Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Imperial War Museums" channel.

  1. 'Utter defeat of Empire forces in Asia?' Read about XIV Army and the defeat of the U-Go Offensive. Then read about the Bengal Famine, but the facts, not the revisionist myth. The Bengal Famine had a number of causes, among which were the number of refugees from Japanese held areas, the inability to import food from those same areas, stockpiling by hoarders and, perhaps worst of all, the Bengal administration, which tried to minimise the crisis. The worst that could be said of Churchill was that he should have known what was taking place, but didn't. After all, in 1943, he had little else to worry about. You could also add the refusal of FDR to allow the transfer of merchant shipping, by the way. What is without dispute, except by those who choose to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death, is that once he did find out, he transferred food distribution to the British Indian Army, and had grain convoys diverted from Australia to India. I appreciate, of course, that revisionists won't accept any of this, as it doesn't suit the agenda. It is, however, factually accurate.
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  2. It would have been had Hitler issued it. He didn't, the commander of Army Group A, Von Rundstedt, did. He wished to have his armour serviced before beginning the second stage of the campaign, and because he feared a repeat of the 'Miracle of the Marne.' Goering had already told Hitler that the elimination of the Dunkirk pocket was 'a special job for the Luftwaffe' and Hitler believed him.
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  3. Perhaps you didn't know that, within days of returning to port, Scheer reported to the All Highest that the Fleet must not be risked again, and then urged upon him a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare? The United States Navy, by the way, only became the largest in the world from around the middle of WW2. Don't you see something of a contradiction in your criticism of the British Two Power Standard on the one hand, and then complaining that the British could afford a failure because of the size of their fleet on the other? 'though some in Britain wanted to launch an attack (Copenhagen style) on the US Navy after World War I.' Really? Who wanted to do that, and to what end? I assume that you have impeccable sources?
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  4.  @nukni4225  So it appears that you lack the integrity to confirm that your first post was entirely false? I rather expected that that would be the way you would respond. You aren't really worth the time of any honest person, but to correct one or two of your additional falsehoods: First lie, Churchill was not in any government position when Britain & France declared war, and hadn't been since 1929. Second lie, he was not a serviceman when imprisoned by the Boers, and was not asked to give any 'word of honour' to anyone. Third lie, he stole nothing from Garibaldi. Garibaldi died when Churchill was four years old. Churchill admired Garibaldi, as I said earlier. Fourth lie, that he forged the signature on his own paintings. Perhaps to be fair that isn't so much a lie as merely an infantile comment. Fifth lie, his speeches were, in the main, recorded after the war, but their texts were recorded at the time in 'Hansard,' often read out on the radio by BBC newsreaders, and usually printed in full within a day or two of them being made in national newspapers throughout the Empire. Nothing was edited or changed. Fifth lie, he was never called a 'war hero' but he served at the Battle of Omdurman, left the army to become a journalist in 1899, but later commanded a Scots regiment on the Western Front for nine months in WW1. You may not consider serving in the military in wartime gallant, but frankly your opinion is of no merit. So yes, I do indeed call you a liar.
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  5.  @dscott6629  Firstly, most of today's historians are, evidently unlike you, informed enough to know that Churchill held no political office at all between 1929 and September, 1939. Pat Buchanan, a right-wing holocaust denier, is hardly a credible historian. You might as well read 'Volkischer Beobachter for an accurate account of the events of WW2. The Anglo-French treaty with Poland was intended to draw a (some would say, belated) line in the sand to head off further German aggression. Why exactly do you think Britain and France wanted to go to war? France had been entirely defensive in posture (hence the Maginot Line) and Britain with a tiny army, had no ability at all to embark upon a major land campaign.
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  6.  @Boppy-B-B  Oddly enough, my Grandfather's Regiment, actually one from the North of England and therefore unimportant to the right-thinking people who have taken over the IWM, also missed any victory parade. Apparently, he and his colleagues, with Passchendaele fresh in their minds, weren't much concerned about a parade, they just wanted to get home to their homes and families. I doubt the men of the British West Indian Regiment thought much differently, however the IWM people might seek to suggest otherwise.
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  7.  @krugerfuchs  Whatever you have been taking, it is probably both illegal and dangerous.
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  8.  @edgehodl4832  How are battles from late 1941 onwards relevant to events of mid 1940? The importance of Dynamo (and, Aerial) was that the bulk of the British army was returned to the UK. Had the evacuation failed, then the Halifax faction might well have removed Churchill, and the Holy Fox might well have agreed to a humiliating peace treaty with Hitler. The apparent 'miracle' of Dunkirk, actually a triumph of improvisation largely by the Royal & Merchant Navies, secured Churchill's position, and reduced Halifax to a virtual irrelevance.
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  9.  @Sonof_DRN2004  Whether classified as 'British' or not (and they weren't, by the way) 2.5 million Indians volunteered to join the Allied cause in WW2.
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  10. If the British used 'colonials' as cannon fodder, isn't it rather odd that British military casualties in both world wars were significantly higher, in terms of a percentage of the national population, than those of any colony or Dominion? Still, why bother with facts when you can simply post prejudices?
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  11. It is called 'History.' I can, perhaps, sympathise with someone with your name wishing to forget most of the history of the 20th century, however.
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  12.  @chernobylcat1791  You perhaps should ask yourself whether, in an industrial war, there really are such things as civilians. Is the civilian who manufactures a shell not contributing as much to the war effort as the soldier who fires it?
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  13.  @jimthorne304  The reality was that, in the early part of the war, a bombing campaign was the only way that Britain could take the fight to Germany in anything other than a defensive manner.
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  14.  @stephenfreestone1746  'just another cut and run british success story' When the Belgian army capitulated, and the 90 or so divisions of the French army largely collapsed, what exactly would you suggest the 13 divisions of the BEF should have done?
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  15.  @technobloode9709  Please don't be silly. The British government gave as much help as it was able once the extent of the famine was known, although these efforts were initially hampered by FDR's refusal to release shipping space to facilitate their efforts. Churchill was as man of his time where some of his patronising attitudes to the colonies were concerned, although he was never as openly racist as Gandhi, who described Africans as inferior humans, but in any case I would be interested to know how his comments actually persuaded crops not to grow. Operation Legacy, by the way, related to documents from the 1950s and 1960s. Nothing in it referred to India.
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  16.  @technobloode9709  Perhaps he simply disapproved of Suttee? In any case, what has any of this to do with the Bengal Famine?
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  17.  @sumanadasawijayapala5372  When did I say that? The famine had a number of causes, which I have already outlined, but the principal reason it was as extensive as it was was the attempts by the Administration of Bengal to keep that knowledge restricted. The tediously immature claims which appear at regular intervals that Churchill & the British Government deliberately engineered it are unsupported by anything other than revisionist propaganda. In terms of simple self-interest, why should the British Government act in such a manner when there were 2.5 million Indians serving on the allied side, under arms, at the time?
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  18. Actually, Churchill called him that.
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  19. Then everyone is as wrong as you are. Hitler didn't issue any Halt Order. Von Rundstedt did. You can even read the War Diary of Army Group A confirming it.
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  20.  @coronaviruskillerforthegoo3353  If the Tories had 'accepted all of labour policy by then,' why didn't the people of Britain simply stick with Labour? You don't really believe what you are claiming, surely?
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  21.  @eq1373  The same had happened in WW1, when an Election which should have taken place in 1916 was cancelled.
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  22. Odd, that. He always spoke well of you.
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  23.  @JimmysEssay  'Britain started a war ran away and got their two bigger friends to finish the fight for them.' How did they do that? The Germans invaded the USSR in June, 1941, the Japanese attacked the US in December, 1941, and the Germans declared war on the US in the same month. You have an odd, detached, view of fact.
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  24.  @Simon_Nonymous  The US Merchant Marine came under the control of the US War Shipping Administration in early February, 1942. Where and when US merchantmen came under military control immediation, just as the British Merchant Marine had in September, 1939. The commander of the US Naval Coastal Frontier, which later becam the Eastern Sea Frontier, Adolphus Andrews, begged King for destroyers from the US Atlantic Fleet to support the grossly inadequate resources available to him to protect the Eastern Coast. King, at a time when the US Atlantic Fleet's order of battle showed over 70 destroyers on strength, refused to act. In short, the US Navy did indeed have the authority to issue orders to US merchantmen.
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  25.  @Simon_Nonymous  My pleasure. Ernie has always escaped criticism for his actions, which appear to have been based upon his anglophobia rather than any actual alternative strategy. To give some idea of how catastrophic his behaviour was, in November, 1941, 7 merchant ships were lost in convoy, and 6 lost when sailing independently. For December, the figures were 6 & 17. After Paukenschlag began, and King refused to institute convoys, the losses in convoy from January to June 1942 were 6, 10, 3, 3, 14, and 14, yet the losses of independents, almost all off the East Coast of the US, were, for the same months, 43, 61, 89, 78, 115, and 122.
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  26. 'Destroyers.' They had been sent off to search for the convoy.
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  27.  @nigeh5326  The Bismarcks were built as part of the Franco-German naval race, not as a challenge to the Royal Navy. Moreover, greater U-boat construction could only be regarded as threatening one country, and Britain, with vastly greater shipbuilding resources, had the ability to put escort vessel hulls into the water in large numbers very quickly.
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  28.  @nigeh5326  The technology, in the form of the depth charge, asdic, and HF/DF, already existed. WW2 German boats such as the Type II, VII, & IX, were basically nothing more than developments of late WW1 designs. Moreover, expansion of the U-boat fleet only really became a serious option after the fall of France. Prior to that, whatever fleet existed was, in effect, trapped in German bases with the only way into the Atlantic the long and dangerous voyage around the north of Scotland, seriously reducing the operational duration of the boats. In effect, an expansion of the U-boat fleet prior to the war not only warns the British of what to expect, but assumes that in 1938 the Germans already assumed what the strategic situation would be in late 1940.
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  29. Patton was not involved in the 'D-Day advances.' He arrived in Normandy only at the end of July. There was no 'Race to Messina,' except perhaps in Patton's mind, but more likely in the 1970 comedy movie based on Ladislas Farago's hagiography about Patton. 'Wish you would get your Historic facts straight. The US bailed out England, France, most of Africa and Italy.' Getting such facts straight doesn't seem to have interested you much, does it?
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  30.  @jerryware5749  No. Lee/Grants :- 170 Stuarts :- 117 Shermans :- 252 Crusaders :- 294 Valentine :- 194 Churchills :- 8
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  31. Out of interest, after the North African campaign had concluded in May, 1943, and what became Overlord was around a year away from being a possibility, what would you suggest should have been done with the vast quantity of allied resources already in the theatre?
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  32.  @pacificostudios  What 'allied shipping in the Mediterranean?' Merchant vessels rarely used it, except for supply runs to Malta, and the threat to Malta had largely dissipated after Pedestal in August, 1942, and Stoneage in November, 1942. Crete, Sardinia, and Corsica were as relevant as the Channel Islands to the overall prosecution of the war, Crete in particular being, at best, a Pyrrhic victory which effectively destroyed the German paratroop arm, which thereafter was used as a ground force only. Taking Corsica would have forced Germany to fortify the Provence more than they did.' Why? Certainly to nothing like the extent that the Germans were obliged to occupy Italy, and send their troops there. An assault on Norway would still have involved moving Allied resources back to Britain from the Mediterranean, and the benefit to the Soviet Union was likely to have been slight. The distances involved, and the crossing of the North Sea, in Autumn & Winter, would increase the hazardous nature of such an operation. Indeed, hitler's fixation on Norway as the Zone of Destiny' resulted in 350,000 being based there at the time of surrender in May, 1945. Why would the Allies attempt such an operation when the same result, that of keeping a large number of German units away from the main battlefront, by means of a deception plan, Operation Fortitude North?
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  33. Churchill did not 'oversee' the Gallipoli campaign. He suggested it as a means of avoiding the carnage on the western front, but he didn't authorise it, Herbert Asquith did, and he certainly didn't plan it, the Generals & Admirals in charge did. Lawrence, by the way, led a small guerilla operation. The Ottomans were defeated by Allenby. Why would building power stations nearer to cities give an impression of economic recovery? Not that it matters, because that had nothing to do with Churchill either.
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  34. Small point. No divisions from Australia or New Zealand ever came to Britain. A Canadian division did, arriving in early 1940.
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  35.  @michaelmayo3127  Germany, of course, rarely bothered to declare war on anyone. The first clue was generally the arrival of troops, tanks, and bombers, followed a few days later by einsatzgruppen. Certainly Hitler didn't want war with Britain. He simply wanted Britain to stand by as he invaded and conquered the rest of Europe. I suppose you think that was a reasonable desire?
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  36. You clearly don't know that the U-Boats never even came remotely close, I suppose? Obviously not. Would you like me to recommend a book?
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  37. I don't think anyone is, but as this video is about 1940, the Soviets were only involved as suppliers of raw materials to Germany.
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  38.  @stuartwald2395  Surely you know that, in some minds, Churchill was responsible for everything since the Black Death, as well as being a teenage Jack the Ripper? Accurate facts, such as you have posted, have no place in their world.
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  39. You shouldn't believe all you see in the 1970 comedy movie.
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  40.  @robertcottam8824  I just love the idea that Montgomery was responsible for the relief of Anzio, when the Anzio landings took place in January, 1944.'
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  41.  @kenmazoch8499  'market garden had, by british records, over 17,000 losses. also, huertgen forest lasted 3 months, market-garden only 9 days. i am done. leave me out of your revisionist history.' Are you really saying that 55,000 casualties are more acceptable than 17,000 casualties, providing that they are more spread out? Too right, you are done.
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  42. His war record rather suggests that he wasn't.
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  43.  @micksmithson6724  By interpreting historical events through a prism of modern opinion, in order to justify or promote a pre-existing agenda. This is simply bad history. Would you consider it justified to attack, for example, Marcus Aurelius for failing to introduce Old Age Pensions into the Roman Empire in 175 AD, or Charlemagne for not supporting transgender issues in 810AD? History can only be studied through an understanding of the period during which the events under examination unfolded.
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  44.  @Boppy-B-B  Indeed these events should be told. But they should not be interpreted through fashionable, and perhaps, transient, modish current prejudices.
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  45. You don't perhaps consider that the arrival of eight Panzer Divisions and three independent Tiger Battalions in the immediate area of Caen, which the British and Canadians fought to a standstill, might have been relevant, then? No, of course you don't.
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  46.  @Boppy-B-B  You do seem more than a little preoccupied with the word 'white.' Had someone made an equal use of the word 'black' I suspect an accusation of racism would have appeared by now.
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  47.  @xornxenophon3652  The problem with ships is that they aren't much use on land. Like at Gallipoli, for instance.
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  48. So, in your 'unbiased' opinion, the 'winners' spent almost the whole of the rest of WW1 swinging round their cables in the Jade, before collapsing in mutiny when asked to face the Royal Navy again, whilst the 'losers' continued to dominate the oceans, and imposed a blockade upon Germany which, by mid 1918, had reduced her people to starvation and revolution. Have I got that right?
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  49. I wonder if you have read the casualty estimates the US produced for Operation Olympic?
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  50. As best I recall, after their brirf encounter with the Grand Fleet, the High Seas Fleet fled back to the Jade, and never risked coming within range of it again.
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