ASB send you back to Aug 1939

[Ward]

The ASB have sent you back to Aug 1 1939 and you have all the history books you own on WWII . What are you going to do . How will you change the war.

[Max Sinister]

I'd contact the French government / military and tell them: "You see, Germany's occupied in Poland, they left only a bit of their army in the west for defense. And as you can see here, the westwall isn't as strong as the Maginot line, so you could take it. Attack now, as long as Poland still stands, and knock Hitler down!" And I'd show the Americans the parts about Auschwitz - I hope they will allow all the Jews from Europe to come to America, at least as long as Hitler's not defeated.

[Nik]

1) Suggest to Belgian military that they need more machine-gun nests on roof of their Ebn Emel (sp?) fort(s), as Germans have developed shaped-charges for bunker-busting and are practising air-assaults...

IIRC, one forts' defenders were more alert and really chewed up their attackers. Unfortunately, they could not help the other forts during attack, and could only range onto one flank of invasion.

2) Start rumours about suspicious 'Germanics' scouting the Ardennes...

Nik

[Melvin Loh]

Max, I 2nd your advice to the French. I'd also tell the Soviets with my incontrovertible future evidence at hand to not perfidiously attack Poland, given Hitler's definitie future intentions to attack the USSR, and for Italy to not side with Hitler, given what the costs will be for them during the war.

[Condottiero]

Can I go back to April that year in order to tell the Republican government in Spain to resist just a bit more...

[Grimm Reaper]

But does keeping Italy neutral necessarily help the Allies? The contribution to the attack on the USSR was minor, while keeping the 'soft underbelly' of Europe at peace effectively precludes any actual offensive operations by England. I don't see Churchill lasting very long if he announces that nothing can be done now but perhaps two or three years from now, if the US should enter the war...

Or perhaps Hitler uses forces freed up(Afrika Korps, occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece) to blitz Turkey, breaking into the Middle East AND opening up a pincer movement on the USSR?

[Albidoom]

First thing to do for me would be burn those damn history books or destroy them in some other manner if fire ain't available right now (heck, I would even eat the pages if I had to).
Why?
Because I guess we would be transferred only in time and remain at the same location, and I don't want to take the risk of the Gestapo, SS or other organisation of Nazi Germany to get a hold on those books (they show quite some mistakes they made).
Then I would try to leave Germany (since I myself still know too much things I don't want the Nazis to know about) and try to contact some British or French authorities, although I guess they would ignore the ramblings of this stange german fellow at first, and after the beginning of the war, the fact of me being there might even get lost in the depths of bureaucracy.

[Alois]

I don't want to take the risk of the Gestapo, SS or other organisation of Nazi Germany to get a hold on those books (they show quite some mistakes they made).I've always wondered, in response to the popular "Would you have killed Hitler" question, what would happen if I had a chance to tell him what would result from his efforts and activities. Germany became the shame of the world.
If the Nazi High Command could find out how they would be remembered, might they have chosen a different course?

And if things don't work out, head for Amsterdam and try to convince the Franks to move to England, then go to Hungary and tell Raoul Wallenberg to run for his life.
I personally don't think I could accomplish much by talking to the heads of the British and American governments.

[Hyperion]

Show the US and British the plans for the P-51 D model, and recommend that 400 are sold to Britain by June of 1940 at the latest. Have a radar and 50 Mustangs sent to Wake Island. Show the US the plans for the Pershing tank. Tell the American Navy about the problems with their torpedoes.

[Grimm Reaper]

Find the right politician in the US, casually hand him a list of events to come, something I am actually pretty good at, then call up for another meeting around late September.

Request intro to FDR.

Inform FDR of major weapons systems and technology close at hand, but also divert something into jets and rockets. Try to sack Admiral King. Mention the firepower/armor of Panthers and Tigers vis a vis Shermans. Arrange for some advice to Churchill also.

Wouldn't take much to make a difference. Imagine the forces at Pearl Harbor on full alert, with Admiral Halsey's two carriers and the eight battleships which snuck out of port getting the IJN trapped between them and the reinforced Army Air Corps.

If I can reach Churchill France will probably fall but towards the end of the year, and half the panzers will be gone in the process. Possibly a much stronger Free France comes into being.

I once, long ago, read this book regarding an insane joint effort by Nazis and Marxists to change history, sending one of each back in time. If you're curious, neither had the capacity to do it alone, they HAD to work together. The Marxist was a bit too candid with Stalin and got tossed into the gulag, the Nazi helped Hitler win WWII, first England in 1940(Churchill murdered earlier) and then blitzing the USSR in 1942-3. Then Hitler also dumped the incipient threat and the top Nazis were laughing because the world was all their oyster.

...advanced fifty years...

A horrific scene, a great city in flames, much screaming and crying, ominous figures in all black uniforms/armor rounding up women, children and the elderly and then slaughtering them all.

References to some 'Last Solution' which is the only thing the enviromental specialists(?) think can let the planet be restored to some meaningful fraction of what it used to be. Apparently it requires draconian birth control for two generations on the winning side and extermination for the losers.

A colonel is approached by a junior officer who reports finding some shocking records in the ancient Reichstag records annex. Even more shocking, when the junior officer pulls off his helmet to reveal how serious it is, we see he is a black man with a small American flag insignia!

Apparently they have discovered some bizarre records about time travelers and some mysterious bits of apparatus...

[JimmyJimJam]

Go to Radio city music hall and enjoy some nice big band music.

[Thande]

Reminds me of the Goodnight Sweetheart episode where British time traveller Gary Sparrow is picked up by MI5/6 for his 90s mannerisms and speech and they believe he's a spy...in the end he tells them the truth that 'I'm from the future where everyone has a television, all the cars are Japanese and beer costs two quid a pint' to which the MI6 guy replies 'you almost had me until the last part'. :)

[Justin Pickard]

Try desperately to get a job at the BBC.

[Beowulf2005]

Well, if I'm still in Arizona, I head for governor Jones' office, tell him what I know, and have him get in contact with FDR and arrange a secret meeting.
Once I'm alone with FDR, I give him my book on the Venona intercepts and everything released as of 2005 from the Soviet archives. Convince him to dump Henry Wallace ASAP, as well as Alger Hiss and any other Soviet spies currently in Washington. Tell him the truth about Stalin's mass-murdering and that he has signed a pact with Hitler to essentially divide the world between them. Try to persuade him to accept any remaining Jewish refugees from Europe.
If he doesn't listen (maybe even if he does) I then head from the White House to the British Embassy and tell them what I know. Chamberlain might give the information I'd have the benefit of the doubt (he might step down once I tell him what his appeasement will bring), and the Brits would be able to go into negotiations with FDR.
As for France, I'd just give them enough information to convince them that the whole Maginot Line thing is a good idea, but Hitler's just gonna go around it. Convince them to ally with Belgium and extend defenses to the remainder of their border.
Give the Poles and other Eastern European nations the heads-up if I could muster it, mostly using the diplomatic channels of other nations.
If I could, I'd try and get some advanced weapons information to the Chinese (Cheng's faction, not Mao's) to use against the Japanese. As far as Japan goes, either I allow them to keep going through Asia or tell FDR what they're doing there and what they plan to do in the future.
I'd leave Stalin in the dark as much as I could, but no guarantees as he had operatives everywhere.
If at all possible, we'd end up having Europe and the USA more than prepared for war with Germany (possibly with Russia as well). War would start earlier, as England and France would know not to let Hitler have Czechslovakia and Munich would go quite differently. Japan would be bogged down in China even more, and Cheng might manage to wipe Mao's faction out.

[Othniel]

As I'm in Utah and too young to be listened to for advice. If any of the history books have the right info on mechanics I mail in the design to the US Patents office under a false name. I'd need to get a new social security number, but I'd start advancing the US economy the best I could. If there was anyway possible I'd start smuggling weapons and goods to noncommunist Chiness forces. I'd also attempt at the ROTC.

[Thande]

It could be quite excrutiating as I imagine it would be really hard to persuade anyone to listen to you and by the time you've convinced your way up the bureaucratic ladder, probably half the events of WW2 are already too far in progress for you to stop. :mad:

[Forum Lurker]

What you need is one person who'll at least hold onto a piece of paper that claims foreknowledge of the course of the war, providing exact details, and has the ear of someone who has the ear of someone in power. Most likely, this means mass-mailing.

Alternately, you can discuss something that you shouldn't know anything about. If, for example, you send a letter to Oppenheimer and Fermi discussing the atomic bomb project (with a number of helpful hints that shouldn't be possible yet), and drop specific names that you shouldn't know or which haven't even happened yet, it's possible that they'll be willing to listen. If you tack onto the second letter a postscript about the Pearl Harbour attacks, well, once they realize that you know more about nuclear engineering than ought to be possible, they'll pass on the word about that.

[Thande]

Or you might be shot as a spy...

(the A-bomb business, I meant, not Pearl Harbour)

[Forum Lurker]

That's why you A) post as anonymously as possible and B) give them obviously helpful information, and request that they not return contact. If you're not learning anything from them, and they're learning from you, it's unlikely you'll be shot out of hand. Arrested, possibly, but I can think of worse ways to get all of the information out than to have FBI agents take the history books and ask me questions, the answers to which only make sense if I'm telling the truth.

[Kit]

To be honest I'm not sure I'd do anything!

The dangers of the butterfly effect should be well known to everyone on the board, and when applied to geo-politics and war strategy there's no predicting what the consequences could be. Is the possibility of speeding up world war two and reducing the casualty lists worth the risk of doing something that ends up with the West losing the war?

There's no way to tell what the effect of releasing such knowledge would be. Perhaps it could fall into the hands of German spies and the Nazis would totally alter they strategy. Perhaps it would lead to the West becoming overconfident, or diverting resources in ways that are damaging to the war effort.

Of course, with the huge loss of life, it would be difficult to convince myself not to try and help. I think it's ultimately a moral question, and one I'm not sure I'd be able to answer. I'd hate to be put in that position.

[Thande]

A dilemma: I'd want to try and ensure Britain is in a better position when the war ends than it did in OTL (and hopefully try to prevent as much loss of life as possible, esp. in the Holocaust) but I'd be terrified of changing history so that the Nazis, or even elements of their ideology, end up surviving - or the Soviets get more of Europe than they did in OTL and tipping the Cold War balance...

[Akiyama]

Never mind the problems of trying to get Roosevelt or Chamberlain to take you seriously, how are you going to eat, sleep etc?

You don't have any 1939 money, right? I think this is a problem. And you can't post your detailed knowlege about nuclear weapons research to anyone if you can't buy postage stamps.

[BrianP]

I would join the USAAF and learn to fly B-17's and let history run its course.

[Forum Lurker]

Never mind the problems of trying to get Roosevelt or Chamberlain to take you seriously, how are you going to eat, sleep etc?

You don't have any 1939 money, right? I think this is a problem. And you can't post your detailed knowlege about nuclear weapons research to anyone if you can't buy postage stamps.

First, I rely on my change. I carry around a fair bit, and most people don't look too closely at pennies. As long as I don't stay in one place for too long, I'm good.

Then, I start pawning things. I've got a nice silver watch with glow-in-the-dark dials; that'll fetch a pretty penny. I've got a random plastic keychain with an LED-light, which might also sell well if the buyer isn't too terribly confused by the inscription www.IsraeliConsulateLA.org.

[Kit]

Never mind the problems of trying to get Roosevelt or Chamberlain to take you seriously, how are you going to eat, sleep etc?

You don't have any 1939 money, right? I think this is a problem. And you can't post your detailed knowlege about nuclear weapons research to anyone if you can't buy postage stamps.

Actually, that would be a pretty major problem in the short term. I'm not sure I have any valuable skills that would immediately earn me money. If I appeared here in Cardiff, then I guess I'd spend a few days searching for any job I could find, simply to get somewhere to eat and sleep. Once I had a bit of capital, I suppose I'd move to London and find another job there. I'd try for something in an office.

In the long term, I know enough about economic history to make some startlingly good investments. By the 60s, I'm sure I'd be fabulously wealthy.

But in the medium term of course there's the war. Assuming I keep quiet and let history play out, I suppose I'd try for the Navy...

[Thande]

It would help if you knew which ships would avoid being in hot combat during the war, much less sank.

[Kit]

Well, I'd start to panic if I was assigned to HMS Hood, but my knowledge of second world war naval history is not exactly comprehensive. I'd just have to take my chances.

[Grimm Reaper]

Yes, a nasty but interesting point. We KNOW how the war ended without our intervention so perhaps it would be best to quietly get a small job and wait for your investments to mature?

[Othniel]

Also be sure to know your grandmothers madien name, no need to pull a MJ Fox.

[mattep74]

Also be sure to know your grandmothers madien name, no need to pull a MJ Fox.

and thats why you need to research your family background. I have done that and i know were NOT to go in Sweden. I emigrate to US and try to find a job

[Beowulf2005]

Never mind the problems of trying to get Roosevelt or Chamberlain to take you seriously, how are you going to eat, sleep etc?

You don't have any 1939 money, right? I think this is a problem. And you can't post your detailed knowlege about nuclear weapons research to anyone if you can't buy postage stamps.

I think that if I had valuable information that would help the Allies and was willing to use it to help the war effort, I think those other things would be no problem.
But after the war is over I finish school and start teaching. I then write an alternate history novel about OTL...

[Othniel]

I think that if I had valuable information that would help the Allies and was willing to use it to help the war effort, I think those other things would be no problem.
But after the war is over I finish school and start teaching. I then write an alternate history novel about OTL...
Future History.

[Thande]

It wouldn't sell. Too unrealistic.

[Beowulf2005]

It was a joke.

[Thande]

As was mine. :) :p

[Fiji]

thing I've been mulling about ... suppose you do get various governments to listen to you (let's say: US, UK and France) ... would you tell them about Mao?

I don't know about you guys, but a unified China under competent leadership (or even less incompetent leadership) is a VERY scary prospect to me.
Imagine Japan times 10 ... they'd rule the world economy by the early 80s