Tomahawk wrote:
Studs Terkel wrote an enlightening book about such things: The Good War (1984) ISBN 0-394-53103-5
It covers many different aspects of injustice that were glossed over during WWII.
But he's hardly impartial. A look at his political leanings seems to indicate that.
Yes, he may have been correct in as much as some stuff happened, but I'd be very careful about holding him up as a objective historian.
For every case he cites, there were a dozens or hundreds of cases of the contracts being fulfilled properly.
In the sheer numbers that made up WWII, you're always going to have a percentage of bad actors.
If I cherry-picked cases, I could paint all WWII American GIs as drunks and rapists, because there were some in the service.
Yes, Eisenhower warned about the "military-industrial complex", but ever since then a portion of the public has used that term,
and the cover it provides in coming from a respected general turned politician, to attack the military and its procurement system.
A
healthy bit of skepticism is fine, but when
taken too far, tends to create bogymen under the bed where nothing exists...and when taken too far as a matter of policy, can be very damaging.
Minor rant:
That same "trick" of using a respected man's words to show support for an argument is frequently done.
How many times have you seen a Sabuaru with the bumper sticker "You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. --Albert Einstein"?
Yes, Einstein was a very bright guy...but that doesn't mean he was right on everything.
Tomahawk wrote:
SaxMan - "Flak Bait" has been in need of restoration (or at the very least, conservation) since before the end of the war. There are many, many important combat a/c gathering dust and corrosion for lack of funds to restore them. It will take decades to restore the present-day projects at the current rate of completion.
Don't get me started on the NASM's restoration policy. It seems they've gone out of their way to restore everything except the important American combat aircraft.
My main argument is there is no B-17. Can you imagine a UK museum without a Lancaster or a Russian museum without an IL-2? Yes, they have a nice Keith Ferris mural on the wall downtown, but no real aircraft and they've never been in a hurry to restore one they've had since 1949 (
The Swoose)...but at least they finally gave it to the NMSAF after 60-odd years.
Yes, we should save more of the ac that did the bulk of the fighting. But what are there...200 each Mustangs and Spitfires flying?...plus who knows how many in museums.
But that doesn't mean that the Buffalo should be forgotten.
Again, it was not a bad airplane, just obsolete before others. Because the guy who made it may have been a crook, doesn't mean the aircraft itself was criminally bad or we should forget the role it played.