Comments by "Retrosicotte" (@Retrosicotte) on "Extra History" channel.

"Securing that line was the only thing keeping Britain alive" Uh, no. Thats not true at all. Thats not even VAGUELY true. The UK was never even once close to "starving out" as the myth goes. 99% of ships got to the UK just fine, even during the Bismark crisis. "American supply convoys were the only thing keeping Britain in the fight" They helped, but they most certainly were not the "only" thing and not nearly as "saved UK" as many American sources like to believe. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Egypt, Iceland and further afield were all sending supplies as well and forming major components of the fight and the logistics routes. "that could sink anything the Royal Navy could throw at it" The Bismark was big, but it was not the monster that post war mythos has tried to turn it into. Its importance in killing it was down to the positioning and wanting to prevent it getting loose amongst the convoys, not because it was some super ultra death god warship. In fact many elements of it were very outdated as far as warship design went at the time, only carried further due to an exceptionally lucky shot on HMS Hood. Given how Extra Credits/History normally tries to be so understanding of other cultures, I'm rather shocked that it would make such a MURRICA approach to this story, especially regarding the supply situation. Although I guess it is appropriate that a video sponsered by Wargaming and their well known anti-British bias would carry that message...
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There's a wide difference between "mentioning that the US sent more" and "completely ignoring everyone except America" like in this video and wording it to make it sound like the UK was dead without them, when that wasn't even vaguely true.
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DEFINITELY wanting more.
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A little bit overdramatic on the "without lend lease the UK would have fallen!" Europe would have become untakeable to the UK, yes, but there was never in any reality a danger of the UK being invaded successfully. Both British and German military experts concluded in post war analysis that there was never any possibility of Germany succeeding. Even when they gave the Germans every possible advantage, they still got completely trounced in any attempted invasion plan. The simple fact was that they had no navy capable of protecting such an invasion and its supply requirements, and having lost the air war had no supremecy. Even in the wargame where they were given air supremecy they immediately lost it again, as the British simply relocated their airbases a bit further north. http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/seelowe.txt Could the UK have been neutered from doing anything else and been taken OUT of the war? Yes, possibly. Could it have been conquered as the video states? Never. Germany didn't have the means to do cross the channel and combat the Royal Navy and Air Force, not with the Russian problem just waiting to happen...
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Amazing series. Although somewhat surprising, I thought it was going to tell the full history of WW1, not just how it started, so this caught me off guard as the final part. Maybe I just missed something somewhere that said thats all it would be. Looking forward to whatever's next.
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Given Extra Credits a lot of crap over the past few videos for very heavy bias away from Britain's accomplishments. Very happy to see that this video didn't just imply they only did intelligence work, as the last video seemed to. Well done. Especially noteworthy on the detail of how their beaches were just as vicious, but successful thanks to Hobart's Funnies.
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An excellent summary on the history behind lend lease and its presence in American political opinions of the time, but it's a little bit short sighted to imply it was only the US Merchant Marine convoys, right? There wasn't even a single mention of the Norweigans, Dutch, British Merchant Navy or Canadian Merchant Navy who all did the same things and receive even less historical attention than the US one. As a note, where was the mention of the UK's own lend lease program that propped up the USSR and essentially saved its air war by sending better airplanes to defend their ports and thousands of tanks and supplies on the Arctic Convoys? I get that the lend lease episode was American focused, but even a passing mention would have been great to at least knowledge their presence and importance.
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And once again Extra History seems to go out of its way to ignore British contributions to their own war. Not only from that frankly humiliating "Soviet conquers all" image (but then with the notoriously pro-Soviet Wargaming sponsering it...what do you expect?) which was patently impossible as the Soviets had barely any navy and absolutely no experience with amphibious attack to even have a hope of taking the British Isles (not to mention that if US and UK cut off logistics support for them they'd grind to a halt). But then completely neglecting to mention that it was mostly Royal Navy and Royal Air Force units who got the US into Normandy, and then relegating the British till next time with "their covert efforts"? The British and their Commonwealth allies provided the majority of the bloody troops! They weren't some background nation just doing covert stuff. After the incredibly one sided tale of the Bismark, this is really becoming a pattern with these videos, and it's incredibly unfortunate for a series that used to pride itself on being so unbiased.
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Seriously, not a single mention of the Royal Air Force, French Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force or South African Air Force who all flew a not insignificant amount of those flights too? It's just "The AMERICAN flights" and "the AMERICAN supplies", and "ONLY AMERICA". This is like that hideously "America did everything" video you guys did that stated the US was the only country keeping the UK in supply in WW2, despite it not being, and the UK being quite decent off anyway, contray to myth. Please stop making these videos so frantically AMERICA FUCK YEAH if you're aiming to do history, I thought Extra Credits was ABOUT recognising more peoples. Also, only mentions how the Allied bombs destroyed Berlin? No mention of the giant Soviet army that raped, stole and burned just as much?
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