WWII on the US mainland?

The fake quote about Japan not attacking the US because of all the American guns is exactly that: fake. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour brought the US into the war, but that was not in the 48 States. The Japanese had their own version of the Doolittle raid, but they used a submarine instead of using an Aircraft carrier. Unfortunately, the type of plane and navigation system meant that the submarine based raids were more a morale booster for the Japanese than a significant action.

Likewise, There were things like the Bombardment of Ellwood, CA by submarine.  And the Japanese firebomb baloon programme which were also dismal failures. The bottom line was that most WWII bombers did not have the range to attack the mainland US.  The Germans did have their Amerika Bomber programme, which fortunately didn't get anywhere.  Even more fortunately, the German rocket and heavy water programmes never got anywhere either.
So, it was primarily logistics and inability to hit the US mainland which is far more of a reason the US was never attacked.

Still, there was also a sea war off the coast of the US. The period from January to around August 1942 was called the Second Happy Time, or American Shooting Season, by German U-Boat Commanders. US Anti-submarine defense measures were weak and disorganized during
that period The U-boats were able to inflict massive damage with little risk. During this period, Axis submarines sank 609 ships totaling 3.1 million tons and the loss of thousands of lives, mainly those of merchant mariners, against a loss of only 22 U-boats. This was roughly one quarter of all shipping sunk by U-boats during the entire Second World War.

  The German submarine U-869 was found off the coast of New Jersey in 1991. The U-550 was found off the Coast of Massachusetts in 2012.  The latest find is in North Carolina.  Unlike the other two U-boats I mentioned, this one also has one of its victims nearby.

A research team using sonar found the wrecks of U-boat 576 and the freighter Bluefields on 30 August in waters off Cape Hatteras, just 240 yards apart. The U-boat had attacked the Bluefields, which was operating under the flag of Nicaragua and was part of a convoy of 19 merchant ships.

There are at least another 19 of these German submarines lying off the US Coast.

The reality is that North America was attacked during WWII, but most of those have been forgotten due to the ineffectiveness and relative insignificance of the attacks on the US Mainland.  The reality was that it wasn't guns that kept the US from being attacked as much as other strategic considerations which made a large scale attack, like that at Pearl Harbour, unlikely.


See also:

• Misquoting Yamamoto
  
• Japanese Bomb the Continental U. S. West Coast
• Japanese bombing of the US West Coast in WWII
• Attacks on North American in WWII
• BBC News - WW2 U-boat found with ship it sank off North Carolina
• Wreck of German U-boat and ship it sank found off North Carolina coast | US news | theguardian.com 
• US Coastal Defences WWII

A day late...

I've mentioned this group before...
  
The White Rose, who were executed 70 years ago yesterday. True Heroes.

The White Rose, was formed by students at the University of Munich in 1941. It is believed that the group was formed after August von Galen, the Archbishop of Munster, spoke out in a sermon against the Nazi practice of euthanasia (the killing of those considered by the Nazis as genetically unsuitable).

Members of this anti-Nazi group included Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Inge Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf and Jugen Wittenstein. Kurt Huber, a philosophy teacher at the university, was also a member of the group.

The group decided to adopt the strategy of passive resistance that was being used by students fighting against racial discrimination in the United States. This included publishing leaflets calling for the restoration of democracy and social justice. These were distributed throughout central Germany and the Gestapo soon became aware of the group's activities.

Several members had served in the German Army before resuming their studies. This provided them with information about the atrocities being committed by the Schutz Staffeinel (SS). Willi Graf had served as a medical orderly in France and Yugoslavia in 1941 whereas Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell had seen Jews being murdered in Poland and the Soviet Union. When Scholl and Schmorell returned to Munich in November, 1942, they joined up with Graff and began publishing leaflets about what they had seen while in the army.

The leaflets were at first sent anonymously to people all over Germany. Taking the addresses from telephone directories, they tended to concentrate on mailing university lecturers and the owners of bars. In Passive Resistance to National Socialism , published in 1943 the group explained the reasons why they had formed the White Rose group: "We want to try and show them that everyone is in a position to contribute to the overthrow of the system. It can be done only by the cooperation of many convinced, energetic people - people who are agreed as to the means they must use. We have no great number of choices as to the means. The meaning and goal of passive resistance is to topple National Socialism, and in this struggle we must not recoil from our course, any action, whatever its nature. A victory of fascist Germany in this war would have immeasurable, frightful consequences."

The White Rose group believed that the young people of Germany had the potential to overthrow Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. In one leaflet, Fellow Fighters in the Resistance, they wrote: "Germans! Do you and your children want to suffer the same fate that befell the Jews? Do you want to be judged by the same standards as your traducers? Are we do be forever the nation which is hated and rejected by all mankind? No. Dissociate yourselves from National Socialist gangsterism. Prove by your deeds that you think otherwise. A new war of liberation is about to begin." The group also began painting anti-Nazi slogans on the sides of houses. This included "Down With Hitler", "Hitler Mass Murderer" and "Freedom". They also painted crossed-out swastikas.

Members also began leaving piles of leaflets in public places. On 18th February, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl began distributing the sixth leaflet produced by the White Rose group. It included the following: "The day of reckoning has come - the reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is ruthlessly suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS, have tried to drug us, to regiment us in the most promising years of our lives. For us there is but one slogan: fight against the party! The name of Germany is dishonoured for all time if German youth does not finally rise, take revenge, smash its tormentors."

Jakob Schmidt, a member of the Nazi Party, saw them at the University of Munich, throwing leaflets from a window of the third floor into the courtyard below. He immediately told the Gestapo and they were both arrested. They were searched and the police found a handwritten draft of another leaflet. This they matched to a letter in Scholl's flat that had been signed by Christoph Probst.

The three members of the White Rose group appeared before the People's Court judge, Roland Friesler, on 20th February. Found guilty of sedition they were executed by guillotine a few hours later. Her cell-mate, Else Gebel, said Sophie's last words were: "It is such a splendid sunny day, and I have to go. But how many have to die on the battlefield in these days, how many young, promising lives. What does my death matter if by our acts thousands are warned and alerted." Just before he was executed Hans Scholl shouted out: "Long live freedom!"

Inge Scholl and her parents were also arrested and imprisoned. Over the next few weeks Kurt Huber, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Jugen Wittenstein and over eighty others suspected of being members of the White Rose group were taken into custody. Huber, Graff and Schmorell were all found guilty of sedition and were executed.

Copies of this leaflet made their way to Allied territory and were republished and dropped by airplane on Germany.

(BTW, I believe one of the White Rose members had a gun when he was arrested).

Police Shootings in Germany Compared to the US

via Dialog International

 Last year German police fired off 85 bullets in total - in a nation of 85 million people: 

Police officers in Germany fired 85 bullets in 2011 in the entire country while pursuing crminals; 49 of these were warning shots.  The police fired targeted shots at individuals 36 times, during which 15 people were wounded and six killed, according to statistics provided by the Police College in Muenster.

Meanwhile the New York City police fired slightly fewer bullets - 84 bullets, to be exact - at one man, while their colleagues in Los Angeles fired 90 times at an unarmed teenager.  Still, there is far too little bloody mayhem in the United States to satisfy the NRA; the organizaiton is pushing to allow concealed weapons in schools, churches, hospitals, and even courtrooms. 

Read Battleground America: One Nation Under the Gun.

What could possibly account for that staggering difference? Why do comparisons between the US and Switzerland as well as comparisons between the US and the UK abound, but you never hear anything about Germany? What's going on over there?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.