Scenario for England if the Dunkirk evacuation had failed?
Musicman59
effected England's ability to wage war?
How many troops were left in England? Would they have been able to
participate in strength in the North Africa campaign?
Craig
GFH
Germany would have had 400K more PoWs.
WSC would not have agreed to any form of armistice.
No real change in the course of the war.
GFH
John Anderton
wrote:
>On Nov 12, 8:00 pm, Musicman59 <cwestbro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If the 400k or so troops were not evacuated, how would it have
>> effected England's ability to wage war?
>>
>> How many troops were left in England? Would they have been able to
>> participate in strength in the North Africa campaign.
>
>Germany would have had 400K more PoWs.
Not really, only about 200k of the ~340k troops evacuated from Dunkirk
were British, the rest were French, most of whom returned to France
and ended up as POWs.
Cheers,
John
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:4dd1e7c5-34cb-470c...@v15g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> If the 400k or so troops were not evacuated, how would it have
> effected England's ability to wage war?
As the war played out until 1943, not much, after that quite a lot.
Since the total above included many French troops most of
whom ended up back in France. It was how much of the UK
troops that were rescued that matters as far as the question is
concerned.
> How many troops were left in England? Would they have been able to
> participate in strength in the North Africa campaign?
There were a nominal 12 divisions in the BEF plus the 51st division,
which was detached from direct BEF command.
If you are talking about effectively none of them escaping then
consider the UK 2nd Army peaked at 13 divisions in France in
1944. Consider the UK did lose the 51st division in France and
disbanded 3 more infantry divisions in the UK in June and July,
which is an indicator of the casualties suffered so far, two had
served in France, the 12th and 23rd, the 66th had stayed in the
UK.
Of the remaining 10 divisions that served in France in 1940,
2 saw no further combat. So the overall effect would be the
loss of 8 divisions in terms of later field forces.
There were a nominal 16 divisions still in the UK, counting 1st
Armoured and 52nd infantry which were sent to France, but not
northern France. Are these also assumed to fail to make it back?
Both of these units later saw extensive service, apart from them
the divisions in the UK but not sent to France in 1940 and their
WWII service were, (note Italy as defined here may include
Sicily)
9th infantry, became 51st infantry, to Middle East in 1942,
then back to UK for Normandy invasion.
15th infantry, Normandy 1944.
18th infantry, Malaya 1942, destroyed there.
38th infantry, to lower establishment in 1941, reserve in 1944
45th infantry, to lower establishment in 1941, reserve in 1944
53rd infantry, mixed division in 1942, reverted to infantry in 1943,
Normandy in 1944.
54th infantry, to lower establishment in 1942, disbanded in 1943
55th infantry, to lower establishment in 1942, back to normal
establishment in 1944, never left UK
59th infantry, Normandy in 1944, disbanded 4 months later
61st infantry, stayed in the UK all war, as an infantry division.
66th infantry, disbanded in June 1940
The London units were motorised infantry,
1st London infantry, became 56th infantry, to Middle East in 1942.
2nd London infantry, became 47th infantry, lower establishment
in 1941, never left UK.
2nd Armoured to Middle East in 1940, destroyed in 1941.
Of the 13 divisions sent to France, 12th and 23rd were disbanded,
51st was destroyed.
The other 10 infantry divisions war records were
1st, North Africa in 1943, then Italy
2nd, India in 1942
3rd, Normandy in 1944
4th, North Africa in 1943 as a mixed division, then Italy
5th, India in 1942, then North Africa, Italy then France in 1945
42nd, became an armoured division in 1942, disbanded in 1943
44th, to Middle East in 1942, disbanded in 1943.
46th, to North Africa in 1942, then Italy
48th, lower establishment in 1941, reserve in 1943
50th, North Africa in 1941, then Italy, then Normandy then to
UK where reduced to reserve status.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.