re: History Channel releasing 20-part series on World War II, hosted by Tom Hanks...

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And for all the shite we hear about the UK's involvement, they don't enter until 17. They suffered bombing on their home soil for the majority of the war rather than troops in Europe.

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That is a little bit of an undersell.

The UK didn't have a lot of ground troops, and what they did have had to be evacuated from the continent (Dunkirk).

Naval and air superiority was their thing.

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Hopefully this is actually historically accurate and not woke garbage.

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It will be what all of these types of things are these days - historically accurate, but not historically complete. For instance, yes we were generally pretty racist against the Japs. But they leave out how imperialist Japan was one of the single most racist cultures in all of history. Yes, we did dehumanize the Japs and were much less likely to take them prisoner. But they leave out that the Japs were absolutely fanatical and routinely fought to the last man and faked injuries and faked surrender to take out Americans who were trying to help them. Americans couldn't trust them even in surrender so they had to kill them or risk being killed themselves.

Yes we were more likely to take Germans prisoner and treat them better, but the average German soldieralso generally behaved more like a Westerner.

The Pacific was a nasty fricking war on both sides from start to finish, and all the tut-tutting and lecturing by the likes of people like Tom Hanks will never change that.

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But they leave out how imperialist Japan was one of the single most racist cultures in all of history.

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And how Asian culture is still largely racist and unwelcoming of other races. They want to focus on the past of largely white cultures because that's all they have to denigrate us. They completely ignore the reality that no other races have come to the "accept everyone" stage of cultural suicide that they so desperately want us to embrace.

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The Pacific was a nasty fricking war on both sides from start to finish, and all the tut-tutting and lecturing by the likes of people like Tom Hanks will never change that.

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Exactly. And this mindset from people like him is why it's hard to trust a documentary like this. It's exhausting really. This reality gets downvotes from the true believers on this board, but when they have to start correcting the slanted history they teach kids in public schools will eye-opening to them. That, or they'll just let their kids be ignorant.

Probably can’t watch him anymore - way too much dark stuff with him

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By episode 5 they will get to aliens

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Damnit, beat me to it.

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In all these WW2 discussions on this board, there seems to be this "The Russians did ALL the heavy lifting in defeating the Nazis. America's contributions were relatively minor" camp that seems eager to (and, frankly sometimes, delight in) trying to diminish the US contributions.

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I don't see a need to remove you for the inclusion of the other.

That said, while I think the Russian CITIZENRY should be applauded for standing up to the technologically superior German army despite losing millions of people, Stalin should never be considered (no matter what part of the war) as some heroic stand-in for their citizens or military.

I think the lack of ability for some people to disassociate leaders from their people can make it hard... like somehow giving the Russians any credit for standing up to Germany and holding Stalingrad for as long as they did is somehow giving Stalin credit. If it were up to me, my script would probably read something like this:

"Russian forces withstood brutal attacks from the Germans, stalling their advances with the aid of American resources in the forms of arms, ammunition, and logistical support, buying time for Western forces to marshal their own militaries in preparation for pushing Germany on the Western front."

"Meanwhile, Stalin was still a count."

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That said, while I think the Russian CITIZENRY should be applauded for standing up to the technologically superior German army despite losing millions of people, Stalin should never be considered (no matter what part of the war) as some heroic stand-in for their citizens or military. I think the lack of ability for some people to disassociate leaders from their people can make it hard... like somehow giving the Russians any credit for standing up to Germany and holding Stalingrad for as long as they did is somehow giving Stalin credit. If it were up to me, my script would probably read something like this: "Russian forces withstood brutal attacks from the Germans, stalling their advances with the aid of American resources in the forms of arms, ammunition, and logistical support, buying time for Western forces to marshal their own militaries in preparation for pushing Germany on the Western front." "Meanwhile, Stalin was still a count."

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Good post, and accurate.

The Russian people in WW2 fought for patriotism, nationalism, and many other isms that were all pretty noble. Stalin cynically used that for his own ends which was pretty much solely the consolidation of his personal power.