Terms of Reference-1939-1945

[Jon Skagfeld]

At a recent military conference, I was told that Commonwealth countries referred the the 39-45 unpleasantness as "The Second World War", whereas the US referred to it as "World War 2".

I've never heard of this differentiation; I always thought that the two terms were mutually interchangeable.

Is this an important discrimination to observe, depending upon one's context of reference?

[Steve Guthrie]

Hello there

Hmmmm, interesting.

Took a quick look at two sites: The Imperial War Museum and the United States Marines.

And yes, the British reference was to 'the Second World War' while the US referred to 'World War 2'.

Have to keep an eye open for that!

Steve

PS No doubt we Canadians used both!

[Tony Smith]

...referred to it as "'Strewth! Here we bloody go again!"

[Jon Skagfeld]

Originally posted by Tony Smith
...referred to it as "'Strewth! Here we bloody go again!"

Good one! Right on, cobber.

[servicepub (RIP)]

I had always used the term World War Two until one day att he National Archives I was corrected by two archivists within 20 mijnutes. I now try to use the term Second World War but it just doesn't abbreviate as well (SWW, 2ndWW, 2WW, IIWW..)

[Steve Guthrie]

Hi there

The USMC refers to World War One, not as the First World War or the Great War but as War One.

I suppose they called the next one War Two.

Apparently, the US Marines only count big wars.

Steve

[DaveCox]

We ( the Commonwealth) call them the First World War and the Second World War because we were in them both from the start. The yanks call them WW1 & WW2 because they only joined in when the winner had already been decided.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by DaveCox
The yanks call them WW1 & WW2 because they only joined in when the winner had already been decided.

LMAOPMP!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bill Murray]

Well Shoot:

I have read many times that European nations considered the "1914-1918" war as the "Great War".

Further, that WWII or the Second World
War as the Europeans call it was considered by most in Europe/the Commonwealth as the 1939-1945 War.

Of course nowadays, we don't date wars that much and with all the support from our allies, primarily Commonwealth countries, we just seem to call them by some Generic Name. The Korean War, the Vietnam War, and to skip to more current affairs " The First Gulf War" and I guess "The "Current Gulf War".

And Steve, as you so rightly point out the US Marines tend to be fairly simplistic about wars. One, Two and some other nasty bits that did not qualify in American public opinion as Three. I speak as a former Marine Grunt and the son of a retired Marine Major General with one large ton of personal decorations that were well earned. About a third of which were earned in Korea which only qualified as a "Police Action" in the terms of the day.


Hmmm. Not sure why I even posted on this thread but it caught my interest. Better try another Scotch.
Bill

[DaveCox]

Don't take my simplistic view of your armed forces personally Bill, you had some very brave guys in your team:
Bellau Wood ( excuse any miss-spelling) in the Great War, Iwo Jima etc.
I tend to view things as a former British Gunner who's former unit was bombed in Gulf1 by the US airforce, and the nephew-by-marriage of a former Canadian gunner who was bombed twice in Normandy by the 'Mighty Eighth' - does tend to give a slightly prejudiced viewpoint.

[Bill Murray]

Dave & Steve:

I would surmise that I had already had quite sufficient of the Scottish elixer before I posted last PM.

On the other hand as I have to live with the name Bill Murray, I sometimes feel forced to attempt more humor (humour for my Commonwealth mates) than I am capable of.

As this is the Sergeants Mess, give me some moments.

Dave, I saw the smiley, but I still would like to say that I am sorry that we continue to see these "blue on blue" situations that needlessly take lives of our own. Regarding Normandy, and you have read the same histories that I have, the situation was a bit different with respect to technology and communications. Even so and Ike probably would have agreed with the statement which is common in the USMC, the Normandy invasion with all of it's planning was just another potential "cluster ****" as far as the real participants were concerned. Luckily, the mistakes were not as bad as projected and the Allies prevailed.

With respect to blue on blue in Afghanistan, the First Gulf War and the Current Gulf War, I find those mistakes far less than acceptable and/or excusable. The technology exists to install IFF recognition receivers/transmitters on almost everything down to individual combatants. For the moment, they are pretty much restricted to aircraft and naval vessels.

With respect to my countrymen in particular, sad to say that we still have a lot of the "frontier" or in the case of President Bush, the "cowboy" mentality which often results in a shoot first ask questions later sort of way of carrying out our military operations.

Mind you, I am pretty patriotic, I voted for Bush and I am not all that unhappy that we are trying to do something in Iraq. We just don't seem to do these type of things really well and I suppose that is in part rooted in our lack of patience. Get in, get out and go home. Probably not the best tactic. Not decades ago and not now. We do not have the history of the Romans nor do we have the history of the British who devoted centuries to trying to mould foreign cultures into what they most likely thought was a better idea.

Today, we are basing our projection of force on the threat of terrorist attacks, which I think is probably viable, but we don't have any real sort of end game strategy at least as far as I can determine.

Enough of the pulpit stuff. I stand on my reading of contemporary history that described the troubles of 1914/1918 as the Great War and the troubles of WWII or however you wish to characterize it as the 1939/1945 War.
Skol
Bill

[Jon Skagfeld]

n/t

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Bill, in fairness, the RAF bombed our lads in Normandy as well, it's well-documented. However, it's just too damned easy to blame the one power which HAS the power because "they're supposed to know better". But mistakes happen in war, and they always have... and I'm not going to go off the wall at the perpetrators. It's just a shame that these days, they always seem - or mostly anyways - to be the responsibility of U.S. air-based assets (as per Steve's 1944 example). I feel this is the natural result of a military culture which - probably rightly - puts firepower ahead of human assets, at least in terms of risk... better to blow it up remotely rather than risk lives taking it locally.

In terms of modern war, that's not a bad culture, but it does have its drawbacks as we've all seen; but I think that in the greater scheme of things, and in the context of Western Society, it's probably correct. My only real question is... why does this seem to keep happening to Americans, and not to others? Is it simply a proportionate thing?

I hasten to say this is NOT a criticism, real or implied, just a question. I DO recognize you've hit your OWN people too, in both Gulf wars. It just seems to be a recurring theme... can we rationalize this in any way, or is it simply an offshoot of the huge majority of hardware and forces which your guys provide?

[Bill Murray]

Evening Jon & Geoff:

Jon: I misplaced the PM but have now found it again and will respond a bit later. And, sorry your original thread sort of got hijacked but I guess that is likely to happen in the Sergeant's Mess.

Geoff: Thanks for your very well thought out and remarkably restrained observations. While I don't post often, I have been on this board and it's earlier variants for some years and have seen you wield a pretty sharp scalpel.

Regarding my time on your sites, you may remember me as the guy that lived in China/Sweden/Peru and Canada (Queensville not far from Zephyr). That body of experience and a certain amount of aging, sort of means that while I am still a patriotic American I do not see my country through the same rose colored glasses I did fifty years ago. I don't bash my country just because in some circles it is politically correct but I reserve the right to question and/or criticize things that my experience tell me are probably not being done right or whatever.

To comment on your observations sort of one at a time, I will re-phrase a little bit my thoughts on, for example, Normandy, which was the high point of firepower versus human assets in that conflict. The weaponry available was "dumb" weaponry in comparison to what is available today for sure. The technology was not radically different than a hundred years earlier or two hundred. Powder and fuses and barrels all of which could malfunction. Bombs fell where they were dropped and even the famous Norton bombsight (hope I remembered the name right) was far from infallible. Too much cloud cover, wrong map co-ordinates, troops in the wrong place and Bingo, fratricide.

Given that Britain and the Commonwealth countries were near to exhaustion in 1944 and that the ever impatient Americans wanted to get the thing overwith I can as an individual accept the decision to go for broke and use overwhelming firepower to break into Germany and to accept the potential casualties both from enemy as well as friendly fire. And do remember, Geoff, it is quite well documented that the Allies calculated on casualty rates from both causes.

As a side note to the above, remember too that Monty was severely criticized, wrongly so in my opinion, for proceeding at a rate that was deemed far too cautious by his American peers. Monty was no dummy. He lived with the knowledge that the First World War bled Great Britain and the countries of the then British Empire pretty much to death. Not only the Tommies in the trenches but the best and the brightest of the middle and upper classes who were the Officers of these units. Those losses were irreplaceable and were the beginning of the end of the Empire.
Monty knew that and he also knew that Officers in units of his forces led from the front and he took great pains to make sure they could take the objectives and still survive. A longer range perspective than some of my folk.

As to your thought or query "why does this seem to keep happening to Americans and not to others".

In fairly short strokes, I have three main theories. The Americans are by and large not a nation of warriors. Pretty much we go to war reluctantly although recently we seem to jump into such things a bit more quickly. At the same time, we are still imbued with the "frontier/cowboy/can do" attitude and we are still impatient as hell. That can have all kinds of bad results once we get into something really nasty.

Since we are not a nation of warriors, our various Armed Forces are, in my opinion but it is an opinion shared by many, not really very well trained in the general sense. To be sure and it is a bit of prejudice showing here, our US Marine Corps is probably trained as well as most elite units in any country and our other elite unites within the US Army/Navy/Air Force are either at the same level or maybe just a bit behind.

Try to follow me on this: Smart Bombs almost never miss, Abrams Tank rounds almost never miss, Tomahawk missiles almost never miss. Put that sort of weaponry into the hands of less than perfectly trained military personnel and you are going to have some "blue on blue" problems, guaranteed. From what I read in official and semi-official publications about the "state of training of our armed forces" we are not up to scratch in the sense of putting these incredibly sophisticated weapons in the hands of folks who are not 100% properly trained in how to determine what is and what is not a legitimate target. Sort of complicated but given our machismo attitude and these sophisticated never miss weapons it can sometimes become sort of a "live Nintendo Game" if you understand what I mean.

Some throwaway tidbits. According to Defense News Weekly and a number of other publications, the majority of AFVs/IFVs/APCs destroyed on the Coalition side in the first Gulf War resulted from friendly fire. On one occasion an Army Lt. Col. piloting a helicopter that he was not supposed to be flying in combat made a rocket attack on several British IFVs as I remember causing a number of deaths and casualties. That is perhaps a machismo issue, getting one's ticket punched.
Recently a sergeant received an award for trying to save his fellow soldiers in the famous "Jessica" incident. He tried to return fire and his M16 would not fire. He grabbed a fallen soldier's M16 and it would not fire. He grabbed a third M16 from another fallen comrade and it would not fire. This was a Vehicle Maintenance Unit and they did not undergo the same training and inspection regimen that Infantry units undergo regarding proper maintenance and proficiency with their weapons. It is so bad that the new Chief of Staff of the US Army had to weigh in and declare that from now on they would get that training.

Starting to get far too long here. One last throwaway. At the Chosin reservoir my Dad was CO of the 5th Marine Regiment. He had attached to that unit a Battalion of British Royal Marines and a Company of soldiers in the Turkish Army. To this day, he still lives, he maintains that if he ever had to go into combat again he would ask for a unit from each of the above to go in with him. Why? Not only Esprit de Corps but training. "Best damned trained troops I ever served with" Excepting his own Marines of course.
Bill

[Bob Potter]

Not to be the proverbial fly in the soup, but as I explained to my US History and Modern European classes just lately, the six wars of the Second Hundred Years War (1689-1815) grew in fact to world wars. Try this list on for size and argument.

War of the Grand Alliance
War of the Spanish Succesion
War of the Austrian Succession
Seven Years War (started in western Pennsylvania by George Washington)
American War for Independence (it was not a revolution)
Napoleonic Wars

You lot north of the border ought to see my logic in this.

Love the "Strewth" bit.

Cheers

Bob Potter:

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Bill Murray
Starting to get far too long here. One last throwaway. At the Chosin reservoir my Dad was CO of the 5th Marine Regiment. He had attached to that unit a Battalion of British Royal Marines and a Company of soldiers in the Turkish Army. To this day, he still lives, he maintains that if he ever had to go into combat again he would ask for a unit from each of the above to go in with him. Why? Not only Esprit de Corps but training. "Best damned trained troops I ever served with" Excepting his own Marines of course.

Strewth, Bill! I never knew that!!!!!! Dammit, now I'm gonna have to reread RETREAT, HELL! and a couple of other books on the subject I have on my shelves somewhere. In terms of U.S. military action, next to the Battle of the Bulge, that campaign has my undiminished attention. Holy shit, and your dad was there in the thick of it. And yes, I even remember fragments from the RM interaction there.

Our own Art Johnson here can tell you one hell of a lot about OUR guys' experience in Korea (if you haven't gathered that already). Nasty place.

More later on the rest of your post, I'm a bit stunned (in more ways than one, it's been a long week).

To the old guy -- "Semper Fi". I like Marines. Always have.

Geoff


G.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Excerpt comprising the last two paragrahs of the above-mentioned book:

Thinking back over events that occurred so many years ago, retired Gen. Raymond S. Murray, who as a lieutenant colonel commanded the 5th Regiment said:

"If their objective was to destroy us, they didn't go about it in a very smart way. If their objective was to drive us out of North Korea, then they succeeded."

Thanks, Bill, for sharing a bit of your family history. If you've mentioned it before and it's slipped my mind, I apologize, but I thank you now.

Warm regards,

Geoff

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
..... Dammit, now I'm gonna have to reread RETREAT, HELL! ......

Just finished it again. Crap. The advance from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri... need I say more? I daresay, their legacy surpasses any earned in the Battle of the Bulge (except the 9th Canadian Forestry Coy of course )

A DSC was no better earned. Bill, long-life and good memories to your old man. I salute him.

[Tony Smith]

...have a look at this item on e-bay!
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...&category=4075