…IF…

Also, America has the third-largest LANDMASS of any nation (after only former Soviet Union and Canada) – and would have absorbed seemingly limitless numbers of enemy troops. That vast, contiguous landmass would have been ideal for resistance warfare by irregulars – and much of it its terrain also is ideal for irregular resistance (wide plains with few roads; mountainous or hilly areas; thickly-forested areas), with nil of it close to the coasts.

Remember this from Outdoor Life?

“According to the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife Associated Recreation, there were 10.7 million big game hunters who hunted in 2006, the latest data available. States like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Texas and Michigan each put more than 500,000 deer hunters into the field annually. If you add up all the big game hunters across the nation you come up with an armed force formidable enough to protect the borders of the country if called to duty.”

http://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/big-buck-zone/2011/05/deer-hunting-army-are-your-ready-join

Some thoughts…America 1940 vs. today…..while America has a large pool of guns and hunters, it has a miniscule number of trained military for its population these days. I don’t believe America today is anything like America of 1940.

Switzerland of the 1940’s was a country where ALL adult males served some time in the service. Take a look at the Libyan “war” today and you see the difference between trained military and what they have as a rag tag band of armed civilians. A disciplined and brutal military force would cut thru such ‘forces’ like a knife thru butter.

Finland in the Winter War showed what a TRAINED populace can do. A nation of 4 million held off the Russkies and killed upwards of a million of the Soviet soldiers. It was the Swiss model actualized.

Finally don’t forget that the US was invaded, and it took the blood of guts of US troops to dislodge them from Alaskan soil in Attu and Kiska.

What I think is interesting is that the maps presented are not captured enemy maps showing detailed plans of how the Nazis could work with their allies to take over America[.]’* but were drawn by the Life Magazine staff themselves. This is sort of like the NY Times headlining the “Top Secret” plans for some military operation to take down a terrorist group, or revealing that the US was monitoring cellular activity of suspected groups for intel after 9/11. Those suspected groups hence stopped the chatter for the most part.

An interesting article in spite of all that. I have to agree with Matt that getting any further than the coasts would be a very daunting task for any invading force in that time. However in today’s political climate, I don’t think an invader would have to fire a shot.

*Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032699/What-Nazis-invaded-America-Maps-published-1942-Life-issue-detailed-plans-Hitler-invasion-U-S.html#ixzz1XFWn5NnU

The major difference between then and now is that the *children* of those who lived and fought WWII were raised on a steady diet of Korea and Vietnam, with politicians attempting to fight wars. Those children are now running this country.

Funny thing how the “question authority” crowd is now in authority…and they don’t like questions.

What I find to be sad is the number of Jewish people that I hear say “remember remember remember” then turn around and vote for people who are bent upon disarming the populace. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the Jewish people. I just don’t understand the logic of “remembering” the past yet not learning from it and preparing for the future.

s

“while there are still Holocaust survivors among us – it is sad indeed to see how many obvious lessons have been lost in so short a time.”

One big lesson was that “just following orders” was the last defense of evil men. Yet some defend the murderers of Jose Guerena with that reasoning.

There was a time when we constituted government to protect our rights, our lives, and our property; when our employees worked for ‘citizen safety’. Now, Enforcers follow orders and establish procedures deliberately written to deny our life, our property, and our rights. The Enforcers are a culture repugnant to the constitution, opposed to American ideals.

Just like the prison guards at Auschwitz, and the train conductors who transported them- All of these Enforcers make their mark in history.

“Just following orders”.
It is sad indeed, to see how many obvious lessons have been lost in so short a time.

I suppose the question is who would make such an attempt and what would their goals be? Creating a beachhead on one of our coasts…possible if challenging. meaningfully controling a majority of the land mass and having a handle on the population would be a daunting task, especially given that unless forces moved in through mexico or Canada, they would need to be flown or shipped in.
Modern warfair is highly mobile but is also very resource intensive. Controling a campaign over such an area would required emense resources, especially if one meant to ocupie the claimed areas. I agree with previous posters that trained resistance would be limited at best, but low level armed resistance to such an attempt would be constant and nearly impossible to quash.
Add to this fact that much of our armed forces are deployed internationally and that our home forces aren’t deployed in a border defense configuration and you start to see where invading would be relatively easy while holding would be an entirely different kind of issue.

There is a story concerning the non-invasion of Switzerland, according to which General Guderian, seeking permission from the Swiss for German forces to pass through Switzerland, was attempting to browbeat his opposite number in the Swiss military, General Henri Guisan, who pointed out that Switzerland could mobilize a quarter of a million men in 24 hours.
“I can put half a million men on Switzerland’s border in 48 hours,” Guderian reportedly said. “What would you do then?”

“Each of my men would fire twice,” replied the Swiss General. “And then we would go home.”

Red Dawn.

It’s really hard to say if the America of today is better suited to defend itself that the America of WWII. On one hand, training today is the best ever for citizens. On the other hand, I’m inclined to think far more American of 1940 would take up arms.

Honestly, I think the America of 1940 would do a better job of fending off an invasion. Today, half the population would be taking pictures on their phone and posting them online while a small handful actually fought.

It’s sad that the lessons paid in blood from the Holocaust have been lost to so many. I know a Jewish family that went through the Holocaust, yet they could care less about the 2A and firearms. I am glad to see groups like the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms though.

Project Appleseed is trying to recreate that “nation of riflemen.” Last weekend I saw a ten year old girl who had never shot before, after one day of instruction, put three of three shots into a man size target at 400 yards.* And she understands why it’s important to know how.

http://appleseedusa.org/

* Project Appleseed uses a reduced scale, reduced contrast version of the Army Qualification Test to simulate longer ranges so more shooting range facilities can accommodate the classes.

Sofa,

The killing of Jose Guerena was tragic but it was by no mean criminal. It was a tragic accident for everyone envolved from the officer to the family and for you to compare that incident to what the Nazis did to 6 millions Jew is just plain sick.

One more thing those officer were not order to kill Jose Guerena, they were confronted by an armed subject and had to decide in a split second if he was a threat or not to them. They had less than a second to make that faithful choice which turned out to be the wrong one which now they have to carry with them the rest of their lives. Youon the other hand have had 4 months to decide what they should or should not have done. Futher more not sure how your comment has anything to do with Mas’ article.

today the President would immediately contact the invaders and apologize.

we actually have been invaded, most of them are already in control of our government and are slowly taking over complete control without firing a shot.

half the population is going along with the whole mess.

wait a bit longer and they’ll eliminate armed citizens too, without firing a shot.

I believe statements about an armed american populace deterring a WWII invasion of the U.S. by the Japanese or German forces were face saving measures instead of admitting they could not do it. If Japan truly had the capability they would of hit Pearl Harbor with an invasion forc and secured the Hawaiin Islands in addition to sinking the fleet. The majority of their forces were tied up in China and the Far East and busy taking the small strategic islands in the south pacific. I doubt they had the carrying capacity to move hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the U.S. mainland to amount an invasion that would be noticed. They, like Germany, did not have the population depth to endlessly generate wave after wave of soldiers to replace increasing losses. Even with a couple of million U.S. Service members overseas later in the war, the U.S. had a depth of reserve manpower that only the U.S.S.R came close to matching.

While some have raised the very good point of lack of discipline, one thing that is being left out is snipers.

As FredB pointed out, there are a LOT of big game hunters in the USA. Each one owns a high-powered, accurate rifle, is trained in its use, and most likely has camoflauge as well. Many of them are wel trained in stealthy movement, as big game is extremely wary. That is literally an army of millions of snipers and marksmen. These are the absolute dread of any army.

For my part, I dare any country (China?) to try landing on the coast of the Southeast. They’d have no problem establishing a beachhead on the many little islands. Then we’ll blow the bridges and shoot them down like turkeys from across the marshy rivers. An invasion of the Southeast by sea would be one of the dumbest moves in military history, possibly dumber than invading Russia in winter.

Which is why Commiefornia would be the first target in an overseas invasion.

Okay in the opinion of an armchair historian:

I don’t think that an Axis invasion of either the East or West coasts of the USA was feasible. The distances involved are too great for an invasion force to be supplied, (Over 3,000 miles!) yes a fleet from the USA managed it the other way with an invasion of North africa in Operation Torch, but that was with friendly forces already in place on the continent. It *might* be possible to land a force – in the face of overwhelming naval and air superiority – but once ashore it would just wither on the vine, regardless of the number of firearms in private hands.

And this is speculation on my part, but I feel that while Switzerland would have been a very tough nut for the Nazi’s to crack, I think it owed not being invaded to firstly to not really being of strategic importance, and secondly as the war went on, somewhere the Nazi’s could safely salt away their ill gotten gains.

I recall reading the story about Bob Menard and his Japanese counterpart on the Backwoods Home website, and at the time I very much doubted it.

NB I am *not* accusing Bob Menard of lying, or Mas of knowingly repeating a falsehood.

I do believe that the story is true, in so far as the conversation actually took place as Bob Menard recalled it. I *think* that Bob Menard’s Japanese counter-part was just being polite, and a more direct answer to the question why didn’t the Japanese follow up Pearl Harbour with an invasion of California, which is about 2,000 miles away from Hawaii, would have been “Well we though that you decadent Americans were such wussies that after Pearl Harbour you’d just roll over with your legs in the air!”

It’s more polite to tell your hosts and former enemies that you didn’t invade them because they were such fearsome warriors, and saves your own face from admitting that you badly misjudged your opponents.

Well that’s my personal take on that story. All JIMHO.

Red Dawn: AMEN. I live in the midst of “redneck” hunter territory where many use the familiar brag “from my cold dead fingers.” When these young idealists hear the shots they will give up easily, just like RedDawn. Ever wonder how 150 Nazis held 25,000 Jews captive? The Jews gave up without a fight, just like their ancestors who committed suicide rather than fight the enemy to the death. I believe that most alive today will live to see a modern revolutionary war. We shall all band together to fight together or we shall all die together. USA citizens are fast approaching the truism, “Better dead than Red.”
As Grandpa used to say, “Someday the hippies will be running this country and their decendents will be voting.” Now they are.

There is the JPFO, for all, not just Jews. Several interesting free videos online. I think it’s http://www.JPFO.org. Years ago at a gun range I watched a WW2 Jewish German survivor show his grandson how to shoot a Walther PPK;good riddance to the Third Reich.

“Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) is a group dedicated to the preservation of gun rights in the United States and “to encourage Americans to understand and defend all of the Bill of Rights for everyone”. The group was founded by former firearms dealer Aaron S. Zelman in 1986. The JPFO interprets the Second Amendment as recognizing a pre-existing natural right of individuals to keep and bear arms. It is based in Houston, Texas.

JPFO is noted for producing materials (bumper stickers, posters, billboards, booklets, videos, etc.) with messages that equate gun control with totalitarianism. The most famous of these are the “All in favor of Gun Control raise your right hand” materials, which features a drawing of Hitler giving a Nazi salute.[1] The organization also attempts to prove that genocide is linked to gun control, by showing that most countries where a genocide has taken place had gun control first.”

“Everything Hitler Did Was Legal”
-Martin Luther King Jr

Making laws and establishing policies that kill citizens does eventually become legal in tyrannies; supporting a power structure and crushing individuals. But it is wrong. And it’s un-American.

We constituted this government to protect the rights of individuals lives, liberty, property, and privacy. Not to kill them.

Compare today with this previous declaration:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
…
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

…###…

Well meaning folks are marked by every act which may define a tyrant. Just like the prison guards at Auschwitz, and the train employees who carted off the victims. Enabling those violations, “just following orders”- Got the noose for several Germans at Nuremburg. Enforcing laws repugnant to the constitution is anti-American.

Legal, yet a violation of the law (in our case, the constitution).

Americans applied that principle at Nuremburg. MLK and I and many Americans of my generation understand it. Yet many today violate their oaths without contemplation, without thinking that their participation in tyranny does in fact make them tyrants.

A lesson of the Holocaust and of the Nuremburg trails- is that participation in legal evil is no excuse. Murder is murder. Aiding and abetting and enabling and excusing is sharing.

We constituted this government to protect the rights of individuals lives, liberty, property, privacy, and right to trial. Not to kill them.

The enforcers who murdered Jose Guerena took oaths to protect his life, liberty, property, privacy, and right to trial. Yet laws, policies, procedures, and training led deliberately to the situation of killing him.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant,… is a tyrant.

“Everything Hitler Did Was Legal”
-Martin Luther King Jr

Think about the enforcers and enablers-
How many did it take to work the policies and procedures, and then round them up and keep the trains running on time and the ovens fueled? Each participant pretending that they weren’t contributing. Think about the guilt of each individual involved.

A lesson lost, perhaps, on those who would support anti-constitutional actions today.

Thank you Fruitbat.

What utter nonsense. There was never a chance that either of the axis powers would invade the US – nor did either of them want to.

Find out why from two books:
Origin of the Second World War – A.J.P. Taylor
History of the Second World War – B.H. Liddell Hart

It is bad enough that Americans took this kind of fantastic propaganda seriously in the early 1940s. To still be talking about it today defies belief.

I am reminded that early in WWII the invasion of the British isles was a very real possibility. The Brits had lost massive amounts of equipment at Dunkirk and the home guard were training with broomsticks.
An organized drive was conducted to get US gun owners to contribute any spare weapons to help arm the British defenders and large numbers of weapons of all sorts were shipped to our allies for their use in protecting their homes.
As history documents that invasion never happened due in great part to the skill and heroism of British and American fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain air war. And a significant number of German airmen were shot down and captured when they landed by Brits armed with those same US loaned firearms.
And after the war what happened to all those guns? Returned to their former owners? Enshrined in museums? Nope, either melted down for scrap or dumped into the sea to rust away.
Just saying, in case the occasion should ever come up again.

Back in 1940 LIBERTY magazine published a serial, “Lightning in the Night,” about a Nazi invasion of the US, after they had conquered Britain. I recall reading it at the time.

In the story, the Nazis had captured the British fleet, and were using as bases the former British possessions in the Caribbean, as well as Canada’s Maritime Provinces. Mexico was also involved, stirred up by Nazi promises of recovering the Southwest.

The war opens with a joint Soviet-Japanese carrier attack on Pearl Harbor, followed by a Japanese invasion of the West Coast, and a German invasion of the East Coast. The war ends in 1945, with an American aircraft dropping a Uranium-235 bomb on a target in the Soviet Union. (Again, remember, written in 1940.)

The book was reprinted in 1979, to stir up patriotism against the Soviet threat. Copies are still available from Amazon. Worth reading for “alternate history” buffs.

@Uncle Lars While Britian is grateful for the contribution of Americans, who in defiance of the USA neutrality laws, volunteered to serve in the RAF prior to the USA’s entry into the Second World War, the phrase “invasion never happened due in great part to the skill and heroism of British and American fighter pilots” is IMO slightly misleading.

I do not for a moment doubt the heroism of American pilots in the Battle of Britian, one of whom who gave his life is comemorated in St. Pauls’s Cathederal, but the total number of American pilots fighting in the actual battle, July to October 1940, was seven. (Source Wikipeida.)

Okay, more probably fought than were officially acknowledged, but the total number of American pilots fighting in the RAF in the Battle of Britian was still tiny compared to other nationalities such as the Poles, Czechs, New Zealanders etc

Greetings All:
The primary problems with the concept of an American armed populace rising up to throw off an opressor, or to throw out an invader, is in organizing, training and equiping the vast “unorganized reserve”.
Gen. George Washington didn’t trust the militia, because of a lack of training and uneven equippage. Thus, he pushed for a standing army, which both the federalists and anti-federalists distrusted.
Gen. Washingtons arguments for, and the other founder’s arguments against, large regular formations both have merit.
The key to the Unorganized Militia as a viable force is to train and equip them as the Swiss do, and as the Founders intended.
But there is no appetite in either the federal nor the several state governments to “trust” any citizens’ militia. The Liberal Media did a really effective job in the ’90s of villifying armed civilian groups as radical, racist extremist “militas”, and thus the term engenders fear for most of the populace – even though most of said said populace are actually members of THE militia (and they don’t realize that they are in fact members).
Here in Washington State, I found that under RCW (passed into law in 1995) it is illegal for citizens to form “companies of armed men”. Yet there is nothing in state law which promotes any sort of universal military training, nor equipping, for the state/federal Unorganized Militia. I believe that this law was passed to prevent the rise of the racist militias which were growing next door in Idaho at the time. However, an unintended consequence of this includes that a local community or neighborhood, without much in the way of municipal resources, would not be allowed to form such a thing as an armed “community watch”: You couldn’t get together with your armed neighbors to patrol your neighborhood to prevent looting during the aftermath of a major earthquake, while the sheriff’s resources where stretched beyond limits. And you can’t form such a group to prepare for any such emergencies. (There may be something unconstitutional about this prohibition against “Free Assembly” – but that’s another discussion.)
Mike V. at Sipsey Street Irregulars speaks of the 3 percenters, and other commenters here have spoken of how many gun-owners, how many guns, and how many hunters there are in the US who might rise up and resist.
I believe in, and encourage, armed resistance when appropriate – however, individual hunters, occasionally sniping at enemy patrols or leaders, would be no more than pin-pricks against a disciplined enemy force. These woodsman must have military training, at least, in ambush and raid techniques (“Guerilla” tactics). There would need to be some sort of command/control to coordinate efforts. Logistics to provide or replenish ammo, food, communications (at least). Currently, the state governments (through their military departments) and the Pentagon have this capability, but NOT the individuals who might “rise up” spontaneously. Those heroes would end up basically being swatted like flies, and without decisive benefit.
Thus universal military training is vital if the Unorganized Militia were to EVER be capable to effectively participate in defense of the Constitution, or the Nation. The village militias of the Colonial Era were effective because they DID organize and train together to repel maurading indians, brigands or other invaders!

Note: No matter how you feel about the French, they had a large resistance organization during WWII: Check out their history and you may get an idea of the use and effectiveness of armed resistance groups. There also was the Mujahedeen against the Russians. The Algerians and Viet Minh against the French. Filipinos against the US (1902) and against the Japanees (WWII).

Cheers!

Mike Settles
SGM, USAR
Infantry and Civil Affairs
Serving since 1970 in USMC, Regular Army, National Guard and Army Reserve.

Well, duh. Obviously the Nazis COULDN’T have invaded – they barely had a Navy if I recall correctly, and the USA had a relatively large fleet that included some of the most powerful ships in the history of the world, the Iowa-class battleships. Hitler wasn’t even considering it – he didn’t WANT to fight the British, either. He considered them “natural allies.” Mas is not trying to say that the Nazis COULD have invaded, and in acting like he is, you guys are completely missing his much bigger point.

The point is, IF by some freak chance they managed to get a meaningful force here, they would STILL be screwed.

Americans need to get rid of the liberal scum currently trying to destroy our country from within before we worry about those attempting to invade from outside. Four decades now, diabolical liberals have been quietly infiltrating the U.S. Government and indocrinating many of our citizens into accepting their Marxist views under the guise of progressive laws, political correctness, and various social programs. They have been especially successful in brainwashing our children in schools and colleges with revisionist history and into thinking like liberal zombies mindlessly parroting their Dear Leader’s motto of “Yes We can!”. Unless we clean out this nest of anti-American vipers in Washington D.C. and our state capitols first, we’re toast.

On a side note the science fiction writer Phillip k dick wrote a book based on this called ‘the man in the high castle’. Incidentaly the Germans never attempted an invasion of the UK because they estimated losses of at least 50% due to the superiority of the Royal Navy. The slow moving barges would have been sitting ducks. To not have air superiority as well would have made Stalingrad look like a picnic.

“I believe in, and encourage, armed resistance when appropriate – however, individual hunters, occasionally sniping at enemy patrols or leaders, would be no more than pin-pricks against a disciplined enemy force. These woodsman must have military training, at least, in ambush and raid techniques (“Guerilla” tactics).”

Incorrect. Those hunters ALREADY are skilled at denying territory to the “enemy” – even when that “enemy” is in its habitat. They would exact a substantial casualty toll – just as they do when the “enemy” is deer or prairie dogs. If you think that the typical biped invader is more aware of the surroundings than the typical whitetail, think again – and an enemy spread very thin over many square miles at the end of a long supply line couldn’t afford such leaderless resistance by individual locals.

Just imagine how many more Walther P-38s, PPKs and 98 mausers would be in the gunsafes of Americans than there are now.

the American hunter knew his neighborhood, his friends, and high places from which to snipe Nazi soldiers. Another thing. How could the Luftwaffe bring enough aircraft that far from the 3rd reich to have proper aircover? I dont believe they had an aircraft carrier.