It was a combined effort! The Polish did a lot of early work which the British continued at Bletchley Park with the work of Alan Turing and the rest of the codebreakers as well making use of the computing power of Colossus.
The Polish were able to capture the machine and get it to the British. One of the most important events of the war, there's enough credit to go around.
Didn't Rejewski crack an early version of Enigma, before the war? I'm no expert, but I remember reading about a Pole who was an exceptional code breaker and whose work gave Turing and co a huge head start. Could be a different Pole, I suppose...
There were 3 of them, in 1933 so before the war. Rejewski, Zygalski and Różycki broke the enigma code in 1933 and gave their results to the British who used this during the war.
The Poles originally broke the Enigma, but the version used in WW2 was altered to be more complex, hence more secure, and the Poles didn't really have the resources to adapt their method to the adapted setup. Operational changes also made the Polish approach less useful. That said, the original breakthrough, and most of the credit, probably belongs to the Polish team.
The Poles certainly did break Enigma, and any book I've read on Bletchley Park or on Enigma gives them credit. Enigma did evolve though, with the German navy adding a fourth wheel making it harder to crack, and that was after Poland had been invaded. There was also the Lorenz machine, which was even more sophisticated that the British cracked at Bletchley Park (with the other lesser-known "hero" Tommy Flowers building Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic computer)
So it wasn't the Poles who broke the code, but rather a Pole (or a few Poles). I love it when completely unrelated people take pride in the achievements of others (identify with them) just because they share a common label with them - nationality, race, gender etc. - which doesn't actually determine any substantive individual qualities. The beauty of mankind.
My comment above about JetLi was originally aimed at someone else citing the history of film U-571 as if it were accurate. That comment seems to have gone missing but the spirit of it lives on.
Wasn't the issue then that the method for cracking the enigma code was developed but because the code was changed every day and it took longer than that to decipher it it was useless until Turing and his team came up with a computer that could do it more efficiently?
"U-Boot" is used in Estonia also. After typing it, I skipped the question. Furthermore, it's a difference of 1 letter from "U-Boat". I think it should count.
I always thought Panzer meant panther... I guess maybe I just assumed that years ago because there were also tigers and leopards, so it makes sense and sounds similar... I knew panzers were tanks but I missed that one because I thought the word must have some other meaning. Would have gotten it if the clue was just "what was a panzer." oh well.
The most direct translation would be armour, which later turned into tank. The allied tanks we're also often mentioned as armour, e.g. "Send in the armoured division"
Just want to point out, "D-Day" was a generic term for any day when a major landing was to take place. June 6, 1944 should be referred to, more appropriately as operation overlord
If you're going to be picky then at least be right. Operation Overlord lasted for nearly 3 months, not just one day - the codename for the landings on D-Day was Operation Neptune.
was presently surprised I guessed Truman correctly, I only recently found out he had become president during the war. I had also thought Roosevelt had been president during the whole thing.
Only missed the Manhattan Project, I didn't have a clue so I just typed in things like 'boom' and 'bang'
Surprised that everyone doesn't know Truman since he's the one who approved the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and he approved the creation of Israel and went against his own State Department and immediately recognized their new government. He was also famous for his salty language. There's a story that once a friend asked his wife Bess if she couldn't get Harry to say fertilizer instead of "manure". Bess replied, "Good Lord, Helen, you don't know how many years it has taken me to get him to say manure."
This is far too focused on the Anglo-American side of the war. More like "Western Front and Pacific Theater Trivia". It's actually repulsive to me that Eisenhower is on this quiz and Zhukov isn't.
Why don't you make a quiz from the Russian perspective? I think it would be an interesting and educational quiz. Probably most people, unless they were interested in history or the military, wouldn't remember Eisenhower's name had he not later become a US president.
If you did well on the leaders portion of this quiz you might enjoy this expanded version, though prepare to be repulsed if you go in looking for Zhukov. It's modeled after the World Leaders quizzes and only includes kings, prime ministers and so on, not generals.
So, are you asking QM to accept Chamberlain as an alternative spelling for Churchill? If he goes for it there are several alternative spellings I'd like him to consider, especially in the world capitals quiz. :)
Historians are by no means in consensus that Midway was the turning point of the Pacific theatre. It was A turning point, for sure, but arguable that it was THE turning point.
well , the Japanese lost most of their ships and we took over a vital airbase how is that NOT the turning point in the US war against the Japanese? please defend your position
I've only recently gotten interested in WW II history and am no expert, but it seems to me that although Japanese losses at the Coral Sea battle helped ensure success at Midway, it was the Japanese losses at Midway which gave parity to the two sides. That is why it is often credited as the turning point because it ended the threat of Japanese invasion. I'd say if any other battle could be said to be as important it would be Guadalcanal rather than Coral Sea.
I put Birkenau (is that the one you mean? - it's about 3 kms from Auschwitz) More people were killed there, perhaps less people held there? I guess it depends what one means here by "large." Or maybe Auschwitz stands in here for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anyway, it's all gruesome.
they surrendered on the USS Missouri on Sept 2nd 1945. they were given some time to think about the destruction we could do to all their cities with nukes and they choose to surrender.
No, actually it does ask for the English translation of a German word. It isn't a word that has disappeared from German nor been superseded with an English retrofit definition.
If you ask for the English translation of the French word entrée and insist that it means jalapeño poppers sitting on a napkin in a paper dish, you are wrong. To answer the question correctly it means entrance in French.
There was only one SUPREME commander and that was Eisenhower. The only way he would accept the appointment was to be the SUPREME commander (too many cooks in the kitchen, etc...)
Oh do please try to understand the point. I can't believe it's that difficult. Supreme Commands were not allocated by reference to semantic niceties but by operational necessity. There were TWO Allied Supreme Commands in Europe - responsible for DIFFERENT COMMANDS. Eisenhower was Supreme Commander in NW Europe. Alexander was Supreme Commander in Italy. There were also two Allied Supreme Commanders in Asia. If you think commands should have been determined by reference to a dictionary then it's probably a good job for the world in general that you had no say in the decision.
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Stalin rose to power along with his gangster friends Lenin, etc in Russia, where they eventually assumed total control over the Soviet Union, which was on paper a union of equal republics but in reality was de-facto a new Russian empire.
"Soviet dictator" would be slightly more accurate, but "Russian dictator" is not inaccurate as "Russian" and "Soviet" at the time of WW2 were used synonymously.
I agree that the use of “Russian” is okay, also considering that different nationalities of the Soviet Union had their own communist parties and leaders, and the Russian one was the most important and influential one. But as for the term “dictator”, I feel like “General Secretary”, “Premier” or even the Russian word for leader, “Vozhd” could be more suitable options. And yes, I am aware that Stalin only became Premier in 1941, but Soviet Union was hardly even in the war before that year. The use of Vozhd also has some problems as few people know the word, but if Hitler and Mussolini can have their titles in their native languages, I can’t see why it shouldn’t be the same for Stalin :)
General Secretary of the Communist Party is a little wordy. And most English speakers have never heard the title "Vozhd" before. Not that they shouldn't, necessarily, but it's just the common convention.
Exactly, Stalin was Georgian, nor can we say he ruled Russia as there was no such thing at the time. He neither ruled Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which was just one of 15 other SSRs that formed the whole Soviet Union. Please rename him simply to "Soviet dictator" and it should be fine.
Seeing as how the war was over 70 years ago I think it's safe to call everything about WW2 trivia. It's not trivial relative to other information about WW2... but it is trivia that also happens to be related to WW2.
I personally knew 2 people who narrowly survived WWII.
One was a man I grew up calling "Uncle" who was a little boy in Germany just before the War broke out. His mother had taken him to the doctor when he was about 4 for a deformity in his foot when she overheard the doctor talking with someone about the proposed "treatment". Horrified, she scooped him up and left the office and within hours was packing up their possessions to leave the country, saving his life. She made her way to the U.S. where he grew up, married and raised 3 boys, bad foot and all. My brothers and I hung out with his sons all the time, being as we were all around the same age.
The other was my dad, who was on the Liberty ship "Francis B. Ogden" coming up the coast of N.Carolina when their sister ship was sunk by a U-boat. (torpedo struck the magazine, completely destroying the ship) They were racing a hurricane, which ultimately allowed them to get away from the U-boat and reach port safely.
I guy I knew grabbed a rifle and headed into the woods to do his duty for the Fatherland and defend his village from the invading US tanks. He probably would have started shooting too, except his mum shouted at him - he was 7.
Please accept Oświęcim or Oswiecim for Auschwitz. Not many people really call it by its German name here in Eastern Europe - for the obvious reasons. Neither it is respectful to Poles I guess :)
No, as much is in the USA - ours. I remember some guy from the USA was really surprised when I told him that it was my great-granddad from a small village in Russia that entered Berlin first - not an American soldier
Americans care only about their part, we really only know:
Pearl Harbor - a lot of food/guns/cars from Land Lease - D-Day - Two "suns" being dropped on Japan
Really sad that there is nothing on Eastern Front. A lot of Western/Pacific - but only one question about Stalin basically. Could at least have a question about Stalingrad - the true turning point in the war, after which everybody knew Hitler was done
It is actually short for Panzerkampfwagen, meaning armoured combat vehicle.
(similar to how automobile are sometimes called auto, while auto in itself has the meaning of self)
Btw nouns are always capitalized in German.
Only missed the Manhattan Project, I didn't have a clue so I just typed in things like 'boom' and 'bang'
Midway was a more decisive setback, but in terms of turning the tide of the war, that had already started with the Coral Sea battle.
A "Tank" in German is "Panzerkampfwagen", which then literally means "Armored Combat Wagon".
to either create discord or demonstrate their "superior" knowledge.
Get a Life, people!
If you ask for the English translation of the French word entrée and insist that it means jalapeño poppers sitting on a napkin in a paper dish, you are wrong. To answer the question correctly it means entrance in French.
Quizmaster knows this but it needs to be said.
"Soviet dictator" would be slightly more accurate, but "Russian dictator" is not inaccurate as "Russian" and "Soviet" at the time of WW2 were used synonymously.
Also Hirohito should be replaced with Tojo, as he really didnt do anything
One was a man I grew up calling "Uncle" who was a little boy in Germany just before the War broke out. His mother had taken him to the doctor when he was about 4 for a deformity in his foot when she overheard the doctor talking with someone about the proposed "treatment". Horrified, she scooped him up and left the office and within hours was packing up their possessions to leave the country, saving his life. She made her way to the U.S. where he grew up, married and raised 3 boys, bad foot and all. My brothers and I hung out with his sons all the time, being as we were all around the same age.
The other was my dad, who was on the Liberty ship "Francis B. Ogden" coming up the coast of N.Carolina when their sister ship was sunk by a U-boat. (torpedo struck the magazine, completely destroying the ship) They were racing a hurricane, which ultimately allowed them to get away from the U-boat and reach port safely.
Americans care only about their part, we really only know:
Pearl Harbor - a lot of food/guns/cars from Land Lease - D-Day - Two "suns" being dropped on Japan