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World War II: Difference between revisions
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** The Polish Army didn't just fall apart, either. A good part of those who managed to flee the invasion soon joined other Allied armies. There were quite a lot of Poles fighting in the Battle of Britain, including the legendary No. 303 Squadron.
*** Those who fled east and got captured by the Soviets or otherwise ended up on their territory, joined the Polish Army which the Soviets started putting together after Hitler turned on them.
*** The ones who stayed in German-occupied Poland and managed to avoid capture by the Nazis went
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: Admiral Spruance of the US Navy, who may have been America's best Admiral.
** Archibald Wavell, an eccentric nerd-like general, under whose command the
*** True story about Wavell: He once asked his adjutant "Have you seen my Browning?" The poor man spent several hours looking for a pistol before he realized Wavell was actually looking for his copy of "The Collected Works..."
** Generalleutnant Hans Speidel, Rommel's Chief of Staff in Normandy. Dr. in History and Economy. Also one of the few known conspirators in the July 1944 plot to actually survive.
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* [[Big Bulky Bomb]]: By the middle of the war, the Allies were dropping Blockbuster Bombs on target cities, so named because they could destroy an entire city block. The British also deployed the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam", single high-explosive bombs that weighed in at 12,000 and ''22,000'' pounds respectively... they were essentially the over-sized and unguided predecessors of modern bunker-busters. By the end, the U.S. had developed—and deployed -- [[Atomic Hate|the first nuclear weapons]].
* [[The Big Guy]]: On a grand scale, the Soviet Union was this for the Allies, fighting over 80% of the German army.
* [[Black and White Morality]]: One of the few historical wars to still routinely get this treatment in fiction. The Axis were bad, the Allies were good. The reality was a lot closer to [[Black and Grey Morality]]; most of the Axis forces were most certainly bad by any sane measure, but the Allies (
** Perhaps closer to [[Grey and Grey Morality]]. It was generally seen that way at the time. It was only after the war that it became clear exactly what the Axis powers had been doing with civilians in their spare time.
** It is kind of rare among wars, though, that in the aftermath no one argued the need to fight it. Even the losers seemed to agree they lost, fair and square.
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* [[Elites Are More Glamorous]]: In general, this war is recognized as the first one in which major nations fielded unconventional units on a large scale. Let's break it down by country:
** Germany: Rudimentary commando tactics were utilized to [[Storming the Castle|take down a massive fortress on the Polish border]], they would later field the [[Master of Disguise|Brandenburgers]], and the SS generally served as their [[Elite Mooks]].
** Britain: Both the Special Air Service and Royal Marine Commandos originated in this war, and were the first "special forces" units as we understand them. They'd later field the Special Boat Service for purposes of beach recon, riverine infiltration, and generally being badass. It's definitely worth noting that they pulled off some absolutely ''insane'' shit, just read a few
** America: Their first commando unit was a new and improved Army Rangers regiment, who proceeded to kick ass and take names in Italy. Regular grunts could volunteer to be trained by the British and earn a Green Beret. Marine Raiders and Navy UDTs aren't around anymore, but their tactics and training laid the groundwork for Force Recon and the SEALs.
** USSR: Guards regiments - promoted from normal stats for
* [[Enemy Mine]]: A lot of this. The alliance between the Soviets and the Western Allies wasn't very natural.
** Finland and Nazi Germany as well. Both of them hated the Soviets, so they teamed up against them. Finland was the only democratic, non-racist and non-fascist Axis country.
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* [[Friend or Foe]]: Type D, and usually attributed to the Americans. There was a joke that if German/Italian planes went over, the British ducked; if British planes went over, the Germans/Italians ducked; and if American planes went over, everyone ducked.
* [[Gambit Pileup]]: While it is remembered in a straightforward way by many people, the dozens of factions trying to survive qualify it for this.
* [[Glamorous Wartime Singer]]: Marlene Dietrich stands out. Her "Lili
** It was not "her" song in the first place, it was Lale Andersen's, who sang it on the German radio set in Belgrade. The song proved to be extremely popular among both Germans and Western Allies.
** [[Vera Lynn]] was extremely popular among the British forces, she was called "The Forces' Sweetheart."
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** Admiral Kimmel's office had a picture window with a lovely view of Pearl Harbor. As he stood and watched his fleet being annihilated, a spent Japanese machine-gun round punched through the window, bounced off his chest, and fell to the ground, leaving a black smudge on his uniform. He was heard to say to no one in particular, "It would have been more merciful if it had killed me."
*** The first thing Kimmel did at the attack's conclusion was to remove two stars from his four-star uniform. In the American military system, only ranks up to two star general/admiral officer are considered permanent; three- and four-star ranks are awarded by assignment and are removed when that officer's tour is complete. The act of removing his stars was symbolic of Kimmel's realization that there was no possible way he would retain his command in the investigation to follow.
** During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey's Task Force 34 was drawn north by a diversionary Japanese fleet, leaving the invasion force without most of its defenses. Nimitz, from Pearl Harbor, was seeing messages of the battle at Leyte Gulf and seeing no sign of Halsey sent the following message: "Where is Task Force 34? The world wonders." The second part was not part of the original message, but was padding that was supposed to be discarded after decoding (and itself was from ''The Charge of the Light Brigade''), though some think the decoder deliberately left it in.
* [[Heroic Neutral]]: For a given value of both 'heroic' and 'neutral', until the Japanese Cabinet [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant|ordered an attack]] [[What an Idiot!|on the US Fleet.]]
** Sums up the attitude of most US citizens, at any rate. The US government was just itching for a war with the Axis. The Japanese saw that and the Germans did as well - especially given the undeclared naval war between US naval forces in the Atlantic and the U-boats, not to mention Lend-Lease.
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* [[Honor Before Reason]]: [[Winston Churchill|...We Shall Never Surrender!]]
** The Japanese variety was perhaps closer to Honor ''Without'' Reason. This contributed to their loss of air superiority. Not only did many pilots refuse to bail out of their fighters or to retreat, the Navy saw recovering downed pilots as their least important problem. Meanwhile, the Americans put considerable effort into saving theirs. The result was that the Japanese lost more and more experienced pilots and found their method of replacing them was wildly inadequate, while the number of experienced American pilots grew and they could send some of their best home to train new pilots.
*** This was compounded by the fact that the Kamikaze system forced many would-be pilots to die far before their time. Dying in a Kamikaze divebomb was considered to be an honor, but it
*** The brutalization of their conscripts and the peer pressure of the honour system contributed to the mistreatment of POWs and civilians. By [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|mistreatment]], we mean all sorts of unpleasant things that one does not mention in most company, polite or otherwise.
** Germany and Italy also suffer from this, having decided to declare war on America alongside Japan.
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** During the worst of the Siege of Leningrad, as food shortages led to widespread death by starvation, this happened quite a bit.
* [[Ironic Echo]]: Enforced. Hitler signed the peace with France in the same rail carriage where the Germans had signed the 1918 armistice.
* [[I Shall Return]]: [[Trope Maker]], from Gen. MacArthur after he left the
* [[It Got Worse]]: People called WWI "The war to end all wars". They were ''very'' wrong.
* [[It's Personal]]: The reason both the United States and the Soviet Union entered the war: being attacked by the Axis directly. Until that point, they attempted to remain neutral.
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* [[Knight Templar]]: Several, on both sides. Hitler was probably the craziest one.
* [[La Résistance]]: The [[Trope Namer]] was active during this war in France, of course, but every occupied country had a resistance movement to one degree or another. Some countries actually had more than one movement - e.g. a communist one plus a monarchist one ([[We ARE Struggling Together!|it wasn't unusual for them to end up fighting each other as well]]). China had so many turncoats-turned-resistance fighters-turned-bandits that the historical community generally wrings its hands and splits it up into local and regional warlords, nationalist guerrillas, communist guerrillas and Chinese Communist Party guerrillas, with some room for overlap.
** There was big
*** They played huge role in operation Bagration: Germans were led to
** Poland's is very famous for its [[The Dog Bites Back|attempted uprising.]]
*** Make that two uprisings: one in 1943 by the Jews in the Ghetto, the other by the Home Army in 1944.
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** Hence [[Axis Powers Hetalia|Hetalia.]]
** Some say that Hitler having to bail them out of Greece caused a crucial delay in his invasion of the Soviet Union. We all know the might of General Winter. Invading Yugoslavia also delayed him, something that was likely not needed as the Yugoslav government post-coup would still follow through with their treaty obligations. The major reason why the Germans invaded that country was because Hitler felt the Yugoslavs had [[It's All About Me|personally insulted him]] with the coup-d'état. They even called the bombing of Belgrade "Operation Punishment".
** Italy wasn't ready for the war for a series of reasons, the most evident of which being that the Italian industry, while capable to produce some fine equipment and in full expansion, was just too small to adequately support its armed forces in such a vast war (in fact, Mussolini knew this, and had Italy enter the war when France was all but conquered and Britain seemed about to sue for peace. Then Britain choose to fight, and Mussolini started to realize he was holding the [[Idiot Ball]]). Then there were the problems of the armed forces. The air force, while equipped with capable attack
* [[Local Angle]]: Every nation's newspapers tended to focus on their own war efforts, though some did this more than others. The biggest campaigns and battles usually made the headlines everywhere, though.
* [[Macross Missile Massacre]]:
** Soon followed by Germans' Nebelwefers and US Calliopes.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: Josef Mengele and the scientists of the Japanese Unit 731.
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* [[Nuke'Em]]: [[Trope Maker]] and thankfully, the only [[Real Life]] examples so far.
* [[Oh Crap]]: The Normandy Invasion used [[wikipedia:DD tank|DD Tanks]], a very early amphibious model which had a skirt that extended up higher than the turret, providing buoyancy. Most actually sank before reaching shore, but the first one of the ones to actually reach Juno beach looked out and later shared their view:
{{quote|I was the first tank coming ashore and the Germans started opening up with machine guns. But when we came to a halt on the beach, it was only then that they realized we were a tank when we pulled down our canvas skirt, the
* [[Order Versus Chaos]]: Nazi ideology is based upon a fabricated myth about Aryans, with strong emotional attachments to the state with the aid of romantic and religious symbolism and imagery. The Stalinist-Soviets claimed an ideology based upon 'rationalism' and a society based upon people-centric utilitarianism with
** Japanese ideology of the time is based upon the religion-ideology of State Shinto, though it had no need to fabricate a myth; they just held up the old myths about the creation of the world, the Japanese people and the part-kami lineage of the Emperor as true. Japan was far more effective than any other state at implementing a totalitarian government; the only thing that held it back was the Emperor's unwillingness to step forward and command his people directly. The one time he did so, they obeyed with stunning quiescence.
* [[One-Way Trip]]: Operation ''Ten-Go'' by the Japanese. The participants had absolutely no illusions about the fate that awaited them. but they believed they were [[Last Stand|going to die in a heroic stand and thus possibly help to save Japan]], rather than be annihilated in a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] without accomplishing anything."
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** A third of what was on paper the Army of the Republic of China remained loyal to what was in theory the government, i.e. half the Guomindang Divisions remained loyal to Jiang Jieshi. Most of the others weren't killed, though there was a high turnover rate. China had so many turncoats-turned-resistance fighters-turned-bandits that the historical community generally despairs of cataloguing them all, wringing its hands and splitting them up into local and regional warlords, nationalist guerrillas, communist guerrillas and Chinese Communist Party guerrillas, with some room for overlap. Ironically, the Nationalist Party's willingness to deal with Quisling Warlords after the war ended did a lot to alienate Chinese nationalists, though few people had problems with turncoat soldiers. A job was a job, after all.
** The United States had [[wikipedia:Martin James Monti|a few]], but it was mostly subverted. On the "played straight" side, a few of the business class sided with fascism, as did the German-American Bund (with shades of [[The Mole]]). On the subverted side...
*** Japanese-Americans did ''not'' betray the United States, though white Americans assumed they would. (It seems most of
*** Goebbels, trying to create an entire ''race'' of Quislings, declared the Sioux to be Aryan. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|It backfired horribly]]; National Socialist activity was quickly outlawed on many reservations and they declared war on Germany before the United States declared war on Japan. (The Iroquois had never retracted their last declaration of war.)
** An example with a particularly nasty end was [[wikipedia:Andrey Vlasov|General Andrey Vlasov]]. A very promising General in the Red Army, he was captured by the Germans during the 1941-1942 Winter Counter-Offensives. He promptly volunteered to help raise and command an anti-Soviet Army out of Russian prisoners of war. At the end of the war he was (re)captured by the Soviets, who were ''extremely'' public about [[Cold-Blooded Torture|his fate.]]
* [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]]:
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** The aptly named "Nanjing Massacre" began with a simple order from Prince Asaka: "Kill all captives". His forces ended up branching into wanton destruction, looting and sexual assault. Thus the moniker 'the ''Rape'' of [[Why Mao Changed His Name|Nanking]]'.
** The German army did this quite often during their invasion. Russian families would be busted out of their own homes, doomed to a slow death. Many monuments were also destroyed, including Tolstoy's house, and of course, the "rape" part of the trope was not figurative.
** When the men of the Red Army finally entered Germany in 1945, after four years of death and destruction in the Soviet Union at the hands of the Germans, they were very angry. Despite direct orders from Stalin
** There are many instances of rape being dealt with quietly and confidentially and being covered up, even on the Allied side. The potential for political damage inherent in such crimes could be immense, as the reaction to such offences in subsequent - less well-censored - conflicts has shown. Nothing causes people to openly question a War of Liberation so much as a good spot of Rape, Pillage and Burn.
* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Most Allied leaders. The Axis leaders, however...
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** Let's be honest. [[wikipedia:Sportpalast speech|"Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?"]]
** At 3 July, during official appeal to people, Stalin gave impressive speech and said phrase, that became slogan for entire war: "Our way is right, enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours".
*** Levitan was a radio announcer
** Charles De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June 1940.
{{quote|"This war is a worldwide war. All the mistakes, all the delays, all the suffering, do not alter the fact that there are, in the world, all the means necessary to crush our enemies one day. Vanquished today by mechanical force, in the future we will be able to overcome by a superior mechanical force. The fate of the world depends on it."}}
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* [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler]]
* [[The Spartan Way]]: The German and Japanese military forces in general. Any commando school worth its salt. And so on.
* [[Supervillain Lair]]: While not all can be considered supervillains, a few of the major leaders had some pretty cool lairs from where they conducted the war. Roosevelt, of course, had the White House and the Japanese were in the process of finishing their massive underground Matsushiro Imperial Headquarters when they surrendered. Stalin simply went into the Metro
* [[Taking You with Me]]: Japanese High Command's contingency plans for when the Home Islands were finally invaded. [[wikipedia:Operation Downfall|Thankfully for everyone involved, this never happened.]]
** Also Hitler's plans to take the German nation with him. The surviving forces surrendered a few days after his suicide.
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* [[Token Good Teammate]]: Finland was this to the Axis. A democratic, non-fascist, non-racist country which was only fighting to retake their territory from the Soviets. Of course, the fact that they did this alongside Hitler was a bit of a moral gray spot; they were merely caught between two monsters.
** Just to specify how strange Finland was among the other Axis powers: The Finns had many Jews in their army who fought alongside Nazi volunteers. The only thing that united them, really, was the goal of defending Finland from invasion.
*** When Himmler asked if they need help in solving
** Don't forget the
*** Jewish Finnish soldiers often did not accept German decorations.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant|The attack on Pearl Harbor]]. Unfortunately, the nature of politics in Japan made this inevitable once the Army had failed to deliver in their attack on China and the Cabinet refused to negotiate a peace settlement with the Guomindang. Then, Hitler and his decision to declare war on the United States immediately thereafter. Less
* [[Trope Codifier]]: How many pop culture icons of [[The Forties]], [[The Fifties]], and [[The Sixties]] have their genesis here?
* [[Truce Zone]]: Any given neutral country. If strategically important, these tended to become a [[City of Spies]].
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