In article ,
Thom Stewart wrote:

Peter,

Once again you say we let a lot of "them go" Peter I was in WW2 and we
put a lot of JAP to death. How many did you Down-under fighters sentence
to death?

Who was in control of Japan, Thom? You guys were. And the Aussies shot
a lot of the Japanese out of hand. We tried others, found them guilty
and dealt with them. But *you* guys controlled the Japanese homeland.

Don't make stupid statements about the Yanks when you've fallen way
short of their actions.

Thom, we had a population of 6 million people. What was the population
of the USA in 1941? We were in the *World War* 2 years before you were.
The Japanese had invaded mainland China - Rape of Nanking mean anything
to you? - Manchuria, earlier part of what was then Imperial Russia.
They were aggressive and expansion-minded. Given our population base
and resources, I don't reckon we fell short of the USA at all. We were
fighting for 2 years while you stayed home.

The British had stripped the Far Eastern areas of troops to fight the
war in Europe. You know, the one that had been going for 2 years by
then, the one you were watching from the sidelines. Us Australians
went. The Kiwis went. You guys stayed home. You didn't watch your own
backs but ran a half-hearted economic blockade against the Japanese.
They decided to expand their empire, knocked out your Pacific Fleet
with that surprise attack on Pearl Harbour and went for broke. That's
what finally woke you up. Churchill offered what forces he could &
joined the war against the Japanese - and the British got smashed at
Singapore, the Dutch throughout the Indonesian archipelago, the
Americans out of the Philippines, etc etc. The Japanese were fast,
aggressive, and *good*. What brought them unstuck eventually was
logistics and population - too small an industrial base, too few people
to do the work, too much territory with long supply lines. What finally
brought them unstuck was technology - 2 bombs.

This whole discussion came about because of a stupid comment by OZ about
a story of American Pride at the statue of the Flag Rising at Iwo Jima.
Your statement are even dumber.

Yeah? In your opinion. Which, on this topic, is worthless. I've been to
Guadalcanal, seen the war remains, dived on the wrecks. From what I've
seen, read & heard, the US Marines did an unbelievably good job,
unbelievably good, taking those islands back from the Japanese. I have
nothing but respect for that effort. However, you go way too far. Think
about this. Had the British, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders
joined with the Japanese against the USA, do you think you'd have
gotten the Philippines back again? You'd have had the Hawaiian islands
as a base with a long logistic tail and everything else on the west
coast of the USA. Everyone could have kept submarines parked around
Hawaii. You never would have managed it. You guys were relying on our
troops on the ground, our coastal bases and our local logistics to
support the war effort in the Pacific and some acknowledgement of this
instead of your self-righteous posturing is damn well overdue.

If you're upset by my replies then prove
them wrong.

See Oz's references for the number of troops from various countries in
the Pacific.

I've said all I'm going to say. Arguing with a self-righteous ignoramus
just brings to ming the old saying about attempting to teach a pig to
sing.

Peter Wiley