Comments by "Geordiedog" (@geordiedog1749) on "Historigraph" channel.

  1. “Help! Help! We’re being attacked!!” “No we’re not. Ow! Oh yeah, yes we are being attacked!”
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  2. Thunderchild. Dreadnought. All good. But I do like ‘Warspite’. Makes me always think of ABC.
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  3. I remember this clearly. The ‘wake up’ value of it was quite astounding. What happened to the second of the Exocets?
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  4. There’s a Pucara on display in the Air Museum near Sunderland (a small grubby village near Newcastle). A chap next to me pointed out to me where he had shot at it during the Falklands Conflict. I think he was on the level.
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  5. There is something to be gained by awarding VCs in a political sense. At Rorkes Drift for example several VCs were issued that might not have been had the army not have been utterly humiliated (and wiped out) the day before at Isandlwana. Thatchers political career was on the line. Bigging up the conflict with some top gongs would only help politically. Had things gone very wrong at GG Jones may well have been scapegoated instead of lauded. My personal and very amateur opinion is that it was a bloody stupid thing to do. He put personal glory over the bigger picture. Not good leadership. But then paras are all pretty mental!
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  6. Minor mention in the Malta Story. I think if the crew had been American we’d have had a film (or three). I actually did a. Treatment for a film about it. Problem was a/ what to leave out and b/ what to do with it when I finished it! Don’t suppose you know any film producers, do you?
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  7. Marvellous. And Warspite looks great on Red, too. The German Navy really does like to scuttle it’s ships. Not being jingoistic but the Andrew would have attempted to ram the opposition. Nothing the RN like more than a good ramming! Link to your Glowworm vid should really go here!
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  8. I’d agree but I’m just a history enthusiast. However, I did work with a bunch of prison officers detached from Preston jail who were all 2 Para Falklands vets. They said that Jones was “stupid” and a ‘glory hunter”. Their words. They said that he should never have done what he did and that it jeopardised the whole attack. They said he was brave and all but they were privates and NCOs and they felt let down. They said the “Rupert’s” were all over excited by the chance of an actual battle. On the way down they constantly worried that a diplomatic solution would be found before they got there. There was also a deep morbid fear that the RM would get the glory and they”d miss out. They said that they were all up for it but the squaddies were quietly apprehensive in private - the experienced NCOs especially talked amongst themselves of the potential clusterf+ck that awaited them. Once all together they were ubiquitously confident and aggressive.
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  9.  @doug6500  I think what got the British through the conflict was 400 years of naval tradition. I realise that it sounds like some wildly jingoistic flag waving banter but it’s not meant to be. When Cunningham was asked about loses at the evacuation of Crete his much quoted reply wasn’t bravado. It was about asserting moral supremacy over your enemy - something the RN has done successfully for the length of its existence. The Falklands was just another - possibly the last - instance of this. Why did the AAF artificers set the bombs incorrectly? - because they were stressed. Why were they stressed? - because they were facing the RN. Why was that an issue? - because the RN has beaten every opponent it’s had in 400 years pretty much! Now, I’m not a rabid British patriot - I’m what a lot of folk on here would call a ‘pinko fag commie subversive’ but despite being a raving Trot I can still see the factual side of an argument. And that’s the way I’ve interpreted the outcome of the conflict in the Falklands. (Yes, I know there were two…..:)
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  10. Thanks for at least mentioning the coastal convoys. You also did a good job in your phoney war vid. I’m always appalled at total lack of appreciation of the poor colliers getting slaughtered just a mile off our coast. I’ve put in a proposal for my MA to do the coastal convoys arguing that Churchill sold the colliers down the bog just to keep ‘the home (counties) fires (literally) burning. London required 700,000 tonnes of coal a week and any reduction would have looked very bad to the ‘folks back home (in the SE). Thus the coastal convoys in their ‘dirty British steamers with their salt caked smoke stack’ where hammered by the Luftwaffe and kriegsmarine schnellboots. Sorry….. I’m ranting now. I’ll stop. Great vid. Looking forward to the next bit:)
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  11.  @sarp688 yes, same exactly. It was irresponsible and smelt of personal aggrandisement. Being critical of someone who was killed doing something like that and getting a VC feels very wrong to me but when I try and look at it through cold eyes I always come to the same conclusion.
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  12. Great video. One wee point. The French are called French and the Vietnamese are called communist. Sounds odd.
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  13.  @voidwalker9223  Your point about the USN is kind of daft, though. It sounds jingoistic and I don’t see how stating the point that “if a bigger navy with better ships more suited to the conflict was there they’d have been better” is even worth making.
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  14.  @Barwasser  Yes, that’s true. But I’m thinking more a long the lines of Cunningham’s quote “It takes two years to build a ship. It takes two hundred to build a tradition!.” The RN were able to impose a moral superiority on their adversaries. They did this by being very aggressive, looking for fights, and, if outnumbered and outgunned fighting anyway and creating the occasional pyrrhic victory for the opponents and always sending a signal that it won’t ever be easy when you fight us! It worked against the French and Spanish. It worked against the IGN who ended up demoralised and mutinous after being boxed in. The most heroic painting of the German First World War navy was a sailor on a sinking bit of battle cruiser waving a flag. And at the end of it all the IGNs only aggressive act was the passive aggressive one of sinking their own ships. Again, in WW2, the RM in the Mediterranean wouldn’t engage the ‘Andrew’ unless they had massive advantage and Royal Navy aggression had them nervous and timid at least in the senior ranks. It must really affect you if you’re told we can’t take theses guys on in a fair fight. The Kreigsmarine I think were the same. They made a bigger noise but the KM surface fleet where just as worried. Standing orders where always ‘stay away from a fight with the RN” Yes, the RN could absorb loses more but that’s not the real reason. Commerce raiding doesn’t give you a great sense of moral superiority. That’s why Langsdorf got into a fight. He was sick of sinking defenceless merchant ships. He was embarrassed. Ashamed even. The KM surface fleet where just depressed as the Second World War progressed culminating in the Barents Sea. I think the KM had a deep feeling of inadequacy re the RN and frequently scuttled their ships in a passive aggressive rage quit. It’s like the Bismarck. Saying that they scuttled her and that the RN didn’t sink her. Right. That’s all you have left when facing off against the RN? Sinking your own ships! (I’m not some jingoistic Brit btw. I just really like naval history).
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  15.  @michaelhearn3052  Ah. Cheers.
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  16. Excellent work. The RN and it’s tradition of “Yeah? C’mon, then!” at its finest!
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  17. Sealion was finished at Narvik. Discuss (20pts).
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  18. The BoA is often forgotten but no where near the extent that the coastal convoy war was forgotten. Please consider doing a video on the coastal war to spread the word on the RNPS.
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  19. There was very little actual danger from the shore batteries. The main problem came when escorts started dropping random depth charges to ward off subs. The vibrations stated to cause OH10s plating to come apart.
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  20.  @omarbradley6807  That would mess it up pretty good. Cheers
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  21.  @omarbradley6807  I wonder if they got their money back? Seriously, I wonder if they complained ?
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  22. Had the thatcher gov seen a defeat the incoming Labour government were committed to nuclear disarmament. Worth contemplating.A very important conflict. I remember at the time being against the conflict because Thatcher but in retrospect I think we did the right thing - probably for the wrong reasons. It was important to not let military dictators go around invading willynilly to shaw up their poor ratings, not that Thatcher would do such a thing. During the war the British public had no doubts of a victory (mainly due to racism alas) but I remember reading afterwards just how close we were to a military disaster. Had Galtieri waited and prepared better (or even just waited for the extra Exocets) the outcome would have been very different, I think.
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  23. I did my MA on WS21 and it’s pretty much always stated that it’s an American ship with a British crew. You’ll get a spikey response from any Brits with remarks like this as we”ve endured decades of misinformation about WWII from US sources. From ‘Objective Burma’ to ‘Masters of the Air’ it’s been the USA all the way. I’m sure you’re not like that but from our point of view it’s pretty bloody galling.
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  24.  @martindione386  Thank you. That’s very interesting and I didn’t know any of that. Well, not as specifically as you point out so cheers for. Learning stuff is good:) I’m not completely wrong, though. Just about the reason why the bombs didn’t explode. I still think the intimidation factor played its part.
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  25. Lost more merchant mariners than RN.
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  26. A torpedoes salvo more devastating than that of Axum during Operation Pedestal?
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  27. And bendy steam pipes! Don’t forget the bendy steam pipes.
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  28.  @thegeneralist7527  The point was not about us having the oil - it was about the Axis NOT having it. If they had got the Mid. East oil we'd all be wearing lederhausen now.
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  29. Crete kind of saved Malta. Operation Herkules was never given much impetus following the massive losses the falljaeger took in Crete. Oberkommando just didn’t fancy it and thought they’d let the RA and Luftwaffe do the job instead.
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  30. I really look forward to your work. I like the mix of media. I learn best with this kind of mix. Your narrative style and voice are very good and pro sounding which is definitely a good thing.
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  31. Bloody awful book! Don’t read it. Full of errors! Read C S Smiths book on it instead if you want a proper history book. I cannot stand Hastings. He’s an awful historian and his pedestal book proves it.
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  32. Hastings book is cobblers. Read Smith instead. Roger Hill, Ledburys captain had been on PQ17 and was never going to ‘abandon the merchant navy again”. His book Destroyer Captain is a good one. His crew called him ‘Phyllis’ owing to his hissy fits. Understandably really as he’d been on the go since the Abyssinian crisis.
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  33. What a legend.
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  34. Interestingly, had the Falklands gone the other way, the Labour Party were committed to nuclear disarmament and they would have got in once Thatcher was out. We might have also avoided decades of neoliberalism. I worked in prison health care for a while and several Falklands vets had joined HMPS. I had a bunch of detached officers from Preston nick and they were Ex Paras. All had been in The Falklands. So interesting. One thing they all agreed on was that Jones was “a fookin’ idiot!” They said that the ‘Ruperts’ were all “mad for it” as this was an actual battle and they had always thought they’d miss any actual fighting in the modern world. They said, and I’m only repeating what they told me, was that Jones was essentially a vainglorious idiot. They said he should have never ever have done what he did. It was selfish and an attempt at getting his own glory at the expense of the regiment. His VC is part of a history of politically charged VC awards - think Rorkes Drift. Sorry to be controversial and I’d never detract from the sacrifice made.
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  35. Great video!! - although I’m not sure about the comment re. Bolshevism and imperialism as it involves ‘internationalist’ Trotsky and the British Empire . “Assist British interest in the Baltic” was our motivation as you stated and that was more about status quo and geopolitics etc. That and the fact that the RN will do anything to get into a battle. But an excellent vid as usual. Especially, as your uncle was involved in it. My family, although very military, are as dull as dishwater.
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  36.  @fandangobrandango7864  aye, some of it. The Northumberland AOONB not so much I think.
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  37. Brisbane Star could have a film all to herself. Her story is amazing but gets (understandably) overshadowed by OH10.
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  38. I’ve always thought that the British bombing campaign was a mistake - or at least it was badly managed. This video shows very clearly how it could have gone astoundingly wrong fir the British in that theatre. Lucky escape, we had!
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  39. It was armed and reinforced in Glasgow. Lessons learned by the fate of her sister ship.
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  40. Great work. Depressing but interesting!
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  41. Great video. Bizarrely I don’t think you do it justice though but given the time allowed how could you. For example, the deception of fooling the Italian High Command over using their cruisers to finish off the convoy was stunning but omitted. Brisbane’s stars journey is an episode in itself as she avoided french and axis officials and subs. As for OH 10 (as her crew nicknamed her) that story is a whole series on its own. For example, fighting off air attacks in fancy dress outfits! Finally, HMS Ledbury story is one of redemption for a crew stung by the losses of the Russian Convoys. The list goes. Not a criticism in any way though. As I said - time constraints etc.
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  42. Interesting when it’s a topic you can absolutely remember happening.
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  43. Awful book. Gets so much plain wrong. There’s a great book by Smith on Pedestal. Much better source.
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  44. Great video. Keep it up!!
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  45. Pom-Poms. The Ledbury Pom Pom crew were ‘a particularly bloodthirsty lot’ (Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain). They wore football shirts and flat caps and were mental!
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  46. I’d agree with that. You can’t defend everywhere in force.
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  47.  @leandrocosta3709  That’s bad!
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  48. Roger Hill, captain of Ledbury swore to his crew before operation pedestal that after this convoy - PQ17 - they would never leave the Merchant Navy again. This attitude led to him standing by SS Ohio and eventually getting her into Valletta.
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  49.  @historigraph  I actually did a treatment for it.. But I don’t know what to do with now I’ve done it!,
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  50.  @Dave-hu5hr  Always had a soft spot for Leeds. One of my boys went there to Uni. Loved it.
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