Leo Major makes Rambo look like a wimp, but also terrifyingly non-fictional. From the before times when we didn't use hockey to channel our rage into the gooses.
The Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939, which led to Germany lending support to Finland.
Finland then joined with the Axis powers from 1941-1944 but then switched sides to the Allied Forces from 1944-1945.
Finland was in a crappy spot between a rock and a hard place. That’s not to say that they were blameless but rather that they were busy fighting the Soviets and needed the help that the Nazis gave.
However, for Simo Häyhä specifically, he left the Finnish military in 1940 due to a serious injury before Finland joined the Axis.
Finland wasn't Axis power. Simo Häyhä was in Winter War, and at the time there was Molotov -Ribbentrop pact. France and Britain were planning to help Finland, but Norway and Sweden weren't very happy about plans, because troops would have to come through those countries.
I dont blame the French for surrendering after experiencing a brand new style of warfare featuring thousands of dudes on meth driving tanks at you 24/7.
Nah, they were still pretty incompetent in the handling of their defense. They would have eventually lost even with their best effort, but they really didn’t even put up a fight. The Germans were sitting ducks as they were picking their way through the Ardennes. The French squandered an opportunity to inflict some serious pain.
I kinda blame them for building fortifications where their border with the Germans was and not along the ENTIRE vulnerable border. That was a predictably terrible move, even at the time they should have known that they were incredibly vulnerable on their Belgium border.
The plan was to build the fortifications where they could and move their army to defend where they couldn’t. The plan for at least a decade was to move troops into Belgium and save on man power using the Maginot line.
The issue is Belgium wouldn’t allow the French and British to put soldiers in Belgium because they honestly thought Germany would respect Belgium neutrality.
The French didn’t expand the maginot line to the border with Belgium because it’s not exactly inspiring if your friend builds a wall on your border with them while promising they are going to defend you. Also it was extremely expensive. Like almost double digit percentage of the military expenditure interwar.
I'm perfectly aware that America also has racists, but those racists did not gleefully get their hands dirty in this particular genocide, even if they would have liked to.
You’re vastly underestimating American racism. We literally held a Nazi rally (full on nazi rally) in MADISON SQUARE GARDEN and we had a hero like Lindbergh who, if not for the Japanese attack, would have ran against FDR and had a real chance in 1944. Despite him being a eugenicist and fascist.
I do not mean to endorse Lindbergh by calling him a hero, but to embody the contemporary mood of the country. He did a real hard and impressive thing a few times and then turned out to be a scumbag piece of shit.
I'm not underestimating American racism. Hence why I said "this particular genocide." I was also well aware of the Nazi rallies, as well as prominent honorary Nazis like Lindbergh and Henry Ford.
Arguably the Polish did more and are far more frequently overlooked. Then there are the Yugoslavian partisans that made la resistance look like a sewing circle. Canada, Australia and India also contributed massively in the war and are almost always overlooked as well.
Then there is China who contributed as much, frankly, as any of the three big allies.
Many brave partisans. Automatically executed if caught.
But the Vichy French government, that controlled the military, actively fought against the allies in Africa. Churchill essentially begged their navy to join the allies and they refused, preferring to directly fight the British instead.
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u/drquakers 9d ago
American steel, British Intelligence and Russian blood.