this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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There were many brave and accomplished citizens of allied nations who refused military service and who were integral to victory over the axis.
Alan Turing broke the German cyphers and was staunchly antiwar. Howard Florey won the nobel prize for the mass production of penicillin and rejected military rank. Einstein himself was an outspoken pacifist, but it was his research that made the atomic bomb possible.
If the allies had been as interested in forcing everyone into military service as the axis, it's likely the war would have been even more bloody and prolonged.
... didn't refuse wartime service. The exact opposite, in fact. You... you do realize not all military service is shooting guns, right? Turing's work was directly related to discovering German movements, and then, killing them. The Brits weren't codebreaking to find out the Nazis' favorite color for a Valentine's day card.
... okay?
Well, I am glad you agree that the atomic bombs saved many lives, at least.
He was part of the anti-war movement while attending Cambridge. By your reasoning Gandhi was part of the military because he volunteered as a medic. Turing was not a soldier.
... okay? Your argument is then because at the age of 21, near a decade before WW2, he was part of an anti-war movement when in college; therefore, he was a total pacifist and his willing and eager service to military intelligence at the outbreak of WW2 against one of the most vile governments in modern history 'didn't count'?
When was this? The only military service I remember Gandhi being a part of was pre-WW2, and in those cases, quite decidedly in support of a brutal imperial British machine.
Turing was never a pacifist, but he was anti-war. He probably saw his work in signal intelligence as important to ending the war.
Oh, cool, then Eisenhower was also anti-war.
Eisenhower was a soldier, he served in the 19th infantry regiment. Turing wasn't a soldier.
Are you confusing correlation with causation?
He was part of the anti-war student movement at Cambridge in 1933.