MVPs of WWII

[Eric]

Lets name the most valuable people of WWII. The ones who had the greatest individual impact on its outcome, for better or worse.

I'll get the ball rolling with Henry Kaiser. Kaiser adapted assembly line production methods to ship building, which allowed his shipyards to build Liberty Ships substantially faster and less expensively than other shipyards, even those that adopted his production methods. He changed the shipbuilding world with his innovations. Kaiser shipyards built 1,490 Liberty & Victory ships, plus the hulls for over a hundred light (Escort) aircraft carriers, from 1941 to 1945.

The sheer volume of cargo ships that Kaiser's shipyards and shipyards that adopted Kaiser's shipbuilding techniques were very likely the difference between us winning the battle of the Atlantic. Without the ability to get the convoys across on a regular basis, would England have been able to stand against the arial onslaught they endured? Could Russia have survived the NAZI invasion until they were able to relocate their endustry to the East and get it producing? Could D-Day have happened? Probably not.

 

Who else?

[railfancwb]

Einstein for spurring development of the atomic bomb. 

[Eric]

2 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Einstein for spurring development of the atomic bomb. 

I wonder how long the wars with Germany and Japan would have had to go on until they too developed the bomb? Both were working actively on it. I shudder to think what a WWII with a multilateral nuclear dimension would have been like.

[railfancwb]

27 minutes ago, Eric said:

I wonder how long the wars with Germany and Japan would have had to go on until they too developed the bomb? Both were working actively on it. I shudder to think what a WWII with a multilateral nuclear dimension would have been like.

Seems I read that some bombing raids on Germany were especially targeted against their atomic bomb developing/making capability. 

[minervadoe]

30 minutes ago, Eric said:

I wonder how long the wars with Germany and Japan would have had to go on until they too developed the bomb? Both were working actively on it. I shudder to think what a WWII with a multilateral nuclear dimension would have been like.

And those are two nations who would have used it to obliterate other mongrel races.

Dwight D. Eisenhower for swallowing his pride and holding together an alliance filled with egotistical and power hungry military and world leaders and coming out the other side with a workable plan and successful implementation.

 

 

[Eric]

Just now, railfancwb said:

Seems I read that some bombing raids on Germany were especially targeted against their atomic bomb developing/making capability. 

Near the end of the war for Germany, it is rumored that they loaded a submarine with paperwork and materials, including heavy water, from their bomb development project and tried to transport it to Japan. It is believed the sub was sunk in the Atlantic somewhere in the general area of Florida, but well off the coast.

[railfancwb]

1 minute ago, Eric said:

Near the end of the war for Germany, it is rumored that they loaded a submarine with paperwork and materials, including heavy water, from their bomb development project and tried to transport it to Japan. It is believed the sub was sunk in the Atlantic somewhere in the general area of Florida, but well off the coast.

I also heard that rumor. 

[minervadoe]

How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code

The main focus of Turing’s work at Bletchley was in cracking the ‘Enigma’ code. The Enigma was a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely. Although Polish mathematicians had worked out how to read Enigma messages and had shared this information with the British, the Germans increased its security at the outbreak of war by changing the cipher system daily. This made the task of understanding the code even more difficult.

Turing played a key role in this, inventing – along with fellow code-breaker Gordon Welchman – a machine known as the Bombe. This device helped to significantly reduce the work of the code-breakers. From mid-1940, German Air Force signals were being read at Bletchley and the intelligence gained from them was helping the war effort.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-alan-turing-cracked-the-enigma-code

[minervadoe]

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea.^[6][7][8] The U.S. Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō north of Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare"

After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen) rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace. The Battle of Midway, along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway

Honorable mention: Admiral Nagumo

Had Nagumo elected to launch the available aircraft around 07:45 and risked the ditching of Tomonaga's strike force, they would have formed a powerful and well-balanced strike package that had the potential to sink two American carriers.^[90] Furthermore, fueled and armed aircraft inside the ships presented a significant additional hazard in terms of damage to the carriers in an event of attack, and keeping them on the decks was much more dangerous than getting them airborne.^[91] Whatever the case, at that point there was no way to stop the American strike against him, since Fletcher's carriers had launched their planes beginning at 07:00 (with Enterprise and Hornet having completed launching by 07:55, but Yorktown not until 09:08), so the aircraft that would deliver the crushing blow were already on their way. Even if Nagumo had not strictly followed carrier doctrine, he could not have prevented the launch of the American attack

[Eric]

In terms of net damage done to his own people and the war effort, I think that Stalin and his paranoia-driven purges probably tops the list. From 1937 to 1942, in the Soviet military, 11 of 13 army commanders were shot, as were 57 of the 85 corps commanders and 110 of the 195 division commanders. This is in addition to between 15,000 and 30,000 other military officers, depending on whose numbers you believe. These purges dealt a serious, nearly fatal blow to the USSR's war efforts. They killed off all their most capable and experienced military leaders and replaced them with sycophants and political stooges.

Even the decent, conscientious officers left must have been hamstrung by the culture of fear and suspicion left in the wake of the purges. The Soviets endured, organized and struck back against the NAZIs, but they most decidedly did so in spite of Stalin, not because of him.

[minervadoe]

The designers of the Soviet T 34s must get some credit.

The T-34 was manufactured in the city of Kharkiv and although the tank was originally designed by Mikhail Koshkin, he only made the Model 1940. Every other model was created by Ukrainian tank designer Alexander Alexandrovich Morozov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34

Initially, the Wehrmacht had great difficulty destroying T-34s in combat, as standard German anti-tank weaponry proved ineffective against its heavy, sloped armour. In one of the first known encounters, a T-34 crushed a 3.7 cm PaK 36, destroyed two Panzer IIs, and left a 14-kilometre (8.7 mi) long swathe of destruction in its wake before a howitzer destroyed it at close range.^[103] In another incident, a single Soviet T-34 was hit more than 30 times by a battalion-sized contingent of German 37mm and 50mm anti-tank guns, yet survived intact and drove back to its own lines a few hours later.^[104] The inability to penetrate the T-34's armour led to the Germans' standard anti-tank gun, the 37 mm PaK 36, being dubbed the Panzeranklopfgerät ("tank door knocker") because the PaK 36 crew simply revealed their presence and wasted their shells without damaging the T-34's armour.^[104] Anti-tank gunners began aiming at tank tracks, or vulnerable margins on the turret ring and gun mantlet, rather than the bow and turret armour.^[104] The Germans were forced to deploy 105 mm field guns and 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in a direct fire role to stop them.

[Eric]

19 minutes ago, minervadoe said:

The designers of the Soviet T 34s must get some credit.

The T-34 was manufactured in the city of Kharkiv and although the tank was originally designed by Mikhail Koshkin, he only made the Model 1940. Every other model was created by Ukrainian tank designer Alexander Alexandrovich Morozov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34

Initially, the Wehrmacht had great difficulty destroying T-34s in combat, as standard German anti-tank weaponry proved ineffective against its heavy, sloped armour. In one of the first known encounters, a T-34 crushed a 3.7 cm PaK 36, destroyed two Panzer IIs, and left a 14-kilometre (8.7 mi) long swathe of destruction in its wake before a howitzer destroyed it at close range.^[103] In another incident, a single Soviet T-34 was hit more than 30 times by a battalion-sized contingent of German 37mm and 50mm anti-tank guns, yet survived intact and drove back to its own lines a few hours later.^[104] The inability to penetrate the T-34's armour led to the Germans' standard anti-tank gun, the 37 mm PaK 36, being dubbed the Panzeranklopfgerät ("tank door knocker") because the PaK 36 crew simply revealed their presence and wasted their shells without damaging the T-34's armour.^[104] Anti-tank gunners began aiming at tank tracks, or vulnerable margins on the turret ring and gun mantlet, rather than the bow and turret armour.^[104] The Germans were forced to deploy 105 mm field guns and 88 mm anti-aircraft guns in a direct fire role to stop them.

Yeah, the T-34 was a beast. I imagine it was a nasty surprise for the Germans. In Clancy's book, The Bear and the Dragon, he mentioned that the Soviets/Russians had lines of fortifications along its border with China. These fortifications were basically concrete bunkers with T-34 turrets mounted to the roofs. That is a pretty good use of those things. They may be old, but that is still a very capable gun, with decent armor.

I wonder if the Russians still have warehouses and/or fields full of old T-34s? If they lose many more tanks, they might have to start dusting them off and deploying them.

[Borg warner]

1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

Seems I read that some bombing raids on Germany were especially targeted against their atomic bomb developing/making capability. 

For that reason I always have found it ironic that Germany caused Einstein to leave that country and flee to the US.

[Eric]

2 minutes ago, Borg warner said:

For that reason I always have found it ironic that Germany caused Einstein to leave that country and flee to the US.

Igor Sikorsky fled the USSR after the revolution, after the new regime threatened to shoot him.

[Borg warner]

40 minutes ago, Eric said:

Igor Sikorsky fled the USSR after the revolution, after the new regime threatened to shoot him.

At the age of 12 Sikorsky built a rubber band powered helicopter.

[Eric]

Just now, Borg warner said:

At the age of 12 Sikorsky built a rubber band powered helicopter.

He was talented as hell. We were lucky to get him.

[Batesmotel]

William Knudsen.

Former president of GM. He put together the team of industrialists who almost immediately switched the country to wartime production.

More importantly he put together the wartime economy. Instead of arms production being owned and run by the government like every other nation, the private sector was able to own, run and profit (within limits) from arms production.

This allowed war production with all of the innovations the best companies and people could muster without the insane interference every other nation suffered from their own government.

For good or bad he invented the Military Industrial Complex. 

[aomagrat]

Eugene Fluckey, Commanding Officer of USS Barb (SS-220)

USS Barb compiled one of the most outstanding records of any U.S. submarine in World War II. During her seven war patrols, Barb is officially credited with sinking 17 enemy vessels totaling 96,628 tons, including the Japanese aircraft carrier Un'yō. In recognition of one outstanding patrol, Barb received the Presidential Unit Citation. On her twelfth and final patrol of the war, she landed a party of carefully selected crew members who blew up a train, the only ground combat operation in the Japanese home islands.

[M&P15T]

The leadership of the IJA and IJN. Who hated each other so vociferously, they at times deliberately lied to each other during combined operations, always leading to disasterous military outcomes.

Then there's Corporal Hitler, whose interference with his Generals in military matters, especially on the Eastern Front, lead to the end of the 3rd Reich.

[janice6]

18 hours ago, Eric said:

I wonder how long the wars with Germany and Japan would have had to go on until they too developed the bomb? Both were working actively on it. I shudder to think what a WWII with a multilateral nuclear dimension would have been like.

Also remember that JAPAN even now says we should apologize to them for dropping the atomic bomb on them, before theirs was finished.  Maybe that's not the way they say it, but this is the truth.

[DAKA]

45 minutes ago, janice6 said:

Also remember that JAPAN even now says we should apologize to them for dropping the atomic bomb on them, before theirs was finished.  Maybe that's not the way they say it, but this is the truth.

As "They" say FXXk around and see what happens...... 

[minervadoe]

7 hours ago, janice6 said:

Also remember that JAPAN even now says we should apologize to them for dropping the atomic bomb on them, before theirs was finished.  Maybe that's not the way they say it, but this is the truth.

Dear Japan:

You poked the bear and then the bear destroyed you, and then helped build your economy into one of the world's strongest, instead of enslaving it as you would have done to us.

You started it.  We finished it.

Now you squawk for more reparations, but before long you'll need help with China.  You're starting to sound a little whiny to me.

There was at least one person in WWII Japan who had perspective and he ended up on the wrong end of a P38 Lightning (thanks to our code breakers).

[Huaco Kid]

One man, with big sisu, doing what he could:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

[kerbie18]

Does the mighty Texas, or her skipper, get a mention?

[Mrs.Cicero]

On 10/26/2022 at 7:21 PM, Eric said:

I wonder how long the wars with Germany and Japan would have had to go on until they too developed the bomb? Both were working actively on it. I shudder to think what a WWII with a multilateral nuclear dimension would have been like.

I think that would be a great alternate history dystopian “after the fall” novel.  If WW2 ended in mutual nuke exchanges, I think we would have had a better chance of climbing back up the ladder of civilization than we do now, for a multitude of reasons, starting with the fact that we still had a large percent of the population farming, and were only a generation away from doing a huge amount of it by hand or with animals- the knowledge of how to do it was still fairly common.