I was wondering when you feel that all WWII info become declassified so that we can get the whole picture of the war?

A very unusual topic . Fistly, the 'RAW' data (uninterpreted information) has already been declassified apart from one or two areas.

What you're talking of, is the job of historians who, have taken a lot of information and drawn conclusions from it. What this means to get o (reasonable) picture of WW2, is to begin reading the more reputable historians and bit by bit, get a more complete (personal) undesrtanding. One author who I would personally recommend is Anthony Beevor - ignore the 'mass-market' authors (who are not historians) such as Stephen Ambrose...Jim

I should have been more clear. I was referring to the one or two areas like you mentioned. I was wondering along the lines of the "Manhattan Project", as well as exactly how close Hitler was to a bomb. What exactly happened to JFK's brother who blew up in a Liberator over England and where was he headed? What exactly the allies knew of concentration camps and thier contingency plan for it etc.? Plans for invasion of mainland Japan. Stuff along those lines.

Actually, your two questions were somewhat answered already on the History Channel recently. I watched TV shows about this, but don't remember the exact details.

* Q: How close was Hitler to "The Bomb?" A: Not very. Recently, the HISTCH showed a documentary on raising barrels of Heavy Water from a fjord in Norway. The ferry carrying them was sunk by Norweigian Resistance. The Heavy Water never made it to Nazi Germany. The barrels did test positive for Heavy Water, but the researchers found that despite the sinking of the ferry, Germany didn't issue more production of Heavy Water to compensate. Further research showed that Germany was not very close to making the A-Bomb simply because Germany didn't pour much resources into it compared to the Americans and the "Manhattan Project." Instead, Germany focused on making "Monster Weapons" like the MAUS, V-2, jet planes, and all those secret weapons Hitler so loved.

* Q: What happened to JFK's brother who blew up in a Liberator? A: Another HISTCH show said that he was possibly testing a remote Kamikaze Liberator autopilot drone. I think the target was the sub pens before the "Earthquake Bomb" was made. He flipped the switch for autopilot and was supposed to bail out. Somehow the autopilot malfunctioned or sparked and the plane exploded. It could be bad wiring or faulty hydraulics. One thing's for sure, when the Liberator pieces reached the ground, there was little to nothing left. The entire plane almost vaporized in mid-air.

* Q: Plans for invasion of mainland Japan? A: Also covered in HISTCH and the PC WW2 filght sim game manual "ACES OF THE PACIFIC."

Again, I don't recall the exact details, BUT I do believe the DVDs are available from HISTORY CHANNEL.com. People can correct me above for mistakes.

Bottom line: The U.S. will NEVER declassify all the WW2 info.

As an example on how tight the Pentagon is, and how silly Red Tape can be, I recall a news magazine author (or some military analyst) repeatedly asked the Pentagon to declassify its oldest SECRET (not TOP SECRET, not CLASSIFIED, not BLACK PROJECT). Time and again, the request was denied for like 10 years he repeatedly submitted the request because the Pentagon always thought that the oldest SECRET still had potential military value. Finally, the Pentagon did declassify its oldest secret in the 1990s that dated to like the 1800-1900s (100-200 years old! Forgive me, I don't remember the exact date of classification).

But this fact I DO remember. The oldest Pentagon SECRET was...

"A great place to hide a secret note would be in the shaft of a hollowed out skeleton key." (We're talking about those big hunking Victorian iron keys with the scroll work for the head and a square head at the end. Do a YAHOO image search for "SKELETON KEY" to see what I mean).

Kennedy's death gets a mention in this Wiki article on the Aphrodite unmanned bomber programme

Aphrodite

Alexander McKee's 'Into the blue' has a chapter on the accident including an eye-witness account, he speculates that it was the result of a fuse malfunction.

David

When everybody who are involved in it, or effected by it has left the world...only then i think the world will be comfortable to let it in the open.

Philadelphia Experiment details would be interesting

There will things that no one will ever know about the War for probably a hundred years or so, if ever..........

Philadelphia Experiment info:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

The later posts is more of what I'm referring to. I am familiar with the History channel special on Kennedy's death but I really mean the ACTUAL FACTS and DETAILS.

Same for the Brits:

Did they really capture an enigma machine, or was it the computer at Bletchley Park ???

Actually virtually all the Enigma secrets are now in the public domain. The Polish secret service obtained one in 1939, before the invasion. When Germany invaded, it was smuggled out to Britain. Without knowing how the machine worked, the whole operation at Bletchley Park would have been impossible. Moreover, in order to set the "bombes" which did the actual cracking, the Bletchley Park staff needed to isolate the setting codes at the start of each message.

Curiously enough, the Enigma was not primarily designed for military applications, it was intended as a commercial coding machine to prevent industrial espionage. However the German military recognised it's potential. They continued to believe it secure until the end of the war, preferring to believe that their highest echelons were penetrated by Soviet spies.

It is now known that Bletchley Park & SIS generally, were compromised by Soviet agents (Burgess, McLean, Philby etc). Moreover it has been speculated lately that Bletchley Park was also monitoring Soviet transmissions & possibly other allies.

Very interesting subject....

I have to agree that Germany concentrated on "monster" weapons.

And in regard to aircraft design, many concepts were way ahead of their time and probably would have been a real bugger to make work sufficiently well to be considered servicable. In many cases it was a case of a design or concept sitting on a shelf waiting for technology to catch up to a point were they would have been feasible but WW2 time ran out before this would have been possible.

Its interesting to note just how much these ideas influenced later aircraft and still have a bearing on today's aircraft. Technology did start to catch up in the late 40's and 50's which saw a great host of "new" jet aircraft projects that actually made it in to service.

Cheers
Peter
:-)

Off course we'll never fully know what the allies were working on, but it can be assumed that a lot of what entered service upto 15 years after the war may have had it's roots in the war itself.

Perhaps, if the war had gone on for say, 1 year more, I am sure the americans would have had helicopters in the field, for instance.

Likewise, the Brits would probably have been the first to field turboprop engines, aswell as a jet bomber that worked ( based on them having the first jet airliner, the De Haviland Comet ).

Talking about Nazi Germany scientists is often a touchy subject, but this much is known. When WW2 ended, the U.S. took a lot of those German military scientists over to the U.S. to work for the U.S. Govt. Some say their research even continued, only now with more funds and resources. In fact, a lot of Allied nations were grabbing them. Some even credit this with how we landed on the moon before the Soviets mainly because we had the right (and more) WW2 German scientists.

The same thing...after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. was grabbing as many Russian military scientists as possible. Better to have them work for a former enemy than unemployed and working for the highest bidder.