Biggest Mistakes the Allies made iyo.

[Alexander's Horse]

That's true but the Philippine operation was not launched to salvage Macarthur's reputation. Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs would never have sanctioned a prestige operation like that.

The Philippines were also going to be the major base for invasion operations against Japan and elsewhere. You couldn't base a fullscale invasion of Japan out of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. There's a reason why the US hung onto Clarke Field and Subic Bay for so long after the war, they were very high value strategic assets.

[DeathByTheSword]

1. market garden (the paratroopers should all have been send after the beginning of the ground war)

2. the battle for caen...i still believe this could have been done without that many casaulties...

3. all the strategic bombing missions against civil targets...(should have been used to take out the tiger and panzer factories for example)

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Boshko
MacArthur had plenty of warning that the Japanese were on the way because they were delayed by fog he and overruled General Brereton (who wanted to bomb Taiwan) thus resulting in the planes being destroyed on the ground, its much much much easier to destroy a plane if its not flying around and capable of fighting back.

I find these arguments unconvincing. Events were very confused in the hours after Pearl Harbor if Macarthur had attacked Taiwan that could have been a major escalation of the fighting at a time when the state of war wasn't clear. Also you can't keep planes in the air indefinitely. Macarthur had no idea when the Japanese would attack or how - moving the planes South would have been useless against carrier based Japanese aircraft.

And as far as Inchon goes, MacArthur was planning on sending the very FIRST American troops to arrive in Korea straight at Inchon, instead of trying to stabilize the Pusan Perimiter first. Thankfully he was overruled...

Idiot.

Well the Busan perimeter was saved by the Inchon landing so this is a bit of a circular argument.

[Bosh]

the state of war wasn't clear.

How the hell was the state of war unclear?? The least he could've done is tried to move the planes south out of Japanese bomber range rather than leaving them there like sitting ducks.

Well the Busan perimeter was saved by the Inchon landing so this is a bit of a circular argument.

Well the first units that America sent over into Korea were elements of the 8th Army, (who'd gotten soft from nice cushy occupation duty in Japan) which got smacked around pretty badly during the first weeks of US involvement in the war and were generally disorganized and ineffective. If those troops were sent into Inchon right in the beginning it would've been a fiasco.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Boshko

How the hell was the state of war unclear?? The least he could've done is tried to move the planes south out of Japanese bomber range rather than leaving them there like sitting ducks.

iirc, he wanted the planes forward to interdict anticipated Japanese landings on Luzon. The Taiwan mission wasn't the main game in Macarthur's opinion. I also seem to recall that bad luck played a role in the US planes getting caught on the ground.

Well the first units that America sent over into Korea were elements of the 8th Army, (who'd gotten soft from nice cushy occupation duty in Japan) which got smacked around pretty badly during the first weeks of US involvement in the war and were generally disorganized and ineffective. If those troops were sent into Inchon right in the beginning it would've been a fiasco.

Huh? again iirc, Macarthur used the Marines to spearhead Inchon and that was always the plan. As for the 8th army, his view was they should back up the landing and there wasn't much point putting further troops into the Busan pocket. He did so reluctantly for this reason. That makes perfect sense to me.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Because they were essentially civilian, not military targets.

I'm pretty sure the largest urban area in Japan had some military targets in it.

Nah. The peace loving Japanese had all their industry in Taiwan and Manchukuo, clearly.

All those supposedly industrial areas in Tokyo-Yokohama, Osaka et cetera, were in fact the equivalent of Potemkin villages to lure the American bombers away from the vital mainland Asian military-industrial complex.

All they contained were tea houses, a few tanneries staffed by disposable Koreans and some 'comfort' houses.

[DeathByTheSword]

you can agree or disagree with mcarthur´s actions during WWII and korea but what i cant believe is that he wanted to use more than 50 nukes on china because of there intervention of an attack on ally.

[Sikander]

Eisenhower's refusal to take Patton's advice regarding attacking the shoulders of "the bulge" during the battle of the same name rather than pushing the penetration back step by step from it's deepest point. This cost large numbers of relatively experienced infantry casualties while allowing the Germans to remove most of their troops and much of their equipment intact. The casualty ratio could / should have been several times better than it was.

The failure to design and build in numbers a decent medium or heavy tank in the latter stages of the war (Anglo-Americans only).

The failure to ensure that enough quality personnel were available to provide competent small unit leaders for the Army (U.S.). Also, the failure to plan for replacements for the line divisions in Europe, and the failure to develop methods for training and integrating the replacements that were received.

The submarine torpedo fiasco of the early war period. (U.S.)

[DeathByTheSword]

The failure to design and build in numbers a decent medium or heavy tank in the latter stages of the war (Anglo-Americans only).

cant agree with that the british and the US had a totally different approach to tank building then the germans or the russians....yes one on one the german tank won (certainly if the allied tank still had a to small of a gun which was a big mistake) but the sherman tank was perfect because the could build a lot very fast (bigger tank takes more time) and it was fast...i believe most allied tanks werent build to take on enemy tanks they had special tanks for that..the m-18 and so on...the allied tank of WWII wasnt a main-battle tank because they didnt want one

[Joseph]

Originally posted by DeathByTheSword

The failure to design and build in numbers a decent medium or heavy tank in the latter stages of the war (Anglo-Americans only).

cant agree with that the british and the US had a totally different approach to tank building then the germans or the russians....yes one on one the german tank won (certainly if the allied tank still had a to small of a gun which was a big mistake) but the sherman tank was perfect because the could build a lot very fast (bigger tank takes more time) and it was fast...i believe most allied tanks werent build to take on enemy tanks they had special tanks for that..the m-18 and so on...the allied tank of WWII wasnt a main-battle tank because they didnt want one

At the end of the war, Feb., March, April, and May the US sent in the M26 Pershing with a 90mm gun and the few battle it was in they won.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Boshko
7. MacArthur's failure to purge the Japanese government of fascist scum post-war.

Including Hirohito

Though I don't think that's entirely his decision. The US wanted to keep the bastards around to "contain" communism.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Boshko
MacArthur had plenty of warning that the Japanese were on the way because they were delayed by fog he and overruled General Brereton (who wanted to bomb Taiwan) thus resulting in the planes being destroyed on the ground, its much much much easier to destroy a plane if its not flying around and capable of fighting back.

How would he have known about the fog? Taiwan is more than 300 miles north of Luzon. I don't think the Japanese were sending out weather reports to the allies. Also consider that to the allies, who had practiced night and foul weather bombing a little fog wouldn't have been a problem. The Japanese however wanted to be able to form up their squadrons as they climbed to cruising altitiude rather than climb above the clouds and circle as they manuevered into formation. Saving a little time helped to extend the range of theri fighters.

MacArthur's mistake on December 8 was to order his entire fighter compliment into the air and keep them there as long as possible. After 5 hours in the air they had to refuel. As fate would have it that was right about then time that Japanese squadrons began to reach US airbases. What MacArthur could have done was to bring the fighters down in rotations, so only a fraction would be on the ground refueling at any time.

[Drake Tungsten]

Though I don't think that's entirely his decision. The US wanted to keep the bastards around to "contain" communism.

Good call, too. Japanese support made fighting the commie Koreans and Chinese a lot easier.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
Also, the USSR was NOT planning to invade Germany. I don't know where people get this.

That's no other explanation for the deployment of the troops near the border.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by DeathByTheSword

The failure to design and build in numbers a decent medium or heavy tank in the latter stages of the war (Anglo-Americans only).

cant agree with that the british and the US had a totally different approach to tank building then the germans or the russians....yes one on one the german tank won (certainly if the allied tank still had a to small of a gun which was a big mistake) but the sherman tank was perfect because the could build a lot very fast (bigger tank takes more time) and it was fast...i believe most allied tanks werent build to take on enemy tanks they had special tanks for that..the m-18 and so on...the allied tank of WWII wasnt a main-battle tank because they didnt want one

The Sherman was designed to counter the German Pzkpw IV, the German's best tank in 1941 when the Sherman was designed. It was well suited for that purpose. By the time that US forces began encountering Panther and Tiger tanks in Italy it was too late to change production in time for the Normandy invasion. Plans to build the Pershing were begun however. Perhaps if American observers had correctly unbderstood what was going on in Russia they might have guessed that the Germans would want to introduce a larger, better armored, better gunned tank in order to match the Russian tanks, but it seemed like the Germans were doing well with what they had in 1942, so western military officials made no attempt to anticipate the later German tanks. As it turned out the best tanks in WW2 were the P-48 and P-51 anyway.