Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Timeline - World History Documentaries" channel.

  1.  @bigwoody4704  The 'revisionists' are those who put their own selective bias on events. I simply asked 'What would you suggest the massive Allied forces in North Africa should have done instead?' Answer came there none.
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  2.  @bigwoody4704  The Western Allies were simply not equipped to attempt an assault landing on the French Channel coast until 1944. Which 'soft spots' within the range of air cover existed?
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  3. Not in early 1915, they weren't. As the Germans were following a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare at the time, whatever she was carrying was irrelevant. All allied vesselsa were legitimate targets, according to the rules of engagement given to U-boat captains at the time.
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  4. Who?
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  5.  @Bepstar  Minimal resistance? The Royal Navy, with around 70 destroyers & cruisers within five hours steaming of Dover, supported by around 500 smaller warships. That, by the way, doesn't include the additional resources from the Home Fleet and the convoy escort forces.
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  6.  @VanlifewithAlan  How does being murdered equate to surrender? Incidentally, around 30,000 men captured does not equate to a 'huge amount' by any standards. In point of fact, less than two divisions.
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  7.  @VanlifewithAlan  I agree entirely. 'Stick to the point!' Indeed. It leads one to wonder why you didn't when, in a discussion about the Battle of Britain, you flew off at a tangent with 'how do you explain mass surrenders such as those after Dunkirk, Singapore, Tobruk etc etc etc.....?' in the first place. I simply tried to make you grasp that surrenders after defeat in Battle were not restricted to British & Commonwealth troops, as your post seemed intended to imply.
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  8. I am sure. The Me321 project was only begun after Sealion had been abandoned.
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  9. In 1940? How did the Soviet Union, which in 1940 had a non aggression pact with Germany and was supplying Germany with many raw materials, help Britain at all?
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  10. Supplies from North American come across the North Atlantic. Not that Suez was important, as British convoys came round the Cape.
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  11. There is an element of mythology around it. The idea that a small number of gallant pilots were all that stood between Britain and inevitable conquest, for example, is absurd, and is an insult to the Royal Navy. Anyone who clings to the belief should get hold of a copy of the Royal Navy's Pink List (effectively, the RN's Order of Battle) for 16 September, 1940, and read about the 70 RN light cruisers and destroyers based within five hours steaming of Dover at the time.
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  12. But what could possibly have persuaded Britain to join the Axis Powers?
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  13. I believe that non English speaking pilots needed to learn English to a level sufficiently good enough to enable them to communicate with their ground controllers.
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  14. Don't you think the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the subsequent German declaration of war on the United States, might just possibly have played some part? Or is it simpler just to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death?
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  15. Definition of 'infamous' :- well known for some bad quality or deed. Therefore, quite accurate.
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  16. What do you suggest the designer did wrong? The Olympic's were the safest passenger ships at sea at the time. Olympic came through a collision with a Royal Navy cruiser with no risk of sinking. No ship, however, could be expected to survive the damage Titanic experienced.
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  17. 'The final solution / Jewish holocaust wouldn't of happens.' Really? What actual grounds have you for making that assertion? The rest of your post borders upon the lunatic, by the way.
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  18. The small quantity of munitions was clearly listed on the manifest. Nothing has since been found that wasn't.
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  19.  @mukhumor  No. The probability is that the Germans would treat Britain exactly as they treated the other Eueopean countries they conquered. 1). Divert the economy to meet German needs. 2). Deport large numbers of the population to the fatherland as slave labour. 3). Exterminate certain groups within British society.
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  20. Theoretically yes. Tauchpanzer.
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  21. Actually, in 1942, the British & Americans were fighting the Germans in North Africa, the Atlantic, the Arctic, and over the skies of Germany. They were fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, parts of China, the Indian Ocean, and in Burma, and the Italians in the Mediterranean. Whilst doing that, they were also shipping large quantities of supplies to the Soviet Union. I thought I should mention it in case your education didn't stretch quite that far.
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  22.  @olbillthecook5547  Sorry. Normally, a 'humorous' comment might be expected to have something witty in it. Sadly, in your case, it didn't.
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  23. Apart from your reference to the four inch magazine as six inch magazine, you make a series of valid points.
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  24. Yes of course he was, you idiot. He was born in 1874. I imagine his computer skills were somewhat lacking as well.
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  25. The Axis were barely able to supply the forces they historically did send to North Africa. The British and Canadians were steadily outbuilding the Germans in escort vessels, and were introducing superior technology, from 1940 onwards.
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  26. When did Britain renege on what promise to open up a second front in 1941?
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  27. That is probably why sensible people don't believe most conspiracy theories. If you think that the Royal Navy wasn't ready, think again.
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  28. Moseley? Hallam Moseley was a very fine fast medium bowler for Somerset & Barbados, who played between 1969 & 1982. Never quite made the West Indies test side, but Gary Sobers once said he was never far away.
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  29.  @louisbeerreviews8964  But a very fine fast medium bowler. He played 205 matches for Somerset, taking 547 wickets at an average of 24.10.
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  30. Certainly much quieter, what with certain groups being exterminated, and much of the civilian population deported for use as slave labour in the fatherland.
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  31.  @JonnyHolms  Simply look at what happened in, for example, France after occupation. You think Britain could have expected less draconian treatment?
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  32. How so? Slave or forced labourers in German factories, or, in many cases, a pile of ashes.
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  33. And millions more people would have been either exterminated or deported as slave labour.
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  34.  @Freigeist2008  No, I mean like Germany actually did to places like Poland and France.
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  35.  @Freigeist2008  I know that the Royal Navy was capable of annihilating any invasion attempt, but doesn't mean that your hero wasn't too far gone to think it possible.
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  36. There was no 'race to Messina' except in the ludicrous 1970 movie glorifying Patton.
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  37. Except Churchill wasn't responsible for 3 million deaths in Bengal, You talk of propaganda, yet you have been completely taken in by it yourself.
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  38.  @simplyarnab  The 1943 famine was brought about by a combination of the arrival of refugees, hoarding by profiteers, inability to import food supplies from Japanese occupied areas, the Bengal Administration keeping the facts secret from London, and the refusal of Franklin Roosevelt to release shipping space. Once the facts became known to the government in London, the distribution of food relief was handed over to the Anglo-Indian army, and grain convoys diverted from Australia to India. The worst charge that could be laid against Churchill is that he ought to have known about the situation. After all, there wasn't much going on in the world in 1943, was there? Are you seriously naive enough to believe that Churchill would have engineered a famine in India at a time when 2.5 million Indians, all volunteers by the way, were serving in the Allied forces? Perhaps you simply believe all the propaganda spoon fed to you?
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  39. I did read somewhere that there were a few non-Polish pilots in the RAF. Must have got it wrong, I suppose.
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  40. Because of their location, and the fact that they were of no strategic value.
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  41. How are they relevant to this subject?
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  42. No need. Seventy or so light cruisers and destroyers in the Channel would deal with the matter more effectively.
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  43. 'German stukas pilots at the time were the most skilled dive bombers in the world.' Against ground targets in support of the army, perhaps, but they had failed badly against the Dunkirk evacuation fleet. Even their commander, Oskar Dinort, told his superiors about the extreme difficulties involved in hitting ships which were free to manoeuve at speed. This perhaps explains why, in the whole of WW2, German aircraft of all types sank 31 RN destroyers, and no RN warship larger than a light cruiser. Oh, the RN was not 'safe in Scotland,' by the way. By September, 1940, there were 70 light cruisers and destroyers at bases within five hours steaming of the Dover Straits, and a further 500 or so smaller warships in immediate support.
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  44. Quite correct. The Royal Navy in September 1940 had over 70 cruisers and destroyers allocated to anti-invasion duties, based within 5 hours' steaming of Dover, and supported by around 500 smaller warships. Every night in September, destroyers patrolled the Channel from Portsmouth and the Nore. The Germans, apparently, were going to cross the Channel, in the face of this, in converted Rhine barges towed by tugs and trawlers, and protected by six destroyers, six torpedo boats, and ten minesweepers. Admiral Raeder was not a fool, and knew precisely what awaited the Sealion barges had they sailed. Fighter Command certainly deserves respect for success in the air fighting over the Home Counties in the latter half of 1940, but any claim that this, and this alone, prevented an invasion is massively wide of the mark. The myth promoted by aviation historians immediately after the war that the Royal Navy was kept 'safely out of the way at Scapa Flow' was false, as almost every historian working on this subject today will confirm.
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  45. Perhaps because the nearest RAN warship was in the Mediterranean?
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  46. We would, however, have had large numbers of people deported as slave labourers, and large numbers of others simply exterminated.
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  47.  @vonryansexpress  Poles as young at 12 were subjected to forced labour from the start of the war. Are you actually suggesting that, because of the war situation, working foreign labourers to death was justified?
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  48. No, you are missing something important. The Royal Navy in September 1940 was not 'Spread throughout the world.' Apart from a flotilla of old destroyers on the China station, and a strong Mediterranean Fleet, it was concentrated in Home Waters. The two British capital ships sunk in 1941 were sunk by torpedo, not dive, bombers. The Luftwaffe didn't have any torpedo bombers until mid 1942. Similarly, the Luftwaffe in 1940 had not been trained in anti-shipping operations, and had recently utterly failed to prevent Dynamo. I do enjoy the 'would haves' to which you Sealion fans always resort. I apologise for returning to reality, but are you aware that in September, 1940 the Kriegsmarine had, on average, 13 boats at sea on any one day? Or that the three boats they sent into the Channel earlier in the war were all promptly sunk? Generally, U-boats sought to avoid fleet destroyers, rather than, as you unwisely suggest, seeking them out. As to your conviction that the mighty Luftwaffe would sink the Royal Navy, perhaps it might surprise you to learn that, even after receiving belated training in anti-shipping techniques, the Luftwaffe actually, in the whole of the war, sank 31 RN destroyers and nothing larger than a light cruiser. To put that into perspective, in September 1940, the RN had over 110 destroyers in Home Waters, 64 of which were within 5 hours steaming of Dover. As to the scrapping of battleships after WW2, that indeed was partly a result of the increasing effectiveness of naval air power later in the war, but it is also largely irrelevant, because firstly the topic under discussion is the Battle of Britain in 1940, and secondly the RN's battleships were not part of the Admiralty's anti-invasion preparations in any case. The land battle, likewise, is irrelevant, as the whole intent of Admiralty planning was to ensure that no organised German forces were able to land from their absurdly inadequate towed barges in the first place. Instead of pontificating about what the Luftwaffe 'would have' done, perhaps you might read up instead on what it actually did, or rather didn't, do?
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  49. They were around 31,000 yards distant when the action began, and it was over before they could close.
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  50.  @jafr99999  Because the British were a sea power, with a tiny army. Virtually the whole of the pre-war British regular army went to France in 1939-1940. Including some semi-trained Territorial divisions, this totalled ten Divisions. France & Germany had over a hundred each. Consequently, the French dominated allied strategy on land, just as the British dominated it on sea.
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