Would your country embrace a former enemy ?

[Flashermac]

The RT Navy got caught with its steam down and took a pasting from the French Navy at Koh Chang in the Indo-China War, but the Thai Army had it all its way in Cambodia. I've seen photos of the prisoners taken from the French Foreign Legion who were brought to Bangkok and put in a big fenced in camp at Sanam Luang for the Thais to gawk at. Sort of like going to Dusit Zoo, only with Farangs in the cage.

 

 

[Steve]

Maybe its a matter of degree. I know little about Gallipoli other than the movie and from a little reading.

Seems the battle was fought honorably on both sides, is that true?

 

If so, then I would imagine any lingering issues with Germany and Japan are the atrocities and sheer size of the death and destruction.

 

I don't know their present relationship but I would be surprised if Russia and Germany are bosom buddies. Cordial if anything but their part of the war seemed far more personal.

 

Also, Turkey was not the main antagonist as neither were the Aussies and Kiwis. There was no 'history' so to speak. Both allies of the main antogonists (I know about the commonwealth but you know what I mean).

 

Considering the size of the war and how recent it is historically I think the present relationship between Japan, Germany, England and America is rather good and better than what most would have thought at the end of the war.

 

What may have helped was that it was the ideology of Germany that was held up to be hated and not the people. A little less so for Japan whose people were a bit more demonized than the Germans but still it was Hirohito and the government that were seen as the enemy for the most part and not the people.

 

Had it been the people that the propagandists demonized, we'd have been less forgiving perhaps.

 

I think considering all that happened in the war, it may be asking a bit too much for the 'big 4' to be as 'cozy' as the one between Turkey, Austrailia and New Zealand. Gallipoli wast one battle. A bloody one by any defintion and not to minimize it but a battle and not a war over a few years.

[Nervous God]

I think the interesting part is that Australia has chosen a day of disastrous defeat to make our national military holiday. We don't remember the successful campaigns the same way. The only other military type holiday which isn't a official holiday is 11/11, end of world war 1.

 

Also to put into context the size of the disaster, during both world wars Australia lost one of the highest proportions of men as a percentage.

[Guest]

my country (US) has definitely embraced former enemies...both those we whupped (Japan, Germany) and those who soundly whupped OUR ass (Vietnam)...

 

actually, we ultimately went to war with Vietnam for the purpose of ensuring that Japan would have ongoing access to cheap labor and materials in SEAsia (by ensuring that it didn't "go commie"...)

 

and so it goes...

[Flashermac]

US combat deaths in the VN War - 47,424

Aus combat deaths in the VN War - 426

South Korean combat deaths - 5,099

Thailand combat deaths - 351

New Zealand combat deaths - 55

Philippines combat deaths - 7

 

 

Hanoi says Vietnam commie deaths were about 931,000 (NVA and VC combined).

North Koreans killed - "several dozen"

PRC killed - 1446

USSR killed - ca 16 (estimate)

 

Some ass whupping.

 

Wikipedia

[bust]

Maybe they are still uncovering mass graves.

[Flashermac]

Hanoi has been very diligent in seeking war graves. Communist remains found receive military funerals. The remains of dead Southerners are returned to their families for burial. The Vietnamese DO bury their dead, not cremate like the Thais.

 

I have this from a Vietnamese friend, the son of a government official. Also, the US Army in the early 1990s sent teams to VN to try to recover remains of US military who were thought to have died in communist hands and been buried in unmarked graves. I taught one young NCO who had fallen in love with the country during the months he spent there on grave registration. He said the Vietnamese were most welcoming and friendly (and admitted their government sucks, which the GIs said was same same the USA).

 

 

[gobbledonk]

Guys, I need the budget to make a movie loosely based on this novel:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Guard

 

It probably IS a Neo-Nazi manifesto, but the combination sounds fascinating for mine. No mention of Dien Bien Phu in the Wikipedia entry on the book, but what director would not give his right testicle for the budget to show Legion paratroopers descending slowly from the sky amid mortar and cannonfire ? I reckon I'll need a few million purely for this scene, but it will rival anything Spielberg has done

 

Wagemueller had pretty crap instincts when it came to picking the winning side, and I wouldnt let him off as easily as the author has. Any account of the battle reads like a horror story, bodies piled high on the ground around the survivors, but the French got was coming to them, just as the Nazis had done in Europe 9 years earlier.

 

If I win enough tonight to make the movie, my final scene will show Wagemueller hunched over in the middle of a column of captured soldiers being marched north by the Viet Minh. His eyes are blank - two decades of constant fighting, torture and brutality have amounted to nought - and he is haunted by images of victims from Europe to Asia. This will be a broken man - no home, no family, not even a country to call his own - now at the mercy of people he has terrorised and subjugated for a few Francs every month.

 

Instead, Elford allowed his protagionist to retire quietly in Asia - exactly why a man who saw Asians as 'sub-human' would want to do that escapes me, but the book is reportedly very popular. I have no trouble believing that the Legion recruited former SS soldiers following WWII - the French Army still considers the Legion to be expendable and they have been given sharp end roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Having foreigners handy to do your dirty work has been popular in Europe for many years - why risk French lives first when you have someone else to send into the meat grinder ?

[USVirgin]

My Filipino father-in-law made his initial bucks selling post WWII scraps (US tanks and the like), mainly to the Japanese. All above board, as far as I know, but done via a related broker in Hong Kong, so it was a good situation for him. He also spent a lot of time in Washington either lobbying or testifying for war reparations for the PI (somehow related to his business, I assume). Never met the man...he died before I met my wife.

[Old Hippie]

My former father in Law was a Moro Guerrilla (gorilla?) fighter during the war. I recall 1 visit we were in the house, and word came some Japanese were in town headed to the beach. He picked up his bolo and said "I don't trust them, I will put an eye on them!" Old memories never go I suppose, great guy, he just died or maybe as MacArthur put it, he just faded away.