Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "BFBS Forces News"
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I wouldn't go so far as to describe Montgomery as a 'genius.' Certainly not at the level of Marlborough, but I have never understand why commentators, predominantly American, constantly insult him for his cautious approach. Had I been on the front line at, for example, Second Alamein (as my father was), I would have been reassured by a General who made sure of his superiority in intelligence, numbers, equipment, and logistics before beginning a battle.
I appreciate that, of course, this doesn't look quite so exciting in a movie.
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@johnpeate4544 You are correct, and I was wrong, about it going to court. Monty's publishers were quick to avoid that happening.
Montgomery was threatened with legal action by Field Marshal Auchinleck for suggesting that Auchinleck had intended to retreat from the Alamein position if attacked again, and had to give a radio broadcast (20 November 1958) expressing his gratitude to Auchinleck for having stabilised the front at the First Battle of Alamein.
The 1960 paperback edition of Montgomery's memoirs contains a publisher's note drawing attention to that broadcast, and stating that although the reader might assume from Montgomery's text that Auchinleck had been planning to retreat "into the Nile Delta or beyond" in the publisher's view it had been Auchinleck's intention to launch an offensive as soon as the Eighth Army was "rested and regrouped"
It appears that the publishers acted to avoid the risk of serious court case, and actually believed Auchinleck's as opposed to Montgomery's account.
Even 'A Full Life' by Brian Horrocks, includes such phrases as :-
'From now on (mid July) Auchinleck's mind was set on hitting back, and no further retreat was thought of.'
'From the middle of July onwards, Auchinleck never thought of any further withdrawal.'
'It was the desperate fighting in the first fortnight of July, when the 8th Army rescued Egypt, which paved the way for our subsequent victories.'
'On the 27th July, Dorman-Smith prepared an appreciaton for his commander in which 'the intention' was that the 8th Army would defeat any attempt of the enemy to pass through or round it. There was no mention in this document of any further withdrawal, but even so Auchinleck at first refused his agreement because it did not contain a sufficiently offensive spirit. There was nothing defensive about Auchinleck at this period.'
These comments were written in the same year that Monty's publishers chose to 'adjust' his autobiography,
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@sshep86 Strange how often people get the Dunkirk losses wrong. According to the official Royal Naval staff history, 72 allied vessels were actually lost to enemy action, and a further 163 to 'other causes.' However, of this total of 235, 135 were 'little ships' which were simply abandoned on the beaches when the evacuation ended. Losses of larger vessels were comparatively light. being 9 destroyers & torpedo boats, 1 gunboat, 6 minesweepers, 29 trawlers/drifters, 9 personnel ships, and 3 cargo ships.
The RN's destroyer force, which would provide the backbone of any anti-invasion fleet, was barely affected, especially since, of the 20 or so which you identify as badly damaged, all except 3 were back in service within ten days. In point of fact, most of the damaged destroyers had been damaged by grounding and collision, rather than enemy action, by the way.
Sorry, but the facts are that, in 1940 at least, the Luftwaffe, which had never trained in attacks of shipping was desperately poor at it. Even their ace Stuka pilot, Oskar Dinort, commander of Stuka-Geschwader 2, wrote of the difficulties his unit experienced when attacking (unsuccessfully) an RN squadron off Calais on 25 May, 1940, and his superior, Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of Fliegerkorps VIII, was adamant that his bombers lacked the skill and training to protect the Sealion barge trains from the massed destroyer attacks that they would have faced.
The simple point is: if the Luftwaffe could not sink destroyers when they were stopped or slow moving in restricted waters, with their operations restricted by large numbers of troops aboard, would they really have been any more successful when trying to attack these same destroyers, moving at 25+ knots, when they were in the midst of the barge trains? The Luftwaffe's own commanders thought not, and I agree with their judgement.
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@sshep86 The Luftwaffe had no torpedo aircraft (apart from a small number of ponderous seaplanes which operated from Norway exclusively against merchantmen) in 1940.
The RN would not have sent heavy ships into the Channel. The Home Fleet (apart from an old battlecruiser, a carrier, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, one AA cruiser and seven destroyers at Scapa) was at Rosyth in September, 1940. At the time, the Rosyth force was two battleships (Nelson & Rodney), Hood, three AA Cruisers, and seventeen destroyers. These were at Rosyth in order to be able to intercept any German heavy ships which tried to break out into the Atlantic, but also because from Rosyth they were equally well placed to act against any heavy ships which the Germans might have sent against the anti-invasion forces further south. In fact, the nearest thing to a heavy ship the Germans had operational at the time was a single heavy cruiser, Hipper, which had defective engines, by the way.
RN anti-invasion forces consisted of some seventy destroyers and light cruisers, most of which were within five hours steaming of Dover, backed up by over five hundred smaller vessels (fleet & auxiliary minesweepers, sloops, corvettes, armed trawlers & gunboats, etc.) precisely the types of ship which the Luftwaffe had conspicuously failed to sink at Dunkirk. Furthermore, the RN could operate unhindered throughout the night, when the Luftwaffe was grounded anyway.
Despite what some might claim, the Admiralty knew exactly what was required to defeat an invasion attempt, and had made the resources available to the commanders on the spot. As Admiral Drax, C-in-C at the Nore, where the bulk of the anti-invasion forces were based, said at the time, 'To defeat an invasion, we need gunfire, and plenty of it.' In September, 1940, the RN had precisely that.
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@sshep86 I agree about the importance of air superiority by, say 1942 or 1943, but I have been writing in terms of the situation surrounding any Sealion invasion attempt in 1940. At that time, neither the British nor the Germans were particularly good at hitting ships at sea. Granted, both improved, but at the time of Sealion this improvement had not taken place, and the Luftwaffe's performance at Dunkirk had been, frankly, abysmal.
Similarly, I know the reasons why the Luftwaffe was lacking in torpedo aircraft, but the fact remains that in 1940 this resource was simply not available to them
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@sshep86 Actually, you said 240 ships, not 140, and you said 20 badly damaged, when in fact the damage was in most cases minor, and caused by grounding or collision. Only in three cases was the damage severe enough to keep the destroyer concerned out of service beyond the end of June. The actual number of front line allied warships lost was indeed light, consisting of 9 destroyers and torpedo boats, 1 gunboat, and 5 minesweepers. In terms of the numbers of trawlers and drifters in RN service at the time, the loss of 29, from a pool of over 1200, could hardly have been considered crippling, and the various other losses, such as schuits, tugs, landing craft, barges and yachts were. to be callous but pragmatic about it, irrelevant to the defence of the UK, and acceptable in view of what was achieved, which was the evacuation of over 323000 men when the original aim had been to bring back to Britain 40000. To compare the nature of the losses, how many American or Japanese tugs, barges, or landing craft were lost at Leyte? If you think it appropriate to equate, for example, a cruiser or carrier with a schuit or yacht, then so be it. By the way, as I keep pointing out, you really cannot compare the effectiveness of air power in October 1944 with that of the Luftwaffe in May/June (or September) 1940.
The damage to the RN destroyers was indeed in most cases minor. I have read the reports from the time, but in any case, as most were back in service within ten days, and no invasion attempt could conceivably be made before late August or September at the earliest ( by which time, incidentally, the RN had in Home Waters 64 destroyers allocated to anti-invasion duties, 29 on Atlantic escort duty or in escort ports, and 23 with the Home Fleet, excluding a further 17 refitting or repairing) then the argument has no merit.
Finally, the Bismarck was not lost to a few obsolete biplanes. Bismarck was destroyed mainly by surface gunfire from the battleship Rodney, supported by the battleship King George V and a number of cruisers. The Swordfish (using, by the way, a weapon not available to the Luftwaffe in 1940) slowed her down in order to bring her within the range of the battlefleet which dealt with. The role of the Fleet Air Arm was to slow enemy warships down in order to bring about a surface action, and they had been training in such tactics for some ten years.
I do not underestimate the power of aircraft against warships in WW2. I simply point out that the evidence demonstrates that aircraft were not effective against warships IN 1940!!!
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@sshep86 Actually, the Luftwaffe could have claimed, and held, air superiority over the Channel at any time. The fact is that they (or rather Goering) came to view the air fighting over the Home Counties as a private duel between two air forces, lost sight of the supposed wider strategic objective, and chose to fight at a serious tactical disadvantage. Had the Sealion barges sailed, the Luftwaffe could have kept the RAF (or, rather, Bomber Command) away from them. Indeed, this wouldn't have been a problem in any case, as Admiral Drax had agreed with the Air Ministry that, in the event of an invasion attempt, Bomber Command would not seek to attack the barges at sea, but would continue to attack the embarkation ports. The RAF at the time accepted that they were, like the Luftwaffe, lacking in the necessary skills and training to hit ships at sea. By keeping clear, Drax's destroyers, led by Halsey's composite 16/18 DF of modified V & Ws, could strike against the barge trains without having to worry about the RAF, whose ship recognition skills at the time was rather lacking!
I won't explain the problems about suddenly producing a reliable torpedo bomber, except to say that in 1940 the Germans had virtually no aerial torpedo stocks, had never tried to modify any of their more modern aircraft to carry torpedoes, and, indeed, Goering cancelled torpedo manufacture in total in November 1940. The first attack by German torpedo aircraft (apart from isolated attacks on unarmed and unprotected freighters in 1940, nowhere near the Channel) was against PQ15 in May, 1942, by He111s. Forget the Fw190, by the way, as it only became operational in August, 1941.
As to the crippling of the Bismarck, she was only in a location at which Force H's carrier could attack her in the first place because Prince of Wales had damaged her during the Hood action. As a result of this, she was listing by some 9 degrees, was down by the bows, and had lost much of her fuel. Consequently, Lutjens abandoned his commerce raiding mission, and made for France, bringing her within range of Ark Royal's Swordfish.
Sinking 5 destroyers by air attack over nine days most certainly is ineffective, given that Goering had assured Hitler that the annihilation of the troops in the Dunkirk pocket, and the ships sent to rescue them, was a 'special job for the Luftwaffe' (Goering to Hitler, 23 May, 1940.) In point of fact, the bulk of the Luftwaffe, contrary to your assertion, was concentrated against Dunkirk. Frankly, when Churchill ordered Ramsay to organize the evacuation of 40000 men, if a mysterious entity had said to him ' if you will accept the loss of 3% of your total destroyer force, you can have 225,000 British and 112,000 Allied troops back,' he would have agreed with alacrity. It is what is known as 'The Price of Admiralty.' The RN turned a catastrophe into a mere defeat, and accepted the losses that this would involve. The fact is, however, that sinking 4 out of 40 RN destroyers at Dunkirk, when everything was in their favour, was a desperately poor performance by the Luftwaffe.
You didn't get the numbers wrong, of course. You simply misinterpreted them. Small pleasure craft, barges, landing craft, yachts, and tugs made up the vast majority of the losses, and from the point of view of the Admiralty, and the future prosecution of the war, they were irrelevant. It sounds callous, indeed it is, but to consider the importance of what happened at Dunkirk it is important to think like the men who made the decisions in May/June 1940.
There is, top my knowledge, no single book giving this kind of detail about the damage to destroyers at Dunkirk. It took me months to assemble the information, firstly by finding the names of the destroyers involved, then by seeking out detailed information on every one of them. This , by the way, was as part of my degree, at a time before the internet. Anyone seeking to do the same now would do well to obtain the Whitehall Naval Staff History covering the Operation, and use this as the starting point.
Finally, you may wish to consider why, if 15 September, 1940 was the decisive day, upon which whether Britain would or would not be invaded would be determined, at least according to Battle of Britain enthusiasts, Churchill was willing to send three armoured regiments, together with their full complement of anti-tank, anti-aircraft, and field artillery support units, to North Africa on 22 AUGUST, 1940? The tanks included half of the total number of the most effective British tank at the time, the Matilda II. Look up Operation Apology for further information.
It rather suggests that Winston, like Oskar Dinort, Wolfram von Richtofen, and Erich Raeder, among numerous others, did not believe that an invasion in the face of British naval supremacy was simply not possible, regardless of the emotive speeches he might have made about 'The Few' in order to maintain morale at home and elicit sympathy in the United States.
I appreciate that you will feel unable to accept much of the above, so perhaps further correspondence would serve little purpose.
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