ETO or PTO ?

[DaveHH]

My late friend Eddie Nunes fought both the Germans and Japanese. Italy, DDay, Luzon and Corrigador. He respected the Germans and felt sorry for the Japanese. Tell this to a Marine on Betio or Peleilu and he'd knock you down.

In PTO the Japanese numbered maybe a million, in Russia it was 3 million vs 13 million. At Stalingrad the Germans lost the whole 6th Army, maybe 200,000 men.

[DaveN]

eto simply I live in hot muggy Florida. give me cold over hot any day. But hats off to all our great fighting men who had no choice and went where they were told to go. Plus I'm sick of bugs, snakes, gators, and nort.....big city drivers.

[CTTC]

ETO for me

[imarangemaster]

PTO. Personal interest. Dad and three uncles all fought in the pacific.

I also have an academic interest in ETO

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

PTO

Having seen alot of the places battles were held, I choose the Pacific. Brave men died on both fronts and not saying there were not as many or even more notable battles in Europe. Stalingrad, Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne, Patton, Darby's Rangers. Different areas and circumstances. Heat verses snow, Sea verse Land. All of that.

But what got us into the war in the first place, Pearl Harbor.

Wake Island Dec 8th-23rd 1941 holding out for 15 days, then told relief was to return to Pearl Harbor due to fear of possible loses.

The horrors of the week long 60 mile Bataan Death march with no food or water in 1942. Tens of thousands of POW's murdered.

The six month battle of Guadalcanal Aug 1943 to Feb 1943.

Coral Sea and Midway battles.

Iwo Jima 1945 and our Flag flying on Mt. Suribachi.

I feel the brutality of the Japanese with their jungle and tunnel warfare, add to that the logistics of materials and supplies, the pacific seems to me to have been the tougher front.

We all have family and friends who have fought, regardless of the front they were on. Armistice Day is coming up November 11th and we should remember and honor them all.

Charlie, you sure know how to stir up the pot. Pittings us against each other. And our personal feelings.

Jim

[Tired Retired]

Will not choose. Civil War General Sherman was right (Damn, a Southerner quoting Sherman????) when he said "war is hell". Our fathers went through hell during WWII and it had more than one location and more than one set of demons. I study as much as I can about the ETO and the PTO as well as the Eastern Front and the CBI theaters. They all have their unique situations and what made them pure hell. I am thankful to have not been there and I am proud of my father's service in the ETO (and an uncle in the PTO).

I will never be satisfied with my knowledge of either the ETO or PTO (or CBI for that matter). They say that over 60 million people (military and civilians) died bewteen 1939 and 1945. May they rest in peace.

[jimb16]

CBI, then PTO......

[G26ster]

CBI? I must have slept through that one. Enlighten me please.

[CrossedCannons]

CBI = China/Burma/India

could be incorrect ... though

[Tired Retired]

CBI - China Burma India theater. As the Japanese spread out across China into Indochina (modern Vietnam and neighbors) they invaded Burma and threatened to invade India which was still an British Colony. The British had their hands full trying to stave off not only the Japanese, but deal with the internal threat of near revolution of the population of India who saw it as a chance for independence. America provided manpower, equipment and supplies to the Nationalist Chinese via the Burma Road and DC-3 flights over the mountains. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the forerunner of the modern CIA) mounted what was to be America's first attempt at Guerilla warfare in occupied Burma.

The long story short is that most people today do not realize that the groundwork of what happened in Vietnam was a direct result of the Japanese expansion into Indochina which was a french colony prior to WWII. To understand the CBI theater action you have to understand what was going on in that area of the world long before the Japanese invaded Manchuria.

As a side note, the American OSS was relatively successful in mounting that guerilla war against the Japanese using the many local tribes of the Burma countryside. Its too bad that they forgot the lessons and success of 1942-1945 just 20 years later when we blew it in Vietnam.