Comments by "Nick Danger" (@nickdanger3802) on "TIKhistory"
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Throughout May and June, both before the German-French armistice and after it, Mr. Churchill sent to the President many personal telegrams containing specific requests for aid.3 The same requests were made through the usual channels in official communications from Government to Government; for example, they were systematically enumerated in the aide-mémoire presented by Lord Lothian to the State Department on 3rd July. The aid requested was of two kinds: immediate aid, weapons that the Americans could deliver at once, action that they could take at once: long-term aid, the tasks that American industry would have to set itself if it were to provide, at some future date, the tools 'to finish the job'.
The demands for immediate aid, and the American response to them, cannot be discussed without some reference to the evolution of America's neutrality policy. Needless to say, no British historian is competent as yet to handle this topic with authority; all that the present writers will offer is a minimum of relevant comment suggested by the British documents, which reveal, not the full content of American policy, but those contemporary British interpretations of it that influenced British action. It is simple enough to write down the things the British demanded: the lists are clear. On 15th May, Mr. Churchill asked the President for 'forty or fifty of your old destroyers'. That was always the most urgent demand.4 On 17th July Mr. Churchill told the President: 'Nothing that America could do would be of greater help that to send fifty destroyers—except sending a hundred.' But destroyers were not by any means the only reinforcements
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the British needed for their struggle at sea: they asked the Americans to give them motor torpedo boats for Channel fighting and seaplanes for Atlantic patrol: they wanted the United States Navy to make a show of power by sending units to the Mediterranean and to Iceland: they asked the United States Government to consider whether it was ready to take steps leading to the abolition of the 'combat zones'—for it was a reinforcements of their carrying capacity in dangerous waters that they needed, not only of their fighting strength. They needed at the same time immediate help for the battles they might very soon have to fight on their own soil against invading German armies. They asked for American aircraft for the R.A.F and American rifles, machine guns, field guns and mortars to replace some of the equipment that the B.E.F. had lost in France and to arm the Home Guard.
British War Economy
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"In the period from 1st October, 1941, to 31st March, 1946, we supplied to the Soviet Union 5,218 tanks, of which 1,388 were from Canada. We supplied 7,411 aircraft, including 3,129 aircraft sent from the United States of America. As previously explained on the 10th May, 1944, the aircraft from the United States of America were sent on United States Lend Lease to the Soviet Union as part of the British commitment to the U.S.S.R. in exchange for the supply of British aircraft to United States Forces in the European Theatre. The total value of military supplies despatched amounts to approximately £308 million. We have also sent about £120 million of raw materials, foodstuffs, machinery, industrial plant, medical supplies and hospital equipment."
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1946/apr/16/russia-british-empire-war-assistance
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Planning "The essential plan (Comet) was not dead, however, and on the 10th September 1944, Montgomery personally briefed Browning for Operation Market Garden."
"Browning, having asked Montgomery how long the 1st Airborne would have to hold Arnhem and being told two days, replied that they could hold it for four."
"Browning denied their (1st AB) request for a larger allocation as the swift progress of the 2nd Army was judged to be of the greatest importance, and so the 101st Airborne Division, closest to the relieving troops, had priority on aircraft, followed by the 82nd Airborne Division and finally the 1st Airborne."
"If Browning was at fault then it is because he made no effort to mention the possibility of this threat to the 1st Airborne Division, whom he had briefed to expect nothing more than a brigade group of infantry supported by a small number of tanks during the later phases of the battle. Suggestions of the presence of these two panzer divisions nevertheless filtered through, but more emphatic information may have resulted in them taking additional anti-tank equipment and adopting tactics better suited to dealing with heavy opposition."
Pegasus Archive Browning, on line
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