Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "War Stories"
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Yet, apart from one Canadian division & two Australian/New Zealand brigades, there were no Commonwealth troops in Britain in 1940. In the event of an assault landing, however unlikely it might have been, it would be the British who, almost entirely would be the ones who resisted it.
Encouragement from far away, whilst good for morale, would not have helped much. There were 574 Commonwealth & Foreign pilots in the Battle of Britain, and 2353 British ones, by the way.
Moreover, you greatly exaggerate the importance of the Battle of Britain. After all, if the Germans had achieved a temporary measure of air superiority, all that they then needed to do was find a way past the largest navy in the world for their towed barges.
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@peterbreis5407 Where 'one eyed jingoism' is concerned, I confess that I am not in your league. Just to correct one or two of your basic errors, Australia actually declared war on Germany on 3 September, 1939. There was no war in the Far East until the end of 1941. What would you have suggested that the Australian armed forces should have done other than that?
Yes, Australia paid for British equipment and ships. Shouldn't Australia, just like New Zealand and Canada, have contributed to the maintenance of their own military?
Were you to actually look up the war records of such well-known Australian warships as Canberra, Australia, Hobart, Perth, Sydney, & Stuart, you would find, probably to your surprise, that all, after some served in the Mediterranean prior to Pearl Harbor, had been returned to Australian waters, actually before December, 1941.
Indeed, after Pearl Harbor, all but one Australian division was returned. The 9th, by the way, was returned after 2nd Alamein following an agreement between FDR & Churchill that a US division would be sent to Australia in the interim. As the ships transporting the other Australian forces back to Australia were overwhelmingly British, as were their escorts, Churchill, supported by Roosevelt by the way, believed that the unfolding crisis in Burma was of greater immediate concern. Actually, he was probably correct, as only those with limited knowledge of the distances and logistics involved could ever have viewed Australia as threatened by any Japanese invasion. Certainly, Tojo's testimony after the war had ended confirmed that Japan had never held such ambitions.
Correct, the Yugoslavian merchant fleet was returned to Yugoslavia at the end of the war, just as those of Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Greece were also returned. Not to Tito personally, by the way. Josep Tito was, for good or ill, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia at the time. Again, what would you suggest should have happened to the fleet?
'Canada, New Zealand and South Africa' like Australia, made sacrifices in order to defeat Germany, Italy & Japan. In terms of military deaths as a % of national populations, however, somewhat less than the sacrifice that Britain made.
When Australia is deeply mired in a bizarre 'Voice' campaign, accusing others of being 'self obsessed' is, I assume, your attempt at humour, and how is Brexit possibly relevant to events which ended almost 80 years ago, and about which you seem to have little actual knowledge?
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Just as you fail to acknowledge that pilots from the Dominions, together with a small number of pilots from neutral countries and from conquered European states, flew in British aircraft, in British squadrons, and under a British command and control system.
The Commonwealth and Empire was to play an increasingly important role as the war progressed, but in 1940 the only Commonwealth troops in Britain were one Canadian division, together with two Australian & New Zealand brigades. In the improbable event of an attempted invasion, it would have been faced in September, 1940 by some of 34.5 operational divisions. 32.5 of those divisions were British.
Certainly shouts of good wishes from distant Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India would have been much appreciated, but equally they would have been of little practical use against German forces landing, for example, between Rye & Hastings.
Clearly, the very idea of British resistance must upset you. You have even broken your caps lock!
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Actually, your knowledge is quite lacking. In 1940, the Commonwealth and Empire, though it later played a major role, was still far distant, although supportive. In September, 1940, of 34.5 operational divisions in Britain, all except 2 were British. Immediately after the French surrender, the only Commonwealth troops in Britain were one Canadian dicision and two Australian & New Zealand brigades.
There were a number of non-British pilots in Fighter Command. Other than those from Commonwealth countries, and a handful of volunteers from neutral countries, these men had joined precisely because their own countries had been occupied, and joining the British armed forces was the only way they could continue to resist their conquerors. They did, of course, fly in RAF squadrons, using British aircraft.
What 'American industrial might?' In 1940, the United States was happy to sell supplies and equipment to Britain, at the full market rate. These items were then shipped across the Atlantic in British ships, escorted overwhelmingly by Royal Navy warships.
I appreciate that the idea seems to distress you, but at the time of the Battle of Britain, Britain was, to all intents and purposes, alone.
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'Germany kept trying to de-escalate.' Oh dear, the plaintive cry of that sad bird, the Lesser Spotted Neo. How did Germany try to do that? Unless you count hitler's 'Last Appeal to Reason' of 19 July, 1940, aka 'Surrender or we bomb you.' Made when, after Mers el Kebir, if finally dawned on him that the British were not going to sign a French style Armistice/Surrender, and he had no means of invading.
As to the Hess comic interlude. If the intention is to seek confidential talks, do you :-
1). Make discreet approaches to British Embassies in Spain, Sweden, or Switzerland. Or perhaps even approach the United States to act as a neutral arbiter?
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2). Let an unbalanced member of your staff fly to Scotland, in order, hopefully, to bail out near the estate of a minor Scottish aristocrat who might, just possibly, have the ear of Winston Churchill?
As the exam papers used to say 'Give reasons for your answer.'
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@nickdanger3802 I always understood that was the reason for the Lee/Grant as well. The Ram itself was not particularly innovative, and many countries, Britain included, had been building turreted tanks for some time, the Vickers Medium being a typical British example, but I understood (from a conversation at Bovington years ago) that the it influenced the eventual M4 shape.
Movement of the Churchill by rail in the UK did pose me a bigger problem, which took some searching. All previous British tanks had been within the British loading gauge restriction of 9' 6" (A10 - 8'4", Matilda II - 8' 6", Crusader 9'1"). Looking at the few wartime photos. of Churchills on flat cars, they do seem to have one thing in common, in that projecting rectangular 'boxes' on the side of the vehicle near the rear, clearly visible on most photos. of the tank, appear to have been removed. I suspect, though I don't know for sure, that this brought the overall width down to below 9'6".
Later in the war, as the British built Scammell tank transporters and acquired around 1,000 Diamond Ts from the United States, other alternatives to rail transport became available and the width restriction was not such a problem.
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