If you’re going to bring up something I’ve discussed, and do so in a thread I’ve never posted in, you might at least make sure you get the facts and my position correct. I don’t think that’s asking for too much. Since you’ve seen fit to drag me into this discussion and misstate the facts while attributing that mistake to me, I suppose I’ll provide the requisite cite.
I remember reading NS Kruschev’s memoirs-he made a statement about the Russian losses-which I always wondered about. His statement was “we may have lost as many as a million lives”-this sounds quite incredible.
Yet, Kruschev certainly was in a position to know-is this huge number possible?
In addition to the British 14th Army, there were also American troops in Burma, for instance, “Merrill’s Marauders”, as well as Chinese troops under American command. Those were the troops I was talking about. I think the British army in Burma also used mules, but that was outside my statement.
There was also a Soviet general, Ieremenko or Timochenko, I don’t remember which one, who said * We barely captured enough ground to bury or dead*. So, yeah, I guess it is possible.
Maybe. But it’s hard to say just on Kruschev’s word. First, Kruschev probably wasn’t in a position to know the facts. In Stalin’s Russia, nobody knew what the facts were, even Stalin himself. If Stalin wanted to minimize the casualty count, he wouldn’t have done it by making a true count and then suppressing it. He just wouldn’t have had the casualties counted in the first place and made up whatever figure he wanted. And afterwards nobody could have gone back and looked up the real number.
Secondly, while Kruschev was no Stalin, he wasn’t Abraham Lincoln either. Kruschev had his own agenda and was willing to lie to get what he wanted. He advanced his career by retroactively denouncing Stalin (after Stalin was safely dead). So Kruschev had as much motive for maximizing the casualty count as Stalin had for minimizing it.
