Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The Armchair Historian" channel.

  1. The British certainly were not complacent. The BEF was a very small force of ten divisions, and depended on a French army of ten times that size to supervise their operations.
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  2. As the Soviets didn't have a navy, they wouldn't have been able to get there.
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  3. Simply not true. The full text of the British Ultimatum was as follows: "It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty’s Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives; (a) Sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans. (b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment. If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile. (c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies — Martinique for instance — where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated. If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours. Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty’s Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands." Unfortunately for his crews and his reputation, Admiral Gensoul chose not to pass the full text on the his government. m. Pierre. Either you simply have not read the ultimatum in full before, or you are a liar. I would prefer to believe the former.
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  4. The British tactic in every war - DOMINATE THE SEA LANES.
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  5. The Dutch starved because they were still under German occupation.
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  6.  @robvoncken2565  I know. How is this Montgomery's fault?
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  7.  @robvoncken2565  If so, why did Eisenhower sanction it?
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  8. Dunkirk was 'poorly planned, poorly executed.' How do you reach that conclusion? Admiral Ramsay was ordered to lift 40,000 men, and lifted 338,000. How is that poor planning or execution?
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  9.  @jonesalex565  Seriously, if you want the British to come to terms, aren't you more likely to achieve that with around 200,000 of them in pow camps, rather than by letting the Royal Navy evacuate them? Try to think about it, please.
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  10.  @jonesalex565  What has Singapore in 1940 to do with Dunkirk in 1940?
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  11.  @jonesalex565  oh dear. Your 'few plucky Belgians' actually surrendered on 28 May, 1940, and a British division was forced to make a hazardous night march to plug the gap thus left in the Allied line. As I have said, the entire British army did not 'sit on a beach for two weeks' or anything like it. When did I say that the evacuation was carried out using dinghies? Over 100,000 men were lifted by destroyers, 88000 by personnel ships, around 90000 by other warships, and around 22000 by schuits. This was, by the way, over the period 26 May to 4 June. Who were 'rushed up to Scotland' and what 'lie' began?
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  12.  @jonesalex565  Between 27 May and 4 June, there were 41 British destroyers involved in the Dunkirk evacuation. How many were sunk by your 'stookers' which you believe could 'put a bomb down a gun turret' (whatever that means), in total, four. The Luftwaffe in 1940 was a tactical air force, trained in providing air support for ground troops in a land campaign. They had had no training at all in anti-shipping operations, and were, consequently, poor at the task. Their own commander, Oskar Dinort, wrote of the difficulties of hitting ships at sea, following an attack on 25 May when he led 40 aircraft from his Stuka-Geschwader 2 in an attack on a British naval squadron off Calais. He recorded that his aircraft dived from 12000 feet, but the reflection of the sun on the sea, and the violent course changes made by the warships, resulted in his own bomb exploding 300 feet from his target. None of his accompanying aircraft were any more successful, leading Dinort to conclude that they lacked the necessary expertise to achieve consistent success. His commander, Wolfram von Richthofen, in charge of Fliegerkorps VIII, subsequently told his own superiors that the Luftwaffe was not well enough trained to be able to provide adequate protection for the towed barges that were intended to carry out operation Sealion.
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  13.  @jonesalex565  Well, you clearly do know your 'history.' Or, at least, your own ill-informed/prejudiced/perverted version of it. Do you really believe that the defeat in Malaya meant that Britain was in imminent danger of invasion as a result? Of course not. In the summer of 1940, there was, at least theoretically, the possibility of an attempted invasion of Britain itself. Nothing remotely similar existed in early 1942.
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  14.  @jonesalex565  Oh! If you have seen it on TV, it must be true! Exactly why do you think the troops were sent to Scotland, even though, of course, they weren't? What purpose would be served by so doing? Do you perhaps consider Scotland to be the UK's equivalent of the Soviet gulags? Of course the troops thought they were failures. Some of the ones I interviewed in the early 1970s for my research said that in so many words. They were, in fact, surprised to be welcomed back as heroes. Most, by the way, had a brief period of leave before returning to their units.
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  15.  @jonesalex565  You seem to have resorted to raving. You haven't explained what purpose was served by sending almost 200,000 troops to Scotland, largely because they weren't. Would you like to provide your source for your ludicrous claim? There was no lie spun about the evacuation. Churchill called the events 'a colossal military disaster' and said ' "we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations" in the House of Commons on 4 June, 1940. tHE 'Miracle' element was that the Royal & Merchant navies, in the face of (fortunately, ineptly inaccurate) Luftwaffe bombing, managed to lift more than ten times the number of troops thought possible when the evacuation began. I notice that you still seem to rely on TV rather than archives for your information. Isn't it odd, then, that that what you describe as 'only 20 years old' actually appeared in books by historians dating back to the late 1940s and 1950s? The various descriptions of the events have always been consaistent. I have a copy of the Official Royal Navy Staff History of Operation 'Dynamo' which has full details of every vessel involved and every event which took place throughout Dynamo. Would you like me to list a whole host of academic works, both British, French, & German, on the subject, all of which tell a consistent tale throughout? I am sure you wouldn't. Finally, what 'archives' were sealed by Theresa May?
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  16.  @jonesalex565  ' You're suggesting that it's always been widely known and publicly acknowledged that the Germans let us go at Dunkirk?' You were the one who suggested that, if I recall correctly. I know no credible historian who would argue that for a moment, largely because there is no evidence at all to support it. The best you will find are the usual suspects, fantasising nazi boys and anti-British Americans, and not even many of them. You spoke to people who were sent there? Oh good. I spoke to people who weren't. What is your source for your claim? What War Office records? Where were the men sent? Again, WHY? You are utterly unable to give any rational reason. How is it possible to look something up if no-one knows what it is? As to Churchill, don't you know? The answer is none of the above, as you really should know. The statements were made to the House of Commons at the time, were published in Hansard, the House of Commons record of proceedings, and appeared in the newspapers which, then as now, have access to Hansard.
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  17.  @jonesalex565  Of course the BEF weren't let go. I have been trying to get you to grasp this fact for some time, but you seem to be determined to align yourself with the neo-nazis and Limey haters who, without a scintilla of proof, insist upon chanting this nonsense like demented parakeets. I do admit, however, that your fantasy about the Scottish gulags for the Dunkirk failures is certainly a novel one! Where have I said that the Germans ran out of fuel? I have explained the reasons for the German failure, basically the von Rundstedt Halt order, the failure of the Luftwaffe, the skill of Admiral Ramsay's evacuation planning, and the resistance of the rearguard. Please present a source which demonstrates that orders were given by German High Command to let the British escape, and, when you haven't been able to do that, explain precisely why they would have benefitted in any way by letting it happen. I don't have to prove anything. The facts, and the history, are entirely on my side. You do seem to have some very odd problems, for which you have my sympathy.
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  18. As I am confident that you have neither the facilities nor the intention to look for this information for yourself, I thought you might like to know that, despite your assertion that 'This statement of Churchill was never public and the press were all on board. Find it in a paper....you won't.' the full text of the speech appeared in the 'Manchester Guardian' on 5 June, 1940. I haven't bothered looking elsewhere. It hardly seems worth it! Who knows? Perhaps your 200000 failed troops on their way to exile in Scotland might have bought a copy each as they headed for their internment camps?????
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  19.  @jonesalex565  Yes, I know I am right. About everything I have written so far. Of course the official statement didn't refer to being let go, because that was not what happened. I have told you the reasons for the successful evacuation of the BEF & the French from Dunkirk. If you are simply too stupid or too prejudiced to accept the obvious then I see no point in wasting further time on you when there are much more useful things I can be doing, and much more sensible people with whom I can be corresponding. Please don't waste more of both our time by replying with more idiocy, unless you can firstly answer my questions about your lunatic fantasy about the sending of the BEF to Scotland, or, even better, tell me an authentic German source which instructed the Wehrmacht to let the poor benighted British escape. You don't even need to translate it as I can read both German & French quite well. Alternatively, why not just go away and stop making yourself look foolish.
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  20.  @jonesalex565  So, no explanation of the reasons for the exile of the BEF to Scotland, or indeed answers to any of my other questions. No reference to any contemporary German, French, or British documents either. Just your conversation with a sapper. Presumably, if this man went to Scotland, then you simply assume that the other nearly 200,000 did as well, despite what the regimental diaries from the time all say. You refer to :- Running out of petrol Shiney water 2 weeks of sudden miscommunication with Hitler without explaining what you think you mean. Perhaps you might enlighten people? Or there again, perhaps not! Incidentally, if the British thought that they had been 'let go' why did they immediately begin landing a Second REF in Cherbourg, and only withdrew it after General Weygand, on 14 June, told the commander, Alan Brooke, that the French army was no longer capable of organised resistance? Were they really so confident that the amiable Germans would let them go a second time? What 'debates' are these, to which you refer? I know of no such arguments being put forward by any credible historian working in this area, and I correspond regularly with many, now that regular face to face conversation is not possible. I admit that I do not normally read the extremist nonsense which appears from time to time (like yours, with no supporting evidence at all) from the neo-nazis and hitler lovers, but if you would care to recommend a recent presentation 'proving' that the British were 'let go' I would be happy to read it. Like you, I know that I will be waiting for a long time for such a document. What is the relevance of Hess to Dunkirk, by the way? Although I doubt it, I would be happy to believe that other people are reading this, although your amusing refusal to answer any question put to you might have deterred a few.
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  21.  @jonesalex565  You clearly cannot remember your earlier posts. You said that 200,000 men were sent to Scotland, although it now seems to have increased to 300,000. I said that, after a brief period of leave, all clearly documented in Regimental diaries, the men rejoined their regiments. I don't doubt that a number of Scots. went to Scotland, just as the Welsh went to Wales, or the Lancastrians to Lancashire, during their leave period, but to argue that they were all sent to Scotland as you seem to is simply ludicrous, and there is no evidence to support it. Yes, as I said earlier, the men I interviewed were surprised to find that they were regarded as heroes, when they had expected to be vilified, but there is no evidence to suggest a systematic effort to keep them away from the press. Unless you can produce some, and of course, as with the rest of your posts, you cannot. Just as you said Churchill's reference to evacuation did not appear in the newspapers, until I showed you that it did. 'Why did we invade again? Why don't you answer that?' If you mean the Second BEF, which wasn't an invasion, I didn't answer because I hadn't been asked. I suspect that you had never previously heard of the Second BEF. However, the reason was to show continued support for France, in the hope that France would continue to resist. When Weygand told Brooke of the hopelessness of the French situation, the force was withdrawn. The rest of your nonsense (two weeks on beaches, Luftwaffe bombers deliberately missing, (even though around 200 German aircraft were destroyed during Dynamo) irrelevant references to Hess & now to Sicily, and strange, meaningless references to 'shiny water' are unworthy of response.
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  22.  @jonesalex565  Where is your source for your comment about the sappers? Oh, of course, you don't have one. The only Allied invasion of France was in 1944. I have told you the reason for the 2nd BEF. Unfortunately, you seem unable to grasp it. I have never come across any reference by any German serviceman to the suggestion that they were not permitted to finish off the Dunkirk pocket, no suggestion that Hitler ever gave orders that the British should be allowed to escape. Nor, indeed, is there any such suggestion by any German historian that I have read, and I have read many. odd, that, don't you think? I notice that you haven't commented on the research and conclusions I posted earlier from Herr Epkenhans. I wonder why that might be? You are either seriously disturbed, a raving nazi fanatic, or simply astonishingly stupid. I will let anyone who has the misfortune to read your silliness decide for him/her self.
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  23. Did the Poles break Shark, or Tunny?
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  24.  @pawluszagordze  Why? What have you done?
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  25.  @pawluszagordze  Shark was the four rotor enigma, broken at Bletchley Park by the 'Bombe' and Tunny was the Lorenz decoding device, vastly superior to Enigma, broken by Tommy Flowers and Bill Tutte.
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  26.  @pawluszagordze  Shark (four rotor naval enigma) was intermittently read from late October, 1942, after the capture of a number of code books & documents by HMS Petard, but only read with regularity from around September, 1943. Tunny was read almost as quickly by the Allies as by the Germans after the introduction of the 'Colossus' computer in Dec. 1943/Jan. 1944.
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  27.  @pawluszagordze  Yes, I know. But to claim that Enigma was broken by Poles because of their initial research is rather like saying that all aircraft were invented by Wilbur & Orville Wright. The early Polish successes soon became outdated by developments.
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  28.  @JackoBanon1  That was 13 days after D-Day, not at the time of the landing.
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  29. You mean when a largely British evacuation fleet lifted around 338,000 men from Dunkirk? one third of the men lifted were French.
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  30. You don't consider that the Royal & Merchant Navies might have had some involvement?
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  31. There were 62 U-boats in the Mediterranean during the course of the campaign, contributing little to the primary task of the U-boat army, which was to sink merchant shipping. What is more, once in, they couldn't get out again!
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  32. Why? The British had ten divisions in France.
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  33. Actually, 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.
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  34. That is because you are hearing about the real Patton, not the fantasy version of the ludicrous 1970 movie, played by George C. Scott.
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  35.  @rick7424  I don't recall ever thinking or suggesting that.
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  36. The BEF was actually between the French 7th & 1st Armies, and were around Arras & Lille. Exactly how were they supposed to attack in the Ardennes, when Blanchard's army was much closer, around Cambrai?
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  37. In the 1990s I was fortunate enough to visit the home of a retired senior Indian diplomat. In pride of place in his lounge was a large portrait of Auchinleck. The diplomat referred to him as 'The Chief,' and it turned out that he had served on the Auk's staff at the end of WW2 and just after. He was fulsome in his praise of the Auk, and I submit that his opinion carries rather more weight than yours.
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  38. However, don't watch it if you prefer accurate history.
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  39. The British in 1939 had 13 divisions. The war on land was dictated by the French General Staff, just as the British dictated the war at sea. What would you suggest that the British, with 13 divisions, only one of which was armoured, could have done?
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  40.  @TremereTT  The actual British treaty with Poland did not promise troops on the ground. The furthest it went was possible air support, and naval support. 'Attacking Germany from the west?' You haven't explained how, with 13 divisions. Moreover, don't you know the actual nature of the planned Anglo-French co-operation, which committed the BEF to supporting Belgium in the even of a German attack, on the Flank of French 1st? At the time, genial Joe was Adolf's best friend, supplying him with a generous quantity of raw materials. Britain allied with the Soviet Union on the basis of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' and Poland no longer existed.
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  41. Could you perhaps explain what a force of ten divisions could have been expected to do when two armies of 100 divisions had been defeated?
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  42. Operation Fortitude.
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  43. Wasn't that in that film 'Patton' from the 1970s, when George C. Scott demonstrated what a great comedy actor he truly was?
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  44.  John Cornell  I always thought that Michael Bates was far funnier in that than as Blamire in Last of the Summer Wine. Of course, I daren't mention It Ain't Half Hot Mum, these days.
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  45. But what use did the Germans make of the 'victory?' A battle isn't fought just for the sake of it, but to attain a wider objective. All the Germans did was destroy the confidence of their own high command in the use of airborne forces, lose a large number of transport aircraft, and find themselves facing determined resistance fighters on the island itself. In short, from the German point of view, Crete was far more trouble than it was worth.
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  46.  @vivaan7653  No. It was a military decision, not a political one. Von Rundstedt wanted his armour, which had travelled a long way, to have a period of rest & self-maintenance. He was eager to proceed with the second stage of the campaign, and feared a repeat of the WW1 Miracle of the Marne. Hitler had been told on 23 May by Goering that the Luftwaffe could destroy the Dunkirk pocket unaided, and he believed him.
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  47.  @ArjayMartin  That seems to apply to you, not to me. I have read the War Diary, both in the original German and in English translation, and discussed the events surrounding Dunkirk with a number of French, German, and English colleagues who are also historians. I have yet to find anyone who believes the absurd notion that letting the British army escape would encourage the British to sign an armistice. The leaflet reference, by the way, is correct, in that it urged the British & French troops to surrender, which is rather a different matter.
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  48.  @ArjayMartin  'I'm not a historian though.' Anyone reading your posts would, I am sure, have deduced that some time ago. Himmler flew to the UK to try to broker peace? Good heavens, I never knew that. Moreover, neither did the British! The rest of your post is irrelevant gibberish, except for your reference to David Irving. He was never, as you claim, ' the darling of the industry,' He was briefly regarded as something as an expert on German military archives, but was never seen as anything more than a maverick, with excessively favourable opinions about anything German. Still, as you aren't an historian, you wouldn't know that, of course.
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  49.  @ArjayMartin  Do you actually know how diplomacy works? If Hitler seriously wanted peace, he would have made cautious approaches to one or more of the British embassies in neutral European countries or, even more probably, to the United States. He would not have sent his (by May, 1941, largely sidelined) deputy off in an aircraft to Scotland in an attempt to find the home of an obscure Scottish aristocrat. As Abe Lincoln, or possibly Mark Twain, once said 'It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.' Good advice, perhaps you should consider it.
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  50.  @ArjayMartin  He made an 'A Last Appeal to Reason' in a speech in the Reichstag on 19 July, 1940. That was in response to the British attacks on the French Fleet two weeks' earlier, which finally convinced Hitler that his gamble that the British would come to terms had failed. It wasn't a peace offer, as you would have known had you read it; it was in the form of an attempt to threaten the British government into submission by saying, in effect 'come to terms or we will crush you.' Needless to say, the British saw it for what it was, which was mere bluster. Without much of a navy, Hitler was never in a position to threaten an inland nation with the biggest navy on earth with invasion. You really should not make assumptions about what I know or don't know, as the extent of my knowledge of the period vastly exceeds your own.
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