Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The Battles of Narvik - 3 battles, 3 sides, 1 week" video.

  1.  @iroscoe  Much like Bismarck & Scharnhorst. Neither were sunk, both simply submerged to avoid further damage, and may soon surface to exact their revenge.
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  2. How did the Royal Navy 'lose the battle?' They inflicted losses on the Kreigsmarine from which it never recovered, and made it useless by the time a potential Sealion came around. The Germans began the war with 22 destroyers. By June, 1940, they had 10 left.
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  3.  @bkjeong4302  I believe that Vice-Admiral Whitworth felt a degree of guilt about the death of Warburton-Lee, in Hardy, on 10 April, and perhaps allowed emotion to over-ride judgment when he personally took Warspite into the second battle. Certainly, Warspite should not have been risked in such confined waters, when there were already more than enough destroyers available to complete their task.
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  4. Perhaps you should read about the actual losses suffered by the Kriegsmarine during the Norwegian campaign?
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  5. To a degree. There were 'big ship sailors' and 'small ship sailors,' but it was not unusual to move between the two. Andrew Cunningham, for example, always regarded himself as a small ship sailor, but went on to larger things. Generally, a RN destroyer flotilla between the wars had nine vessels, eight destroyers and a leader, which was usually a slightly larger destroyer. The flotilla would be commanded by a Captain (D) who might well subsequently take command of a cruiser or battleship. One of the other destroyers would be a half-leader, commanded by the second in command of the flotilla, usually of Commander rank, and the remainder were captains were Lieutenant-Commanders. During the RN expansion during WW2, command of smaller RN destroyers such as the Hunt class often went to comparatively junior Lieutanants. Forbes, C-in-C of the Home Fleet in 1940, on the other hand, never commanded anything smaller than a cruiser. Most RN senior officers, much like US ones, did spend some time in destroyers.
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  6.  @Graham-ce2yk  Quite possibly. Redoubtable would have been an appropriate name for an 'R' class.
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  7.  @hajoos.8360  In point of fact, the driving force behind what some have seen as the harsh terms of the Treaty was France. Both Lloyd-George and Wilson believed that the French terms were too severe. Churchill, by the way, was not a major player in the British government at the time, although, as Martin Gilbert pointed out, he was strongly opposed to the proposed terms, and in particular to the disbanding of the German army, which he saw as a potential bulwark against the spread of communism. Incidentally, he was only elected as Prime Minister in 1951. Seriously, if you want a debate about 'facts' perhaps you should try to come up with some.
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  8.  @sobobwas6871 . 'WC was at Versailles? Who knew?' Certainly not Churchill, for one!
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  9. HMS Resolution was at Harstad & at Narvik, between 26 April & 19 May.
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  10. Some larger RN warships had Swordfish seaplanes as their catapult aircraft early in the war, others had the Seafox, before the Walrus became standard.
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  11.  @davidmcintyre8145  Geoffrey Bennett says that Otranto was fired upon by Dresden, but not hit. It seems that Cradock's last signal to her, before the action began, was incomplete ( 'There is danger. Proceed at your best...'), so Otranto's captain took a pragmatic course of action, in that he edged away from the rest of the squadron and subsequently escaped. What point is served by even talking about the Averoff? What relevance has a ship belonging to a neutral country, far away in the Mediterranean, to Coronel? More relevant would be the influence that Defence, Australia, or even, stretching the point, Hiei, might have had, had one of them been present.
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  12. Yes.
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  13. Regardless of Norway, the crucial events at the time were unfolding in France & the Low Countries.
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  14.  @JesterEric  I agree with you, but my view is that, regardless of the events in Norway, a later debate would probably have resulted in a similar change of PM after the unfolding catastrophe became obvious. Obviously, only conjecture on my part, but a Churchill with a successful Norway behind him would certainly have been Chamberlain's likely successor.
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  15.  @hajoos.8360  Presumably, you don't know the British reasoning behind their occupation of Iceland? It had nothing to do with any Icelandic 'harm' that they could do to anyone.
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  16.  @davidmcintyre8145  Cradock did keep Otranto with him to extend the line when he was searching, but sent her away before the action began, when she could have contributed little to the action. I have read that Averoff's best speed at full load was 20 knots. However, I suspect that all the quoted speeds are questionable in any case. Glasgow, as a new ship, might have managed her 25 knots, but as you say Good Hope & Monmouth were hardly youngsters, whilst Spee's squadron had not had any opportunity for maintenance or even a proper boiler clean for some time.
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  17. The abandonment of Narvik was as a direct result of the Blitzkrieg in France & the Low Countries. Narvik could have been held as an Allied base, until events elsewhere took over.
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  18. The programme is about the Battles of Narvik, where half of the total German destroyer fleet was destroyed. Comparing German & British naval losses throughout the campaign would not, I fear, end well for the Kriegsmarine.
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  19. Not really. With a maximum operational speed of 20 knots, Averoff couldn't have kept up with Cradock's squadron.
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  20. German destroyers up to the Zerstorer 1936 class ( ending in Z22, Anton Schmitt) had both names and Pennant Numbers. Class Zerstorer 1936A, the so-called 'Narvik' class, had numbers only. There were the first of the (overgunned) 5.9 inch gun armed destroyers.
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  21.  @russellehler6706  Obviously not extensively enough, if you believed that German naval losses in Norway consisted merely of 'a bunch of out of fuel destroyers.'
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  22. Bernd von Arnim, I think, in Rombaksfjord.
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  23. Not as unlikely as it might seem. Andrew Cunningham, a destroyer man, captained Rodney in 1930, and said that she was easy to manoeuvre.
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  24. Wouldn't it be rather boring? Nurnberg did virtually nothing in WW2, and was then handed over to the Soviet Union. That just about covers it.
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  25. Well spotted. The H43 in the photo. is definitely not Havock, despite the Pennant Number. The flat sided funnels (typical of Thorneycroft) and one or two other details suggest, at least to me, that she is HMCS Saguenay or HMCS Skeena, pictured pre-war. Perhaps the photo. was doctored?
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  26.  @dgoodey  Glancing at a few more pictures, I agree with you.
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  27. Not to mention the losses in cruisers, and of the damage to both operational battleships, neither of which were repaired until November.
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  28. The Battle of Orford Ness, in 1704, resulted in the English capturing a Swedish convoy and the single ship escorting it. The captured Swedish warship was later released, but sank on the way back to Sweden.
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