John T' ONeill

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• John T. ONeill
• Lt. Col. USAF (Ret)

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• Videos Documentaries
• War of the Century When Hitler fought Stalin
  (BBC/History Channel
• World War II The war in Europe (The History
  Channel)
• World War II The war in the Pacific (History
  Channel)
• World War II The complete history ( Mandancy
  Entertainment Group)
• D-Day (The History Channel)
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• Fictional Videos - but good history
• The Battle of Britain (MGM)
• Stalingrad ( Fox Lorber Video) Maybe the best war
  film ever made
• Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima
  (Warner Brothers)
• Band of Brothers (HBO) Veterans who were there
  say this is the way it was

• Books
• D-Day -. Ambrose (All of his WW II books are
  interesting)
• Company Commander . Macdonald
• The Longest Day Ryan
• Six Armies in Normandy Keegan
• The March to Victory Bookman Powers
• Eagle Against the Sun Spector
• The Battle of the Atlantic Williams
• The Second World War Keegan
• Eisenhower at War David Eisenhower
• And I Was There Admiral Layton
• Into the Rising Sun ODonnell
• War without Mercy Dower
• The Battle of Britain Hough Richards
• 42 Million web pages plus links

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• Victory
• The aftermath
• The cost
• Myths
• Monday morning quarterbacking
• Personal stories
• Why its not over yet
• Recommended resources

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• Much of the Pacific War
• The Holocaust
• Several critical naval battles
• Personal stories
• The weaponry
• Much of the air war in all theaters
• The Canadian/Polish/French contribution
• The politics at the general officer level
• The roles of women
• The cultural and sociological impact

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• U.S. homeland remained unscathed
• Allies totally defeated Axis on land/sea/and air
• Hitler dead and brutal NAZI regime defeated
• Japanese imperialism ended
• Holocaust stopped
• War criminals tried and punished
• Freedom restored to Western Europe
• U.S. emerged as preeminent world power

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• 55 million dead (over half non-combatants)
• Easter Europe in the hands of USSR
• Western Europe in ruins
• Major Japanese cities destroyed
• European Jewish population decimated
• Collapse of colonial empires
• Dramatic social changes

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• An estimated 55 million deaths worldwide.
• In battle, the United States lost 292,129 dead
  and 139,709 missing in action.
• The Soviet Union suffered 8,668,400 dead and
  another 4,559,000 missing.
• Germany lost 2,049,872 dead and 1,902,704
  missing.
• China lost 1,324,516 dead and 115,248 missing.
• Japan lost 1,506,000 dead and 810,000 missing.
• Great Britain lost 397,762 dead and 90,188
  missing.
• Civilian dead was appalling. The Soviet Union
  lost 14,012,000 civilians, including between 1.0
  and 1.5 million Jews.
• China lost more than a million civilians
• Poland lost nearly five million civilians,
  including nearly three million Jews.
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• WW II wounded survival rate was 3 X WW I
• 30 of American wounded died
• 80 survived if treated within 1 hour
• 97 survived if reached an aid station
• Breakthroughs
• Sulfa
• Penicillin
• Plasma
• Atabrine
• Morphine syrette

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• Wermacht was highly mechanized 750,000 horse
  drawn vehicles
• Russians in the East and Western Allies in the
  west share equal credit for victory
• Russians destroyed 507 German divisions
• Western Allies destroyed 176
• Russians suffered 9 million dead
• U.S. and UK 700,000 dead
• With enough supplies Chiang Kai Shek could have
  defeated the Japanese
• The military value of strategic bombing was
  demonstrated in Europe
• US unemployment disappeared, production soared,
  consumption increased
• DeGauls French forces saved Paris from
  destruction

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• There were 433 Medals of Honor awarded during
  World War II- 219 posthumously.
• Lt. Annie G. Fox, wounded at Pearl was the first
  woman to be awarded a Purple Heart?
• More U.S. servicemen died in the U.S. Army Air
  Corps than in the Marine Corps. While completing
  the required 25 missions your chance of being
  killed was 71 percent.
• In the North African invasion 3 Coca-Cola
  bottling plants were landed
• .50 caliber machine gun bullet belts measured
  exactly 27 feet. If the pilots fired all their
  ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9
  yards"?Himmler, head of the SS was once a
  chicken farmer
• Youngest U.S. serviceman was 12 year old Calvin
  Graham
• Lindbergh flew 32 combat missions and shot down
  at least one Zero
• German Gen. von Choltitz defied Hitlers order to
  destroy Paris
• Admiral Donitzs imprisonment opposed by Adm.
  Nimitz
• 7000 Australian women came to the U.S. as war
  brides
• The German army did not use the NAZI salute until
  forced you after the attempted Hitler
  assassination2
• 2nd Polish Corps at the battle of Monte Casino
  used a brown bear called Wojtek to move boxes of
  ammunition.
• During World War II, the original copies of the
  U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of
  Independence were taken from the Library of
  Congress and kept at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
• The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on
  Berlin during World War II killed the only
  elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
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• Pearl Harbor Warnings? Russian Ship?
• Strategic bombing? Electric grids? Mosquitos?
• Anzio stalemate Lucas hesitance ?
• Bombing Monte Casino? Rubble became fortress?
• Peleliu invasion - Necessary? Russian bases?
• Unconditional surrender demand Prolonged war?
• The Sherman tank - The Pershing ?
• The Nagasaki A-bomb Necessary?
• Too few subs Navy politics?
• Many more

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• Consequences still in progress
• Collapse of European colonial empires
• Arbitrary partitioning of the middle east
• Cold war aftershocks
• Refugees and asylum seekers
• Militant Islam
• Vestiges of desegregation
• Economic inequality
• The arms trade
• Extremism, terrorism
• , deteriation of moral values
• and much more

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• There is a principle which is a bar against all
  information, which is proof against all arguments
  and which cannot fail to keep a person in
  everlasting ignorance - that principle is
  contempt prior to investigation.
• Herbert Spencer

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