Doug's Darkworld

I hear a lot of World War Two analogies made by people when they want to debate the state of the world, and especially when they talk about war. WW2 was a big war, it’s well known, and the good guys won…so I can see the appeal. And I’m definitely not averse to using historical analogies myself on occasion…

However, and it’s a pretty big however, analogies aren’t a terribly strong argument technique to use in the first place. They can be helpful for illustrative purposes, but in terms of supporting conclusions they have almost no value. Essentially because every historical situation is very different, and an analogy can at best capture only a small fraction of what is under debate. So it’s easy to pull an analogy out of the air to support any kind of conclusion one wants to make, if one isn’t too fussy about accuracy.

Which leads to another point, it is really annoying when people freely use analogies from World War Two to support their argument, when it is simultaneously painfully obvious that they know almost nothing about World War Two. So in the spirit of finding out if you indeed are at least qualified to use World War Two analogies, or have just been embarrassing yourself in public…take the below test.

Cheating by looking up answers or figuring them out from the context will improve your score, it won’t improve your knowledge though. Some of the questions have a incontestable best answer, others have a bit more leeway. All were selected and designed to test practical or general knowledge about the war. There are no arcane, trick, or trivia questions, even if some may appear that way at first pass. (Well, the bonus question is pure trivia.) Warning: some questions may require thought. I will give the answers and discussion on a separate page. I’ve closed the comments on this post so people don’t give any answers away, please save your comments for the follow up. Have fun!

World War Two Quiz:

Note: This is text only, pencil and paper required. :o)

1. DDay was the turning point of World War II.
A. True
B. False
C. Not really, but it was an important battle.
D. I don’t know.

2. How many of the five landing zones on DDay did Americans invade:
A. 40% of them.
B. 80% of them.
C. 100% of them.
D. I don’t know.

3. Who had more tanks in 1940, when Germany defeated France in six weeks of fighting?
A. Germany
B. France
C. I don’t know.

4. The stunning German victories in early WW2 over Poland, France, and initially over Russia were primarily due to:
A. Surprise attack.
B. The Germans outnumbered their opponents.
C. The Germans had better tanks, planes, and weapons than their enemies.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
F. I don’t know.

5. The USA declared war on Hitler’s Germany after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
A. True, Roosevelt vowed to destroy all fascism after Pearl Harbor.
B. False, Germany declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor.
C. I don’t know.

6. Japan attacked the USA at Pearl Harbor (and elsewhere) because:
A. They hated America.
B. They needed oil.
C. They wanted to expand their empire.
D. I don’t know.

7. For the Japanese, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a great ________ victory.
A. tactical
B. strategic
C. political (public opinion)
D. I don’t know.

8. World War Two started in:
A. 1931
B. 1939
C. 1941
D. I don’t know.

9. How many US soldiers were killed and wounded by insurgents in Japan and Germany after they surrendered?
A. Thousands, Fascist German/Imperial Japanese guerrillas fought for years.
B. None, not counting a few killed fighting Japanese who didn’t know the war was over.
C. I don’t know.

10.Did you cheat on this test?
A. No
B. Yes, I looked up some answers.
C. Yes, I figured out some answers from the context.
D. Yes, B and C.

11. Bonus Question, name the tank illustrated above.

The answers are on the following post.

(The above WW2 tank image is public domain.)