WW2 in the Middle East - Unmentioned?

Question

I've just been searching online for some info, and come across a bunch fo stuff I didn't know about WW2. Two things that stood out was the conflict in Iraq and Iran both involving the UK, Operation Sabine and Operation Countenance.

I have never even heard of these and didn't know anything happened in that area in WW2 until I found the info on a number of websites, not once was it mentioned at school even when we learnt about WW2, and I have never heard them mentioned in the media in any form.

Why are these never talked about? And are there any other conflicts which are glossed over and forgotten when it comes to WW2?

Answer 1

There is a lot of WW2 that is over looked, the desert warfare in North Africa, the ground fighting on the Turkish coast line. Try the Imperial war Museum, either on line or visit if possible, they have a lot of information.

Answer 2

I;m going to assume that you are an American ?

There in lies the problem. This part of WW2 history is unknown to you, because the Americans were not involved . Simple as that. American military  history ONLY concerns it's self with  battles that they were directly involved with, and never talks about American defeats, ever.

I"m a Canadian, and we were deeply involved in WW2, Despite having a national population of only 10 million people in 1939, we had a volunteer military force that eventually had one million one hundred thousand men in active service. That amounts to one out of every fourth adult  male, in uniform. We served all over the world, in the Pacific against the Japanese, ( didn't know that did you ? ) and in Africa, India, Burma, Italy, France , Belgium, Holland and at the end of the war we fought across the Rhine into Germany, its self. Our Royal Canadian Navy went from 3,000 men and six ships, in 1939, to 125,000 men and over 400 ships in 1945, to become the third largest navy in the world at that time, affer the USN and the RN.

Our RCAF trained over 135,000 pilots and air crew from 22 Allied nations, including a large number of Amercan volunteers, who came to Canada, to join us, in the years before Pearl Harbor. We built our own ships, trucks and everything else needed to equp our own armed forces, and then we helped to equip the British Army, the Red Army and the Chinese National Army who were fighting the Japanese. We also gew  enough food to feed our selves, and send millions of pounds of food to Britain.

You asked about WW2 areas of fighting that you have not heard of ?

How about Burma and the mountains of India, against the Japanese ?

Yogoslavia, the Balkans ?  Norway?

The longest battle of the Second World war was the battle  of the North Atlantic .Remember that NONE of those US soldiers that fought in  Europe got there on a  aircraft ,they all went on a ship, in a convoy, and the RCN was the main escort and anti-submarine  force that killed many U boats with our "little ship navy ". of Corvettes and Frigates.

The Germans lost 15 men dead  in their war with the Russians,  for every one that was killed by the western Allies. The Russians lost 12 million dead, military  and civillian. They call it the Great Patriotic War.

One final example of the way that American military history  can be twisted...........Look up the Americam landings  on the Island of  Kiska in the Aleutians , off the coast of Alaska. The Japanese had occupied the islands. The US Army attacked it, but the Japanese  had left, 10 days before hand. Green, poorly trained  US  Army troops fought each other, for three days in the fog, killing each other. Final death toll ? Over 300 killed and wounded . Try to find out any info about that  screwed up 1943  battle thru US sites.

here is a link to a site about this bungled US WW2 action. Note that about 5,000 Canadian Army troops were also in volved in that action with no  deaths at all

Why ? Better trained and led..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleutian_Is...

Lots  of new information, yes ?

Did you know that American blacks served in the Canadian Army, as Officers,  at a time when they couldn't  even be  combat solidiers in their  own army, only construction workers, or truck drivers ?  True .

Jim B.  Toronto. Ontario. Canada.