Other than Hitler, name a figure associated with WWII

[RickJay]

Winston Churchill.

[CrimeThink]

Rommel was the most immediate name to come to my head for some reason.

[Doctor_Jackson]

Another vote for Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated American soldiers in the war.

[bump]

@aceplace57

I’m struck by how easily I found it to name historical figures from WWII. I listed several names in my earlier post because they all came to me at once. I could name 20 if I thought about it.

I found the WWI thread much harder. I’m surprised at how little I know about that war’s historical figures.

Yeah, that’s what happened to me. Once I started thinking about it, they just started boiling up out of my memory based on battles, etc…

I am sort of a history buff, so that helps. World War 1 is tougher- fewer ground officers, and more naval ones in my head, I think.

[bump]

@Nelson_Pike

In keeping with OP’s Eastern Front theme:

Soviet Lieutenant General Vasili Chuikov.

Chuikov was commander in chief of the Stalingrad garrison throughout its epic, victorious, turning-point defense.

Two years and three months after the last German remnants surrendered in Stalingrad, Chuikov, now CIC of the 8th Guards Army, led Soviet forces in the Battle of Berlin, and personally took the final surrender of the German forces in the city.

Actually, Andrei Yeremenko was the Stalingrad area overall commander, and Chuikov was the commander of the 62nd Army, which was the unit actually in the city proper.

Chuikov was more like a corps commander, not one of the high brass like Zhukov, Yeremenko, Rokossovsky, Konev, etc… This is mostly because the Soviet formations were named strangely- a Soviet “Army” was equivalent to a corps, a Soviet “Front” was more akin to a named Army, and they didin’t really have an equivalent formation to a Army Group.

[Ranger_Jeff]

His Supremeness, the Emperor Douglas MacArthur I.

[Little_Nemo]

@Nelson_Pike

I expect there are plenty of non-English speakers who would agree that there is more to a World war than a war between only two nations, fought on one continent, with no naval combat. Some of those who agree might even be native Japanese or Chinese speakers.

Objectively, what happened was that there were two major continental wars being fought at approximately the same time; one that started in Asia in 1937 and one that started in Europe in 1939. As the wars grew they eventually merged into a single global war in 1941.

If you want to say that the global war can be traced back to its originating continental wars, I’d say that’s a reasonable position. But insisting that it can only be traced back to one of its originating continental wars seems Eurocentric to me.

[BigT]

Tibbets. Because I did a project on him and the Enola Gay. And my mind jumped from “guy who started the war” to “guy who ended the war,” despite the rather questionable accuracy.

[Little_Nemo]

@BigT

Tibbets. Because I did a project on him and the Enola Gay. And my mind jumped from “guy who started the war” to “guy who ended the war,” despite the rather questionable accuracy.

If you go with the 1937 argument, then the guy who started the war was Shimura Kikujiro. He was a Private in the Japanese Army. His unit was stationed near the border between Japanese-occupied Manchuria and the rest of China. Tensions were very high between Chinese and Japanese troops.

Shimura disappeared one night and a rumor quickly went around that Chinese troops had taken him prisoner. The Japanese commander demanded that the Chinese allow his troops to search in the Chinese half of the town for the missing Shimura. The Chinese commander refused to allow the Japanese troops in. Shots were fired and then situation escalated into a Japanese invasion of China which spread into World War II.

Meanwhile, it turned out that Shimura had just gone to the latrine and gotten lost on the way back. By the time the two commanders were making threats to each other, he was already back in his barracks.

[OffByOne]

@Mr.Kobayashi

Sister thread to the one on WWI which recently got bumped. Obviously 99% of people will immediately name Hitler as a person associated with WWII, so Adolf’s off the table. What’s the next name that comes to mind?

I thought of Zhukov just because I’ve been reading a lot about the Eastern Front (or Great Patriotic War, tovarish), what’s the name that springs to mind for you?

What, Eisenhower or Churchill didn’t spring to mind?

[Blue_Blistering_Barnacle]

Maybe not immediately next, but…

Oppenheimer. Szilard. Teller.

George de Hevesy (but I had to look his name up- I remembered the story, but not the who).

Aqua regia

When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation. They re-cast the medals and again presented them to Laue and Franck.[

[Nelson_Pike]

@bump

Actually, Andrei Yeremenko was the Stalingrad area overall commander, and Chuikov was the commander of the 62nd Army, which was the unit actually in the city proper.

Actually, I specified that Chuikov’s command was “the Stalingrad garrison”.

Got it now?

@bump

Chuikov was more like a corps commander, not one of the high brass like Zhukov, Yeremenko, Rokossovsky, Konev, etc… This is mostly because the Soviet formations were named strangely- a Soviet “Army” was equivalent to a corps, a Soviet “Front” was more akin to a named Army, and they didin’t really have an equivalent formation to a Army Group.

I knew about the numerical inequivalance of Soviet formations.

Chuikov eventually got his high brass Marshall’s baton post-war (I don’t know if Soviet Marshalls received literal batons as the Germans did, but I hope it does not bother anyone too much if they do not, since the word may be taken strictly as a metaphor).

[Little_Nemo]

@Nelson_Pike

Chuikov eventually got his high brass Marshall’s baton post-war (I don’t know if Soviet Marshalls received literal batons as the Germans did, but I hope it does not bother anyone too much if they do not, since the word may be taken strictly as a metaphor).

Nitpick but it’s Marshal. (I’m nitpicking a lot in this thread, aren’t I? Sorry.)

There were discussions during the war of creating the rank of Marshal in the American Army. The British, the Soviets, the French, and the Germans all had Marshals and it was thought the Americans should also have a rank above General so its military leaders would not look outranked by other countries.

But the possibility got shot down because the first obvious candidate for the rank would have been George Marshall and everyone realized Marshal Marshall would sound ridiculous.

[Nelson_Pike]

@Little_Nemo

Objectively, what happened was that there were two major continental wars being fought at approximately the same time; one that started in Asia in 1937 and one that started in Europe in 1939. As the wars grew they eventually merged into a single global war in 1941.

If you want to say that the global war can be traced back to its originating continental wars, I’d say that’s a reasonable position. But insisting that it can only be traced back to one of its originating continental wars seems Eurocentric to me.

China-Japan remained continental for over a year after continuous ground operations began in Africa in the summer of 1940.

Also, the fate of the world hinged solely on the outcome of the war in Europe, since the the war-making potential of EU belligerents was much greater than that of the Asian belligerents: Japan would never have dared go to war against the EU powers of South Asia had they not had their hands full against another EU power, and the USSR clobbered the Japanese on land at Nomonan/Khlakin Gol during the 1938 border war in Mongolia.

[Nelson_Pike]

@Little_Nemo

Nitpick but it’s Marshal. (I’m nitpicking a lot in this thread, aren’t I? Sorry.)

I don’t mind- thanks for the correction.

@Little_Nemo

There were discussions during the war of creating the rank of Marshal in the American Army. The British, the Soviets, the French, and the Germans all had Marshals and it was thought the Americans should also have a rank above General so its military leaders would not look outranked by other countries.

But the possibility got shot down because the first obvious candidate for the rank would have been George Marshall and everyone realized Marshal Marshall would sound ridiculous.

Ha ha- I had heard of that. I guess no one dared run “Generalissimo” by Marshall either.

I have always thought “Captain General” had a nice ring to it. I wonder if anyone tried to revive that after it fell into disuse.

[Bridget_Burke]

@mbh

Churchill
Roosevelt
Stalin
Tojo

My father (OK, you’ve never heard of him, but he was a big influence on me.)

Yeah.

I know the history of The Big War pretty well. But the first name that comes to *my *mind is on this list. One of the Allied airmen rescued from the Continent by the Comet Line…

[YogSothoth]

Stalin

[Brodi]

Witold Pilecki Polish officer who broke into Auschwitz to learn what was going on and managed to sneak back out.

Sabaton wrote a songabout him.

[Johanna]

First name to pop into my mind upon seeing the thread title was Noor Inayat Khan.
Next was Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

[DrDeth]

Admiral Canaris, head of German Intelligence, and a leader in the plot against Hitler
He saved quite a few Jews, too, and talked Franco into staying neutral. He was executed by Hitler in the last few weeks.

Honestly, all over Spain there should be statues to this guy.