Midway's ( named for the battle of Midway)last trip from Hawaii to San Diego where it is now a Museum I believe.

The bombing of Dresden is an arguable issue. On the one hand, it was a major center of rail transport, as well as containing large industrial areas. On the other hand, as you rightly pointed out it was a major cultural center, and it was also a city that a lot of refugees were traveling through...and the Allied bombing was both indiscriminate and included a large proportion of incendiary bombs. To this day, the raids on that city are being debated by historians and analysts. Midway is a really complicated battle, but while you are correct that there was a critical delay due to what armament the Japanese had on their planes, not much else you remembered was correct. Since the battle is so complicated, I will post a link to a video below that I hope you will react to, at some point. The short of it was that the Japanese came up with a super complicated plan to lure the US aircraft carriers and other ships into a trap, but the US had broken some important codes and knew most of the Japanese plan...so the US set a trap for the Japanese and sank 4 Japanese carriers for the loss on only 1 of their own. 🖖💯✌

@simpleviking

2 жыл бұрын

Ah! Thank you so much for this information! Heck Im learning alot today! :D

The reason they had gone back to their ships at the beginning of midway it was because they had missed key targets and needed another bombing run and when they were reloading, they spotted Americans fighters and they had been attacked by planes from midway itself not the U.S. fleet yet and so when the fighters were delaying them they could not reload and more American planes arrived over time their ships were whittled away and then destroyed by the pro dive bombers of the U.S.

I cant think of a City that didnt get bombed in Germany, even the small not relevant city I live in got bombs dropped on, you can still see where the bombs hit on some churches and what they had to rebuild

The "throwing people to stalingrad" is historical inaccuracy and usually a propaganda. Soviet union was vastly outnumbered 2 to 1 in stalingrad and chuikovs 62 army was pretty much cut from all side and could only recieve reinforcments trough volga. The reiforcments were bad and the supply was not great either. Stalingrad was actually a astonishing holding by chuikov which is amazing to see. The soviet heroism displayed there is something else. So this throwing people to stalingrad is not really true. They pretty much sent minimum reinforcments. I would say waste of troops were during kotluban offensives from the north of stalingrad because germans had good and fortified positions and soviets couldnt break them and it cost them many lives but so did germans and this offensives actually bought time and occupied large number of troops north of stalingrad so that they didnt overwhelm chuikov in the city. If they didnt the ods would be like some 5-1 and soviets wouldnt hold the city till the end. Also this "someone died and you took the weapon and fought" is just hollywood crap. There is literaly no historical record of this from soviet nor german sides. 2 army commander chuikov actaully had called once or twice for shortage of equipment in terms of rifles and ammunition which lasted for a day or so, but he never ordered anyone to battle without weapons. This is just lame and retarded and pays for nothing no matter how you look at it other than wasting much crucial manpower which soviet lacked already pretty badly in stalingrad. Soviets had severe shortage when it comes to manpower and actual tanks. Because it would be very hard to transport those heavy t34s over volga under german artilery and luftwaffe attacks. But they never reportedly had crisis of weapons where they were forced to fight without weapons. Yeah and the last for the winter part. This is also not true. First winter affected both sides as many soviet counter offensive stalled because of the weather. Secondly the reinforcment part is not true either. IF you check out the sources, the germans had more reinforcments than death when they lost at moscow. Point being is that winter, reinforcments etc were just poor excuses made by mostly nazis which was taken for granted like Halder, guderian etc. The moscow and stalingrad battled were lost because nazis serverly underestimated soviet resources, capabilities, tactics, reinforcments, logistics aswell as equipment and paied for it. People always make this excuses about nazis on winter, manpower, or endless waves of soviet troops. Nope they were beat on all levels of war and aspect of it that being operationally, tactically, logistically by Red army and fact is soviets were vastly outnumbered up to the operation uranus in eastern front. Once the manpower was 1-1 ratio and the ural factories started pumping tanks. Wehrmacht was not match and recieved a crushing defeat. This is before lend lease started to come in significant numbers and way before allies did anything serious.

15:40 Although soviets are now called a "barbarious conquerors" because of war on Finland and capturing Poland (it had a strategic reason - Stalin knew that Hitler definitely won't stop on Europe and attack Soviet Union, so he decoded to move borders off for: 1) take time for prepare; 2) area to defend ourselves. From the period of 1930 to 1940 he built a lot of production facilities and factories to prepare for war, basically, our country from agrarian became an industrial giant), we had an order to capture the historical cities, like Vienna in Austria, without artillery and air strikes to save old buildings, to minimize damage to city. It cost a lot of lives of our soldiers, when UK airstriked and completely destroyed Dresden and Hamburg. Now this cities were rebuilt, but there's almost no old buildings on them, a lot of architectural monuments them were just destroyed by airstrikes of UK. Who's barbarians now? 24:15 He forgot to mention that 3 months after Germany were defeated, Soviet declared war against Japan too and destroyed a 1 million Japanese army in Manchuria - one of the main armies of Japan - while half of main japanese island - Honshu - were occupied by US soldiers. After this, Japan's emperor Hirohito decided to surrender, atomic bombs were actually dropped only to show power to Soviet Union. In fact, many history textbooks in Europe and especially in the USA tell us that the main contribution to the victory in World War II was made by Great Britain, the USA and France, practically minimizing the contribution of the USSR. Especially in the USA - people there really think that it was they who defeated Hitler, although this is far from entirely true. And I am offended for this - my country, my compatriots literally fought for their lives, for the lives of their families, for their own and our future, because according to Hitler's plan, half of the Slavs wanted to be killed after the victory, and half used as slaves and deported to Siberia. It was the USSR that took the brunt of the Axis forces, we exhausted and defeated them, liberating half of Europe along the way and reaching Berlin, while the United States entered the war with Germany only in 1943, when we broke the onslaught of Nazi troops and forced them to retreat back from where they came from. A huge number of Russian people died in this war, a whole generation of young guys were almost completely killed, freeing those who wanted to be killed in Auschwitz and other concentration camps (hello, Poles and Jews) and not only on the battlefield - Nazis could just wipe out an entire occupied village if they just suspect that there were partisans (sometimes they just took every resident of the village, even if it's just a kid or old man or woman, lock all of them in the barn and just burn it down without hesitation, killing everyone who tried to escape). I do not dispute that other allied countries also made a significant contribution to the war, but still I am offended that my country is so "forgotten", as if it did nothing special, as if all these losses on its part were in vain. I am offended that my great-grandfathers fought and died so that there would be no more Nazism in the world, and now they are called invaders and barbarians.

@willevensen7130

2 жыл бұрын

Because the Soviet hordes raped and murdered innocents, I’m not saying other countries didn’t do the same but the people from there remember that and don’t take kindly to it.

Mister Michael, if you wish to learn more about Dresden's participation in the war, I highly recommend you sir the following book: It is called "The Fire and the Darkness: The Bombing Of Dresden: 1945". By the hand of the author Sinclair McKay, it is an incredible documentary style book that details how the war affected the city in a chronological order, from the very surge in power of Nazism in the 30s to their ultimate downfall in 1945. I got a copy of it in spanish thanks to my father. Trust me, sir, it is an incredible book, full of details, testimonies, photos, interviews and highly researched, with tons and tons of accurate bibliography.

Battle of Midway: The Americans also had radar on the Island while the Japanese didn't. But the Japanese also had very bad luck. Two carriers were destroid because of the combination of fuel and ammunition for the planes on deck. lucky hits set, due to the combination, the carriers completely ablaze.

I’ve learned more from this series than school

i heard a story from japanese prespective.Before they lost, a squad of Japanese arguing if they should retreat or surrender to the allies. Half of them surrendered. those who retreat gets executed by their higher ups. those surrendered was sparred by US

15:24 - city of art, culture (fun fact: all the pretty things in that city coming from the 18th century - I mean, the reconstructions of which you can see today - were built by a Saxon King who then also ruled over Poland and used it like a cash cow to milk it in order to get money for throwing wild parties in his outrageously flashy palaces, spoiling his consecutive lovers, funding wars etc.) and at least several tousands of slave laborers (many of which died in the aforementined air-raid as well) coming from the occupied, mostly eastern territories working at all kinds of facilities because Germany was constantly lacking labor for anything and everything to keep up with the war and to just not collapse economically and to still have Germans afford nice things at a low price. In the scale of holocaust victim count the numbers of slave laborers among only the Jews was not very significant, but they also were forced to provide this kind of work, and the entire number of all slave laborers anywhere where IIIrd Reich was in charge were humongous. But the fact that Dresden was so culturally significant and beautiful was actually one of the factors that made it a target. It was to a great extent a kind of revenge from the allies for the Germans bombing their cities.

Bara några frågor till dig vilken del av Sverige bor du/Stad och hur gammal e du

after the first 2 a-bombs there was a third if needed but Japan surrendered before it was used. if you want to know what was done with it look up "The Demon Core"

You should check out the American Revolution

Dresden wasn't that innocent - the bombing raid was in the end of the war, though. The British did plan a massiv moral bombing raid on Germany, but on the one hand, the US was against attacks on civil targets, on the other hand, Stalin wanted the RAF to support the war in the east. Dresden did have a significant weapon industry and it was a logistical hub for the eastern front, also having some petrol storages and facilities for synthetic petrol. So it was a strategical target. A lot of people died, though out of some bad circumstances. The AA and intercepting fighters were just pulled out of the region, leaving the city undefended. And also, the first wave completly destroyed the main firefighter station and the emergency communitcations, so the fire fighter units were basicly unable to coordinate and a fire storm developed, leading to many casualties. Not as much, as often propagated, Dresden became a propaganda-myth even until today... Some speak about 500.000 deaths - but the realistic estimation is about 20.000 casualties. Even more tragic is basicly, that the US Bombers navigation radar didn't work for some reasons and they had to fly by sight - wich lead to an mistaken attack on the occupied Prague instead of Dresden and basicly a killing of victims by the Germans themself.

DID YOU JUST REFERENCE OMNI, MY MAN

There was a group of bombers coming in from California and when the reports came in of planes being spotted it was assumed it was the planes from California.

It's funny that while talking around Stalingrad your background forms the flag of the german Reich

You should look up „comfort women“ and „Ishii Shirō unit 731“ if you want to know more about the atrocities/war crimes of Japan. They were just as bad as those of Germany, some even say worse. Ishii was known as the Japanese Mengele. And they did it for longer than Germany.

If I remember correctly Stalin asked to have Dresden bombed before the Red Army approached.

For Midway, I'm not positive about the restocking and swapping of torpedoes for bombs, but the U.S. Navy was able to cripple the Japanese fleet by destroying the only 3 Japanese aircraft carriers and this completely altered the war(in the Pacific at least).

@modothegreat108

2 жыл бұрын

The Imperial Japanese Navy started the Pacific War with 10 aircraft carriers, and produced more during the war. Best known were the four destroyed at Midway (Kaga, Akagi, Souryuu and Hiryuu) and two more that couldn't participate due to damage sustained in the Battle of the Coral Sea (Zuikaku and Shoukaku). The defeat at Midway did not cripple the Japanese navy, but it put them on the defensive for the first time in the war. This was exactly what Japan did not want, since they were aware that the United States were better equipped for a longer war due to their stronger industry and access to raw resources.

@theripcord03

2 жыл бұрын

The Japanese at midway were equipped with bombs first as they were planning an assault on the island, but when the US ships were spotted they were caught off guard and not equipped to attack them, so they had to spend valuable time swapping armament which delayed launch and recovery operations, it also left a lot of ordinance in vulnerable locations that when the US bombed the carriers, caused devastating secondary explosions. The Japanese also had inferior damage control abilities compared to the US which affected their ability to save heavily damaged ships. Unlike the US who had ships like the Yorktown take multiple attacks and even be declared as destroyed by the Japanese only to have them show up to fight another battle a few months later

I can name one Sabaton song for almost all of these events

Something germans still say is "... like Dresden 45" meaning "It couldnt be worse"

Project Habakkuk was a real thing and it went about as well as expected…..

Battle of Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in history

Битва при Сталинграде. Небольшая поправка. Сталинград отчаянно защищали не потому что город носил имя Сталина, а потому что город был последним рубежом, красной линией, которую немцы ни в коем случае не должны пересечь. Дело в том что если бы немцы захватили Сталинград, они получили бы доступ на юг страны и получили бы доступ к нефтяному промыслу. Нефть была жизненно необходима для Германии, как и Советскому Союзу. Кавказ с его богатыми ресурсами и нефтью был практически основным источником топлива для СССР. Если бы Сталинград пал, Советский союз был бы "обескровлен" В те времена, Сталинград был важнее, даже более важен чем Москва.

yes pykrete is actually exist

i hate to correct you when you said rhat the soviets had more people than guns wasnt true the soviets major edge over the germans was numbers both in equipment weapons and people the soviets had more SMGs and MGs than the germans which is why most soviet soldiers (not all) but a good amount had PPD-33/40s and PPSH-41s later in the war they were running out of metal and steel to build weapons with and had to adapt to weapons such as the PPS-42 and PPS-43 the enemy at the gates scene with the “when on man dies the other picks up his gun and fires” isnt true also the show of low morale was also not true the soviets were proud to fight to save their people from extinction and another thing is the NKVD firing line isnt innacurate it did happen but not that way or often retreating troops would be reorganised and sent back out or they would be set into new defensive positions

Hold up right there😂😂😂😂07:38 that is false information probably from a movie ''enemy at the gates''

Why does this video make no mention of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, the real thing that the Japanese where afraid of, the got nuked twice and didn't even know, and cared more about the Russians, this is really oversimplified LOL. Great vid tho. Keep History alive

you said about russian kids, fighting against germans. there's a german movie, called: Downfall. and it showed german kids, fighting against russians.

@simpleviking

2 жыл бұрын

I might look into it, I do enjoy movies like that. Thanks :)