re: WWII: Would You Choose the Pacific or Europe?

I watched a few of the D-Day specials on the anniversary this year. The stories of General Norman Cota and his leadership at Omaha beach on D-Day were pretty fascinating.

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I would rather be in tropical weather than in the snow

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Working on your tan, right?

Something else to consider: in the pacific, you were on an operation for a few weeks up to a month or two, the back to a real area to red and retrain for a few months. A guy in Europe who went ashore on D day would be in combat for nearly a year without a break.

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Europe, serving under Patton.

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My uncle was in the 3rd Army under Patton and didn't particularly care for the general. Uncle Spud started the war as a AAA gunner in England shooting down Buzzbombs, but ended up as a infantryman in the 3rd.

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I would rather be in tropical weather than in the snow
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Working on your tan, right?

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My Dad was in the PTO and didn't really have a whole lot of time to work on his tan.

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Something else to consider: in the pacific, you were on an operation for a few weeks up to a month or two, the back to a real area to red and retrain for a few months. A guy in Europe who went ashore on D day would be in combat for nearly a year without a break.

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The notion that combat in the Pacific was short but especially bloody while combat in Europe was a drawn-out slugging match is a bit of a myth. I posted this earlier in this thread....

Days of Combat
The 5 divisions with the most days of combat are listed below.

32 Inf: 654 days (Pacific)
Americal Inf: 600 days (Pacific)
37th Inf: 592 days (Pacific)
3rd Inf: 531 Days (Med & Europe)
1st Cav: 521 Days (Pacific)

The top three and four of the top five divisions with the most days in combat during WWII served in the Pacific.

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He was, in my ever so humble opinion, the best general these United States have ever produced.

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And he was , in my ever so humble opinion, one of the worst.

Not because he lacked personal courage (he didn't) or that he was a poor tactician (he wasn't) but because he simply refused to accept any bit of information that failed to fit his vision of a campaign.

Case 1: 8 December 1941. His air force commanders wanted to implement war plans and launch air strikes 2 hours after learning of the Pearl Harbor attack but he waited 7 fricking hours before approving them - even after having been ordered to implement those plans by General Marshall. Almost 10 hours after learning of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese air strikes caught and destroyed over half his very formidable air force on the ground - an this strike came 4 hours after he was warned by Gen. Arnold to not let his aircraft get caught on the ground.

These losses aircraft losses played a big role in his being defeated by an invasion force that was outnumbered by almost 50%. In terms of very modern combat aircraft, he had 35 B-17s and 107 P-40s. He also had 52 P-35s, 18 B-18s, 12 B-10s, 9 A-27s and 16 Phillipine AF P-26s.

That's 249 combat aircraft and most never fired a shot due to what can only be described as absolute gross incompetence on the part of the commanding general.

Husband Kimmel and Walter Short got retired because their commands were destroyed in a surprise attack. Douglas MacArthur let his command get destroyed in an attack Stevie Wonder could see coming and got a MoH for it.

He should have never held command after 8 December 1941, but he did and it led to

Case 2: Korea. He completely ignored undeniable evidence of the Chinese buildup and publicly said they wouldn't attack but would be crushed if they did. Well, they did and they weren't crushed. Once again, the facts didn't fit his narrative so he chose to ignore them at a cost of thousands of allied lives.