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

  1. You are aware that two only of the Pearl Harbor battleships were not raised and put back into service, are you?
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  2. He has a degree, I believe, in African History or anthropology, which apparently makes him an expert on the history of the Second World War. Before you ask, no, I don't know why either.
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  3. They seem to have planned to land in mid September. When, of course, there were 70 RN light cruisers and destroyers within five hours of the Straits of Dover, a further five hundred or so supporting smaller warships, and an additional 40 or so more destroyers in Home Waters. The barges never had the slightest hope of landing safely.
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  4.  @pacificostudios  1). Any 'what if' discussion must begin from a real starting point in history. Therefore the idea that Britain's radar defences might not work is irrelevant. They did. 2). Prince of Wales & Repulse were sunk by high performance torpedo bombers flown by crews trained in anti-shipping techniques. The Germans of 1940 had neither. Indeed, they did not acquire a half-decent torpedo bomber until mid-1942. 3). 'Without fighter cover, the Luftwaffe would have bombed and strafed the RN units mercilessly.' You mean like they were supposed to have done at Dunkirk, but failed so to do, even when the ships were stationary, and largely unable to defend themselves? If your mighty Luftwaffe could not take advantage of these circumstances, what leads you to conclude that it would have performed better when facing fast moving destroyers and light cruisers, able to take evasive action? Indeed, how do you explain the fact that the Luftwaffe sank 31 RN destroyers in the whole of WW2, and no RN warship larger than a light cruiser? To put that into persepective, the RN began WW2 with 193 destroyers, and ended it with over 400. 4). To sum up, you seem to follow the approach of a typical Sealion 'would have', pontificating sagely on what the Luftwaffe 'would have' done, but oddly silent on why, in the actual events of the time, it never actually appears to have come close to achieving any of these wondrous feats.
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  5.  @pacificostudios  No. It is about what might have happened in 1940.
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  6.  @pacificostudios  No. It is only 'without meaning' for those who don't wish it to have meaning. A shame that you feel that insults are a valid substitute for debate. Oh well. You wrote 'There were many fine days in August and September; the barges could have landed safely.' I have simply tried, evidently unsuccessfully, to get you to grasp that the barges needed rather more than a few sunny days if they were to have had any hope of completing a Channel Crossing. I observe that you have chosen not to challenge my arguments, by the way.
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  7.  @pacificostudios  'Watch the video, troll.' I have watched the video. My replies have not been about the video, but have simply been intended to correct your evident lack of knowledge about the probable events of 1940. A shame that you don't seem equipped to debate my comments, but feel the need to use insults instead.
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  8.  @pacificostudios  You still haven't grasped that I am not replying to the video, but to your lack of understanding. In particular your comment that 'There were many fine days in August and September; the barges could have landed safely.' Sealion, with or without the intervention of Fighter Command, needed rather more than a sunny day or two to land troops. It needed some means of removing the Royal Navy from the equation, and no such means ever existed.
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  9.  @pacificostudios  Meaning what, exactly? I merely answer comments made by an increasing number of ill-informed people as an entertaining means of educating them. As a published naval historian, I know that my knowledge and understanding is on a higher level than most.
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  10.  @pacificostudios  You do seem to take immediate offence at being corrected. Actually, if Mr. Drachinifel says something with which I disagree, I will indeed challenge him. I expect his answer would be rather less choleric, and certainly more measured and reasoned, than yours. However, his command of his subject is masterful, and, in particular, his analysis of the loss of HMS Hood, for example, was superb. Thus, the issue has never arisen. The rest of your post bears no relevance to my comments, by the way. You are commenting about Fighter Command, whereas I have simply been correcting your lack of knowledge about the naval situation. I would refer you to the Sandhurst War Game of 1974, but doubtless you are already fully aware of it. A friend of mine knew Paddy Griffith when at University at Lancaster, by the way, and has lots of insider knowledge about the game. 'I know you're a "later historian" because Group Captain Peter Wooldridge Townsend, CVO, DSO, DFC died over 30 years ago, at age 80. You're not over 100 years old, I trust.' Perhaps this is the barmiest comment I have read for days. Aside from the fact that I have access to many original archives from both German & British sources, as a secondary subject at University I studied the Peloponnesian War and read Thucydides, who died in 400 B.C. To use your odd reasoning, must I now be around 2400 years old? Perhaps you might ask yourself whether, in order to have an opinion, it is necessary to be contemporary with the events under discussion, in other words.
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  11. They existed, for all the use they might have been.
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  12. It was only a suicide mission with the benefit of retrospect. If KGV & PoW were in the Denmark Strait, who guards the Iceland-Faroes Gap? Hood & Repulse?
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  13. I really enjoy the comments of the Sealion 'would havers.' How might the Germans have succeeded in invading, with no surface fleet of their own, towed Rhine barges in which to transport troops, and an air force which had no training in anti-ship operations, had just failed badly at Dunkirk, and which couldn't, unlike the Royal Navy, operate effectively at night?
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  14. Apart, of course, from those Londoners and Britons in general who had been deported as slave labour, or simply executed.
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  15. Why is it a cliche? The point about the British radar network in 1940 was that it was part of a much larger air defence system.
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  16. Didn't the Royal Navy sink the Bismarck, then?
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  17. You perhaps over-estimate the actual meaning of 'defeat' in this context. The most it would have involved was likely to have been the withdrawal of Park's aircraft to bases north of the Thames, where they would have time to regroup and re-equip, particularly because at the time the British were outproducing the Germans in aircraft, and in particular in fighters. If certainly didn't mean that any invasion attempt was likely to have been successful, as the Royal Navy would certainly have had a large say about that possibility.
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  18. Even though the Tauchpanzer really did exist?
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  19.  @backinblack03  Yes, exactly. The idea was that they would be dropped off barges near the landing beaches, and would have an airline connecting them with the surface. They were supposed to be able to operated in 15 metres of water for arond 20 minutes. The whole idea was deeply flawed, as the driver could not see any underwater obstacles, nor even be sure which way he was going. More doubtful still was the ability of the barges to avoid the massive Royal Navy presence in the area. The idea was an improbable one, but these things did exist, and a modified version was used to cross a Russian river.
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  20. Indeed, send a few at a time. That would work, wouldn't it?
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  21. It did seem to be a box-ticking exercise. The aviation historian seemed to know her subject, but one of the other two was an actor, and the third's subject was African history, although he did manage to make the obligatory reference to Churchill 'the warmonger.' A shame, as there are many historians who are knowledgeable enough to have held a proper debate on the subject.
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  22. Nonsense. The British were already fighting in North Africa, and had been since mid-1940. After the US became active participants, the only place where their troops could be deployed in the West, once the impossibility of Marshall's ideas for a landing in France had become obvious, was also North Africa. After the conclusion of the campaign, where else, realistically, could the substantial allied forces in the theatre have gone? Moreover, if Italy had not capitulated, where would the 350,000 German troops based in Italy in June 1944 have gone?
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  23.  @bigwoody4704  Presumably, you aren't aware that Germany had also declared war, and was inflicting serious losses on the US mercantile marine, largely as a result of Ernie King? Your lack of knowledge continues to impress. The British were in North Africa because of the Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940. It became the only place Germany could be brought to battle on land, after George Marshall had been persuaded that an attempted landing in France was a recipe for disaster. I believe he realised this after seeing the US army in action at Kasserine? Can you even contemplate what would probably have happened if this same army had tried to land in France in 1942? The North African campaign was overwhelmingly a British and Commonwealth one. A small US force did take part, alongside British First Army, right at the end, of course. Thank heavens most Americans I speak to are not as dementedly anti-British as you are. Of course, they tend to be academics and military or naval historians, whose views are based on actual knowledge, rather than blind prejudice.
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  24.  @bigwoody4704  Actually, FDR offered the tanks and SP guns to Churchill after the fall of Tobruk. Which Crown Colonies were propped up by 110,000 US troops? Certainly, the vast manufacturing capabilities of the United States were crucial to the Allied victory. I know no one who would deny that. However, the delusions that less well educated Americans have about WW2 are so bizarre as to be almost amusing. Perhaps people like yourself might be the reason the current United States finds it increasingly difficult to find allies in the world. Personally, I hope not, as most of the Americans I encounter are, unlike the fringe ones, well informed and reasonable. A pity about the bad apples, though.
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  25.  @bigwoody4704  'I've seen you scat spread across these boards taking your shots at the GIs long after affairs have been settled.' No, you haven't. I cannot recall ever being critical of the US military in WW2 (except of course, for utter fools like Ernie King or Mark Clark) and I have been equally critical of similar British & Commonwealth fools in similar senior positions. It is one of the requirements of being an historian, admittedly one whose writings mainly cover naval matters. I recall a comment my late father made some years ago. His regiment landed at Salerno with Fifth Army, under the command of Clark. He said, when I asked him about Clark, that 'The difference between the British & American officers in Fifth Army was that, whereas most British officers disliked Clark, most American ones detested him.' 'Why was Churchill sitting in the Whitehouse at the time?' To discuss the future prosecution of the war with Britain's greatest ally, of course. FDR had invited Churchill and his staff, and Churchill was hardly going to refuse. I will ignore your ramblings about the Falklands. To follow your argument, such as it is, the logical conclusion would be that the only people with any right to be in North America are the Native Americans and the Inuit. Are you intending to leave soon? Indeed, the Japanese NEARLY took Port Moresby, but didn't. The Japanese managed one significant raid on Darwin, but that was all. Neither the IJN nor the IJA ever seriously argued for an attack on Australia, as it was far outside their 'Co-Prosperity Sphere' and equally far in excess of their resources. There were large numbers of US troops in Australia because it was a secure starting point for the eventual counter-attack against Japan, much as there were large numbers of US troops in Britain because it was the intended launch pad for landings in France. Neither country was in any serious danger of invasion, and US troops stationed there were not intended as defensive forces. Truly, the depth of your ignorance and the extent of your Anglophobic remarks amazes me.
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  26.  @travellingtim1  Not really. The Kriegsmarine hadn't the ability to put out any sort of U-Boat screen. In September 1940 they had an average of 13 boats only at sea on any one day. Furthermore, the three boats which they sent into the Channel in October 1939 were all sunk at once without achieving anything.
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  27.  @stevefrommincraft3285  Distraction from what?
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  28. Quite bizarre. One 'expert' has a degree in Archaeology & Anthropology, is an expert in African history, and writes about museums. The relevance of all this to 1940 has rather escaped me.
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  29. No, it isn't.
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  30. What do you think you know now?
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  31.  @FirstLast-nt5ui  I simply asked what you thought you knew. How can I, or anyone else, form any opinion based on a single vague sentence?
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  32.  @FirstLast-nt5ui  When my father's regiment arrived at Belsen on 15 April, 1945 with 11th Armoured Division, he must have met some of these 'xionist bankers.' Or, at least, seen their emaciated corpses.
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  33. Certainly quieter, after all the executions and slave labour deportations, at least.
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  34. I believe that the idea is that you should subscribe to part 2. Don't bother, as there are better videos on the Bismarck sinking widely available for free.
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  35. What role of Indian soldiers at Dunkirk?
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  36.  @justforfux  I agree that Wavell & The Auk spoke highly of their Indian troops, and that they fought gallantly in North Africa, Italy, Burma, & Malaya. But there were no Indian military units at Dunkirk.
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  37.  @armstronggermany2995  Actually, 574 non-British pilots are on the Roll of Honour, or 19.6% Non British & Commonwealth pilots totalled 390, or 13.3%.
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  38.  @inkyguy  How does it underscore anything? I have simply quoted facts.
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  39.  @IronMan-yg4qw  You don't know a lot about the history of the Manhattan Project, clearly.
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  40.  @IronMan-yg4qw  Nonsense. Rutherford & Soddy had identified the idea of nuclear reactions, and the potential energy that they might release, before WW1. H.G. Wells wrote about the idea of nuclear weapons in 1914, in 'The World Set Free,' and one Winston Churchill wrote, in 1924 ' "Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings—nay to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke?" Please don't be silly.
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  41.  @IronMan-yg4qw  Indeed , Right. By the way, the Germans were always rather at a disadvantage because of the Jewish scientists who escaped from Germany, and the fact that scientific work based on the research of these scientists was rather discouraged in Germany. Why not look up the two scientists I named, Who knows, you might learn something?
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  42. The point being that, without a navy, there was never the remotest possibility that the Germans would ever cross the Channel.
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  43. Who might these 'scholars' be?
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  44.  @aprilmay578  Oh? You mean how the Royal Navy planned and largely executed, successfully, every assault landing in the war in the west, and how British mathematicians broke both Enigma & Lorentz, actually shortening the war, according to most actual historians, by one to two years? Or does your reply simply mean that you have taken two months not to give a credible answer, because you don't actually have one?
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  45.  @aprilmay578  Polish mathematicians made important early breakthroughs, certainly, but the Enigma of WW2 was somewhat advanced compared to that of the early/mid 1930s. The British made the first Bombes, the British broke the four rotor Enigma, and the British broke Lorenz. Your fatuous argument is akin to claiming that, because the Wright brothers built the first powered aircraft, they were were responsible for every subsequent one.
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  46.  @aprilmay578  Operation Dynamo was indeed a success for the Royal Navy. Lifting 338,000 troops was a major achievement, after the hundred divisions of the French army had collapsed. Operation Jubilee was a failed raid, which lasted one day. Against that, you might weigh the Battle of the Atlantic, Operation Compass, the Defeat of Operation U-Go, the Arctic convoys, the destruction of most of the surface ships of the German Fleet, the Allied (largely British & Commonwealth) victory in North Africa, the successful Torch landings, the Husky landings, Avalanche, and Neptune, all assault landings planned and mainly executed by the Royal Navy, and of course D-Day in Normandy itself, where two of every three men who landed on the five beaches were British & Canadian.
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  47.  @aprilmay578  Indeed it was. However, of 4127 landing craft, 3261 were British manned, of 1213 warships, 892 were British & Canadian, two thirds of the 11,600 aircraft were British. The air, sea, and land commanders on 6 June, by the way, were all British. Oh, and the ships which destroyed the German U-Boats which attempted to intervene were from British & Canadian Atlantic Escort Groups, and most of the ships which carried out the pre-landing minesweeping were RN or RCN.
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  48. I would be interested to know what colour the sky is in your parallel universe.
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  49. Thank you for posting that. I haven't read such unmitigated drivel for some time.
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  50. How did what you apparently regard as 'lessons' from 1941 have any influence on 1940? Oh, and Prince of Wales was sunk by torpedo bombers. How many of these aircraft did the Luftwaffe have in 1940? NONE actually. In fact, the Luftwaffe had had no training in anti-shipping techniques in 1940, hence the extent of the Luftwaffe's failure at Dunkirk. Furthermore, in the whole of WW2, the Luftwaffe, your wonderful Ju87s included, sank some 31 RN destroyers, and no Royal Navy warship larger than a light cruiser. In September, 1940, the RN had around 70 light cruisers and destroyers within five hours of Dover. It is amazing how much better the Luftwaffe was at what it 'would have' done than at what, historically, it actually did. At least in the ill-informed minds of you 'Sealion was possible' people.
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