Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The Desert Fox | Rommel's FIRST Battle in the North African Campaign | BATTLESTORM" video.

carmine paola What 'massive American military intervention?' The Americans were very much the junior partners in Tunisia.
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carmine paola I already know. What I don't know is what that has to do with North Africa. Perhaps you could explain?
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carmine paola The Naval Task Forces were actually commanded by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Under his orders were three separate forces :- Western Task Force (which came direct from the United States) commanded by Vice Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, USN, Central Task Force, commanded by Commodore Thomas Troubridge, RN, Eastern Task Force, commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, RN. The escorts for the Western Task Force were American. The escorts for the Central & Western Forces were British. By the way, there were Five United States Divisions in Tunisia. British First Army alone had six Divisions. Do you want me to tell you how many Divisions there were in Eight Army, or would you like to look that up for yourself?
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carmine paola Operation Hats; Oh, you mean when the British reinforced the Mediterranean Fleet with a new carrier, two AA cruisers, & a modernised battleship, ran a supply convoy to Malta, attacked Italian airfields at Maritiza and Callato, and shelled Rhodes? As one of the naval history books in my collection says :- 'Operation Hats was one of a number of occasions during 1940 when the presence of a British aircraft carrier convinced a potentially strong Italian fleet not to risk combat, and played a part in reducing the effectiveness of the otherwise powerful Italian fleet.' If you think that, by avoiding action the Italian Fleet achieved some sort of success, then you presumably would consider Beda Fomm to have been a triumph of Italian arms? Didn't you know that the British had 300 Shermans at 2nd Alamein? They also had 90 American 'Priest' SPGs. So what? At least they were willing to use them, unlike the Italian failure to risk their fleet, even when the Italian Homeland was under attack.
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carmine paola Tug Argan. Truly an epic. 5000 British & Commonwealth troops defeated by 29,000 Italian troops, and suffering 260 casualties, compared to 2029 Italian ones. Amazing that the Russians boast about Stalingrad, a skirmish by comparison. You keep posting about Vigorous. You should be the one explaining why a much more powerful Italian naval force chose not to challenge a much weaker British convoy screen. Seriously, the best the British had were light cruisers, whereas the Italians had two battleships & two heavy cruisers. Are you so desperate that you wish to claim the successes of the Luftwaffe as an Italian naval victory?
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carmine paola What odds were the Italian Navy fighting against during Pedestal? It is difficult to assess, because no Italian heavy surface ships even came near. For most of the war in the Mediterranean, the Italian navy was larger than the Mediterranean Fleet & Force H. It is indeed unfortunate, from the Italian viewpoint, that their heavy ships didn't show anything like the courage of some of their smaller naval units, and their special forces, but that doesn't alter the facts, however you might seek to drool on about heroic Italian triumphs in land actions involving casualties in very low numbers, yet you remain oddly silent about Beda Fomm. You constantly go round in circles, and you are becoming tedious.
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carmine paola Massive American intervention? Five divisions? I don't even know an American who would claim that US forces were any more than junior partners in North Africa. Oh, & Torch was after 2nd Alamein, by the way,
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carmine paola Actually, it was the Afrika Korps & the Luftwaffe which kept the Italians in the Mediterranean for just over two years. No more of this nonsense.
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carmine paola It wasn't. I didn't suggest that it could. But the Luftwaffe kept the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean under considerable pressure, whilst the heavy ships of the Italian navy contributed little or nothing to the Axis cause. Moreover, the Germans didn't want to be there in the first place, but found themselves dragged in after Italian military debacles in Egypt, Libya, & Greece. Of course, I don't include Tug Argan, your veritable Stalingrad in Somaliland.
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carmine paola Perhaps that explains why the Axis actually lost at Crusader & 2nd Alamein? It may also explain why the Germans found it necessary to intervene in Greece, perhaps?
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carmine paola I actually said 'little or nothing.' I suppose occasionally putting to sea, but failing to use superior firepower and speed to engage a smaller force is, marginally, better than nothing. Odd that they were conspicuous by their absence during Pedestal & Husky though, wasn't it? I believe that Admiral Hewitt was surprised that the Italian fleet didn't take action when Sicily itself was being invaded, until told by his Royal Navy colleagues that this was par for the course where the Italian battlefleet was concerned.
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carmine paola Odd, then, that in February, 1941, 28 Italian Divisions faced 14 Greek ones. And lost. Weren't the US Navy outnumbered at Midway, or the Royal Navy in the Barents Sea or in the Biscay Action, or in the First Battle of Narvik? Being numerically inferior is not really a reason for not trying, except perhaps in your mind. Ask the Germans & Japanese, or the British & Indians at Kohima, or the Americans at Bastogne. 2nd Alamein. Actually, the respective orders of battle show, in simple numerical terms, 195,000 8th Army troops, and 116,000 German/Italian troops. The Germans and Italians, of course, were on the defensive, and behind a strongly mined position which could not be outflanked, and was strongly supported by emplaced anti-tank artillery. The numerical inferiority hardly applied during Pedestal, did it? Yet even here the Italian fleet was conspicuous by being absent. Do you derive some comfort from claiming false figures, or are you simply ignorant?
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carmine paola Read my post, old chap.
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carmine paola You sound like the child who killed both his parents in order to go on a day trip for orphans. Need I remind you that Italy declared war on the UK and France. The subsequent invasion of France, of course, receiving a rather bloody repulse. No-one declared war on Italy, and certainly in the circumstances of 10 June, 1940, the British government would never had done such a thing. That is your problem, I do understand strategic warfare. Didn't Il Duce say to Badoglio that :- '"I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought." Congratulations, he certainly achieved his ambition!
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carmine paola What are your sources to claim that they are right?
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carmine paola Oh dear! In a previous post, you bleated on pitifully about poor little Italy, facing:- 'a global world war when one is facing an enemy empire of '550' million strong--plus a continent of over 147 million souls--against your own population of a meagre' 57' million strong?!..' Now you drone on about Italy being justified, in order to become an imperialist power! Perhaps Mexico should try something similar against the United States. It would end just as successfully. The fact is, the declaration of war was a cynical act by Il Duce, intended to grab French & British possessions in Africa after the armistice he expected would be imposed by Hitler, and it backfired spectacularly. Even declaring war with a fair proportion of the Italian merchant marine out of the Mediterranean, leaving it to be interned or to surrender to the Allies, was a strategic masterstroke on Italy's part. As to the coal shipments, weren't you aware that the British government had offered to replace German coal from British stocks? The action the British took was cynically political, intended to make poor daft Benito realise that alliance with Germany was really not in Italy's best interests, and the British certainly got that one right. As to sources, why don't you try to find some more detailed ones? Although it does rather explain a lot about the kind of nonsense you post.
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@UCCH0-gT2b0sqR25Iv9DX4vA You really are beyond redemption. You mean the Germans would have invaded Italy just like they invaded Switzerland, Sweden or Spain, I suppose? The Soviet Union was always Hitler's main enemy, what possible reason could he have had to invade a neutral Italy? Hitler had no interest at all in the Mediterranean, and only reluctantly sent his forces there in order to extricate his gormless ally from his self-generated mire.
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carmine paola Perhaps someone is finding your lunatic ravings are too ridiculous to tolerate further?
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carmine paola How many times? Hitler had no interest in the Mediterranean, and certainly wasn't interested in a 20 year old grudge.
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carmine paola Nonsense. The British & French expected a repeat of WW1, when there would initially be a static western front, and the Royal Navy would re-impose the same blockade which had starved Germany almost to revolution in WW1. The allies would slowly build up their forces with troops from overseas, as they had in WW1. Do you seriously believe that anyone, least of all the French, expected the French army to collapse as it did?
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carmine paola As you don't seem to know what happened at Corunna (as it is actually spelled) I won't waste my time further. If all you can do is post irrelevant nonsense, perhaps you should go away, or I should give up trying to educate you. You are, I suspect, too far gone, and certainly too ill-informed.
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Dod o The worst that can be said of Churchill's role in the Bengal famine is that, at a time when he had one or two other matters on his mind, he failed to realise that the Bengal Administration were deliberately down playing the situation. He could hardly be held responsible for the inability to import food from Malaya, the hoarding of foodstuffs within Bengal, and the refusal of FDR to release shipping space. Once made aware of the extent of the crisis, he handed over food distribution to the British-Indian army, and diverted grain convoys from Australia. Not, of course, that such facts will influence in the slightest the 'Churchill was a racist/imperialist/colonialist/warmonger' types who infest the internet with their demented chanting, and really do not wish to learn the truth about this complex man.
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