bewbies posted:

He was still mad 70 years on about the fact the army made him fly a fully loaded C-87 over the highest mountain range in the world. Like, the shittiest climbing, worst flying, least reliable plane on earth, and you're going to fill every nook and cranny with fuel and cigarettes and then make me fly it over...that?

bewbies posted:

That's what my grandpa did for the first half of the war. He was pleased when he was reassigned to fly bombing missions in the ETO, the loss rate was much lower.

His plane:



He's the very serious looking one on the right.

Nebakenezzer posted:

It's a good question; I don't really understand how the Philippines went from being an oppressed colony to being on the path to being its own nation with very good relations with the US.

quote:

The Whipping Tom of 1681 was active in the warren of small courtyards between Fleet Street, Strand and Holborn.[3] He would wait in the narrow and dimly lit alleys and courtyards.[4] After approaching an unaccompanied woman, he would grab her, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly before fleeing.[5] He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!"[3


There was a great public outcry in response to the attacks, which prompted complaints about the ineffectiveness of London's policing arrangements at the time.[9] Women would carry "penknives, sharp bodkins, scissors and the like",[10] and male vigilantes would dress in women's clothing and patrol the areas he was known to operate.[8]

Squalid posted:

male vigilantes would dress in women's clothing and patrol the areas he was known to operate.[8]

quote:

Between 10 October and 1 December 1712 a string of further attacks took place in fields near Hackney. This attacker, also nicknamed "Whipping Tom",[12] would approach lone women and beat them with "a Great Rodd of Birch".[13] Around 70 women were assaulted before a local man named Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks.[12][13] According to Wallis, he was "resolved to be Revenged on all the women he could come at after that manner, for the sake of one Perjur'd Female, who had been Barbarously False to him".[13] He claimed that his plan was to attack a hundred women before Christmas, cease the attacks during the Twelve Days of Christmas, then resume the attacks in the new year.[13]

Fuligin posted:

Any book recs re,: phillipines in the pacific theate?

bewbies posted:

He was still mad 70 years on about the fact the army made him fly a fully loaded C-87 over the highest mountain range in the world. Like, the shittiest climbing, worst flying, least reliable plane on earth, and you're going to fill every nook and cranny with fuel and cigarettes and then make me fly it over...that?

Gnoman posted:

For a very simplified summary, the Filipinos were riaing because of a belief that the US intended to keep the country by force.

bewbies posted:

He was still mad 70 years on about the fact the army made him fly a fully loaded C-87 over the highest mountain range in the world. Like, the shittiest climbing, worst flying, least reliable plane on earth, and you're going to fill every nook and cranny with fuel and cigarettes and then make me fly it over...that?

feedmegin posted:

The US DID keep the country by force for half a century and killed hundreds of thousands of people doing it. It wasn't some misunderstanding. Let's not whitewash American colonialism here.

Gnoman posted:

The Filipinos were rising for reasons that seemed perfectly sensible given their understanding at the time, and the military governor at the time created that understanding through incredible incompetence and bluster.

The US did not keep the country by force for half a century. By 1916 a commitment to Filipino independence was official policy and local government was well-established - the first elections were held in 1907. Armed resistance was finished because the locals had gotten what they wanted in the first place.

Similarly, the Moro rebellion ended primarily because General Pershing sought out what the Moro wanted and gave it to them.


In both cases, the bloodshed was due to American arrogance and incompetence. But I supposed anything except "the Americans were totally butchering people for funsies!" is considered "whitewashing".

feedmegin posted:

Not for funsies, any more than any other colonial power, but they did enforce US control of the Philippines against the will of its population. If they didn't want to do that they could have just...left. At any time. Which is what the locals wanted. We don't defend British rule of India in this time period. Why does America get excused?

feedmegin posted:

Not for funsies, any more than any other colonial power, but they did enforce US control of the Philippines against the will of its population. If they didn't want to do that they could have just...left. At any time. Which is what the locals wanted. We don't defend British rule of India in this time period. Why does America get excused?

Cyrano4747 posted:

I don't have any sources for this, but I suspect a lot of it had to do with just how populous and non-white the Philippines was. Hawaii or Guam or Puerto Rico is one thing, 20 million (in~1940) Philippinos is something else entirely.

Robert Bridges, 1899 posted:

Oh, thank you, Mr. Kipling,
For showing us the way
To buckle down to business
And end our "childish day."
We know we're young and frisky
And haven't too much sense --
At least, not in the measure
We'll have a few years hence.

Now, this same "White Man's burden"
You're asking us to tote
Is not so unfamiliar
As you're inclined to note.
We freed three million negroes,
Their babies and their wives;
It cost a billion dollars,
And near a million lives!

And while we were a-fighting
In all those "thankless years"
We did not get much helping --
Well, not from English "peers."
And so -- with best intentions --
We're not exactly wild
To free the Filipino,
"Half devil and half child."

Then thank you, Mr. Kipling,
Though not disposed to groan
About the White Man's Burden,
We've troubles of our own;
Enough to keep us busy
When English friends enquire,
"Why don't you use your talons?
There are chestnuts in the fire!" 

Acebuckeye13 posted:

This article goes into greater detail (And corrects me on a few minor points-it was King who favored bypassing the Philippines altogether, not Nimitz, though Nimitz was in favor of bypassing Luzon), but the tl;dr is that Taiwan (Referred to as Formosa at the time) occupied a central strategic position in the South China Sea that would have allowed the Allies a staging area for operations into both China and Japan, as well as denying Japan sea lanes crucial towards keeping their forces in China supplied.

Captain von Trapp posted:

There were several other parodies in that vein. Really there's been a small industry of White Man's Burden parodies from various points of view since the dumb thing was written until the present day.

Nebakenezzer posted:

Interesting article, thanks.

TL;DR: America knew the final goal was the invasion of Japan, and they had to make a choice as to what the next step should be. 1) Attack Japan directly. 2) Attack Formosa. 3) Take Luzon and the Philippines. All the top brass examined the later two in great detail. There was also sidebar conversations about "take Formosa, and it is way easier to take the Philippines" etc.

MacArthur was the champion of #3, and actually made the best argument. The Navy was broadly in favor of #2, but as the debate continued a bunch of things happened to weaken the appeal of #2 while strengthening the case further for #3. The B-29 bases were lost by the Chinese, Formosa would have been much harder to take and probably necessitated taking a mainland Chinese port because Formosa's harbors were not great, the Japanese army might be able to reinforce Formosa and attack this port or ports, and all while doing this the Japanese own the Philippines and can harry the American supply chain. In contrast the Philippines was easier to take, a central position for blockading Japan from South East Asia, and had a population very friendly to America and willing to fight the Japanese.

e: what's more, the timing favored the invasion of Luzon. It was going to take so many troops to invade Formosa the Joint Chiefs thought it'd take victory in Europe before they'd get the troop numbers. In contrast, MacArthur was ready to attack Luzon in late '44 and needed no extra reinforcements.

Solaris 2.0 posted:

Speaking of lessons of the past to apply to modern war, as I find this a very interesting discussion.

What lessons were there from the Donbass War? I remember reading some after-action report that said Ukrainian tank columns would get massively hosed up by Russian/Separatist artillery. It made me think, I haven't heard much about artillery versus tanks. Has artillery always been so deadly to tank columns?

Milo and POTUS posted:

Why would Formosa be much harder than the Philippines?

Milo and POTUS posted:

Why would Formosa be much harder than the Philippines?

Milo and POTUS posted:

Why would Formosa be much harder than the Philippines?

Cyrano4747 posted:

You also had poo poo like this which I've never been able to figure out if it's against keeping these new possessions because we can never teach "people like that" or if it's lamenting how difficult our new burden will be.

I mean, you do see a fair but of totally unironic white man's burden in the American context too.

Dejan Bimble posted:

The Separatists were able to capture a few tanks and more light armored vehicles. What allowed them to checkmate Ukranian forces was putting out bait so that the furious Ukranian generals would send tons of unprepared armor into one spot with the idea of rooting out any separatist positions and being invulnerable to anything but rpg teams and mines, and there was heavy bombing from the Ukranian air force to supposedly support this, but it was indiscriminate enough not to matter.

Nessus posted:

It was a big, singular island the Japanese owned (and I gather they had popular support there, if nowhere else) - geographically it looks to be a big open plain perfect for maneuvering right next to a forest-covered mountain range perfect for staging guerrilla warfare. And to top it all off, you'd have to go AROUND the loving thing to get at the good landing spots. It's barely feasible for the PRC to land on Taiwan now and they'd be coming from less than 200 kilometers away.

Dejan Bimble posted:

It sucks for the Russian Ukranians who were fighting for a free country run by the people for the people, but when your only supporter is a state like Russia, you can't really expect to win with wine and roses. I remember the tears on livejournal. Russians still use livejournal.

Nessus posted:

It was a big, singular island the Japanese owned (and I gather they had popular support there, if nowhere else) - geographically it looks to be a big open plain perfect for maneuvering right next to a forest-covered mountain range perfect for staging guerrilla warfare. And to top it all off, you'd have to go AROUND the loving thing to get at the good landing spots. It's barely feasible for the PRC to land on Taiwan now and they'd be coming from less than 200 kilometers away.

Milo and POTUS posted:

Woah. Given their colonial record, how'd they swing that

Dejan Bimble posted:

Polyakov posted:

Xakura posted:

Amazing self own that the artist mocking the native american for holding the book the wrong way, is himself unable to write "ABC" upside down.

Milo and POTUS posted:

Woah. Given their colonial record, how'd they swing that

Don Gato posted:

I think it's also a bit of hindsight, modern Taiwanese are a lot less hostile to Japan than the Chinese mainland is but a large part of that is because Japan isn't directly trying to annex them right now, plus there's a definite nostalgia factor when I see people on Taiwanese twitter talk about it.

quote: