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Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham. I expected a book about diet in World War II, but what I got was an entirely new perspective on one of the reasons the war was started.

Collingham marshals endless data and sources which show that Japan, Germany, and even the USSR were in chronic food shortages as they attempted to move from an agrarian based to an industrial based economy. With chilling detail and first person sources, she shows that chronic food shortages propelled Nazi planners to form a starvation diet which they fed to victims of the Holocaust - an exact 184 calories a day.

She shows that 20,000,000 people died of starvation during the war - and most of Japan's military deaths were attributed to starvation rather than battle. Japan had to invade China, for as it expanded into an industrial power, it was chronically short of raw materials and food stuffs to feed their people. And an oil embargo from the United States also precipitated their attack on Malaya.

What was most striking to me is she quotes Hitler as saying he wanted to establish in the Ukraine "a German California." He was apparently envious of the US industrial and agricultural might.

She goes deep into US agricultural policy before and during the war, in a fascinating narrative about why the US was able to feed much of the world in the war and afterwards. The GIs were apparently the best fed in the world - apparently given the equivalent of 4400 calories a day in boot camp.

But she also shows the strains between the food requests of our British allies and what we were willing to send. Every nation had a food hierarchy, the US was no exception. The military was at the top, then our own civilians. Third and fourth was our allies' military and their civilians. Even though we had food rationing the US, it was the most generous of any nation during the war. The Brits knew that Americans loved their steaks, and the world over wanted red meat from the US. But Britain ended up getting steak from Argentina because of chronic mistrust between British and American food negotiators.

I love geography for many reasons, but how it plays a part in world events is too often ignored. Germany felt they were playing second fiddle to a trade system that favored the British Empire and the United States. And as they expanded into an industrial power, they transitioned from a plant based diet to a meat and dairy based diet. This requires much more arable land - and Germany didn't have nearly enough. France had her empire to the west, and the Polish and Ukrainian steppes to the east were the breadbaskets of Europe. Even so, she shows how Stalin starved his own people to feed his army Ukrainian grain. That was cut off during the Nazi invasion, precipitating Lend Lease to Stalin.

Sure, there were many causes to the war, and horrible outcomes. But it is fascinating to see how even the evil masterminds felt they were fighting "for food, for the right to survive." What is disconcerting is how food shortages in the future could precipitate another war over resources. May we learn from history.

Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food ..."

Did you know that Hitler had planned to conquer Russia by starving 70 mio of its inhabitants to death? He "only" accomplished to starve 30 mio.

Yes, and remember that food shortages in Germany were a major factor in her signing an armistice to end WWI even though German troops were still well into France.
Histories of psychological warfare discuss that planned psyops operations in WWI were primitive and clumsy, and yet one of the greatest and most effective psych warfare situations was the experience of the German soldiers smelling the food cooking in the Allied trenches, and reading letters from home about hunger in Germany and even families eating soap.(Linebarger)

I might add that a great effort at censorship by the German army was unable to keep the crisis at home from leaking to the troops. Soldiers returning from hospital to the front told what they saw and carried hidden letters with them. Geography, combinations of political treaties, and the British Naval blockade were fundamentally important.

Fascinating. I have a little bit of insight into food-rationing on the home front (USA) because I listen to so many OTRR radio programs. And I just completed a book about military logistics (how strongly food availability determines army movements). Patton and Guderian are covered in detail. I'll return to this thread if I can contribute anything salient; but the OP post really covered a lot!

My familiarity with Stalin's food policies comes chiefly from this book:
The Rise and Fall of Stalin and of course, from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Another short (but very pithy) nonfiction read:
The Twentieth Century Book of the Dead which recounts all manner of civilian deaths in peace and war.

Yes, remember the revolutionary development of moving large armies by splitting them up so they could forage. Napoleon is perhaps as famous for the competence of his subordinates as anything else and that enabled him to have his army parceled out with confidence that they would arrive on the battlefield to mass after foraging a wider area to reduce the burden of supply. It also allowed for faster transit times for the army as a whole. Modern armies rely more on direct supply and central planning (and railroads) but the impact of Napoleon's methods had a dynamic effect in those times.

In a book on operation Varsity, crossing the Rhine, an American paratrooper was caught in a tree and struggling to get out of his harness when a German officer appeared on the ground near him and took out his pistol. The soldier froze, expecting to be shot. Then he realized the officer was surrendering to him. Later the soldier asked why he was surrendering. The German officer said he had previously seen an American with a cake that had been sent from home, judging from the box. He said if Allied soldiers were getting cakes from home, compared with his own supply situation, the war was definitely lost. The German had wandered away from his own troops to find a safe place to surrender and found a helpless paratrooper conveniently available.

Waitaminute. I'm sure some incident like that takes place in 'Battle of the Bulge'!! Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Robert MacArthur & Henry Fonda, the 1960s war movie every history fan loves to hate! Is this really where the story comes from?

I read the book a long time ago, but when we breached the Rhine I am sure things looked a lot worse for the Germans. Except for a few German infiltrators there were not any big parachute assaults during the Bulge. But you know Hollywood.

Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food ..."

Thanks for this post Matthew. I have by Lizzie Collingham and have yet to read it and so found your information and views interesting. I have read some books on food on the (British) home front including one excellent one on the Dig for Victory campaign. The British official histories, one volume on Agriculture and three on Food, show not only its importance to the war effort but that there was so much to cover in the writing up of the war (as a comparison the batte for Normandy and Western Europe is covered in two volumes).

Howard wrote: "Yes, remember the revolutionary development of moving large armies by splitting them up so they could forage. Napoleon is perhaps as famous for the competence of his subordinates as anything else a..."
The author makes a point about how the Japanese were atrocious about protecting their supply lines, and how 60% of Japanese military casualties were from starvation. Apparently the Bushido code also required that courage should be enough to sustain the defenders.

Howard wrote: "Yes, and remember that food shortages in Germany were a major factor in her signing an armistice to end WWI even though German troops were still well into France.
Histories of psychological warfar..."

I heard that in World War II, by the time the war ended, German Wehrmacht troops were down to 1000 calories per day, whereas GIs were given over 4000 in A Rations.

There are a lot of reports on canniblism by Japanese troops - James Bradley's



talks a lot about it.

It is interesting to watch a film like The Americanization of Emily and realize just how good the "Yanks" had it. The first scene where James Garner is directing where all the general's favorite foods will go is priceless.

That was a great scene. You could understand why the
British resented such behavior. Interesting that James Garner played a scrounger in The Great Escape, too. In most European (and other) armies there was for a long time a great discrepancy in the food provided for officers vs enlisted. Everyone wanted to go on exercises with Belgian officers because their field ration included a liquour. That was even before the days of hotel mini-bars and airline booze in small bottles. May have been where they got the idea. Same thing with Australian Navy. They had a rum ration I think until well after WWII and they would trade for American cigarettes. When Russian officers visited Ft Hood in the 80's we made sure they noticed officers and enlisted eating the same food. Food is a big deal. Many field orders for attacks would specify in the supply and logistics portion: we'll eat when we consolidate on the objective (and some armies emphasized capturing the enemy's food as a major motivation for an attack.)

Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food ..."

Thanks for that posting, Matthew. I'm interested in food history so I'm adding that book to my list.

In Crevald's Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton he goes into rich detail about how the D-Day planners --despite having a 2 yr lead time to plan the landings--were hilariously wrong and off-base in their reasoning. The landings were a success because of determination and 'just get it fecking DONE' attitude on the part of certain commanders like Patton. (I hadn't ever realized this, I don't think. We're always told how brilliant the planning was). Anyway in the months that followed, what Patton did kept on forcing these rear-echelon staff groups to tear up their planning. Even when he was showing them every day that he was outstripping their predictions, they kept insisting it was impossible. Hilarious!

I'll try to remember some more food-specific insights Crevald offers. Basically he talks about food much more when he covers the campaigns of the 1600s & 1700s, and Napoleon. Especially food not just for soldiers but for their horses--often overlooked!

The middle part of the book is concerned with the advent of railways in the Franco-Prussian war; the myths about how they changed warfare; and how they failed to play a part as expected in WWI.

He also treats of Rommel in North Africa (who was apparently his own worst enemy in terms of logistics) and then he finishes with D-Day, Bradley, Monty, and Patton.

But yeah the first part of the dissection is all about rolling magazines and how supply wagons cant travel on clogged roads and setting up of field kitchens and bakeries-on-the-move, etc etc etc. There's cool calculations about how much distance X time X calories, etc. I had a lot of fun being exposed to all these details. Strongest recommendation.

You are correct, AND you HAVE to have a plan. Supplying War is a fabulous and important work. Logistics is it. Rommel and other brilliant leaders can get so far, but ignoring logistics always catches up to them. The plan for D-Day was "all wrong" in that advances in the beginning were much slower and behind schedule, but after the breakout were suddenly way ahead of schedule. But the plans are critical for several reasons. One is that making a good plan forces the planners to become familiar with what is available and where it needs to go and how it needs to get there. A good plan will allow for flexibility and a number of reasonable contingencies. But frequently in warfare outcomes can surprise. It was said of the rapid advance across France after the breakout that the Germans were losing the war faster than the allies could win it. Back to plans. Eisenhower, and many other leaders, rose to command positions not just because they had worked for the high muckty muck, but because they worked in plans division of the high muckty muck's HQ.
They knew the plan so they knew the numbers of men and material projected to be trained and made available etc etc etc and the highest authority's ideas on what had to happen. In fact, they might have been the guy who told the high muckty muck what that would be. The plan is a starting point. It will have to change, but it is easier to adjust a plan than to have to come up with one at the last minute. FDR got all upset when he insisted on the US troops occupying the north German plain at the end of the war because he was told there was no way it could happen. Way back during planning in Rankin I, II, and III it was decided that the US would eventually land troops directly in France so as not to debark in England, rembark and debark again and that meant, at the time, putting the US on the right flank to use the French ports in Brittany. The Brits wanted to go along the channel coast anyway. Once the allies got to Germany with the Brits on the left and Americans on the right, no way were Army Groups going to swap places. On the other hand, great leaders don't let their staffs fall into "plan-worshipping." Staffs have to be ready (and willing) to rethink and rethink and rethink. That was one of Patton's talents and he was excellent at giving "Command guidance," the first step in military planning. In joint and combined operations "plan worshipping" seems more likely because of the effort invested to get more than one service or even more than one nation to agree to the plan in the first place.

There was some very excellent and detailed planning for D-Day. The valid criticisms you refer to happened after the most difficult and dangerous part, which proved to have been planned very well. The convoy and gunfire support, the supply, mulberry and PLUTO, and especially the deception plans. Plans for taking out coastal guns and blocking the German navy, and breaching the Atlantic wall obstacles. The biggest failures were in air support and the parachute drops. The drive and fortitude of the paratroopers and their leaders did much to compensate for missing the landing zones. It was unanticipated fortune that the dispersion of the drops confused the Germans.

Agreed, Crevald did not damn the plan from all angles, (convoys, fire support, deception, etc) just a few issues with logistics.

For example merely one of the items he holds up for examination were the failure of the portable harbors. Okay, sure-- but a lot of things happened during the landings, good & bad, not just that one awkward mishap. Yes, I get that...

The part that was the most off target was incidentally the part the German army had the most opportunity to affect, that is, the advance after the landing, hence the problem of supplying the advance after the landing was not according to plan. There was a big storm on June 19th that did a lot of damage to supply set-up. They amazed even themselves at how much they could unload over the beach. It was an exercise of flexibility and determination. I met a man who was on one of the LSTs that was sunk in Operation Tiger at Slapton Sands in April 44 who, not having a ship to crew, wound up humping supplies on the beach. Eventually he was part of a supply convoy to Bastogne. By the time Cherburg was captured it was a wreck. Constant demand for improvisation. I appreciate you input and respect your comments.

Aye. Thx. Fun thread with smart fellers!

Howard wrote: "The part that was the most off target was incidentally the part the German army had the most opportunity to affect, that is, the advance after the landing, hence the problem of supplying the advanc..."

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." Robert Barrow, General, USMC.

Great reading folks that was goooood, and as one of our Log units motto here is "Try Fighting Without Us".

Well, for most of us tactics is more fun. When you find guys who get off on logistics, be sure to put 'em in G-4. The ones who want high level command will want to work G-3 plans and ops.

What I really mean to say is that logistics is very, very important, must be studied (and truly grasped) but it is quite another deal to work in that field.
Imagine for just a second being Rommel's supply officer in N. Africa.

Feliks wrote: "Waitaminute. I'm sure some incident like that takes place in 'Battle of the Bulge'!! Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Robert MacArthur & Henry Fonda, the 1960s war movie every history fan l..."

Good memory Feliks, it's something like that story, in the movie German Robert Shaw is showing cake that was captured from the Americans and uses it as an example of the kind of stuff the Allies can transport w/their gasoline and weak need for luxuries.

Been a long time since I've seen the flic too.

Lilo wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World War II and the ..."

Stalin managed to starve 20 million Soviet citizens to death, and 7 million Ukrainians between 1925-1937, before the war started.

He sure did. To his own people.

carl wrote: "Been a long time since I've seen the flic too. ..."

Yeah! Love it. Shaws' superior is like, "You are not sticking to the timetable! You should have been out of Bastogne 16 hours ago!" And Shaw shows him the cake and he's like, "This is why we have to turn Bastogne into rubble. This cake was captured last night --and--its still fresh. The Americans have the resources to fly cake across the Atlantic." Shaw's hard-guy commander thought it more important to show the Americans that 'party-time' was over and that they might not get out of this intact. He wanted to put them in a more 'fragile' frame of mind, instead of 'expecting reinforcements' any moment.

Like I said, military history fans revile this movie but I relish it. Sure, its wildly inaccurate but I don't mind, I watch it for the acting and the stars and the tanks. It's Hollywood. Charles Bronson and Robert Shaw, together in one flick? Ore-Ida!

oh yeah, it came out in my teenage heyday and we loved it, even still have the soundtrack,

Ob's stürmt oder schneit, ob die Sonne uns lacht,

OK guys, that scene may have been in a Hollywood movie, but don't base your history on that stuff. I think it is highly likely that they borrowed that story from the other incident. It may have actually happened more than once, therefore being all the more disconcerting to the Germans. In fact, it may have just been a convenient excuse for whatever they wanted to do, be it surrender or whatever. The Japanese took pictures of crashed B-29s and argued that the armor protection and remotely controlled turrets were signs of American cowardice, not superior technology. The Japanese also took leaflets the US printed warning its soldiers of the dangers of VD in the Philippines and freely distributed them among the Filipinos.

I agree they must have borrowed it from somewhere. Probably the very anecdote related above, with the paratrooper. I'm not resting any assumptions on anything I saw in a movie, naturally. I think that whole flick was just a pastiche of assorted fragments they slapped together into a story. But really, I don't take any movie seriously, ever. Movies're not supposed to be taken for fact. I'm just saying its a fun little implausible scene in a fun, implausible, entertaining film. I dig hearing there was an actual incident reported in a book somewhere..

On logisitics and its importance my understanding from my own time serving in an armoured regiment in late 20C is that between 12-19 people were needed to keep me supplied on the front-line. I suspect it may have been even greater for the Allies in WWII when one considers sea convoys and the efforts to protect them, te effects of less standardisation of ammunition say and the huge varieties of vehicles and other kit they had to contend with.

This used to be referred to as the "Tooth to tail ratio" of the "Dragon." The number of folks, things and funds required on the tail end to keep the people on the fighting end (the teeth) going. During Viet Nam especially, many positions in the US were civilianized so as to have more soldiers available for overseas and combat duty. It had the effect of making it harder to give soldiers, expecially married ones, favorable or choices of assignments in the US, not to mention repeated combat tours, but did bring stability to administrative positions, reducing required training times every time a soldier would have been replaced in the job. During WWII there were about 12 million in uniform for all US services total. Less than half of those were overseas and many of those in the theatre were in support roles. In fact, our combat troops in infantry and armor were worn down badly from extended duty in combat units, as well as actual combat. Replacements were piecemeal like spare parts (The US fought WWII as it knew how: in industrial terms.) The best personnel usage by the US was probably in Naval Aviation. Experienced pilots were promoted, pulled back to the US, led the training of new pilots (often integrating new equipment) and deployed back to the fleet (or island base.) It became a huge factor in the Pacific campaign.

What you say above about Pacific re-supply is certainly borne out by my favorite non-fiction pilot's memoir (Vietnam era). Phantom over Vietnam: Fighter Pilot, USMC A short, but dense book of fact & history filled with the day-to-day experiences of a jet pilot. Stellar writing from someone who presumably had never written before, amazing feat.

Colin wrote: "Lilo wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of War: World Wa..."

I know, but I doubt that he starved his own people intentionally. I suppose he just didn't care and considered these casualties something like collateral damage. Hitler, as far as I know, wanted to conquer Russia by starving its people, saving ammunition and gaining the land empty of native civilians, which he considered a bother.

The accounts I've read satisfy me to his intentions. And it wasn't just he, remember: think of the vast infrastructure beneath him, carrying out those orders, seeing them through, to the very letter of his instructions...all of those underlings and bureaucrats and functionaries who went along with it. They're just as guilty. Talk about the character of a people. Me, I have no ears, to listen to any excuses about this kind of thing...when a thing is wrong, it's wrong.

Lilo wrote: "Colin wrote: "Lilo wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by The Taste of..."

Stalin needed hard currency, so selling the agricultural products of the rich Ukraine gave him much needed capital. He knew what he was doing. In fact he sent the Checka and later the NKVD into the regions. Stalin's psychotic paranoia led him to believe that the Ukrainians, especially under Stepan bandera were going to start a civil war to break away from the USSR. He was not far off, and this attitude was also prevalent in Georgia and the rest of the Caucasus.

Levrenti Beria later took control, and the forced deportations and murders of Ukrainians and Chechens to the gulags, confiscation of property, and the intentional starvation policy were all used as a weapon to control the Ukrainians.

This was when Stalin also destroyed the churches, had priests, Jews, and 'kulaks' shot or deported, and this really angered the Ukrainians.

In my book German Anti-Partisan Warfare, I chronicled the documents found in the offices in Kiev and other cities, stamped and signed, ordering all of the above mentioned actions. This was what gave Himmler the bright idea of recruiting Ukrainians as allies, to fight the communists. He created three Waffen SS divisions out of the population, and also the Vlasov Army (ROA) and the Free Ukrainian Air Force.

I commented on another thread of ÀÏ»¢»úÎÈÓ®·½·¨ about the Vaslov Army. Hitler was always against it and in fact at times raged about it and forbade it. It was such an obvious and appealing idea that several people put it forward. Himmler must have felt pretty secure in his position to go forward. The general staff was pretty much bullied by Hitler's ranting "he did not invade the Soviet Union to arm the Slavs." When Hitler found out about it he insisted it be disbanded. It was explained to him that Germany would have to come up with about 275,000 replacements. Hitler was taken aback but insisted they all be transferred out of the theatre which was really stupid because it completely undermined their motivation but explains why there were Russians surrendering in Normandy after D-Day. There were also a lot of Cossack and Tartar tribes who fought against Stalin and were, in the souces I read, not included in the Vaslov Army. One of the jumpstarts for the Vaslov Army was a series of airdropped pamphlets on the Russian lines. German forces reported thousands of Soviet soldiers coming across with them and asking to fight with Vaslov. Of course there are pictures of Ukranians welcoming the Germans as liberators (at first.) I recall pictures of women offering flowers to German panzer crews. I have found it slightly amusing that because of Stalin's distrust of everyone, including his allies, he insisted on three seats on the security council of the UN and now the Ukraine is a separate country and not just the name of another Russian seat there (Though Putin is obviously coveting gaining control again.)

Feliks wrote: "The accounts I've read satisfy me to his intentions. And it wasn't just he, remember: think of the vast infrastructure beneath him, carrying out those orders, seeing them through, to the very lette..."

Are you talking about Hitler or about Stalin?

Colin wrote: "Lilo wrote: "Colin wrote: "Lilo wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Since I am still fairly new here, I don't know if you have discussed this topic before.

Over the last few days, I found myself engrossed by..."
When you explained how Stalin was selling Ukranian grain to gain capital, starving his own people, I recalled that the timing of the jump-off for the Barbarossa offensive was after a trainload of Russian goods including grain came across the border. Stalin sold a lot of grain to Hitler I guess. Hitler figured pretty soon he wouldn't be paying Stalin for that grain.

I think Hitler and Stalin were equals, with each one of them being 100% evil.

Howard wrote: "This used to be referred to as the "Tooth to tail ratio" of the "Dragon." The number of folks, things and funds required on the tail end to keep the people on the fighting end (the teeth) going. Du..."

Interesting Howard thanks. I hadn't realised the move to civilian services in the Vietnam era I had assumed it was much later towards the end of 20C.

This may be of interest to people too in that British forces had similar issues in keeping infantry and armoured units at full strength. This led to in 1944 onwards a number of non teeth arm units (i.e. not armour, infantry, artillery) providing reinforcements to bolster infantry/armour strength and also disbandment of a division to reduce units but try and maintain numbers. Similar but far smaller in scale to Britian's reduction in WWI from 4 infantry battalion brigades to three; although available firepower was greater. It was this 3 battalion brigade format that Britain used in WWII.

After the breakout in Normandy the US stripped almost all of its anti-aircraft gun units of personnel for other assignments, which made sense. There is an interesting story of a tank destroyer entering Paris and seeing a German tank at the other end of the Champs Elysees and the commander gave the estimated range to the target but the gunner knew from history class that it was 300 meters different and put that in as the range and hit on the first shot. This was an M10 (American made) Tank Destroyer with the French 2nd Armored div. I looked it up the other day to check my memory of reading it years ago and found the crew was from the French NAVY.

I posted on another thread that the British government was committed to keeping a home guard potential at, I think, 200,000 and so they ran out of replacements for combat units. It is well known that the British army disbanded two whole infantry divisions from D-Day to the end of the war to provide replacements for other combat units.

Geevee wrote: "Howard wrote: "This used to be referred to as the "Tooth to tail ratio" of the "Dragon." The number of folks, things and funds required on the tail end to keep the people on the fighting end (the t..."

I remember reading that in 1944 the RAF started transferring people who had been accepted for aircrew training to the infantry.

Howard wrote: "I posted on another thread that the British government was committed to keeping a home guard potential at, I think, 200,000 and so they ran out of replacements for combat units. It is well known th..."

Not aimed at you Howard, but others as I suspect some people are unaware how thin the fighting lines were.

On the Home Guard it is true the numbers were high (not much below 1m by end December 1944, when they formally stood down. It is wrong though to say that this created or exacerbated the manpower crisis. Prior to disbandment they had operated AA guns, searchlights, radar and acting as heavy rescue and support squads during the V1/2 blitz, all freeing up fighting age/medically fit men to serve in the colours. A sizeable majority men were serving in the home guard whilst being employed in reserved occupations. Others were too young/old to be conscripted whilst others were medically unfit to be in the colours. By its standing down a sizeable number of women were also serving in the Home Guard as auxilaries; this decision in 1943 was made because there were too few men available, and so 32,000 women are also included within strength numbers.

Howard wrote: "After the breakout in Normandy the US stripped almost all of its anti-aircraft gun units of personnel for other assignments, which made sense. There is an interesting story of a tank destroyer ente..."

Great story.

Gerald wrote: "I remember reading that in 1944 the RAF started transferring people who had been accepted for aircrew training to the infantry. ..."

I wouldn't be surprised as it was desperate. I know that many units in Europe were slated for the trip to Japan for the invasion too, and many WWII veterans in my own family, regiment and Royal British Legion I'd spoken to over the years were mighty pleased the bomb was dropped (as a number of us discussed a while back on the thread about right or wrong to drop the bomb).