Prime Minister Winston Churchill -- Just After Pearl Harbor
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
----------------------------------------
"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the
United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.
I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have
measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very
moment I knew the United States was in the war up to the neck and in to
the death.
So we had won after all. . . . We should not be wiped out. Our history
would not come to an end. ******
We might not even have to die as individuals. Hitler's fate was sealed.
Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground
to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of
overwhelming force. The British Empire, the Soviet Union, and now the
United States bound together with every scrap of their life and
strength, were, according to my lights, twice or even thrice the force
of their antagonists.
No doubt it would take a long time. I expected terrible forfeits in the
East; but all this would be merely a passing phase. United we could
subdue everybody else in the world. Many disasters, immeasurable cost
and tribulation lay ahead, but there was no more doubt about the end.
Silly people, and there were many, not only in enemy countries, might
discount the force of the United States. ******
Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They
would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They
would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of
recurrent elections would paralyse their war effort. They would be just
a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. ******
Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and
talkative people.
But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last
desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins [Churchill's mother
was Jennie Jerome, an American ---- DSH]. I thought of a remark which
Edward Grey* [N.B. British politician and Foreign Secretary in August
1914. ---- DSH] had made to me more than thirty years before ---- that
the United States is like "a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted
under it there is no limit to the power it can generate."
Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed
and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful."
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
_The Grand Alliance_, pp. 539-540
* The man who said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall
not see them lit again in our lifetime."
["Comment [3 August 1914], standing at the windows of his room in the
Foreign Office, London, as the lamplighters were turning on the lights
in St. James Park. War was declared at 11 P.M on 4 August 1914.]"
(Bartlett's)
----------------------------------------
Deus Vult.
"I don't care a twopenny damn what becomes of the ashes of Napoleon
Buonaparte." ---- Attributed to Arthur Wellesley, [1769-1852] Duke of
Wellington
Prosecutio stultitiae est gravis vexatio, executio stultitiae coronat
opus.
D. Spencer Hines
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Vires et Honor
Bryn
<pogue...@hotmail.com> writes
>Listen Up Pogues, America-Haters & Ragamuffins!
>
>DSH
>----------------------------------------
>
>"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the
>United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
He (Lord Lovat) began to lose heart at the beginning of November and
wrote some bitter reflections on the Gallipoli muddle to his
wife.
St. Andrew's Hospital,
Malta,
November 3rd 1915.
I am keeping up my strength though not recovering as
quickly as I had hoped, and find time passing slowly. We
get papers and the Malta Chronicle which has Reuter's wires.
I have just seen the Prime Minister's speech. He has taken
the familiar line of disarming criticism by taking upon him-
self the responsibility for everything. I dciresay it is for the
best. Asquith is certainly the ablest thinker and the only
man who could keep a National Cabinet together. It is now
abundantly clear to all who care to read that the method of
conduct of the Dardanelles was a Naval enterprise, pure and
simple, with Fisher opposed and Kitchener determined to
take no part. The Prime Minister as Head of the Govern-
ment was, as he said, no less responsible for the project than
Winston,
but it is more than clear that Winston alone was
the inspiration of this tragedy. The Gallipoli expedition
properly carried out would have been brilliant; great
strategic possibilities and with combined action (Army and
Navy) very little risk ; carried out piece-meal, sailors first,
driblets of soldiers second, more driblets of soldiers third,
starvation of guns fourth, failure to observe Balkan trouble
fifth, plus final debacle on arrival of guns and supplies
through Serbia, it was disaster.
It will be up-to-date
and probably to all eternity as sordid and miserable a
chapter of amateur enterprise as ever was written in our history.
--
Bryn
To email remove GREMILNS
martin reboul
"Bryn" <br...@GREMILNSfinhall.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:SQX6RaEl...@finhall.demon.co.uk...
I'm still uncertain as to whether Churchill had any prior knowledge of the
impending Japanes attack on Pearl through Ulra decrypts. I can well understand
him keeping quiet (he'd been desperate to get the USA into the war from the
start - it was the only way Britain would have any chance of holding out, never
mind taking the initiative), and I can also fully understand him 'forgetting' to
include any details of that - if it happened - in his memoirs....
Did the Germans have any idea a Japanese attack was imminent in other words? If
they did, we might well have too...
Even so, was it a wise move not to tip off Roosevelt? Had a few fighter
squadrons been waiting quietly, and US submarines picked off the Jap carriers,
it could have been very different.... but would the USA have come into the war?
The way it happened made it certain of course, but the enormous damage done to
the US fleet also ensured that the Japanese swept across the Pacific almost
unchallenged (which severely affected Britain as much as the USA).
Roosevelt was given the perfect excuse to order a new fleet of course, to
replace the somewhat outdated and outclassed battleships that were sunk at
Pearl.... did it perhaps suit his interests as well? You have to wonder about
this one... will we ever know for certain? The possibilities of 'skullduggery'
and 'conspiracy' (if you prefer to call it that) are great, but even now this
would be a very sensitive matter indeed, as the sacrifice was absolutely
enormous.
Come on Spency, you must have some ideas on this one (for once!). I know
Churchill was ruthless and desperate enough to do such a thing - but what about
Roosevelt? What do you think... be constructive for a change?
Cheers
Martin
William Black
"martin reboul" <martin...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4274f...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
> Did the Germans have any idea a Japanese attack was imminent in other
words? If
> they did, we might well have too...
According to David Kahn's magisterial study of German intelligence in WWII,
'Hitler's Spies' the Germans learned of Pearl Harbor when they heard a US
broadcast and it cams as a complete surprise to them.
>
> Even so, was it a wise move not to tip off Roosevelt? Had a few fighter
> squadrons been waiting quietly, and US submarines picked off the Jap
carriers,
> it could have been very different.... but would the USA have come into the
war?
Well that's the obvious point isn't it.
If the US knew then defeating the Japanese fleet and shooting them to bits
wouldn't actually matter when the decision to go to war came along.
People bombing the shit out of your airfields and navy is an act of war no
matter who wins.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
Barbeques on fire by chalets past the headland
I've watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off Newborough
All this will pass like ice-cream on the beach
Time for tea
Spiv
"martin reboul" <martin...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4274f...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
>
Britain could hold out OK. By the time the US came in the Germans were
pegged on two fronts -the were going nowhere. The Brits stopped them in the
west and the Soviets had just countered at Moscow taking 30,000 German
prisoners. Britain wanted a swift end to the war not a draw out affair, and
that meant getting the Yanks involved. The US knew it would have to go in,
it was that Churchill wanted them in ASAP.
ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk
Britain was holding out but to do more would take more than guts and
hard work.
The battle of Britain was a defensive victory,and the campaigns in
Africa did not invole enough troops for their success to be a death
blow to the Nazis.
Manpower and industrial capacity had to be increased,only by gaining
allies could this happen,Britain needed the USA and the USSR.
Pearl Harbor was of course 7 December 1941.
The USSR had just stopped the threat of Moscow being captured,but
elsewhere on the eastern front the final outcome was far from clear.
Stalingrad did not become safew until after September 1942 and the
winning position of the USSR was not confirmed until Kursk in
July/August 1943.
Even while thinking about these Soviet victories we have to remember
the huge amount of material aid that came from the USA after Pearl
Harbor.
Thousands of trucks,pairs of boots,Tanks,planes and food stuffs.
As for the British the battle of the Atlantic might have been won
without American help,but perhaps not.
The increase in the area of air cover,the ships of the US navy and the
Liberty ships,and of course the material sent to
Britain,tanks,planes,ships,food made the victory certain.
Even before Pearl Harbor the US navy was helping the Royal Navy in
hunting U boats,see the USS Grier sinking.
"See THE CHRONOLOGICAL ATLAS OF WORLD WAR 2 BY FRANCIS AND BARRIE PITT.
Spiv
<ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1114969882....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> I am a Brit but cannot agree with this post.
It is factual.
> Britain was holding out but to do more
> would take more than guts and
> hard work.
You fail to realise the Soviets had pegged the Germans and the cavalier
approach of the Germans had come to an end.
> The battle of Britain was a defensive victory,
> and the campaigns in Africa did not invole
> enough troops for their success to be a death
> blow to the Nazis.
Needed more armour than troops. Enough troops.
> Manpower and industrial capacity had
> to be increased,only by gaining
> allies could this happen,
Britain's output was rising and eventually outstripped Germany.
> Britain needed the USA and the USSR.
The USSR more than the USA. The USSR would bleed the German forces on one
front.
> Pearl Harbor was of course 7 December 1941.
> The USSR had just stopped the threat of
> Moscow being captured,but
> elsewhere on the eastern front the final
> outcome was far from clear.
When 30,000 Germans were taken prisoner the joy ride had stopped.
> Stalingrad did not become safew until
> after September 1942 and the
> winning position of the USSR was not
> confirmed until Kursk in July/August 1943.
From Dec 1941 it was clear the Germans would not subduedicate the Soviets.
Tooing and froing of course, but no more than that.
> Even while thinking about these Soviet
> victories we have to remember
> the huge amount of material aid that
> came from the USA after Pearl
> Harbor.
> Thousands of trucks,pairs of boots,Tanks,
> planes and food stuffs.
All paid for with interest. This does not mean that the British and Soviets
would not have won if the US did not sell arms. It would have taken longer,
that's all.
> As for the British the battle of the
> Atlantic might have been won
> without American help,but perhaps not.
As British technology and effort mainly won it, I would think they would
have.
> The increase in the area of air cover,
> the ships of the US navy and the
> Liberty ships,and of course the material sent to
> Britain,tanks,planes,ships,food made the victory certain.
No doubt. But this does not mean that if the USA did not sell this material
the British and Soviets would have been defeated.
> Even before Pearl Harbor the US navy
> was helping the Royal Navy in
> hunting U boats,
Not in a big way though. After the Germans declared war on the USA, the
Chief US naval man in the Atlantic, King, refused to escort convoys,
resulting in nearly 400 merchant ships being sunk in 6 months. So much for
US help.
ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk
December 1941.
Not sure Britain/empire had enough men to do everything.Soviets were
not winning only holding the line at Moscow.
I know about the battle of the Atlantic,and at first the Amercians took
a while to get up to speed but yopu can't deny the fact that losses on
the eastern seaboard dropped long term due to US joining the war and
reducing the air gap.
Don't get me wrong,I am a proud Brit who knows what our people did
1939-1941.
My father was in the army in Britain ,my uncle in the desert and my
mother in the Land Army and later getting bits of roof landing on her
head due to a V1 or V2.
But the American contribution,of people and stuff was vital.
No point in arguing,anybody want to give their point of view on this
topic,perhaps not British or American.
Feel you have to have Union Jack underpants to deny the role of the US.
Spiv
<ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1114975949.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Still feel you overstate the position of Britain and the USSR prior to
> December 1941.
> Not sure Britain/empire had enough
> men to do every
> thing.Soviets were not winning only
> holding the line at Moscow.
The point is the Germans were going nowhere, a war of attrition had started
which would bleed the Germans. The Soviets had introduced a superior robust
tank, the T34.
> I know about the battle of the Atlantic,and at first the Amercians took
> a while to get up to speed but yopu can't deny the fact that losses on
> the eastern seaboard dropped long term due to US joining the war and
> reducing the air gap.
The loses on the eastern seaboard were all due to the US.
> Don't get me wrong,I am a proud Brit who knows what our people did
> 1939-1941.
> My father was in the army in Britain ,my uncle in the desert and my
> mother in the Land Army and later getting bits of roof landing on her
> head due to a V1 or V2.
> But the American contribution,of people and stuff was vital.
> No point in arguing,anybody want to give their point of view on this
> topic,perhaps not British or American.
> Feel you have to have Union Jack underpants to deny the role of the US.
The US was vital in shortening the war. The war could have been won without
them, it just would have taken longer. How long is open to speculation. If
Bomber Harris had his way and he was allowed to raze a city each week, maybe
the war would have been shorter than what people think without the
USA -Speer said Germany could not have suffered another two Hamburg's. With
the US in the war the political situation made matters much worse at times.
Monty's 30 division thrust to Berlin was vetoed by Eisenhower, because of
political and public opinion considerations in the USA - an election year.
This was counter to UK military thought. There would have a been one command
structure pointing one way. No Japan in the war, so Anzacs can operate in
the desert.
The sea link to the USA was considered vital in WW2, yet is wasn't in WW1.
In WW1 the UK didn't need masses of arms from the USA.
Dad
Dad
Greylock
wrote:
>
><ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:1114969882....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
>> I am a Brit but cannot agree with this post.
>
>It is factual.
>
>> Britain was holding out but to do more
>> would take more than guts and
>> hard work.
>
>You fail to realise the Soviets had pegged the Germans and the cavalier
>approach of the Germans had come to an end.
>
>> The battle of Britain was a defensive victory,
>> and the campaigns in Africa did not invole
>> enough troops for their success to be a death
>> blow to the Nazis.
>
>Needed more armour than troops. Enough troops.
>
>> Manpower and industrial capacity had
>> to be increased,only by gaining
>> allies could this happen,
>
>Britain's output was rising and eventually outstripped Germany.
Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
>
>> Britain needed the USA and the USSR.
>
>The USSR more than the USA. The USSR would bleed the German forces on one
>front.
>
>> Pearl Harbor was of course 7 December 1941.
>> The USSR had just stopped the threat of
>> Moscow being captured,but
>> elsewhere on the eastern front the final
>> outcome was far from clear.
>
>When 30,000 Germans were taken prisoner the joy ride had stopped.
>
>> Stalingrad did not become safew until
>> after September 1942 and the
>> winning position of the USSR was not
>> confirmed until Kursk in July/August 1943.
>
>From Dec 1941 it was clear the Germans would not subduedicate the Soviets.
>Tooing and froing of course, but no more than that.
Bullshit. You wanta produce a citation besides your fevered
imagination?
>
>> Even while thinking about these Soviet
>> victories we have to remember
>> the huge amount of material aid that
>> came from the USA after Pearl
>> Harbor.
>> Thousands of trucks,pairs of boots,Tanks,
>> planes and food stuffs.
>
>All paid for with interest. This does not mean that the British and Soviets
>would not have won if the US did not sell arms. It would have taken longer,
>that's all.
Bullshit. You wanta produce a citation besides your fevered
imagination?
>
>> As for the British the battle of the
>> Atlantic might have been won
>> without American help,but perhaps not.
>
>As British technology and effort mainly won it, I would think they would
>have.
That isn't even bullshit. It's just blatantly insane.
>
>> The increase in the area of air cover,
>> the ships of the US navy and the
>> Liberty ships,and of course the material sent to
>> Britain,tanks,planes,ships,food made the victory certain.
>
>No doubt. But this does not mean that if the USA did not sell this material
>the British and Soviets would have been defeated.
>
>> Even before Pearl Harbor the US navy
>> was helping the Royal Navy in
>> hunting U boats,
>
>Not in a big way though. After the Germans declared war on the USA, the
>Chief US naval man in the Atlantic, King, refused to escort convoys,
>resulting in nearly 400 merchant ships being sunk in 6 months. So much for
>US help.
>
You wanta try that again and provide ALL the facts instead of just a
few carefully selected ones?
Julian Richards
<ib011...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
Without the USA, The USSR and the British Empire, the war would have
been lost. The loss of aircraft, and even more so the trained aircrew
who would go on to train new crew and had cut their teeth in the
Spanish Civil War, during the Battle of Britain was key in the German
defeat in the East.
If the Empire had been out of the war, the forces released by the
Germans and the Japanese in their respective theatres could well have
been key to the defeat of the USSR and the USA who only entered the
war the following year.
The USSR was the main power in the defeat of Germany but even then,
they used US and British equipment.
The USA was the main power in the defeat of Japan, but the role of the
Empire was still key in this defeat.
The issue boils down to the fact that the second world war was a very
close run thing. Considering the consequences of defeat, way too
close. At several point there were key events that could have meant a
reversal of the result of the war.
--
Julian Richards
medieval "at" richardsuk.f9.co.uk
Usenet is how from the comfort of your own living room, you can converse
with people that you would never want in your house.
THIS MESSAGE WAS POSTED FROM SOC.HISTORY.MEDIEVAL
Julian Richards
wrote:
>On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
>wrote:
>Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
>
>Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
Largely with US planes?
Avro Lancaster
Handley Page Halifax
De Havilland Mosquito
Bristol Blenheim
Vickers Wellington
Which US built bombers were in RAF service in any numbers remotely
comparable to the above planes?
Spiv
"Julian Richards" <s...@sig.co.uk> wrote in message
news:emub71dgm38umqbh1...@4ax.com...
> Without the USA, The USSR and the
> British Empire, the war would have
> been lost.
I totally disagree. There is nothing concrete to reinforce that view.
Germany was stopped on both fronts just as the US came into the war - the
Germans were going nowhere on two fronts. Britain would have conducted a
bomber war on German industry in the weat, with large bomber fleet and the
Soviets would have slowly ground them down in the east. UK industrial
output, as was the Soviets, was increasing by the month. Two very large
industrial nations.
> If the Empire had been out of the war,
> the forces released by the
> Germans and the Japanese in their
> respective theatres could well have
> been key to the defeat of the USSR and
> the USA who only entered the
> war the following year.
>
> The USSR was the main power in the defeat
> of Germany but even then,
> they used US and British equipment.
You are missing the point. The US entering war shortened it, that is
abundantly clear. If they never, to say the UK and USSR would capitulate
because of some lack of US equipment is ludicrous. The Germans could not
openly sail the north Atlantic, and had serious raw materials supply
problems. The war would have been much longer without the US, but the
result would have been the same.
> The USA was the main power in the
> defeat of Japan, but the role of the
> Empire was still key in this defeat.
>
> The issue boils down to the fact that
> the second world war was a very
> close run thing.
It wasn't at all. Germany was going to be defeated irrespective of whether
the US came in or not. They could not defeat the USSR and invade the UK.
The USSR and the UK were highly industrialised countries that were at full
belt 24/7.
Once the US came in with its massive industrial base the outcome was
obvious.
> Considering the consequences of defeat,
> way too close. At several point there were
> key events that could have meant a
> reversal of the result of the war.
Please tell, what key events? The Germans could not take the UK, they knew
that and wisely decided not to. They could not take the USSR. Everyone else
knew that, except them. Their initial advances gave them the impression
they could - the fact was the Soviets had retreated behind the Urals,
complete with men and factories. The Soviets were just too big, with too
many men and a large industrial base that slid back to the other side of the
Urals. OK defeat the USSR at Stalingrad, there is another army over the
Urals to come at you with more tanks than what the Germans had.
The only chance Germany had of dominating Europe was to take the UK, then
they could control the Atlantic approaches and guarantee raw materials for
their war factories. They could not do this and went on a wild gamble
against the Soviets which would inevitably fail.
In the east. If the Japanese had won at Midway, it would not have meat they
would have won the east. The USA was turning out carriers and ships like GM
turns out cars. Any reversal in an key" battle would be made up in about a
year or so.
The prime points are:
1. Germany could not win - US in the war or not.
2. Once the US came in Germany and Japan would loose.
In hindsight it was crazy for the Germans and Japanese to do what they did -
they just took gambles that initially paid off. All German Generals
advised against attacking France, Hitler overruled said go and it paid off
beyond their widest dreams, against the odds. The Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbour and never had a follow up plan to take the islands - very dumb
indeed.
They could never have succeeded in the long term. Short term German and
Japanese gains distorts the big picture.
D. Patterson
Julian Richards wrote:
> On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>
>>Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
>>
>>Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
>>
>
> Largely with US planes?
>
> Avro Lancaster
> Handley Page Halifax
> De Havilland Mosquito
> Bristol Blenheim
> Vickers Wellington
>
> Which US built bombers were in RAF service in any numbers remotely
> comparable to the above planes?
>
The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns by ALL
of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
campaigns of the Second World War. More than 12,000 B-17 Flying Fortresses
alone were produced and used in the Second World War versus only somewhat
more than 7,000 Avro-Lancaster bombers were produced by Britain.
Furthermore, the United States also produced more than 18,000 B-24
Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers. In
other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester, Halifax,
Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by the more than
33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced and used by the United
States in the bombing campaigns.
Even when you consider only the American produced bombers used by the RAF,
the American contributions represented a large fraction of the entire RAF
bomber force. The moe than 2,100 American built B-24 Liberator bombers
delivered to Britain alone repesented about some 10 to 13 percent of all of
the RAF's heavy bombers. The American built medium and light bombers
contributed another large percentage of the RAF bomber strengths.
Even the Avro-Lancaster, Mosquito, Spitfire, and other British aircraft were
built in part in the United States and vitally dependent upon a continued
supply of parts from the United States. Half or mnore of the more than 7,000
Avro-Lancaster bombers in the RAF, many of the Mosquito bombers, and many of
the Spitfires would have been grounded without the 16,000 American built
Packard engines which Packard had to redesign from the virtually hand
machined Brtish Merlin engines to make them suitable for mass production.
Without the American built engines, other aircraft components, and supplies
of aircraft aluminum, steel, rubber, and other vital material, nearly half
of the RAF simply would not have existed or flown. Without the training of
RAF pilots and aircrews in the United States, the RAF would also have had
far fewer pilots and aircrew. Without aviation fuel from the United States,
the RAF aircraft and aircrews would have been nearly all grounded for a lack
of fuel. Without the United States, Britain simply was not going to
participate in any significant strategic bombing campaigns.
D. Patterson
Julian Richards wrote:
> On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
>>wrote:
>>
>
>>Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
>>
>>Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
>>
>
> Largely with US planes?
>
> Avro Lancaster
> Handley Page Halifax
> De Havilland Mosquito
> Bristol Blenheim
> Vickers Wellington
>
> Which US built bombers were in RAF service in any numbers remotely
> comparable to the above planes?
>
>
ray o'hara
> On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
> >
> >Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
>
> Largely with US planes?
>
> Avro Lancaster
> Handley Page Halifax
> De Havilland Mosquito
> Bristol Blenheim
> Vickers Wellington
>
except for the lancaster the rest were either useless as bombers or
obsolete, and while the raf raised baby-killing to a high art their night
time raids did little damage to insudtry and diverted resources from more
useful areas.
england would never have been more than a minor annoyance to the germans as
they lacked the resources to ever challenge germany on the continent. as
someone posted, without u.s. aid england is a small province in the soviet
empire.
as to defeating japan, the u.s consucts their pacific campaign just as they
did historically it's just the majority of jap troops never get to do more
than garrison out of the path of war mainland posts. the brit/aussie
campaigns in burma and india could have not taken place and it would have
had no bearing on the war.
Nohbody
wrote:
> "Julian Richards" <s...@sig.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:i7vb719i38t506pnl...@4ax.com...
> > On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> > wrote:
> > >Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
> >
> > Largely with US planes?
> >
> > Avro Lancaster
> > Handley Page Halifax
> > De Havilland Mosquito
> > Bristol Blenheim
> > Vickers Wellington
>
> except for the lancaster the rest were either useless as bombers or
> obsolete, and while the raf raised baby-killing to a high art their night
> time raids did little damage to insudtry and diverted resources from more
> useful areas.
To be fair (on usenet?!), as I recall USAAF studies done after the war
on the strategic bombing campaign weren't too much more optimistic
about the direct material effects of the daylight industry-targeting
bombing campaign carried out by the USAA(C/F) in the ETO. The Norden
bombsight's accuracy was somewhat overstated.
As to the general argument regarding the value of US involvement in
WW2, there was no single factor that won the war, but the varying
shades of gray that is (or was, since we're talking about the past)
the real world get rendered into black and white too annoyingly often,
IMO. (Yes, sometimes even by me.)
Dan Poore
--
About the only difference between the wingnuts on each end of the
[political] spectrum is *which* civil right(s) they think we can do
without. -- Rowan Hawthorn, in alt.callahans (2/28/05)
Geoff Edwards
<martin...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>I'm still uncertain as to whether Churchill had any prior knowledge of the
>impending Japanes attack on Pearl through Ulra decrypts.
He didn't. He couldn't have. Ultra decoded material encrypted by the
Enigma machine which was unique to the German forces. It couldn;t
decode Japanese material.
Geoff Edwards
Leeds, UK
e-mail: stops...@sixwillow.com
(replace the stopspambot bit with some
version of my name)
Dad
Me to.
Dad
Dad
David Thornley
D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
>
>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns by ALL
>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
>campaigns of the Second World War.
So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
they used different tactics.
>Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers. In
>other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester, Halifax,
>Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by the more than
>33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced and used by the United
>States in the bombing campaigns.
>
Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
don't remember in whose favor).
>Even when you consider only the American produced bombers used by the RAF,
>the American contributions represented a large fraction of the entire RAF
>bomber force. The moe than 2,100 American built B-24 Liberator bombers
>delivered to Britain alone repesented about some 10 to 13 percent of all of
>the RAF's heavy bombers. The American built medium and light bombers
>contributed another large percentage of the RAF bomber strengths.
>
The Liberators were not used as heavy bombers. Lots of them, if not
all, were used by Coastal Command as ASW patrol aircraft.
To repeat, the British strategic bombing effort was about equal
in scope to the US strategic bombing effort in Europe.
BTW, when talking about the US contribution to the RAF, don't forget
the British contribution to Eighth Air Force, mostly in the realm of
infrastructure.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
David Thornley
Geoff Edwards <see-my-sig> wrote:
>On Sun, 1 May 2005 16:29:06 +0100, "martin reboul"
><martin...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I'm still uncertain as to whether Churchill had any prior knowledge of the
>>impending Japanes attack on Pearl through Ulra decrypts.
>
>He didn't. He couldn't have. Ultra decoded material encrypted by the
>Enigma machine which was unique to the German forces. It couldn;t
>decode Japanese material.
>
provide a lot of information about German activities. The Germans
shared information with the Japanese ambassador. However, the Germans
knew as much in advance about Pearl Harbor as the US, Britain, or
for that matter the penguins in the Antarctic area: nothing.
The only way to get information on that strike was to have human
intelligence agents in the higher Japanese circles, and that didn't
happen.
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
Spiv
> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
> >wrote:
>
> >Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
> >
> >Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
>
> Largely with US planes?
>
> Avro Lancaster
> Handley Page Halifax
> De Havilland Mosquito
> Bristol Blenheim
> Vickers Wellington
>
> Which US built bombers were in RAF service in any numbers remotely
> comparable to the above planes?
Well the Yanks do thing they won the war all by themselves. Which is total
nonsense of course. They have a great propaganda machine over there.
Spiv
"ray o'hara" <r...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:kdCdnTt4Hcr...@comcast.com...
>
> "Julian Richards" <s...@sig.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:i7vb719i38t506pnl...@4ax.com...
> > On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
> > >wrote:
> >
> > >Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
> > >
> > >Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
> >
> > Largely with US planes?
> >
> > Avro Lancaster
> > Handley Page Halifax
> > De Havilland Mosquito
> > Bristol Blenheim
> > Vickers Wellington
>
> except for the lancaster the rest were
> either useless as bombers or
> obsolete,
Just like the B17 you mean.
> england would never have been more
> than a minor annoyance to the germans as
> they lacked the resources to ever challenge
> germany on the continent.
Another brainwashed Yank.
** snip **
Spiv
"D. Patterson" <pro...@legypt.net> wrote in message
news:117cc67...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
> Julian Richards wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 02 May 2005 01:50:56 GMT, Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >>On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >
> >>Only because of the bombing campaigns, dipshit.
> >>
> >>Bombing campaigns done largely with American bombs, fuel, and planes.
> >>
> >
> > Largely with US planes?
> >
> > Avro Lancaster
> > Handley Page Halifax
> > De Havilland Mosquito
> > Bristol Blenheim
> > Vickers Wellington
> >
> > Which US built bombers were in RAF service in any numbers remotely
> > comparable to the above planes?
> >
>
>
> The man clearly meant American planes
> used in the bombing campaigns by ALL
> of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF.
> British built bombers were vastly outnumbered
> by the American built bombers used in the bombing
> campaigns of the Second World War.
Nonsense, they were not.
> More than 12,000 B-17 Flying Fortresses
> alone were produced and used in the
> Second World War versus only somewhat
> more than 7,000 Avro-Lancaster bombers
> were produced by Britain.
How many used in Europe? The B17 had a pathetic bomb load, only twice that
of a Mosquito, which was a two man plane.
> Even when you consider only the American
> produced bombers used by the RAF,
> the American contributions represented
> a large fraction of the entire RAF
> bomber force.
You really have not a clue of what you are on about. The RAF used Hudson
and Liberators, which were not mainline bombers. Some sued for sea duty.
> The moe than 2,100 American built B-24
> Liberator bombers delivered to Britain
> alone repesented about some 10 to 13
> percent of all of the RAF's heavy bombers.
> The American built medium and light bombers
> contributed another large percentage of the
> RAF bomber strengths.
10%, now that's a lot isn't it. Mainly used for coastal work.
> Even the Avro-Lancaster, Mosquito,
> Spitfire, and other British aircraft were
> built in part in the United States and vitally
> dependent upon a continued
> supply of parts from the United States.
If you mean RR Merlins built in the US then that is about all.
** snip babbling garbage **
Spiv
"Dad" <knoc...@fisher.net> wrote in message
news:f_GdnSCAUr7...@bright.net...
>
> Me to.
Another thick one.
ray o'hara
"Spiv" >
> Well the Yanks do thing they won the war all by themselves. Which is
total
> nonsense of course. They have a great propaganda machine over there.
>
watch a thames production sometime.
D. Patterson
David Thornley wrote:
> In article <117cc66...@corp.supernews.com>,
> D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
>
>>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns
by ALL
>>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
>>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
>>campaigns of the Second World War.
>>
>
> So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
> they used different tactics.
>
So, the British bombers carried more or larger eggs in one basket with
which to be shot down and scatter all over the countryside at lower
altitudes, miles away from any conceivable target in the night, and too
often impotent against German industrial targets without burning down
the entire city, if they were lucky. All exagerrations aside, the Bomber
Command losses of aircrew, inability to execute a daylight bombing
campaign without air supremacy, and too frequent failures to strike
industrial and transportation targets negated much of the purpose and
value of Bomber Command. Without the USAAF, the RAF Bomber Command's
operations were little more decisive or effective than the Luftrwaffe
terror bombing campaign against targets in Britain. Without the
American built bombers in the RAF, more than ten percent of Bomber
Command's bombers would have been lost to Coastal Command and other
duties beisdes the bombing campaigns in Northern Europe. Without the
American mass produced Packard engines in the RAF, more than a third of
the RAF bombers would have lacked engines with which to fly anywhere on
any mission. Without the American aviation fuel, the RAF would not have
had enough aviation fuel to conduct aircrew training in Britain, much
less enough avaiation fuel to conduct air bombardment campaigns over the
Continent, the Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia. Without the American
aviation fuel, the RAF would not have had enough aviation fuel to
conduct the ASW patrols which did so much to safeguard the convoys
delivering food, supplies, and fuels to the war industries in Britain.
>
>>Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy
bombers. In
>>other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester, Halifax,
>>Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by the more
than
>>33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced and used by the
United
>>States in the bombing campaigns.
>>
>>
> Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
> bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
> the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
> air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
> don't remember in whose favor).
>
You ask, "So what?" Then you wave a Magic Wand to make all of the
inconvenient facts against your prejudices just vanish like an unwanted
nightmare. Well, it ain't gonna work. The numbers of bombers produced is
absolutely relevant, and your attempt to wish them away is pathetic.
Without the ASW patrol bombers to defend the British convoys
transporting aviation fuel, Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
bombers, bombs and other ammunition, rubber for gaskets and aircraft
tires, and a myriad of other indispensible parts and supplies for Bomber
Command's aircraft, there was not going to be any British strategic
bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
Furthermore, there is a huge difference between the RAF night bombers
dropping and wasting too much of its bomb tonnage on non-targets versus
the demonstrated ability of the USAAF daylight bombers successfully
striking its intended targets with its bomb tonnages. In other words,
the USAAF bomb tonnages striking their intended targets were several
times more effective than the RAF bomb tonnages which did not strike
their intended targets.
>
>>Even when you consider only the American produced bombers used by the
RAF,
>>the American contributions represented a large fraction of the entire RAF
>>bomber force. The moe than 2,100 American built B-24 Liberator bombers
>>delivered to Britain alone repesented about some 10 to 13 percent of
all of
>>the RAF's heavy bombers. The American built medium and light bombers
>>contributed another large percentage of the RAF bomber strengths.
>>
>>
> The Liberators were not used as heavy bombers. Lots of them, if not
> all, were used by Coastal Command as ASW patrol aircraft.
>
You are wrong again. The RAF did in fact make extensive use of the
Consolidated B-24 Liberator as a heavy bomber in the Mediterranean and
Southeast Asia. The RAF could have used the B-24 Liberator in the
bombing campaigns in Northern Europe, but Bomber Command was not clever
enough to learn how to do so and erroneously deemed the bomber to be
unsuitable for bombing operations in Norhtern Europe. Like the Boeing
B-17 Flying Fortress, the British were incapable of recognizing how to
use two of the best heavy bombers used in a successful bombing campaign
in Norhtern Europe by the USAAF.
Without the use of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator in Coastal Command,
the RAF would have been forced to take more than a thousand British
built heavy bombers out of Bomber Command to serve in Coastal Command.
Such a need would have removed a material percentage of the Bomber
Command's already inadequate strategic bomber force.
> To repeat, the British strategic bombing effort was about equal
> in scope to the US strategic bombing effort in Europe.
>
The strategic bombing effort was hardly the entire focus of the war, so
you are trying to change the subject and evade the essential issue.
Without the American air forces and the American built aircraft,
aircraft parts, fuels and lubricants, aircrew training, aluminum, steel,
rubber, and a myriad of other contributions by the United States, there
was never going to be an RAF Bomber Command strategic bombing campaign
of any strategic importance at all. More than half of the RAF,
especially Bomber Command and Coastal Command, never would have existed
without the material and non-material contributions from the United States.
> BTW, when talking about the US contribution to the RAF, don't forget
> the British contribution to Eighth Air Force, mostly in the realm of
> infrastructure.
>
No one is forgetting the RAF basing support in Britain. Although the
British airbases in Britain were of tremendous usefulness when compared
to other basing options, they were not in the final analysis
indispensible. The United States could and did demonstrate an ability to
conduct strategic bombing operations from airbases outside of Britain.
The United States could win the war without Britain, but Britain could
only lose the war without the United States.
Spiv
"D. Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
news:42769711...@fidalgo.net...
>
>
> David Thornley wrote:
>
> > In article <117cc66...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
> >
> >>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns
> by ALL
> >>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers
were
> >>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
> >>campaigns of the Second World War.
> >>
> >
> > So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
> > they used different tactics.
>
> So, the British bombers carried
> more or larger eggs in one basket with
> which to be shot down and scatter all
> over the countryside
Totyal garbage.
** snip garabage **
> Without the American aviation fuel,
> the RAF would not have had enough
> aviation fuel to conduct aircrew training
> in Britain,
A lot of bomber training was done in Rhodesia, with fuel supplied by the
British refinery in Iran.
> > Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number
of
> > bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
> > the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
> > air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
> > don't remember in whose favor).
The US were famous for their inaccuracy.
> Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
> bombers, bombs and other ammunition,
> rubber for gaskets and aircraft tires, and
> a myriad of other indispensible parts and
> supplies for Bomber Command's aircraft,
> there was not going to be any British strategic
> bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
This man is a fool. He implies British industry is not capable of producing
these basic components
> In other words,
> the USAAF bomb tonnages striking
> their intended targets were several
> times more effective than the RAF
> bomb tonnages which did not strike
> their intended targets.
This is drivel
> > The Liberators were not used as heavy
> > bombers. Lots of them, if not
> > all, were used by Coastal Command
> > as ASW patrol aircraft.
> > To repeat, the British strategic bombing effort was about equal
> > in scope to the US strategic bombing effort in Europe.
>
> The strategic bombing effort was hardly the
> entire focus of the war, so you are trying to
> change the subject and evade the essential issue.
> Without the American air forces and the
> American built aircraft, aircraft parts, fuels
> and lubricants, aircrew training, aluminum, steel,
> rubber, and a myriad of other contributions by the
> United States, there was never going to be an
> RAF Bomber Command strategic bombing campaign
Dream on.
> > BTW, when talking about the US contribution
> > to the RAF, don't forget the British contribution
> > to Eighth Air Force, mostly in the realm of
> > infrastructure.
> The United States could win the war without Britain, but Britain could
> only lose the war without the United States.
This man is total indoctrinated.
Spiv
>
> "Spiv" >
They obviously made impression on you.
William Black
"Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote in message
news:42769...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
> > Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
>
> You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
The 'Packard Merlin' was a significant improvement on the 'RR Merlin'.
Something to do with smoothing off the corners in the air-flow system.
Bristol Engines had done some work on this but RR said it was dangerous and
so they stopped, Packard didn't listen and so built a significantly better
engine.
Not sure how many were used by Lancasters though, I thought they used RR
engines.
--
William Black
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe
Barbeques on fire by chalets past the headland
I've watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off Newborough
All this will pass like ice-cream on the beach
Time for tea
Julian Richards
these groups have gone over this whole business already.
The three main opponents of the Axis forces were the British Empire,
the USA and the USSR. That is of course not to deny the role of the
many others.
The role of the USSR was to provide a giant meat mincing machine to
swallow up vast amounts of German personnel and war materials. Their
role against the Japanese was minimal and without the certainty of
victory, they would never have declared war on Japan.
The USA provided much of the force and industrial production on both
fronts. Whilst it could be argued that if there were no US forces
against the Germans, there may still have been a victory for the
British and the Russians, it is by no means certain. The USA proved
pivotal in the defeat of Japan, of course.
The British Empire fought hard in both campaigns and provided
substantial industrial production. The key part of British
participation in the war is that the war did not begin in 1941. If
Britain had been defeated in 1940 or had cut its losses in Europe and
withdrew, the German forces would have had the strength to defeat the
USSR. As it was, it was a very close run thing anyway.
Without the USSR, Germany would probably have not been defeated. They
would have had ample supplies of oil and other raw materials
(including the chromium that would have meant that their jet engines
would last a reasonable time). It would have also given the Germans
industrial production and a source of slave labour that would be out
of the reach of the USA and the British.
One commentator has said that the Russians defeated the Germans, the
Americans defeated the Japanese and the British defeated the Italians.
I would regard this as errant nonsense. There were key points in the
second world war where the allies could have potentially lost and the
course of the war turned irretrievably. The Battle of Britain, the
Battle of the Atlantic, Stalingrad, D Day, Kursk plus others in the
Far East.
Grey Satterfield
"Greylock" <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 1 May 2005 19:16:35 +0100, "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>> As for the British the battle of the
>>> Atlantic might have been won
>>> without American help,but perhaps not.
>>
>> As British technology and effort mainly won it, I would think they would
>> have.
>
> That isn't even bullshit. It's just blatantly insane.
Yep, it's ignorant. I only saw it not because I consciously avoid the
cretin's posts.
>> Not in a big way though. After the Germans declared war on the USA, the
>> Chief US naval man in the Atlantic, King, refused to escort convoys,
>> resulting in nearly 400 merchant ships being sunk in 6 months. So much for
>> US help.
>>
> You wanta try that again and provide ALL the facts instead of just a
> few carefully selected ones?
Here, rare though it is, he has a point. History's judgment clearly is that
King erred in delaying convoying merchantmen for as long as he did.
Grey Satterfield
Howard Berkowitz
wrote:
> On Sun, 1 May 2005 16:29:06 +0100, "martin reboul"
> <martin...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I'm still uncertain as to whether Churchill had any prior knowledge of
> >the
> >impending Japanes attack on Pearl through Ulra decrypts.
>
> He didn't. He couldn't have. Ultra decoded material encrypted by the
> Enigma machine which was unique to the German forces. It couldn;t
> decode Japanese material.
>
>
The US had given the UK at least one PURPLE machine, under the MAGIC
program of communications intelligence on Japan. Unfortunately, even
the US didn't have a clear warning, since PURPLE handled only diplomatic
traffic. The US did intercept the 14-part message breaking diplomatic
relations, ironically reading it before the Japanese since the US had
better typists, but that was only suggestive of a war warning. It wasn't
specific as to an attack, although an attack certainly was probable.
There were limits to what COMINT could do when nothing was being
transmitted, other than deceptive traffic using the carriers' call
signs, located in the Inland Sea. The actual commit message to the
striking fleet was a plain-language code message, "Climb Mount Niitaka".
Hindsight reveals that there were some low-level consular messages that
could have pinpointed Pearl Harbor, but those were not decrypted until
the following week.
Greylock
wrote:
>In article <117cc66...@corp.supernews.com>,
>D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
>>
>>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns by ALL
>>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
>>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
>>campaigns of the Second World War.
>
>So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
>they used different tactics.
>
>>Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers. In
>>other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester, Halifax,
>>Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by the more than
>>33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced and used by the United
>>States in the bombing campaigns.
>>
>Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
>bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
>the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
>air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
>don't remember in whose favor).
And the Americans got the shit shot out of them doing daylight
"precision" bombing. The British bombed at night and it was area
bombing at best.
I am not belittling the British contribution, but to claim the British
could have won it on their own is idiotic. If you clowns are a
representative product of the British education system, maybe you'll
all be better off when the Moslems and Hindu's take over running your
country for you. You dimwit's certainly couldn't do the job.
Hopefully there is still adult supervision available to keep your
country functional.
Greylock
wrote:
The "man" in question is still capable of rational thought, and you
clearly are living in a dream world of revisionist history. The
British were within a few months if not weeks of the beginnings of
starvation when the US entered the war and began getting the goods to
them. The British could not then and cannot now produce enough food on
their islands to support their population.
Greylock
After the fact - some historians agreed he made a mistake based on the
information he had in hand AT THE TIME HE MADE THE DECISION ??
Or they made that judgement based on the information they have NOW -
AFTER THE FACT?
And just for the sake of clarity, I never denied that the winning of
WWII was a cooperative effort involving contributions from a lot of
people. It simply annoys me that the revisionists keep wanting to
re-write history to suit their prejuidices.
Bad enough the Japs want to claim they never did anything wrong and
wallpaper over over Nanking and the "comfort WOMEN". Virtually their
entire population is ignorant of their true role in WWII because their
government/educational establishment have conspired to eliminate the
truth from thier history.
But a lot of Americans, Aussies, and Kiwi's died in the Pacific trying
to hold off the Japs with damned near nothing in order to provide the
material and support the British needed so they would not go under.
Fortunately, I know a variety of people from the British Isles and
from Australia and New Zealand who still remember - but they are all
middle aged and older. I wonder what the younger generation in Britain
is being taught.
D. Patterson
Grey Satterfield wrote:
Interestingly, a mistake though it was, it was the same mistake made by
the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War. There is
an interesting topic for research, asking the question why the navies of
Britain, the United States, and Japan were insisted upon repeatedly
making the same mistake about convoying despite prior negative experiences?
D. Patterson
William Black wrote:
> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote in message
> news:42769...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
>
>>"D. Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
>>news:42769711...@fidalgo.net...
>>
>
>>>Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
>>>
>>You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
>>
>
> The 'Packard Merlin' was a significant improvement on the 'RR Merlin'.
>
> Something to do with smoothing off the corners in the air-flow system.
>
> Bristol Engines had done some work on this but RR said it was dangerous and
> so they stopped, Packard didn't listen and so built a significantly better
> engine.
>
> Not sure how many were used by Lancasters though, I thought they used RR
> engines.
>
>
While the RR Merlin was a superb engine, the British production line
used extensive handtooling and custom-fitting which precluded the use of
mass production methods for the quantities needed in the war. The design
schematics delivered to Packard lacked a 3-dimensional view, tolerances
suitable for the autmatic machining used in mass production tooling, and
could not be readily used to implement mass production methods.
Consequently, Packard reverse engineered the RR Merlin engine, produced
its own version of the original RR Merlin design, produced the first
3-dimensional design schemtatics, and put the Packard design into mass
production. Packard produced 55,873 Packard V-1650 and Packard Merlin
28, 29, 31, 33, 38, 68, 69, 224, and 225 engines; and Packard delivered
16,000 of Packard V-1650 engines to the RAF. These Packard Merlin
engines Made in U.S.A. were used extensively in the RR Merlin engined
British aircraft like the Avro-Lancaster, Mosquito, Hawker Hurricane,
and Supermarine Spitfire. The Lancaster Mk. III was designed and 3,030
were built to use the Packard engines. Note, the British handtooled
production line methods still produced more of the RR Merlin engines
than were produced by Packard and Continental, but the American built
engines approached half of the production of the RR Merlin type engines.
Fred J. McCall
:In article <117cc66...@corp.supernews.com>,
:D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
:>
:>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns by ALL
:>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
:>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
:>campaigns of the Second World War.
:
:So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
:they used different tactics.
And put less of them on target, since they used different tactics....
:>Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers. In
:>other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester, Halifax,
:>Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by the more than
:>33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced and used by the United
:>States in the bombing campaigns.
:
:Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
:bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
:the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
:air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
:don't remember in whose favor).
Now start looking at how many got on target FOR THE SAME DEFINITION OF
ON TARGET.
It ain't how many you drop, son. It's how many land on the enemy....
--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Fred J. McCall
:The US were famous for their inaccuracy.
Yeah. That's why we measured our 'misses' as "not on the same block
as the target building" while the RAF measured theirs as "couldn't
find the bloody city".
:> Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
:
:You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
I note you clipped out the 'had to redesign them' remarks.
:> bombers, bombs and other ammunition,
:> rubber for gaskets and aircraft tires, and
:> a myriad of other indispensible parts and
:> supplies for Bomber Command's aircraft,
:> there was not going to be any British strategic
:> bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
:
:This man is a fool. He implies British industry is not capable of producing
:these basic components
It wasn't in the numbers in which they were needed. I think you just
showed us who the fool is....
<Spiviotic stool droppings elided>
Geoffrey Sinclair
>David Thornley wrote:
> > In article <117cc66...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > D. Patterson <pro...@legypt.net> wrote:
> >
> >>The man clearly meant American planes used in the bombing campaigns
>by ALL
> >>of the Allied air forces and not just the RAF. British built bombers were
> >>vastly outnumbered by the American built bombers used in the bombing
> >>campaigns of the Second World War.
> >>
> >
> > So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
> > they used different tactics.
> >
>So, the British bombers carried more or larger eggs in one basket with
>which to be shot down and scatter all over the countryside at lower
>altitudes, miles away from any conceivable target in the night, and too
>often impotent against German industrial targets without burning down
>the entire city, if they were lucky. All exagerrations aside, the Bomber
>Command losses of aircrew, inability to execute a daylight bombing
>campaign without air supremacy, and too frequent failures to strike
>industrial and transportation targets negated much of the purpose and
>value of Bomber Command.
Running exaggerations does not usually help.
The RAF decided that a daylight unescorted bombing campaign
against Germany would not work. It then decided it could not build
a long range escort fighter of suitable performance. The evidence
of the Zero and the better range of the P-51A changed this but it
does look like the RAF decided the sort of long range fighter
missions the USAAF did during the war were not really suitable
for the average fighter pilot.
The mid point for 8th Air Force bombs on Germany was around mid
November 1944, for Bomber Command it was late September 1944.
The campaign was very end loaded. Simply until the middle of 1944
the allies attack lacked the weight to continually attack and suppress
a sector of the German economy after fulfilling the initial objective,
a defeat of the defences.
Damage before 1944, though it did hurt, was small in terms of the larger
economy and any bomber induced shortages could be worked around.
The massive increase in bomb loads per unit time from late 1944 onward
had its own "quality" with the repair organisations so stretched minor
damage to "unimportant" plants could knock them out for weeks thanks
to no one available to do the repairs.
One of the realities of the 8th Air Force campaign was that thanks to the
build up in 1943 and Overlord in 1944 its main efforts against Germany
were largely in the poor weather months. As a result only 42% of the
bombs it dropped on Germany were done so using visual bombing.
Note overall the 8th dropped 52% of its bombs visually, if you do a
sighting method by country the next on the list is France at 81%
visual bombing, every other country is over 90% and most are
at 100% visual bombing.
Early attempts at radar bombing produced error rates greater than
the 1941 night bombers. This did improve but the reality was 45%
of the 8th Air Force bombs dropped on Germany used H2X to aim
them. At best (4 or 5/10 cloud cover), when analysed in the final 4
months of 1944 this produced 89% of bombs within 3 miles of the
target (22.8% within half a mile) and at worst (10/10 cloud) it was
39.8% within 3 miles (1.2% within half a mile).
In the final 4 months of 1944 some 35% of 8th Air force bombs
were dropped through 10/10 cloud and another 15% in 8 or 9/10
cloud. In the period June 1943 to April 1945 the weather
conditions at target were found to be 195 less than 5/10 cloud
(visual bombing) 126 with 5 to 7/10 cloud (visual assist bombing)
and 203 with 8/10 cloud or greater (blind bombing)
The night bombers, in the good or moderate weather that enabled
their target photographs to be analysed, for raids over Germany,
were of course much worse for most of the war. They had reached
around 66% of bombs within 3 miles of the target by mid 1943. In
early 1944 it was 70 to 75%, by August/September it was 89%
and it stayed above 90% for the rest of the war.
In the final 4 months of 1944 the 8th Air Force dropped 50% of
its bombs through 8/10 or thicker could. For the same 4 months
Bomber Command managed 46% of its effort against "towns".
In 1945 Bomber Command managed some 37% of effort against
"towns". The 8th air forced used H2X to drop 39% of its bombs
with another 45% dropped using visual sighting.
For the people below there was little to choose between the night
bombers doing an area attack and the day bombers using H2X,
when it came to bomb accuracy in the final months of the war.
The post war analysis showed the heavier bombs were the ones
doing the lasting damage, and the RAF raids, because they took
longer, gave a greater chance for fires to take hold.
>Without the USAAF, the RAF Bomber Command's
>operations were little more decisive or effective than the Luftrwaffe
>terror bombing campaign against targets in Britain.
This is not the opinion of people like Speer who saw the damage
done to oil refineries and transport systems in the 1944/45 period.
The USSBS noted the allies needed a day and night bomber force,
each had advantages over the other.
It should be noted the transport plan only worked properly when the
entire system was attacked, from rolling stock to the large marshalling
yards and so it required all types of airpower, from the fighters to the
heavy bombers.
>Without the
>American built bombers in the RAF, more than ten percent of Bomber
>Command's bombers would have been lost to Coastal Command and other
>duties beisdes the bombing campaigns in Northern Europe.
Coastal command competed with Bomber Command for Halifaxes,
Wellingtons and Whitleys (even Blenheims early in the war). The
B-24 was used for Coastal Command in order to avoid diverting
Lancasters. Halifaxes and Wellingtons served in the Middle East.
Ten percent of Bomber Command's aircraft amounts to more than
the number of B-24s allocated for the war.
>Without the
>American mass produced Packard engines in the RAF, more than a third of
>the RAF bombers would have lacked engines with which to fly anywhere on
>any mission.
The British used US engines in some Wellingtons and in the Lancaster
III and X, some 3,450 Lancasters. The rest were British engined, so
it was around half the Lancasters, not a third of the bombers.
>Without the American aviation fuel, the RAF would not have
>had enough aviation fuel to conduct aircrew training in Britain, much
>less enough avaiation fuel to conduct air bombardment campaigns over the
>Continent, the Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia. Without the American
>aviation fuel, the RAF would not have had enough aviation fuel to
>conduct the ASW patrols which did so much to safeguard the convoys
>delivering food, supplies, and fuels to the war industries in Britain.
The British had ample supplies of avgas from non US sources, the
Middle East and Caribbean refineries.
Note by the way, to conserve high octane fuels, the trainers used the
more plentiful lower octane rated fuels.
> >>Liberators heavy bombers and 2,500 B-29 Superfortress very heavy
> >>bombers. In other words, the British production of Sterling, Manchester,
> >>Halifax, Lancaster, and other heavy bombers was absolutely dwarfed by
> >>the more than 33,000 heavy bombers and very heavy bombers produced
> >>and used by the United States in the bombing campaigns.
Actual figures Lancaster 7,377 (including 430 Canadian built) with some
post war, Manchester 200, Lincoln around 100 (not used in combat),
before the end of the war, Halifax 6,175 (plus 405 cargo versions, some
produced post war) and 2,369 Stirlings (plus 621 cargo versions). Total
around 16,221 plus 1,026 completed as transports.
The Vickers Warwick, think "super wellington", was turned into an ASW
and air sea rescue aircraft, 845 built.
The USAAF statistical digest says 3,764 B-29s, 12,692 B-17s, 18,190
B-24s and 118 B-32s were built January 1940 to August 1944, total
34,763. Another 291 B-24s were completed as C-87s and the USN
built 714 PB4Y-2 privateers based on the B-24 wings and engines.
In terms of allocations, not all of which were exactly followed, the US
allocated 1,683 heavy bombers to the USN and 2,135 to the British.
Of the British allocation 26 were in the second half of 1940, 96 in
1941, 186 in 1942, 497 were in 1943, 1,253 were in 1944 and 77
were in 1945. In terms of heavy bomber production the US
allocations can be compared to British production of 41 in 1940,
498 in 1941, 1,976 in 1942, 4,615 in 1943, 5,507 in 1944 and
2,069 to the end of September 1945.
The British used the B-17 and B-24 as ASW, and RCM in Europe.
The B-24 as a bomber in the middle east, Italy and Burma. The RAAF
used the B-24 as a bomber.
On a final note the British produced 11,460 Wellingtons plus another
3,400 Whitleys and Hampdens, some pre war, around 14,700 versus
the 16,070 medium bombers the US built January 1940 to August 1945.
> > Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
> > bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
> > the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
> > air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
> > don't remember in whose favor).
>
>You ask, "So what?" Then you wave a Magic Wand to make all of the
>inconvenient facts against your prejudices just vanish like an unwanted
>nightmare. Well, it ain't gonna work. The numbers of bombers produced is
>absolutely relevant, and your attempt to wish them away is pathetic.
Not quite, if the number was the only criteria then the light bombers
would count alongside the heavy bombers.
Bomber Command dropped some 657,674 long tons of bombs on
Germany, or 736,595 short tons. The USAAF dropped some 641,201
short tons of bombs on Germany, 83,558 by the medium, light and
fighter bombers. The RAF 2nd Tactical Air force probably dropped
around another 30,000 long tons of bombs on Germany.
Overall the USAAF dropped some 1,554,463 tons of bombs fighting
Germany and its allies (1,096,794 by heavy bombers) , the RAF
managed 1,328,300 short tons plus around 40,000 short tons of mines.
(1,069,650 short tons of bombs plus 37,250 short tons of mines by
Bomber Command )
>Without the ASW patrol bombers to defend the British convoys
>transporting aviation fuel, Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
>bombers, bombs and other ammunition, rubber for gaskets and aircraft
>tires, and a myriad of other indispensible parts and supplies for Bomber
>Command's aircraft, there was not going to be any British strategic
>bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
The US Army quartermaster noted the following.
From June 1942 to July 1943 the USAAF in England received some
49% of its supplies from the British. By early 1944 the total of aid
included 1,100 aircraft, 32,000 bombs, 35,000 fighter belly tanks plus
40,000 jettisonable tanks.
From June 1942 to June 1944 the US Army in England amount of
supplies from the British, in percentage terms, was quartermaster 63%
engineers 58%, medical 49%, chemical warfare 25%, signal corps
22%, USAAF 21%, ordnance 4%, transport corps 3%.
Total aid is put at 1,121,786 measurement tons to the end of 1942,
1,826,701 measurement tons in 1943 and 3,850,946 measurement
tons January to June 1944. A Measurement or ships ton is 40 cubic
feet of space, conversion of measurement tons to weight reflects the
density of the cargo.
The simple reality is the RAF could mount a heavy bomber campaign
without US help, the US could mount a bigger effort (the country had
around twice the population) without RAF help. The combination of
the two resulted in an attack that was bigger than the sum of its parts.
>Furthermore, there is a huge difference between the RAF night bombers
>dropping and wasting too much of its bomb tonnage on non-targets versus
>the demonstrated ability of the USAAF daylight bombers successfully
>striking its intended targets with its bomb tonnages. In other words,
>the USAAF bomb tonnages striking their intended targets were several
>times more effective than the RAF bomb tonnages which did not strike
>their intended targets.
The trouble with the above summary is the overall percentages were not
very much different by 1944 thanks to the amount of radar bombing the
USAAF was doing and the lack of equipment and trained manpower
to gain best use of the idea. The USSBS notes the accuracy when
the two air forces went after the same targets, the big oil refineries in
late 1944 and early 1945,
The USSBS analysis of all the raids on Leuna, Zeitz and
Ludwigshafen, 509,000 USAAF bombs at an average weight
of 338 pounds, 264,000 RAF bombs at an average weight of
660 pounds, 27,000 tons of bombs, 3,376 tons landed within
the installation fences, of this 3,376 tons 473 tons (14%) failed
to explode, 2,093 tons (62%) did little damage and 810 tons
(24%) did vital damage. As the sites were hundreds of acres
in size it can be seen calling this sort of bombing precision is
an exercise in marketing, not reality.
The final USSBS note is the bombing accuracy for these raids.
8th Air Force, visual bombing 26.8%
8th Air Force part visual/part instrument 12.4%
8th Air Force full instrument 5.4%
Bomber Command at night 15.8%
Weighted average (by bombs dropped) 12.6%
It turns out Bomber Command, on average, over a number of raids in
late 1944 and early 1945, put more of its bombs on these targets than
the 8th. Visual bombing was still the best, when it could be done.
The statistics for natural oil refineries are not so clear cut, since
there were some RAF day raids,
8th Air Force visual 15.6%, PFF 2.3%, RAF (day and night) 12%.
> >>Even when you consider only the American produced bombers used by the
>RAF,
> >>the American contributions represented a large fraction of the entire RAF
> >>bomber force. The moe than 2,100 American built B-24 Liberator bombers
> >>delivered to Britain alone repesented about some 10 to 13 percent of
>all of
> >>the RAF's heavy bombers. The American built medium and light bombers
> >>contributed another large percentage of the RAF bomber strengths.
> >>
> >>
> > The Liberators were not used as heavy bombers. Lots of them, if not
> > all, were used by Coastal Command as ASW patrol aircraft.
> >
>You are wrong again. The RAF did in fact make extensive use of the
>Consolidated B-24 Liberator as a heavy bomber in the Mediterranean and
>Southeast Asia. The RAF could have used the B-24 Liberator in the
>bombing campaigns in Northern Europe, but Bomber Command was not clever
>enough to learn how to do so and erroneously deemed the bomber to be
>unsuitable for bombing operations in Norhtern Europe.
This is hardly an erroneous conclusion. The B-24 could not strike by day if
unescorted and was not as efficient as the RAF types for night bombing.
The B-24 did not offer any advantages for night bombing. Its deep
bomb bay was suitable for some of the jammers though.
>Like the Boeing
>B-17 Flying Fortress, the British were incapable of recognizing how to
>use two of the best heavy bombers used in a successful bombing campaign
>in Norhtern Europe by the USAAF.
The RAF decided that unescorted day bombers would not work. It
then noted the amount of weight the B-17 and B-24 devoted to defence
and decided the RAF types were the better solution for night bombing.
The USAAF successful campaign against Northern Europe, as opposed
to France, then the German border, started in around March 1944, when
the USAAF had enough long range escorts. Since the USAAF build up
had been predicated on the bombers being much more able to defend
themselves and the RAF fighters were short ranged there were not enough
fighters to use the RAF bombers by day over Germany until August 1944.
>Without the use of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator in Coastal Command,
>the RAF would have been forced to take more than a thousand British
>built heavy bombers out of Bomber Command to serve in Coastal Command.
>Such a need would have removed a material percentage of the Bomber
>Command's already inadequate strategic bomber force.
The strategic force was hardly inadequate, given the key bomber turned
out to be the Lancaster plus the Mosquito. The RAF diverted other types
to ASW and overseas units.
> > To repeat, the British strategic bombing effort was about equal
> > in scope to the US strategic bombing effort in Europe.
>
>The strategic bombing effort was hardly the entire focus of the war, so
>you are trying to change the subject and evade the essential issue.
>Without the American air forces and the American built aircraft,
>aircraft parts, fuels and lubricants, aircrew training, aluminum, steel,
>rubber, and a myriad of other contributions by the United States, there
>was never going to be an RAF Bomber Command strategic bombing
>campaign of any strategic importance at all. More than half of the RAF,
>especially Bomber Command and Coastal Command, never would have existed
>without the material and non-material contributions from the United States.
This is a major exaggeration of the US contribution to RAF forces,
let alone the RAF forces in Europe since the US aircraft types were
more normally sent to overseas units for obvious reasons.
When the 8th Air Force arrived in Britain it lacked reconnaissance
(weather and photographic) and air sea rescue services for a start.
By the end of 1942 the British had a relatively well run system to
supply the air force with its requirements, which the USAAF quite
sensibly plugged into.
The strategic importance of the allied bombing raids pre 1944
was more on the resources the Germans had to devote to stopping
them, the manpower in the defence system, the guns and the fighters.
Even the construction industry repairing buildings instead of building
a better Atlantic wall or more factory space.
In 1944 the allies, starting with the USAAF, managed to start a
sustained, effective campaign against the German economy.
> > BTW, when talking about the US contribution to the RAF, don't forget
> > the British contribution to Eighth Air Force, mostly in the realm of
> > infrastructure.
>
>No one is forgetting the RAF basing support in Britain. Although the
>British airbases in Britain were of tremendous usefulness when compared
>to other basing options, they were not in the final analysis
>indispensible. The United States could and did demonstrate an ability to
>conduct strategic bombing operations from airbases outside of Britain.
Given the 1944 bomber operations strained the communications
infrastructure of Britain to provide supplies it is very unlikely the USAAF
could have mounted the same weight of attack from another country.
This is before finding another country that was at least as close to
Germany as Britain.
>The United States could win the war without Britain, but Britain could
>only lose the war without the United States.
This sort of ignores the USSR. As long as it was in the war the British
and their allies had a chance of winning without major US involvement.
Please note around half the western supplies that reached the USSR
by mid 1943 were British.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
Vaughan Sanders
"Greylock" <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message
news:l3gd71df5ghtj0b5l...@4ax.com...
What do you think they should be taught?
Bletchley Park was the most important technology in the Battle of the
Atlantic?
Admiral King dismissed Bletchley's warnings and a lot of US seamen died?
Until July 1944 the number of British Empire Divisions in action in all
theatres exceeded US Divisions?
Jan 44, BE 24 - US 16
July 44, BE 39 - US 42
Jan 45, BE 49 - US 79
(All Services)
BE, killed in action, 412,240
US, killed in action, 322,188
The 14th Army was holding down the largest Japanese army to take the
field in WWII?
Somehow I doubt any of this is taught in US schools.
Btw, when National Geographical only marked Omaha and Utah in their
article about Normandy I cancelled my subscription, I doubt any of our
younger generation would have noticed anything missing.
I suspect they are also quite oblivious to the historic accuracy of
Hollywood films, remind us how the US broke the Enigma code?
Jamie
Vaughan Sanders
Each Packard engine also came with a full tool kit Dallas, which was
very important to the ground crews at the time. Apparently not all these
tool kits made it to the squadrons using Packards, I would presume some
went to RR squadrons.
Jamie
Grey Satterfield
<n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
>
> Interestingly, a mistake though it was, it was the same mistake made by
> the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War. There is
> an interesting topic for research, asking the question why the navies of
> Britain, the United States, and Japan were insisted upon repeatedly
> making the same mistake about convoying despite prior negative experiences?
The Japanese never got it right in WW-II. They never convoyed their
merchant ships and as a result it became open season for our submarines. By
war's end the Japanese were using sampans -- and the like -- and fishing
boats for transport.
Grey Satterfield
Spiv
"Vaughan Sanders" <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:d57f87$nki$5...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > But a lot of Americans, Aussies,
> > and Kiwi's died in the Pacific trying
> > to hold off the Japs with damned near
> > nothing in order to provide the
> > material and support the British needed
> > so they would not go under.
Allied priority was the deafest of Germany with a holing operation for Japs
until the whole might of the Allies could be thrust upon them.
> What do you think they should be taught?
>
> Bletchley Park was the most important
> technology in the Battle of the Atlantic?
> Admiral King dismissed Bletchley's warnings
> and a lot of US seamen died?
>
> Until July 1944 the number of British
> Empire Divisions in action in all
> theatres exceeded US Divisions?
>
> Jan 44, BE 24 - US 16
> July 44, BE 39 - US 42
> Jan 45, BE 49 - US 79
>
> (All Services)
> BE, killed in action, 412,240
> US, killed in action, 322,188
>
> The 14th Army was holding down the
> largest Japanese army to take the
> field in WWII?
>
> Somehow I doubt any of this is taught in US schools.
It's not taught in UK schools either.
> Btw, when National Geographical only
> marked Omaha and Utah in their
> article about Normandy I cancelled
> my subscription, I doubt any of our
> younger generation would have noticed
> anything missing.
I recall having a French girlfriend. We were travelling from Paris to the
Normandy coast for a weekend. She said we could visit the beaches where the
American came ashore. I told here most beaches were British beaches and
half who came ashore were British. She never knew, being taught it was only
the US that came ashore in great numbers. I took her to the cafe at Pegasus
Bridge, the first part of France to be liberated on the night of the 5th
June by British airborne troops. We sat and spoke to old lady there, sadly
now died, who dragged out the champagne for the boys on that night - she had
it hidden under the garden behind the cafe away from the Germans.
> I suspect they are
> also quite oblivious to the historic accuracy of
> Hollywood films, remind us how the US
> broke the Enigma code?
Do you mean those films are not true?
Fred J. McCall
:On 5/2/05 7:59 PM, in article 4276CD0E...@fidalgo.net, "D. Patterson"
They also never got their own submarine warfare right. Japanese
submarines would preferentially attack warships rather than merchants,
which given the submarines of the time was a much harder thing to do.
Thus their effort in submarine building was largely wasted, given the
commensurately smaller impact it had on Allied operations.
--
"The way of the samurai is found in death. If by setting one's heart
right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his
body were already dead, he gains freedom in The Way. His whole life
will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling."
-- "Hagakure Kikigaki", Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Spiv
"Grey Satterfield" <grey.sat...@oscn.net> wrote in message
news:BE9C1B8F.14983%grey.sat...@oscn.net...
"When the British "found it extremely difficult to be polite about it" they
cabled King firmly suggesting that he set up a convoy system, adding that
the British would even give the United States 24 of its own much needed
anti-submarine ships. "King's reply was frosty. He detested the British,
distrusted their motives, and believed them to be haughty and arrogant. The
British Admirals, in turn, had little love for Admiral Ernest J. King. . .
.. Even General Dwight D. Eisenhower would say of his fellow American
officer: `He is an arbitrary stubborn type, with not too much brains and a
tendency toward bullying his juniors. One thing that might help win this war
is to shoot King'."`
Yet after WW2 the US gave this idiot the highest possible award. How can
you have a man in charge who hayes the main ally and has no respect from his
men. Nearly 400 ships were lost in the US's first six months of the war.
Eisenhower was right. King should have been shot.
Spiv
You have displayed little of that.
> The British were within a few months
> if not weeks of the beginnings of
> starvation when the US entered the
> war
The UK could feed itself, it had enough land to grow enough food. It
preferred to buy the food and use people to make products of war.
> and began getting the goods to
> them. The British could not then and
> cannot now produce enough food on
> their islands to support their population.
The UK pays farmers to leave fields idle. The UK can fully feed 60 million
alone. It is cheaper to actually import much food than produce it Also
food from different climates gives a variety of choice.
Spiv
> I am not belittling the British contribution,
> but to claim the British could have won
> it on their own is idiotic.
To say the British Empire and the USSR, who are highly industrialised, with
Britain being highly inventive, could not have eventually defeated Germany
is belittling both the UK and the USSR. Mr Sinclair sums it up well.
Spiv
"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9bpd71ln3pvicuit8...@4ax.com...
> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
>
> :The US were famous for their inaccuracy.
>
> Yeah. That's why we measured our 'misses' as "not on the same block
> as the target building" while the RAF measured theirs as "couldn't
> find the bloody city".
>
> :> Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
> :
> :You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
>
> I note you clipped out the 'had to redesign them' remarks.
Tinkering is not re-designing the engine.
> :> bombers, bombs and other ammunition,
> :> rubber for gaskets and aircraft tires, and
> :> a myriad of other indispensible parts and
> :> supplies for Bomber Command's aircraft,
> :> there was not going to be any British strategic
> :> bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
> :
> :This man is a fool. He implies British industry is not capable of
producing
> :these basic components
>
> It wasn't in the numbers in which they were needed. I think you just
> showed us who the fool is....
I did.
Dad
Spiv
"Dad" <knoc...@fisher.net> wrote in message
news:daSdnWk2po5...@bright.net...
> Never give up even if you're wrong.
A strange motto you have there.
David Thornley
D. Patterson <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
>
>David Thornley wrote:
>
> > So? The British bombers also carried more bombs on missions, since
> > they used different tactics.
>
>So, the British bombers carried more or larger eggs in one basket with
>altitudes, miles away from any conceivable target in the night,
USAAF accuracy wasn't any too great when unable to bomb visually, and
so the European weather limited that accuracy.
and too
>often impotent against German industrial targets without burning down
>the entire city, if they were lucky.
When they hit, the attacks were quite effective, and burning down an
entire city can be an effective way of reducing war production.
All exagerrations aside, the Bomber
>Command losses of aircrew, inability to execute a daylight bombing
>campaign without air supremacy, and too frequent failures to strike
>industrial and transportation targets negated much of the purpose and
>value of Bomber Command.
USAAF losses of aircrew, inability to execute a daylight bombing
campaign without hundreds of long-range escorts, and too frequent
failures to pick a target class and hit it repeatedly negated
much of the purpose and value of the USAAF effort.
However, both air forces overcame those problems and inflicted a
lot of damage on German oil, transportation, and industry.
Having two complementary but different strategic bombing
campaigns was a good thing, as far as I can see. The USAAF
was forced back from distant targets in the late fall and winter
of 1943/44, and Bomber Command somewhat later in 1944.
Without having separate campaigns, the Germans would have had
a serious respite at one of those times.
Without the USAAF, the RAF Bomber Command's
>operations were little more decisive or effective than the Luftrwaffe
>terror bombing campaign against targets in Britain.
Except with a heck of a lot more bombs and (later on) much more
accuracy, resulting in a lot of damage to German industry and
other worthwhile targets.
Without the
>American built bombers in the RAF, more than ten percent of Bomber
>Command's bombers would have been lost to Coastal Command and other
>duties beisdes the bombing campaigns in Northern Europe.
Without Spitfires, Eighth Air Force's early operations would have
suffered.
Without the
>American mass produced Packard engines in the RAF, more than a third of
>the RAF bombers would have lacked engines with which to fly anywhere on
>any mission.
Without British-supplied airbases, Eighth Air Force would have
lacked bases to fly anywhere worthwhile from.
Without the American aviation fuel, the RAF would not have
>had enough aviation fuel to conduct aircrew training in Britain,
How much did they conduct in Britain, and how much closer to
other oil sources? There was a lot of aircrew training going on
in Canada.
much
>less enough avaiation fuel to conduct air bombardment campaigns over the
>Continent, the Mediterranean, and Southeast Asia. Without the American
>aviation fuel, the RAF would not have had enough aviation fuel to
>conduct the ASW patrols which did so much to safeguard the convoys
>delivering food, supplies, and fuels to the war industries in Britain.
>
Without massive RN efforts, the Atlantic would not have been safe
enough to support a major USAAF offensive.
> > Again, so what? If we're looking at the bombing campaign, the number of
> > bombers produced is irrelevant. What is relevant is bombs dropped, and
> > the tonnage of bombs dropped by Bomber Command and the US strategic
> > air forces in Europe is almost equal, about a 2% difference (and I
> > don't remember in whose favor).
>
>You ask, "So what?" Then you wave a Magic Wand to make all of the
>inconvenient facts against your prejudices just vanish like an unwanted
>nightmare.
Okay, name some inconvenient facts, preferably relevant.
Well, it ain't gonna work. The numbers of bombers produced is
>absolutely relevant, and your attempt to wish them away is pathetic.
No, the numbers of bombers produced is irrelevant. To go for an
extreme case, how many bombers and fighter-bombers had to be
produced to hit Iraq with all those bombs in 1991? Lots less
than were produced in WWII.
>Without the ASW patrol bombers to defend the British convoys
>transporting aviation fuel, Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
>bombers, bombs and other ammunition, rubber for gaskets and aircraft
>tires, and a myriad of other indispensible parts and supplies for Bomber
>Command's aircraft, there was not going to be any British strategic
>bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
>
Let's see, without ASW ships (the large majority of which were produced
in Britain or Canada), the patrol bombers wouldn't have been decisive.
Without the original Merlin design, there wouldn't have been Packards.
Britain was producing a lot of bombs and such, and provided a large
amount of infrastructure for the US effort.
Looks to me like a joint effort.
>Furthermore, there is a huge difference between the RAF night bombers
>dropping and wasting too much of its bomb tonnage on non-targets versus
>the demonstrated ability of the USAAF daylight bombers successfully
>striking its intended targets with its bomb tonnages.
There's problems on both sides.
Harris was determined to attack German cities, and therefore
wasted a lot of Bomber Command's potential on less important target
types.
The US commanders were determined to attack all sorts of target types,
and therefore wasted a lot of potential. The 1943 Huels raid drastically
cut into German synthetic rubber production, and almost reduced
end-user production. The 1943 Schweinfurt raids drastically cut into
Germany ball-bearing production, and almost reduced end-user production.
If Eighth Air Force had picked a good target type, and stuck to it,
it would have been much more effective. This is equally true of
Bomber Command.
Even after starting the oil and transportation plans, a lot of the
USAAF was hitting other targets. They were usually potentially
worthwhile targets, but since they were varied they had no decisive
effect. From what figures I've seen, Bomber Command and Eighth
Air Force dropped about the same percentage of bombs on oil and
transportation together in at least September 1944.
In other words,
>the USAAF bomb tonnages striking their intended targets were several
>times more effective than the RAF bomb tonnages which did not strike
>their intended targets.
>
You are making some bad assumptions about accuracy here. Before 1944,
Bomber Command accuracy was not good, but the USAAF wasn't hitting
all that hard anyway. In 1944, both air forces dropped a whole lot
of bombs fairly accurately.
> > The Liberators were not used as heavy bombers. Lots of them, if not
> > all, were used by Coastal Command as ASW patrol aircraft.
>
>You are wrong again. The RAF did in fact make extensive use of the
>Consolidated B-24 Liberator as a heavy bomber in the Mediterranean and
>Southeast Asia.
Okay, not in Bomber Command.
The RAF could have used the B-24 Liberator in the
>bombing campaigns in Northern Europe, but Bomber Command was not clever
>enough to learn how to do so and erroneously deemed the bomber to be
>unsuitable for bombing operations in Norhtern Europe.
No, they were correct to do so. Neither the Liberator nor the Fortress
were anywhere near as good as the Lancaster in the sort of bombing
Bomber Command was doing. (Equally, the Lancaster would not have
been as suitable for USAAF operations as the Liberator or Fortress.)
Like the Boeing
>B-17 Flying Fortress, the British were incapable of recognizing how to
>use two of the best heavy bombers used in a successful bombing campaign
>in Norhtern Europe by the USAAF.
>
Neither did the US, not without hundreds of P-38s and P-51s. The US
heavy bombers, while very useful during the day, were not as good as
the Lancaster in night bombing.
>Without the use of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator in Coastal Command,
>the RAF would have been forced to take more than a thousand British
>built heavy bombers out of Bomber Command to serve in Coastal Command.
>Such a need would have removed a material percentage of the Bomber
>Command's already inadequate strategic bomber force.
>
And, of course, without British and Canadian built frigates and
corvettes, the USN would have had to divert a whole lot of resources
to the ASW battle. The Battle of the Atlantic was primarily won
by the British and Canadians, with very useful contributions from
the US. The US role was very important in making sure it stayed
won.
> > To repeat, the British strategic bombing effort was about equal
> > in scope to the US strategic bombing effort in Europe.
>
>The strategic bombing effort was hardly the entire focus of the war, so
>you are trying to change the subject and evade the essential issue.
Um, I thought that was the issue, and I was addressing the subject.
>Without the American air forces and the American built aircraft,
>aircraft parts, fuels and lubricants, aircrew training, aluminum, steel,
>rubber, and a myriad of other contributions by the United States, there
>was never going to be an RAF Bomber Command strategic bombing campaign
>of any strategic importance at all.
Lots of which were bought and paid for by the British, or weren't
US contributions in the first place. How many British and Commonwealth
aircrew did the US train? Moreover, much of what you are listing
was not primarily from the US. The US had immense stocks of iron
ore (the northern Minnesota ranges are still in large-scale
operation) and oil, but didn't produce rubber domestically, or
(IIRC) much bauxite and cryolite. The US lacked a whole lot of
essential natural resources in WWII, which were supplied by trade.
More than half of the RAF,
>especially Bomber Command and Coastal Command, never would have existed
>without the material and non-material contributions from the United States.
>
Exactly what do you mean by "contributions"? If there was no such
thing as Lend-Lease, but rather a continuation of "cash and carry",
I'd expect the Brits to short the land war in favor of Bomber Command.
> > BTW, when talking about the US contribution to the RAF, don't forget
> > the British contribution to Eighth Air Force, mostly in the realm of
> > infrastructure.
>
>No one is forgetting the RAF basing support in Britain. Although the
>British airbases in Britain were of tremendous usefulness when compared
>to other basing options, they were not in the final analysis
>indispensible. The United States could and did demonstrate an ability to
>conduct strategic bombing operations from airbases outside of Britain.
>
I am perfectly aware of Fifteenth Air Force operations out of Italy
(lots of would-be analysts forget the Fifteenth), and only by counting
them do I get equality in bombloads. However, the Fifteenth was
considerably smaller than the Eighth, and started later, and Italy
would not have fallen anywhere near when it did without large-scale
British/Commonwealth/Empire contributions. The US part in the
November 1942 North African landings was definitely a minority
contribution, and the following Mediterranean campaign built on
years of BCE effort.
Or do you have another example of a conveniently-placed country?
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Fred J. McCall
:He detested the British,
:distrusted their motives, and believed them to be haughty and arrogant.
So Brits haven't changed in all this time....
Fred J. McCall
:
:"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
:news:9bpd71ln3pvicuit8...@4ax.com...
:> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
:>
:> :The US were famous for their inaccuracy.
:>
:> Yeah. That's why we measured our 'misses' as "not on the same block
:> as the target building" while the RAF measured theirs as "couldn't
:> find the bloody city".
:>
:> :> Packard engines for the Avro-Lancaster
:> :
:> :You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's made under licence by Packard.
:>
:> I note you clipped out the 'had to redesign them' remarks.
:
:Tinkering is not re-designing the engine.
Sorry, but the elimination of huge amounts of 'touch labour' so that
the things could actually be produced rather than hand-built is a
redesign well beyond the 'tinkering' stage.
:> :> bombers, bombs and other ammunition,
:> :> rubber for gaskets and aircraft tires, and
:> :> a myriad of other indispensible parts and
:> :> supplies for Bomber Command's aircraft,
:> :> there was not going to be any British strategic
:> :> bombardment campaigns anywhere at all.
:> :
:> :This man is a fool. He implies British industry is not capable of producing
:> :these basic components
:>
:> It wasn't in the numbers in which they were needed. I think you just
:> showed us who the fool is....
:
:I did.
Yes, you did. We have met the Spiviot and it is you....
Fred J. McCall
:"Greylock" <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message
:news:kmfd7114pqv0v4qrs...@4ax.com...
:>
:> The British were within a few months
:> if not weeks of the beginnings of
:> starvation when the US entered the
:> war
:
:The UK could feed itself, it had enough land to grow enough food. It
:preferred to buy the food and use people to make products of war.
Which, oddly enough, they ALSO imported huge quantities of.
Things that make you go "Hmmmmm?"
--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
David Thornley
Greylock <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote:
>The "man" in question is still capable of rational thought, and you
>clearly are living in a dream world of revisionist history. The
>British were within a few months if not weeks of the beginnings of
>starvation when the US entered the war and began getting the goods to
>them. The British could not then and cannot now produce enough food on
>their islands to support their population.
>
You need to read more. I'd suggest "Hitler's U-boat War" by Clay
Blair for starters.
The British were never in anywhere near that amount of immediate
danger from the U-boat war in WWII (they came pretty darn close
in WWI before instituting convoys). They did not feed themselves,
but were quite able to bring in enough food by sea. The British
did not need economic autarky of the sort sought by Germany and
Japan in WWII; they preferred to trade.
At the time the US entered the war, the British and Commonwealth were
doing pretty darn good in the Battle of the Atlantic. That was
going to change, but part of the change was the entry of the US
into the war, the US being almost completely unprepared for ASW
near its own coasts and in the Caribbean. If there was a shortage
of shipping in 1942 (and tankers became pretty scarce), it was
largely because of the losses around the US.
Besides that, the US entry into the war actually reduced the
immediately applicable Allied combat strength. Supplies that had
been intended for Lend-Lease, which would have gotten them somewhere
they'd be used against Germans, were held back for the US Army.
David Thornley
Fred J. McCall <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>Now start looking at how many got on target FOR THE SAME DEFINITION OF
>ON TARGET.
>
bombing* when doing everything right on clear days against targets
easily identifiable from the air, and there's plenty of evidence to
show that. However, that very rarely happened.
If you can't see the ground, then there isn't a whole heck of a lot
of difference between daylight and night bombing, and in fact the
RAF worked harder on accurate non-visual bombing than the USAAF.
*For heavy bombers. For pinpoint targets, like V-1 launch ramps,
something down close and personal worked much better, like
Mosquitos or fighter-bombers.
David Thornley
Spiv <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
>
>Well the Yanks do thing they won the war all by themselves. Which is total
>nonsense of course. They have a great propaganda machine over there.
>
If the British had just kept a large-scale movie industry going, they
would have won the war by themselves. In retrospect, anyway.
David Thornley
Vaughan Sanders <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>The 14th Army was holding down the largest Japanese army to take the
>field in WWII?
>
war on the Japanese Army.
Let's not forget what the Red Army threatened and finally did to
the Kwantung Army.
Spiv
> :> :You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's
> :> :made under licence by Packard.
> :>
> :> I note you clipped out the 'had to
> :> redesign them' remarks.
> :
> :Tinkering is not re-designing the engine.
>
> Sorry, but the elimination of huge amounts
> of 'touch labour' so that the things could
> actually be produced rather than hand-built is a
> redesign well beyond the 'tinkering' stage.
You cannot differentiate between the engine "design" and the manufacturing
process.
Spiv
When you know what you are doing and know you are right, you may adopt the
luxury of arrogance. Monty vs. the US generals was a prime example.
To the point: King was fool who should have been dismissed.
David Thornley
D. Patterson <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
>
>Grey Satterfield wrote:
>
>> Here, rare though it is, he has a point. History's judgment clearly is that
>> King erred in delaying convoying merchantmen for as long as he did.
>>
>the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War. There is
>an interesting topic for research, asking the question why the navies of
>Britain, the United States, and Japan were insisted upon repeatedly
>making the same mistake about convoying despite prior negative experiences?
>
convoying at the start of WWII. They didn't repeat the same mistake,
although they sure made it big when they did make it.
King had some reasons to not start coastal convoying in 1942, although
in retrospect I'm pretty sure they were wrong. Of course, the
state of US defenses in the second U-boat attack on the American
coasts (early 1944?) do somewhat constitute making the same mistake
twice. The USN was always a believer in oceanic convoying in WWII.
The Japanese never got a whole lot of concepts related to cargo
ships, like ASW, convoying, attacking them, or sharing them.
(Japanese merchant shipping was divided among the Army, Navy,
and the economy, and the Army and Navy cooperated with nobody,
including each other. It wasn't at all rare for two Japanese
cargo ships to steam on opposite courses, both empty.)
Spiv
> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
>
> :"Greylock" <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message
> :news:kmfd7114pqv0v4qrs...@4ax.com...
> :>
> :> The British were within a few months
> :> if not weeks of the beginnings of
> :> starvation when the US entered the
> :> war
> :
> :The UK could feed itself, it had enough land to grow enough food. It
> :preferred to buy the food and use people to make products of war.
>
> Which, oddly enough, they ALSO imported huge quantities of.
You don't say.......
Do you have a point?
Spiv
"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
news:117f5i6...@corp.supernews.com...> > Well the Yanks do think they won the
> > war all by themselves. Which is total
> > nonsense
>
> movie industry going, they
> would have won the war by themselves.
> In retrospect, anyway.
Surprisingly, the Brits have never really countered the US "we won the war
all by ourselves". So, myth has it that the Yanks were supreme, and others
just handed them the tools.
Spiv
> In article <d57f87$nki$5...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Vaughan Sanders <ja...@chalkwell-windsurfing.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >The 14th Army was holding down
> > the largest Japanese army to take the
> > field in WWII?
>
> Second largest, and it inflicted the
> second largest defeat of the
> war on the Japanese Army.
>
> Let's not forget what the Red Army
> threatened and finally did to
> the Kwantung Army.
Not to diminish the Soviet achievement in Manchuria, the Kwantung army was
not the most well equipped with top front line troops. The Japanese had
directed their better troops and equipment elsewhere when they could have.
Also the Soviets only advanced after the first A bomb was dropped.
Nevertheless, if the best that Japan could offer was in China, the Red Army
still would have rolled over them just the same.
Spiv
Not in hindsight at all. Most thought King a dickhead at the time. King
thought escorting merchantmen was beneath his ships, as he wanted a full up
front battle with the German surface fleet (which was minuscule anyhow).
Odd, as the British had negated the German surface capability, with Bismarck
sunk on its maiden voyage and Tirpitz holed up on a fjord for most of the
war frighted to come out and be sunk most of the time. So, there were so
few German surface ships for King to confront. The only effective weapon
the Germans had in the Atlantic was the U boat.
The US Atlantic fleet was pretty elderly with 4 old WW1 battlewagons and one
carrier, and in no way could survive meeting the top of the line German
surface ships anyhow. The US Atlantic fleet was depleted as many Atlantic
ships sail over to the Pacific, as they were expecting a larger Jap attack
after Pearl, the US Atlantic fleet was only fit for escort duties in early
1942, it was about the only role there. The US was so sort of ships in the
Pacific in 1942 the British had to lend the US a carrier for Pacific
operations, HMS Victorious, renamed USS Robin until returned to the RN.
D. Patterson
David Thornley wrote:
> In article <4276CD0E...@fidalgo.net>,
> D. Patterson <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
>
[....]
>>Interestingly, a mistake though it was, it was the same mistake made by
>>the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War. There is
>>an interesting topic for research, asking the question why the navies of
>>Britain, the United States, and Japan were insisted upon repeatedly
>>making the same mistake about convoying despite prior negative experiences?
>>
>>
> While the British did stubbornly resist convoying in WWI, they started
> convoying at the start of WWII. They didn't repeat the same mistake,
> although they sure made it big when they did make it.
>
[....]
You are mistaken. The British started the war with the loss of ATHENIA
and a number of other ships before implementing convoying on 9 December
1939. Although the British were far quicker in going to convoying than
they were in the First World War, they did have to get stung again with
a number of significant ship losses like the ATHENIA for a relatively
short while before they ordered convoying.
James
It's a machine. Most of its posts are blank.
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
grey...@houston.rr.com (Greylock) wrote:
> I am not belittling the British contribution, but to claim the
> British could have won it on their own is idiotic
Nobody is claiming we could have won it on our own. They are claiming
that Britain and the USSR could have won without US help a very
different proposition. D-Day would not have been possible without the
US, so the final result if Germany lost would have been the USSR
controlling most of Europe. As far as I know the total US Lend Lease
contribution came to about 1/3 of the UK material expenditure. That
includes everything including office equipment.
The failure of Barberossa meant that Germany was in for a long war,
something it was not happy with. If the USSR capitulated sooner, or
later GB would have gone the same way. The resources a victorious
Germany could have extracted from the Soviets would have been to much.
US involvement certainly shortened the war, almost certainly reduced
Soviet gains and defeated the Japanese. However significant US
involvement in the war did not start until the end of 1942, and in
some cases 1943, the decision for the UK to keep fighting in 1940 was
taken when the UK was standing on it's own.
soc.history.medieval has been deleted as it is definitely off topic.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Maternity is a matter of fact
Paternity is a matter of opinion
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
Patterson) wrote:
> the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War.
Atlantic convoying was introduced in 1939. It was also introduced in
the Med. It was not introduced in the South Atlantic and the Pacific
as German submarines did not have the range to reach either area. They
had no trouble reaching the US coast.
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
grey...@houston.rr.com (Greylock) wrote:
> Or they made that judgement based on the information they have NOW -
> AFTER THE FACT?
He used the same arguments the British Admiralty used to resist
convoying prior to 1917. They were wrong then.
Dad
<ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
news:EeKdnSXhRp7...@pipex.net...
> In article <pafd71th4pa4ir4ds...@4ax.com>,
> grey...@houston.rr.com (Greylock) wrote:
>
>> I am not belittling the British contribution, but to claim the
>> British could have won it on their own is idiotic
>
> later GB would have gone the same way. The resources a victorious
> Germany could have extracted from the Soviets would have been to much.
>
> US involvement certainly shortened the war, almost certainly reduced
> Soviet gains and defeated the Japanese. However significant US
> involvement in the war did not start until the end of 1942, and in
Grey Satterfield
"Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
>
> To the point: King was fool who should have been dismissed.
This entirely overstates the case, of course -- but then, consider the
source.
Grey Satterfield
Dad
<ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote in message
news:JvqdnR3hwYv...@pipex.net...
> In article <4276CD0E...@fidalgo.net>, n...@fidalgo.net (D.
> Patterson) wrote:
>
>> the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War.
>
> Atlantic convoying was introduced in 1939. It was also introduced in
Spiv
Spiv
"D. Patterson" <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote in message
news:4277A22...@fidalgo.net...
>
>
> David Thornley wrote:
>
> > In article <4276CD0E...@fidalgo.net>,
> > D. Patterson <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
> >
> [....]
> >>Interestingly, a mistake though it was, it was the same mistake made by
> >>the British In the First World War...AND the Second World War. There is
> >>an interesting topic for research, asking the question why the navies of
> >>Britain, the United States, and Japan were insisted upon repeatedly
> >>making the same mistake about convoying despite prior negative
experiences?
> >>
> >>
> > While the British did stubbornly resist convoying in WWI, they started
> > convoying at the start of WWII. They didn't repeat the same mistake,
> > although they sure made it big when they did make it.
> >
> [....]
>
>
> You are mistaken. The British started t
> he war with the loss of ATHENIA
> and a number of other ships before
> implementing convoying on 9 December
> 1939.
On 3 September 1939, out to Montréal, Athenia became the first merchant ship
casualty of World War II, when she was torpedoed and sunk by U30, some 200
miles west of the Hebrides. The war was only a matter of hours old. A bit
short to form convoys.
The first convoy, HX-1, sailed from Halifax on September 16th, 1939, and
reached Great Britain safely.
David Thornley
Spiv <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
>
>"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
>news:117f626...@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>> coastal convoying in 1942, although
>> in retrospect I'm pretty sure they were wrong.
>
>Not in hindsight at all. Most thought King a dickhead at the time.
Lots of people thought so (and "dickhead" is a reasonable description
of his personality). This doesn't mean that he acted without reason.
King
>thought escorting merchantmen was beneath his ships,
News to me; he seemed to make no objection to escorting convoys
pre-war, when he was Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic.
King's problem was a shortage of ships. He also gave a lot of priority
to escorting troop convoys, and it shows: the US lost a lot fewer than
Britain. (Whether this was the best use of scarce resources is another
question, of course, but it was a reasonable decision.) His
objection to coastal convoys was not that he didn't want to have to
escort them, but that he didn't have the resources.
as he wanted a full up
>front battle with the German surface fleet (which was minuscule anyhow).
Again, news to me. Do you have a source for this?
>Odd, as the British had negated the German surface capability, with Bismarck
>sunk on its maiden voyage and Tirpitz holed up on a fjord for most of the
>war frighted to come out and be sunk most of the time. So, there were so
>few German surface ships for King to confront. The only effective weapon
>the Germans had in the Atlantic was the U boat.
>
Right, and occasional US battleships joined Home Fleet to keep an eye
on Tirpitz. If she'd come out at the wrong time, the US 16" guns
would have been a nasty surprise to her.
>The US Atlantic fleet was pretty elderly with 4 old WW1 battlewagons and one
>carrier, and in no way could survive meeting the top of the line German
>surface ships anyhow.
Which four battleships? There were New York, Texas, and Arkansas,
considered obsolescent at best, being armored to a fairly heavy
WWI scale. All other US battleships were at least very well
protected, probably at least as well as Bismarck (certainly if
you scale to size). The problem with engaging Kriegsmarine
surface units was that they could run away, not that they could
necessarily defeat Atlantic Fleet in an engagement.
The US Atlantic fleet was depleted as many Atlantic
>ships sail over to the Pacific, as they were expecting a larger Jap attack
>after Pearl, the US Atlantic fleet was only fit for escort duties in early
>1942, it was about the only role there.
That was about the only role in the Atlantic by that time, although
things remained hotter in the Med. BTW, this included escorting
the only real transoceanic amphibious operation of WWII.
The US was so sort of ships in the
>Pacific in 1942 the British had to lend the US a carrier for Pacific
>operations, HMS Victorious, renamed USS Robin until returned to the RN.
>
At the end of the year, after a lot of attrition on the USN and
IJN, Victorious operated in the South Pacific with the USN.
I have heard absolutely nothing of any renaming, although she
may have gotten a nickname there. Similarly, USS Saratoga
operated in the Indian Ocean for a time in 1944, and as I said
some US battleships operated for a time with Home Fleet.
I don't see anything particularly significant about that.
Nohbody
> In article <pafd71th4pa4ir4ds...@4ax.com>,
> grey...@houston.rr.com (Greylock) wrote:
>
> > I am not belittling the British contribution, but to claim the
> > British could have won it on their own is idiotic
>
> Nobody is claiming we could have won it on our own.
Haven't been reading Spiv's posts, have you...
Dan Poore
--
About the only difference between the wingnuts on each end of the
[political] spectrum is *which* civil right(s) they think we can do
without. -- Rowan Hawthorn, in alt.callahans (2/28/05)
Spiv
> In article <42779f08$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com>,
> Spiv <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
> >
> >"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
> >news:117f626...@corp.supernews.com...
> >>
> >> King had some reasons to not start
> >> coastal convoying in 1942, although
> >> in retrospect I'm pretty sure they were wrong.
> >
> > Not in hindsight at all. Most thought
> > King a dickhead at the time.
>
> Lots of people thought so (and "dickhead"
> is a reasonable description of his personality).
> This doesn't mean that he acted without reason.
>
> > King thought escorting merchantmen
> > was beneath his ships,
>
> News to me; he seemed to make
> no objection to escorting convoys
> pre-war, when he was Commander-in-Chief,
> Atlantic.
He could now play war games in serious.
> King's problem was a shortage of ships. He also gave a lot of priority
> to escorting troop convoys, and it shows: the US lost a lot fewer than
> Britain. (Whether this was the best use of scarce resources is another
> question, of course, but it was a reasonable decision.) His
> objection to coastal convoys was not that he didn't want to have to
> escort them, but that he didn't have the resources.
The British offered him ships.
> > as he wanted a full up front battle with
> > the German surface fleet (which was
> > minuscule anyhow).
>
> Again, news to me. Do you have a source for this?
Just do some counting. The Germans did not commit their large surface ships
in open ocean after Graf Spree and Bismarck. They relied on the odd sortie
from a fjord, and as Shaunhorst found out, the RN was too big and too
powerful and she was sunk. The other ships were constantly bombed at anchor
etc to the point of being nearly useless. The RN could openly go anywhere
in the northern ocean and seas, the Germans could not except in U boats.
What ships did King want to confront in the open Atlantic?
> > Odd, as the British had negated the
> > German surface capability, with Bismarck
> > sunk on its maiden voyage and Tirpitz
> > holed up on a fjord for most of the
> > war frighted to come out and be sunk
> > most of the time. So, there were so
> > few German surface ships for King to
> > confront. The only effective weapon
> > the Germans had in the Atlantic was
> > the U boat.
>
> Right, and occasional US battleships
> joined Home Fleet to keep an eye
> on Tirpitz. If she'd come out at the
> wrong time, the US 16" guns
> would have been a nasty surprise to her.
No. 1 planes would have got her, as battleships were rendered obsolete by
Bismarck/Prince of Wales and Repulse. What an obsolete WW1 battlewagon would
do to Tirptiz? Not much at all. Bismarck/Tirpitz could fire off 3 to 4
"accurate" salvos to one old battlewagon. The old Hood managed salvo or two
but did not hit Bismarck. The brand new Prince of Wales hit Bismarck because
of advanced gunnery.
> > The US Atlantic fleet was pretty elderly
> > with 4 old WW1 battlewagons and one
> > carrier, and in no way could survive meeting
> > the top of the line German
> > surface ships anyhow.
>
> Which four battleships? There were
> New York, Texas, and Arkansas,
> considered obsolescent at best, being
> armored to a fairly heavy
> WWI scale. All other US battleships
> were at least very well protected, probably
> at least as well as Bismarck (certainly if
> you scale to size). The problem with
> engaging Kriegsmarine surface units was
> that they could run away, not that they could
> necessarily defeat Atlantic Fleet in an engagement.
The U.S. Atlantic Fleet in 1941 comprised four old battleships, one division
of 4 heavy cruisers, the aircraft carrier Ranger and a destroyer squadron.
If Bismarck had engaged any of those ships without the carrier there was a
high probability that they would have been sunk.
Bismarck/Tirpitz were state-of-the-art, faster and could maintain top speed
for great lengths of time, far more advanced gunnery systems and far more
manoeuvrable. The hulls were electrowelded. No contest.
> > The US Atlantic fleet was depleted as
> > many Atlantic ships sailed over to the
> > Pacific, as they were expecting a larger
> > Jap attack after Pearl, the US Atlantic
> > fleet was only fit for escort duties in early
> > 1942, it was about the only role there.
>
> That was about the only role in the
> Atlantic by that time, although
> things remained hotter in the Med.
> BTW, this included escorting
> the only real transoceanic amphibious
> operation of WWII.
That was the only Atlantic role available to him, yet this fool, through
ego, and grudges, allowed nearly 400 ships to be sunk, ships the allied
could not afford to loose. No wonder the Brits were pissed off and offered
ships. All through the war the Brits held US high commanders with
contempt - with very good reason to.
> > The US was so short of ships in the
> > Pacific in 1942 the British had to
> > lend the US a carrier for Pacific
> > operations, HMS Victorious, renamed
> > USS Robin until returned to the RN.
>>
> At the end of the year, after a lot of
> attrition on the USN and IJN, Victorious
> operated in the South Pacific with the USN.
> I have heard absolutely nothing of any
> renaming, although she may have gotten
> a nickname there.
A full renaming flying the US flag with a US number painted on teh side, I
think No. 21. A US crew took over, and even put coca cola machines in her.
Essential British crew members stayed on board. Victorious was equipped with
Wildcats. Many remained on board and were supplemented by US Wildcats, with
British and US squadrons operating from her. The British planes were
painted over in US markings. British planes flying British crews in US
markings.
> Similarly, USS Saratoga operated in
> the Indian Ocean for a time in 1944,
Witha US crew and and US name.
> and as I said some US battleships
> operated for a time with Home Fleet.
> I don't see anything particularly significant
> about that.
They were with the home fleet as they had nothing to do, as did the large
British battlewagons. The US ships were still US ships, not HMS something.
The only reason for heavy US battlewagons around the British Isles was for
shore bombardment at D day. What use where they? No German ships were
around to sink.
Spiv
"Nohbody" <lo...@my.reply-to.address> wrote in message
news:hQQde.152861$vK6....@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
> On Tue, 03 May 2005 13:05:42 -0500, ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
>
> > In article <pafd71th4pa4ir4ds...@4ax.com>,
> > grey...@houston.rr.com (Greylock) wrote:
> >
> > > I am not belittling the British contribution, but to claim the
> > > British could have won it on their own is idiotic
> >
> > Nobody is claiming we could have won it on our own.
>
> Haven't been reading Spiv's posts, have you...
You certainly haven't
Spiv
"Julian Richards" <s...@sig.co.uk> wrote in message
news:96pf719qljt71qflg...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 03 May 2005 15:18:30 -0000, thor...@visi.com (David Thornley)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <427690e8$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com>,
> >Spiv <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Well the Yanks do thing they won
> >> the war all by themselves. Which is total
> >> nonsense of course. They have a great
> >> propaganda machine over there.
>
> > If the British had just kept a large-scale
> > movie industry going, they would have
> > won the war by themselves. In retrospect, anyway.
>
> of of allied propaganda to be the
> scene in "Let George Do It" (1940)
> when George Formby has a dream
> sequence where he punches Hitler.
Goebbels liked films. His propaganda was via films sending subliminal
messages. Hitler ordered an overt film depicting Jews as rats, with rats
running around sewers and the likes, It flopped as people walked out of the
cinemas when seeing it.
In 1945, the most popular person in the USSR was Stalin, closely followed by
George Formby. His films were dubbed and shown there. He was a big hit.
D. Patterson
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk wrote:
The British implemented convoying three monthsw into the war on 9
December 1939, which was after the loss of many ships includig the
passenges aboard ATHENIA.
Spiv
Wrong. The first convoy, HX-1, sailed from Halifax on September 16th, 1939,
D. Patterson
Spiv wrote:
It is you who are wrong, because you have disregarded the qualifying
word, "implemented." British-Canadian preparations for convoying began
before 26 August 1939 in anticipation of war. Churchill subsequently
"ordered" the actual implementation of convoying on 3-4 September 1939
as a response to the sinking of ATHENIA by Germany's unrestricted
submarine warfare. Convoy HX-1 did indeed sail from Halifax on September
16th, 1939. However, the convoy system was far from being fully
implemented, and it was not yet mandatory for merchantmen to sail in
such convoys. This situation underwent a fundamental change on 9
December 1939, when the British convoy preparations were deemed to be
fully operational and certain mandatory requirements for merchantmen to
sail in those convoys were implemented for the first time in the war.
After 9 December 1939, British convoying was still not fully implemented
and many British merchantmen sailed independent of convoys. By late
1940, most of the fifty ships per month being sunk by German U-boats
during their "Happy Time" were these merchantmen sailing independent of
the British convoys. So, it can be seen that although Britain ordered
the beginning of SOME convoying after the first day of Britain's
declaration of war, such convoying was not deemed by HM Government until
9 December 1939, and such convoying was still not implemented for dozens
of sunken ships in 1940 and 1941. By comparison, the United States
ordered and implemented the convoying of merchantmen years before
Germany's declaration of war in December 1941, and it was the convoying
of coastal routes which were not implemented, just as Britain did not
implement convoying of many of its ships one to two years into the war.
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
> A lot of bomber training was done in Rhodesia, with fuel supplied by the
> British refinery in Iran.
But a great deal more was conducted in SoCal. The tower from the
school in Lancaster is still around, although it was converted into a
guard tower when the facility became a detention facility for the
county. They even had the original barracks in use until about the
'80s.
Mary
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
wrote:
> In article <42769711...@fidalgo.net>,
> D. Patterson <n...@fidalgo.net> wrote:
> How much did they conduct in Britain, and how much closer to
> other oil sources? There was a lot of aircrew training going on
> in Canada.
And a lot in the US, mostly in the Southwest. I think it was called
the Empire Training Scheme and it trained Canadians, Australians, and
New Zealanders. One of the schools was just west of Lancaster, which
is how I heard about it.
> Neither did the US, not without hundreds of P-38s and P-51s. The US
> heavy bombers, while very useful during the day, were not as good as
> the Lancaster in night bombing.
Why not? What did they lack?
> Lots of which were bought and paid for by the British, or weren't
> US contributions in the first place. How many British and Commonwealth
> aircrew did the US train?
A lot. The US and the Commonwealth fed and armed the British and
themselves, too. The British rationed meat and other food until about
1951 and folks in the US and Commonwealth send food packages to
relatives long after the end of the war. The British were eating
whale meat during the war (and nasty stinking stuff it was, too).
> Moreover, much of what you are listing
> was not primarily from the US. The US had immense stocks of iron
> ore (the northern Minnesota ranges are still in large-scale
> operation) and oil, but didn't produce rubber domestically, or
> (IIRC) much bauxite and cryolite.
No one outside the tropics produced rubber domestically.
> The US lacked a whole lot of
> essential natural resources in WWII, which were supplied by trade.
And so? We still can't produce natural latex. We get our titanium
from Russia and our chromium from South Africa and our cinnamon from
Vietnam and our bananas from Latin America and our tea from India and
China and Ceylon. We might be able to mine enough of the first two to
get by, but we'll never be able to grow the others. Nor will the
British.
Mary
Fred J. McCall
:In article <2iod71do3jfn90dg1...@4ax.com>,
:Fred J. McCall <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote:
:>
:>Now start looking at how many got on target FOR THE SAME DEFINITION OF
:>ON TARGET.
:>
:Not that far different, really.
Yeah, that different, really.
The USAAF definition of a 'hit' was a bomb that hit in the correct
city block (or, in some cases, even down to the correct building).
The RAF Bomber Command definition of a 'hit' was a bomb that landed in
the correct CITY.
That's a somewhat bigger target in the latter case, you see, so
'percentage of bombs on target' is not a valid comparison between the
two.
--
"It's always different. It's always complex. But at some point,
somebody has to draw the line. And that somebody is always me....
I am the law."
-- Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
Fred J. McCall
:"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
:news:ud4f71h62o16h4enf...@4ax.com...
:> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
:>
:> :He detested the British,
:> :distrusted their motives, and believed them to be haughty and arrogant.
:>
:> So Brits haven't changed in all this time....
:
:When you know what you are doing and know you are right, you may adopt the
:luxury of arrogance. Monty vs. the US generals was a prime example.
Yeah, that's why things were going SO well when Monty was running his
own show.
:To the point: King was fool who should have been dismissed.
To the point: Spiv is a spiviot and should be dissed.
--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Fred J. McCall
:
:"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
:news:7g4f715el7da9fm4g...@4ax.com...
:
:> :> :You mean Rolls Royce Merlin's
:> :> :made under licence by Packard.
:> :>
:> :> I note you clipped out the 'had to
:> :> redesign them' remarks.
:> :
:> :Tinkering is not re-designing the engine.
:>
:> Sorry, but the elimination of huge amounts
:> of 'touch labour' so that the things could
:> actually be produced rather than hand-built is a
:> redesign well beyond the 'tinkering' stage.
:
:You cannot differentiate between the engine "design" and the manufacturing
:process.
And you don't know what you're talking about. Might I suggest a
course in "Design For Manufacturability"?
Fred J. McCall
:
:"Fred J. McCall" <fmc...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
:news:ik4f719nno7uf99i6...@4ax.com...
:> "Spiv" <nyl...@goawayspam.com> wrote:
:>
:> :"Greylock" <grey...@houston.rr.com> wrote in message
:> :news:kmfd7114pqv0v4qrs...@4ax.com...
:> :>
:> :> The British were within a few months
:> :> if not weeks of the beginnings of
:> :> starvation when the US entered the
:> :> war
:> :
:> :The UK could feed itself, it had enough land to grow enough food. It
:> :preferred to buy the food and use people to make products of war.
:>
:> Which, oddly enough, they ALSO imported huge quantities of.
:
:You don't say.......
Yeah, no shit.
:Do you have a point?
Yes, but you're apparently to thick to get it....
Geoffrey Sinclair
(snip)
>> King's problem was a shortage of ships. He also gave a lot of priority
>> to escorting troop convoys, and it shows: the US lost a lot fewer than
>> Britain. (Whether this was the best use of scarce resources is another
>> question, of course, but it was a reasonable decision.) His
>> objection to coastal convoys was not that he didn't want to have to
>> escort them, but that he didn't have the resources.
>
>The British offered him ships.
The offer was to transfer some ships, build some more and also
some ASW aircraft, all offers were taken up.
>> > as he wanted a full up front battle with the German surface fleet (which was
>> > minuscule anyhow).
>>
>> Again, news to me. Do you have a source for this?
>
>Just do some counting.
The request was a source that showed Admiral King wanted a
full up front battle with the German surface fleet, not what ships
the Germans sent to the Atlantic.
>The Germans did not commit their large surface ships
>in open ocean after Graf Spree and Bismarck. They relied on the odd sortie
>from a fjord, and as Shaunhorst found out, the RN was too big and too
>powerful and she was sunk. The other ships were constantly bombed at anchor
>etc to the point of being nearly useless. The RN could openly go anywhere
>in the northern ocean and seas, the Germans could not except in U boats.
The RN thought very differently in 1942, the Luftwaffe was busy sinking
merchant ships in the Arctic and the Germans had the choice of striking
the Arctic convoys or trying for another Atlantic operation. The RN was
very short of ships and was providing the eastern fleet with 5 battleships
and 3 modern aircraft carriers.
>What ships did King want to confront in the open Atlantic?
The claim was
"he wanted a full up front battle with the German surface fleet "
Now is the claim he did not?
>> > Odd, as the British had negated the
>> > German surface capability, with Bismarck
>> > sunk on its maiden voyage and Tirpitz holed up on a fjord for most of the
>> > war frighted to come out and be sunk most of the time.
The allies could not plan on Tirpitz doing what they wanted or
Scharnhorst for that matter.
>> > So, there were so few German surface ships for King to
>> > confront. The only effective weapon the Germans had in the Atlantic was
>> > the U boat.
>>
>> Right, and occasional US battleships joined Home Fleet to keep an eye
>> on Tirpitz. If she'd come out at the wrong time, the US 16" guns
>> would have been a nasty surprise to her.
>
>No. 1 planes would have got her, as battleships were rendered obsolete by
>Bismarck/Prince of Wales and Repulse.
You mean like Victorious' strike on Tirpitz in March 1942 that scored
no hits. Like the various carrier raids on Tirpitz in 1944?
Scharnhorst saw no aircraft on its final sortie.
It is hard to see ships in the Arctic in winter.
>What an obsolete WW1 battlewagon would do to Tirptiz? Not much at all.
Which presumably is why the USN sent modern types in 1942.
>Bismarck/Tirpitz could fire off 3 to 4
>"accurate" salvos to one old battlewagon. The old Hood managed salvo or two
>but did not hit Bismarck. The brand new Prince of Wales hit Bismarck because
>of advanced gunnery.
Try PoW was not under fire during the run in, and did the hits at
secondary gun range. Hood was sunk as it turned to allow the
after turrets to fire.
(snip)
>>> The US Atlantic fleet was depleted as many Atlantic ships sailed over to the
>>> Pacific, as they were expecting a larger Jap attack after Pearl, the US Atlantic
>>> fleet was only fit for escort duties in early 1942, it was about the only role there.
>>
>> That was about the only role in the Atlantic by that time, although
>> things remained hotter in the Med. BTW, this included escorting
>> the only real transoceanic amphibious operation of WWII.
>
>That was the only Atlantic role available to him, yet this fool, through
>ego, and grudges, allowed nearly 400 ships to be sunk, ships the allied
>could not afford to loose. No wonder the Brits were pissed off and offered
>ships. All through the war the Brits held US high commanders with
>contempt - with very good reason to.
The British certainly did not hold King, Arnold and Marshall in contempt
nor did they have reason to do so.
The reality was the US defences were very deficient also the politics of
blackouts, the need to send US troops to Europe, even who should fly
ASW aircraft came into play. The USN failure was in not starting convoys
straight away, instead trying what were termed offensive patrols.
Clay Blair thinks the U-boats sent to US waters sank 610 ships
December 1941 to August 1942, mostly in US waters.
>> > The US was so short of ships in the Pacific in 1942 the British had to
>> > lend the US a carrier for Pacific operations, HMS Victorious, renamed
>> > USS Robin until returned to the RN.
>>>
>> At the end of the year, after a lot of attrition on the USN and IJN, Victorious
>> operated in the South Pacific with the USN. I have heard absolutely nothing
>> of any renaming, although she may have gotten a nickname there.
>
>A full renaming flying the US flag with a US number painted on teh side, I
>think No. 21. A US crew took over, and even put coca cola machines in her.
No the RN crew remained, including RN squadrons, the Victorious
exchanged squadrons with Saratoga. By the way the RN would
have really liked an ice cream fountain, just like the USN appreciated
the RN ships had alcohol. USS Robin was the cover name unless
someone can point to a commissioning ceremony.
>Essential British crew members stayed on board. Victorious was equipped with
>Wildcats. Many remained on board and were supplemented by US Wildcats, with
>British and US squadrons operating from her. The British planes were
>painted over in US markings. British planes flying British crews in US
>markings.
You mean the Grumman Wildcats and Avengers the RN squadrons
were operating were painted in US markings? Since the standard
RN markings with red circles were a bad idea given Japanese
markings? The RN squadrons present were 832 with Avengers,
882, 896 and 898 with Wildcats. The USN fighter squadron VF-5
was transferred to the Victorious and 832 squadron to Saratoga.
>> Similarly, USS Saratoga operated in the Indian Ocean for a time in 1944,
>
>Witha US crew and and US name.
I think you will find Saratoga and Illustrious exchanged squadrons.
There were two operations, Cockpit on 19 April 1944 and Transom
on 17 May 1944.
>> and as I said some US battleships operated for a time with Home Fleet.
>> I don't see anything particularly significant about that.
>
>They were with the home fleet as they had nothing to do, as did the large
>British battlewagons. The US ships were still US ships, not HMS something.
The USN sent modern battleships to Britain in 1942 to cover for RN ships
sent to invade Madagascar in May 1942 and again for the November 1942
Torch landings, and then the Sicily landings. The USN sent a modern
battleship to support operation Torch and 3 older battleships for shore
bombardment duties in 1944.
So USS Washington served April to July 1942.
USS Massachusetts was sent to Torch in November 1942.
USS Alabama and South Dakota May to August 1943.
The reason was to have enough fast battleships to deal with Tirpitz
or Scharnhorst or both while covering Arctic convoys and the Atlantic
sealanes.
The modern USN battleships were very much wanted in the Pacific in 1942.
North Carolina had been torpedoed in September, South Dakota was
damaged by gunfire in November.
>The only reason for heavy US battlewagons around the British Isles was for
>shore bombardment at D day. What use where they? No German ships were
>around to sink.
The RN thought differently, since it had to provide cover for arctic
convoys and stop any German break out into the Atlantic.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
Spiv
> >>The British implemented convoying
> >>three monthsw into the war on 9
> >>December 1939, which was after
> >>the loss of many ships includig the
> >>passenges aboard ATHENIA.
> >
> > Wrong. The first convoy, HX-1,
> > sailed from Halifax on September 16th, 1939,
> > and reached Great Britain safely.
> Convoy HX-1 did indeed sail from Halifax on September
> 16th, 1939.
Thank you.
Spiv
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote in message
news:4278764d$0$27575$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
> Spiv wrote in message <4277f...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com>...
> >"David Thornley" <thor...@visi.com> wrote in message
> >news:117fkje...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> (snip)
>
> >> King's problem was a shortage of ships. He also gave a lot of priority
> >> to escorting troop convoys, and it shows: the US lost a lot fewer than
> >> Britain. (Whether this was the best use of scarce resources is another
> >> question, of course, but it was a reasonable decision.) His
> >> objection to coastal convoys was not that he didn't want to have to
> >> escort them, but that he didn't have the resources.
> >
> >The British offered him ships.
>
> The offer was to transfer some ships, build some more and also
> some ASW aircraft, all offers were taken up.
>
> >> > as he wanted a full up front battle with the German surface fleet
(which was
> >> > minuscule anyhow).
> >>
> >> Again, news to me. Do you have a source for this?
> >
> >Just do some counting.
>
> The request was a source that
> showed Admiral King wanted a
> full up front battle with the German
> surface fleet, not what ships
> the Germans sent to the Atlantic.
There was not enough German surface ships around for the RN and US Navy to
sink. It's not as if they were openly sailing the seas, they were not.
They were holed up most of the time fearing being sunk. Hitler threatened to
take Tirptiz's guns off and use them in shore batteries.
> > The Germans did not commit their large
> > surface ships in open ocean after Graf
> > Spree and Bismarck. They relied on the
> > odd sortie from a fjord, and as Sharnhorst
> > found out, the RN was too big and too
> > powerful and she was sunk. The other ships
> > were constantly bombed at anchor
> > etc to the point of being nearly useless.
> > The RN could openly go anywhere
> > in the northern ocean and seas, the Germans
> > could not except in U boats.
>
> The RN thought very differently in 1942,
Elements of the RN you mean. Those who still though battle ships were
supreme when the RN themselves had proved they were not match for aircraft
in numbers.
> the Luftwaffe was busy sinking
> merchant ships in the Arctic and the
> Germans had the choice of striking
> the Arctic convoys or trying for another
> Atlantic operation. The RN was
> very short of ships and was providing
> the eastern fleet with 5 battleships
> and 3 modern aircraft carriers.
You missed the point. German aircraft and U boats were sinking ships, but
few large surface ships. They had few, although very good ships, but were
reluctant to operate them as the RN, and later with the US, dominated the
seas.
> >What ships did King want to confront
> >in the open Atlantic?
>
> The claim was
>
> "he wanted a full up front battle with the German surface fleet "
>
> Now is the claim he did not?
Yep, and would have to hunt and hi and lo to get to see any German surface
ships. to flight.
> >> > Odd, as the British had negated the
> >> > German surface capability, with Bismarck
> >> > sunk on its maiden voyage and Tirpitz holed
> >> > up on a fjord for most of the
> >> > war frighted to come out and be sunk most
> >> > of the time.
>
> The allies could not plan on Tirpitz doing
> what they wanted or Scharnhorst for that matter.
They wanted it to come to sink it. Scharnhorst did and was sunk. As the
war progressed and more and more flat tops arrived, with superior
fighters/bombers, the big Germans ships were little more than useless hulks.
> > No. 1 planes would have got her [Tirpitz],
> > as battleships were rendered obsolete by
> > Bismarck/Prince of Wales and Repulse.
>
> You mean like Victorious' strike on
> Tirpitz in March 1942 that scored
> no hits. Like the various carrier raids
> on Tirpitz in 1944?
Victorious launched planes on the Bismarck in 55 foot seas and scored a hit.
The 1944 raids were when Tirpitz was at anchor, frightened to come out as
she knew she would have been sunk. Planes would do it from flat tops, as
the US did with Yamato.
> Scharnhorst saw no aircraft on its final sortie.
True, and she was still sunk.
> It is hard to see ships in the Arctic in winter.
Radar was gaining ground the morer the war went on.
> > What an obsolete WW1 battlewagon
> > would do to Tirptiz? Not much at all.
>
> Which presumably is why the USN sent
> modern types in 1942.
In early 1942 when King would not escort merchantmen and wanted to a gung-ho
battle with ships not around, he only had iron tubs.
> > Bismarck/Tirpitz could fire off 3 to 4
> > "accurate" salvos to one old battlewagon.
> > The old Hood managed salvo or two
> > but did not hit Bismarck. The brand new
> > Prince of Wales hit Bismarck because
> > of advanced gunnery.
>
> Try PoW was not under fire during the
> run in, and did the hits at secondary gun range.
Try PoW could fire more rapidly and accurately too, whereas old Hood could
not.
> Hood was sunk as it turned to allow the
> after turrets to fire.
It was sunk because it was hit by Bismarck, while Hood could not hit
Bismarck with antiquated gunnery - which was probably better than on the old
US ships.
> The British certainly did not hold King,
> Arnold and Marshall in contempt
> nor did they have reason to do so.
They held King in contempt that was clear.
> The reality was the US defences
> were very deficient also the politics of
> blackouts, the need to send US troops
> to Europe, even who should fly
> ASW aircraft came into play. The
> USN failure was in not starting convoys
> straight away, instead trying what were
> termed offensive patrols.
At 400 ships sunk in six months the US failure was in implementing convoys.
That is abundantly clear.
> Clay Blair thinks the U-boats sent
> to US waters sank 610 ships
> December 1941 to August 1942,
> mostly in US waters.
Even worse then.
> >> > The US was so short of ships in the Pacific in 1942 the British had
to
> >> > lend the US a carrier for Pacific operations, HMS Victorious, renamed
> >> > USS Robin until returned to the RN.
> >>>
> >> At the end of the year, after a lot of attrition on the USN and IJN,
Victorious
> >> operated in the South Pacific with the USN. I have heard absolutely
nothing
> >> of any renaming, although she may have gotten a nickname there.
> >
> >A full renaming flying the US flag with a US number painted on teh side,
I
> >think No. 21. A US crew took over, and even put coca cola machines in
her.
>
> No the RN crew remained, including RN squadrons, the Victorious
> exchanged squadrons with Saratoga. By the way the RN would
> have really liked an ice cream fountain, just like the USN appreciated
> the RN ships had alcohol. USS Robin was the cover name unless
> someone can point to a commissioning ceremony.
The name was not cover and was official. US crew members were on board (why
the coke machines?) as were us aircraft squadrons. I can't recall, but I
think a US skipper was in charge. Victorious spent a number of weeks in the
US Americanising the ship, with name change, etc.
> > Essential British crew members stayed
> > on board. Victorious was equipped with
> > Wildcats. Many remained on board and
> > were supplemented by US Wildcats, with
> > British and US squadrons operating from
> > her. The British planes were painted over
> > in US markings. British planes flying British
> > crews in US markings.
>
> You mean the Grumman Wildcats and
> Avengers the RN squadrons
> were operating were painted in US markings?
Yep.
> Since the standard
> RN markings with red circles were
> a bad idea given Japanese
> markings?
The RN found British marking no problem in 1944/45 with the Pacific carrier
fleet.
> >> Similarly, USS Saratoga operated in
> >> the Indian Ocean for a time in 1944,
> >
> >Witha US crew and and US name.
>
> I think you will find Saratoga and Illustrious
> exchanged squadrons. There were two
> operations, Cockpit on 19 April 1944 and Transom
> on 17 May 1944.
Saratoga was not temporary transferred to the RN fleet, as was Victorious.
Operating with another navy and being a temporary part of it is another
matter.
> So USS Washington served April
> to July 1942. USS Massachusetts
> was sent to Torch in November 1942.
> USS Alabama and South Dakota May
> to August 1943.
>
> The reason was to have enough fast
> battleships to deal with Tirpitz
> or Scharnhorst or both while covering
> Arctic convoys and the Atlantic sealanes.
More the admirals wanted a gung-ho battle. Flat tops would have seen off
Tirpitz.
> The modern USN battleships were very
> much wanted in the Pacific in 1942.
> North Carolina had been torpedoed in
> September, South Dakota was
> damaged by gunfire in November.
The heavy ships were more sue for naval gunfire support of island hopping,
rather than confronting other large Jap heavies.
> > The only reason for heavy US battlewagons
> > around the British Isles was for
> > shore bombardment at D day. What use
> > where they? No German ships were
> > around to sink.
>
> The RN thought differently,
You mean the old admirals thought differently. The younger more brighter
top brass knew the flat top was the answer.
> since it had to provide cover for arctic
> convoys and stop any German break
> out into the Atlantic.
Smaller more nibble ships with ASW were best for convoys and the flat tops
would deal with a large German ship that suicidally broke out. If it broke
out, it had to get back, as there was nowhere they could go to. The Germans
tried surface raiding early in the war with limited success and expensive
failures: Bismarck and Graf Spee.
As long as the ships were watched and attacked in port their threat was
minimal. Sinking the Tirpitz was a British obsession. It was a game - they
had to sink it, even after it was useless and being used as a floating gun
battery. There was few large Germans ships to fight, with all this RN and
US iron floating around with not much to aim at. So, the game had to go on,
with one team finding it difficult to find anyone to play with.
Julian Richards
wrote:
>Goebbels liked films. His propaganda was via films sending subliminal
>messages. Hitler ordered an overt film depicting Jews as rats, with rats
>running around sewers and the likes, It flopped as people walked out of the
>cinemas when seeing it.
The Soviets had people like Eisenstein, the Nazis had Leni Riefenstahl
but she was not in the same league.
>In 1945, the most popular person in the USSR was Stalin, closely followed by
>George Formby. His films were dubbed and shown there. He was a big hit.
What a shame it was then, that upon the death of Stalin, Formby was
not made president of the Soviet Union.
--
Julian Richards
medieval "at" richardsuk.f9.co.uk
Usenet is how from the comfort of your own living room, you can converse
with people that you would never want in your house.
THIS MESSAGE WAS POSTED FROM SOC.HISTORY.MEDIEVAL