Let's have a WW2 quiz!

Nagasaki, I thought, was always a secondary target...so perhaps it's more irony than planned.

 

Here is the original minutes of the target Committee in which they decided on what cities in Japan could serve as targets of the bomb.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson had honeymooned in Kyoto, and because of his memories of the city he had it removed from the list and Nagasaki was added to the list.

On August 9th the mission was to bomb Kokura Arsenal, but because the primary target was fogged in they bombed the secondary target - Nagasaki.

FWIW - If you've got Google Earth, go to 32.46.25.39N 129.51.47.69E. You'll see the park and memorial at ground zero.

 

Very good. Your question sir.

 

Prior to WWII, the shoulder patch of what U.S. Army infantry division was a swastika?

 

I know this... it was the division the the cartoonist Bill Mauldin was in before he went to Stars and Stripes, but I'll be confounded if I can remember the number!

I suppose I could go look in Mom's old copy of Up Front in the bookcase, but I won't.

I'm pretty sure it was forty-something... wasn't it the 43rd?

 

Not the 43rd.

 

The 45th.

(I had to look it up.)

 

Next question, dude!

 

In order to revive this thread I will take the liberty of asking the next question.

Which Island Hopping Campaign in the Central Pacific in 1944 did Admiral Halsey advise Admiral Nimitz was unnecessary shortly before the landing, but the operation went ahead any way?

 

A guess?

Truk (and whatever island chain they belong to)?


I am not even sure if Truk was ever taken.

But it was the main Japanese Naval base outside of Japan and I think it was in the Central Pacific.

 

No, the battle is described a book called in part With The Old Breed by Eugene Sledge.

 

Well, I give up.

 

I think it was Okinawa.

 

It was the Peleliu Campaign in Sept.-Nov. 1944. Peleliu became a conceptual goal the seizure of which was supposed to protect the flank of the American invasion of the Philippines.

A series of operations had been set in motion. The seizure of the Island of Peleliu was part of those operations...sort of being on auto pilot.

Just before the landing by the First Marine Division, Admiral Halsey realized the island and its airfield held little strategic value. Too late. The operation proceeded. It was supposed to take four days. It took two months.

In an earlier post I said I thought it was a the Battle of Saipan at which the Japanese switched tactics from beach defense to interior integrated fortified defenses. Other people say the change in tactics occurred at Peleliu.

In any event, some people say Peleliu was the most difficult fight faced by US forces during WWII. The First Marines suffered so many casualties they had to be taken out of combat for six months.

Raw footage:



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBPITlEdA4w"]1944 Attack on Peleliu - UNEDITED Raw Color Footage - YouTube[/ame]

 

Jarlaxle, ask the next question please.

 

Iwo Jima though was the only operation where the US suffered more casualties than the Japanese.

 

That's true.

Someone, anyone, please ask a question.

 

What plane was nicknamed (by its pilots) the "bent-winged widowmaker"?

 

F4U Corsair

 

Why does the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas have meaning to fans of Star Trek?

 

George Takei and his family were interred there during WWII.

 

Congratulations! Give this man a cigar!

 

During WWII which cavalry unit made the last horse cavalry charge in history and which country did they represent?

 

I think you would be thinking of the Polish Lancers(?), though the Russians had also had cavalry units fighting.

 

IIRC - It was a Polish cavalry unit that was part of the great Russian move on Germany late in the war.

I know it was Poland, but I can't remember more than that.