In one of Robert Leckies memoirs he postulated the flamethrower was more popular in the Pacific campaign due to the lesser possibility of collateral damage. Since the island hopping strategy was on sparsely populated or even deserted islands, the off chance of accidentally burning children or woman to death was less than in the densely populated European cities. Of course Saipan and Okinawa were the horrific exceptions of civilians in the midst of that type of brutal fighting. The remoteness of the pacific islands, and lack of human contact promoted brutality. American soldiers didn't make a habit of collecting skulls and body parts in Europe, but they eventually did in the Pacific, unfortunately well documented as well. I would highly recommend any of Mr. Leckies books, or Eugene Sledges "With the old breed". Both Marines wrote about the horrific conditions and experiences the Pacific campaign was composed of, as well as their own continual fight to not sink into depravity. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese institutionalized brutality to other races, civilians, and combatants. Cannibalism, vivisection, torture all tolerated or even encouraged.
And as far as the German army not being complicit in war crimes, which seems to be getting mentioned increasingly in any thread on world war 2.. I have been to Chelmo and Babi Yar, the SS had plenty of help in the logistics of slaughter. The Wehrmacht may have had individual dissenters against the holocaust, but they enabled or assisted in many atrocities. My wife's family was wiped out in Poland , and my own family was shipped to Dachau and Mathausen from France. It was the noble Wehrmacht that lined my 65 year old great-great aunt against a wall and shot her. Regular army tanks drove through the cemetery and crushed 400 years of headstones so that they never existed. From a tactical perspective, think of the resources and energy wasted by Germany on the Holocaust. While they were getting ground to pieces on the Eastern Front, they were devoting personnel and equipment to rounding up and exterminating Jews. Imagine the hatred and bloodlust that would have Hitler prioritizing extermination of these already subjugated people over continued expansion eastward. It is a perspective that I feel should be discussed more by historians. Why couldn't the Holocaust be halted or delayed until after the war was won....to Hitler it had to be concurrent and immediate. How many thousands of troops were wasted on policing and camp duty. And not even the work camps which could be argued as helping a war effort, but the strictly extermination camps wasted untold amounts of resources.
And not one german civilian or military member ever noticed that the train cars rolling through Germany were not filled with cattle?
Sorry for the essay, but the scars of German ambition are present all over Europe. 35 members of my family between ww1 and ww2. Graves exist for 6 of them that I can find, 4 have bodies present. The other two are dust, somewhere in a field in the Reichland. The only proof they ever existed is one photograph mailed to my great grandmother in 1938 and a death certificate filled out by some German clerk in 1945.
And let me correct the anti Semites thinking I am grinding an ax about the Holocaust, most of my family were staunch Roman Catholics, same as my wife's family. My family was targeted for extermination, her family was collateral damage living between Berlin and Moscow.
Nothing the western Allies ever did could match Germany or Japan for inhumanity. Individual horrific actions did occur in all theatres but not on the order of magnitude or with the express approval of high command like the Axis forces.
And if anybody wonders what a flamethrower feels like, I don't know if you would feel anything. I was severely burned in an accident on my arms and face with gasoline. I felt nothing for 10 minutes as the nerves were burnt and in shock. When my burns got cooled off and treatment started.......then it hurt. But in the instant it happened I felt nothing at all. My arms were burnt worse and they never hurt....just itchy. My face was less severe and it was incredible agony for two months.
And as far as the German army not being complicit in war crimes, which seems to be getting mentioned increasingly in any thread on world war 2.. I have been to Chelmo and Babi Yar, the SS had plenty of help in the logistics of slaughter. The Wehrmacht may have had individual dissenters against the holocaust, but they enabled or assisted in many atrocities. My wife's family was wiped out in Poland , and my own family was shipped to Dachau and Mathausen from France. It was the noble Wehrmacht that lined my 65 year old great-great aunt against a wall and shot her. Regular army tanks drove through the cemetery and crushed 400 years of headstones so that they never existed. From a tactical perspective, think of the resources and energy wasted by Germany on the Holocaust. While they were getting ground to pieces on the Eastern Front, they were devoting personnel and equipment to rounding up and exterminating Jews. Imagine the hatred and bloodlust that would have Hitler prioritizing extermination of these already subjugated people over continued expansion eastward. It is a perspective that I feel should be discussed more by historians. Why couldn't the Holocaust be halted or delayed until after the war was won....to Hitler it had to be concurrent and immediate. How many thousands of troops were wasted on policing and camp duty. And not even the work camps which could be argued as helping a war effort, but the strictly extermination camps wasted untold amounts of resources.
And not one german civilian or military member ever noticed that the train cars rolling through Germany were not filled with cattle?
Sorry for the essay, but the scars of German ambition are present all over Europe. 35 members of my family between ww1 and ww2. Graves exist for 6 of them that I can find, 4 have bodies present. The other two are dust, somewhere in a field in the Reichland. The only proof they ever existed is one photograph mailed to my great grandmother in 1938 and a death certificate filled out by some German clerk in 1945.
And let me correct the anti Semites thinking I am grinding an ax about the Holocaust, most of my family were staunch Roman Catholics, same as my wife's family. My family was targeted for extermination, her family was collateral damage living between Berlin and Moscow.
Nothing the western Allies ever did could match Germany or Japan for inhumanity. Individual horrific actions did occur in all theatres but not on the order of magnitude or with the express approval of high command like the Axis forces.
And if anybody wonders what a flamethrower feels like, I don't know if you would feel anything. I was severely burned in an accident on my arms and face with gasoline. I felt nothing for 10 minutes as the nerves were burnt and in shock. When my burns got cooled off and treatment started.......then it hurt. But in the instant it happened I felt nothing at all. My arms were burnt worse and they never hurt....just itchy. My face was less severe and it was incredible agony for two months.
