Answer the poll!
I think WW1 is far more fascinating than WW2. WW2 seems rather straightforward, with good guys and bad guys, while WW1 is just one huge clusterfuck where everybody gets in over their heads for no reason whatsoever. Makes for far more interesting analysis and history.
I’m sorry, but I could not find a good choice on the poll.
You see, I do agree with many Historians that are reporting that WWI and WWII were one war with a 20 year hiatus.
Yeah, and I subscribe to that theory as well.
But the fact is that there were two separate wars. They’ve might have been interconnected, but they were separated by 20 years.
WWII, for the machines. Aircraft, ships, subs, tanks, jeeps, ‘ducks’, firearms… They’re all fascinating.
For WWI, I’m into the aircraft and air battles. If someone would give me a couple-hundred million dollars to make a film, I have a couple of biographies on Richthofen, and a book that’s a forensic examination of his last flight. I’d love to direct an historical drama on him.
But overall, I like the campaigns, equipment, and theatres of WWII.
WWII. The whole Holocaust thing really gives WWII a certain je ne sais quoi.
Wow, are you me? This is pretty much exactly how I feel about both wars. By the by, have you seen Roger Corman’s movie “Von Richtofen and Brown”? It has its problems, but I guess it’s my favourite WWI aircraft movie (an interest of mine).
I think I am primarily more interested in WWII just because my dad fought in it, as did my uncles, and my mom worked for Bethlehem Steel for the duration. Both of my grandfathers were not the right age to have participated in WWI, so there is no family connection there.
On the other hand, I do find the leadup to WWI fascinating–in a watching a train wreck in slo-mo kind of way. Recently read Catrine Clay’s *King, Kaiser, Tsar *for an interesting look at the royal cousins.
WWII just has so many compelling themes. WWI has always struck me as just an especially bloody variant of an endless series of aristocratic wars.
WWI was the breaking of nations and empire.
WWII was just another (very huge) war.
I like WWII 'cause my parents were in it, plus you get more visuals with war news reels, listening to old WWII newscast and OTR which provides more info.
WWI amounts to a lot of trench warfare, which can be boring unless you find that interesting. I agree the politics behind WWII is more straightforward than in WWI. But the political maneuvering in WWI was mostly before the start of the war. Though That is also very interesting.
WWII. Dad had a huge collection of WWII books that I read through. Fascinating, the brilliance and stupidity that both sides displayed. Also all the personal stories that let me get a feeling for what the war did to so many lives.
World War II laid the foundations for the world we live in today. WWI seems kind of nineteenth century. Also, for me it’s not so fun to read about things that are pointless, sad and wasteful to a horrific degree.
ETA: so, my choice is WWII.
That way, we get to laugh at the Italians for switching their allegiances four times in one war.
Speaking of WWI, has anyone been to a 94th Aero Squadron restaurant? I used to love going there when I was a kid. Back then, the planes were in poor condition, as if they’d been abandoned at the farmhouse. (Maybe just the ones in San Diego are ‘airworthy-looking’ – though they weren’t when I was a kid if I do recall directly. It’s been probably 8 years since I’ve been to the one in Van Nuys, and I don’t remember how theirs looked.) It’s nice to stroll the grounds and look at the ‘WW1 French Farmhouse’ and the planes and cannons and vehicles (even if they are anachronistic), and watch the ducks and geese wander about. Inside, some booths have headphones so diners can listen to the tower and aircraft. Good prime rib, too.
It depends on what mood I’m in.
I find WW2 more interesting because there is a whole wide range of theaters to study: Europe, Russia, South Pacific, Northern Africa, U Boat, Burma. Most of WWI seems to be just slogging in the mud of France although to prelude to war is interesting in a train wreck way. You always want to grab these people and say “what are you getting into? Is it really worth the millions of dead”?
WWII, because I’m a Naval buff. While there were definite naval aspects in WWI (the Goeben incident and the Battle of Jutland in particular) at no point was the naval war in the position to be decisive for any side in that war.
With WWII, the importance of Naval operations are everywhere: the Battle of the Atlantic; the Siege of Malta; the sortie of the Bismark and the sinking of the Hood; to the cruise of the Atlantis and her role in the fall of Singapore; Pearl Harbor; the destruction of Force Z…
Obviously not all of these incidents are strategic lynch pins, but many of them are. Just to consider one often over-looked aspect: Had Malta been starved into inactivity the North African campaigns would have been far more difficult and costly with the Akrika Korps getting unimpeded supplies from home.
My dad was in the Navy. He had a WWII service ribbon, but I’m not sure of the timing. I think he joined the Army in 1945; but he had 22 years total service in the Army and Navy, and he retired in 1968. Maybe he took a year off between services? Anyway, as an enlisted man in the Navy, he was Combat Aircrew in Skyraiders flying off of Essex-class carriers (CV-47 Philippine Sea and CV-16 Lexington). As an officer, he served in CLG-5 Oklahoma City, which was built and fought during WWII. (Erm… Obviously not a CLG at the time. 
) So you can see why I’m into the Naval aspects (and aircraft) of WWII. Dad flew in almost-WWII airplanes, and served in WWII ships.
As a child I was exposed to monkey-pod bowls and stuff, South Pacific themes, and I lived in Japan when I was three and four. Watching The Family Film Festival and other shows on local TV, I watched films such as Father Goose, 'Operation Petticoat* (Dad loved the scene where the guy rides his motorcycle off the pier), Donavan’s Reef, and any number of WWII movies. So even today I imagine being on an island somewhere in the South Pacific without computers, mobile phones – or even telephones – microwave ovens, etc. It appeals to the Romantic in me. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki. Imagine setting off in a raft for the South Seas! Even The Endless Summer. That was 1964, when the places they went were exotic. That they made a successful film on a wind-up Bolex is also interesting to me.
Yes, there was a war on; and yes, many of those idyllic islands were mosquito-infested high-humidity ovens. But still, it’s an aspect of WWII that I can almost kinda-sorta relate to; unlike sitting in two feet of mud in a trench somewhere in Europe.
The combination of unrelenting horror and utter pointlessness of WWI holds a fascination for me. The emergence of industrial war with killing on an industrial scale, contrasted with the still-existent traditional “gentleman’s warfare” (resulting in scenes like an equestrian cavalry charging tanks)… god it was all so bizarre and horrific. Add in the complete lack of anything we would consider a morally just underpinning – it actually boggles my mind whenever I try to think about it.