I will never forget the day when they got me out of bed and sat me down in front of it and made me watch for four hours. It was the first time I had ever been permitted, and this was a COMMAND.

It was Churchill’s funeral. They told me that this was the funeral of the greatest man that they ever knew, ant though I did not understand now, I would someday.

I was 7.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, not on a lark, but because they understood that Uncle Sam would not stand aside as the overseas possessions of the defeated European powers fell into unfriendly hands. The United States was leery of getting involved in European wars, but was very cognizant of its interests in the Far East, having financed and supplied an entire Air Force to the Chinese military during the Sino-Japanese war. The war with Japan ended later than the war with Germany mainly because 3/4 of the American war effort was devoted to fighting Hitler. Without a European war effort to support, Japan would have been on its knees far earlier, and victories over Japanese forces would have been crushing ones, perhaps involving American forces on the Chinese mainland, thus stifling in its crib the eventual emergence of viable Communist forces in several parts of East Asia.

All too true. It would be far less morally troublesome if your kin had been slaughtered trying to get a foothold on the beaches of Honshu.

How absolutely fascinating – I’ve never heard anything of it. And thanks for bringing us back on topic!

Doug Collins (first of all the messages):

Did you get my message to you that Airey Neave wrote “The Flames of Calais”?

I saw one other some time ago that could have been US flik from the ’80s. Korean Vietnam war vet wrecked by the experience. Nothing, IMO, to commend it other than it being Korean.

Yeah, No Man’s Land was a great movie. Very much in the spirit of the great German movies Das Boot and Stalingrad. I can never get out of my mind those poor bastard German grunts freezing to death in the snow.

No Man’s Land was supposed to be comedic or satirical or somesuch and did have some moments. The French officer asking the German EOD if he spoke French and getting a “Nein.” The French Sergeant then giving a resigned, “English, of course.” and getting an affirmative. Says a lot.

I remember watching a documentary a few years ago where one of the Japanese engineers on that project was interviewed (indeed he toured areas where the railway stood or still exists) and the level of denial the man was in was astounding to watch.

Yeah. We eventually own up to everything we should and everything we shouldn’t.

Haven’t seen To End All Wars but will look for it.

Couldn’t recall the name before but September Tapes is another good one. Extra credit for the sheer balls of going to Afghanistan and, like Tae Guk Gi, good effects on a shoestring budget.

> The famous “calling off” by Hitler of Rundstedt’s advance on Dunkirk remains (to me) unexplained.

A few years ago, a book turned up in an old second-hand bookshop that shed some new light on that. It was a German soldier’s map, printed in Berlin, that had probably been taken as a souvenir by some British soldier and sat around in an attic for half a century. What it showed, bizarrely enough, was rather a lot of swamp where we know there is none, in the approach to Dunkirk. Since the map was produced by the German military, it is entirely possible that Hitler had the same erroneous information, and stopped the advance to prevent the tanks getting boged down in a swamp that wasn’t there.

Quite why the Germans would have a map that was so spectacularly wrong regarding an area of the world that wasn’t exactly “Here be dragons territory”, I have no idea. I’d like to think it was MI6 at work, but that would be pure speculation.

My dad always says that the British have never forgiven the Americans for helping us to win two world wars.

There’s a movie about the “The Death Railway” the Japanese built in Burma-Thailand I’ve noticed at the video store lately titled To End All Wars. Have you seen it?

I remember watching a documentary a few years ago where one of the Japanese engineers on that project was interviewed (indeed he toured areas where the railway stood or still exists) and the level of denial the man was in was astounding to watch.

What? A melodramatic war movie? I do have to admit that movie sort of falls apart at the end; still I enjoyed it immensely. Plus there is the advantage of seeing the war through Korean eyes.

The extras DVD has a number of interviews with South Korean soldiers concerning their experiences during the war.

Yeah, No Man’s Land was a great movie. Very much in the spirit of the great German movies Das Boot and Stalingrad. I can never get out of my mind those poor bastard German grunts freezing to death in the snow.

The story’s a bit sappy but the battle scenes are excellent.