Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Knowledgia" channel.

  1.  @joshuamorrison8332  Churchill did not become Prime Minister until May, 1940. Appeasement had ended well before that. Chamberlain played no part in what happened at Dunkirk, and I know precisely why the tanks were stopped on the Aa Canal. They obeyed Von Rundstedt's orders, as he wished to have them ready for the second stage of the campaign, and to ensure that the French could not pull off a repeat of the Miracle of the Marne.
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  2.  @joshuamorrison8332  Please don't get so tediously aggressive. Didn't you write :- 'Chamberlain's desire for peace, while much derided in the history books, probably saved countless lives at Dunkirk,' Or have you forgotten? I didn't say you said Chamberlain played an active role. I simply said that he was irrelevant. There is no doubt at all about the Halt Order. It may be read in the War Diary of Army Group A, which was captured in 1945 and is readily available. Indeed, Hitler could have over-ridden it, but because of a number of factors, he chose to let it stand. These factors included :- 1). The need to service & repair the armour to prepare it for stage 2. 2). Hitler's knowledge from his time there in WW1 that the area was poor tank country. 3). The imminent arrival of the German infantry divisions, more suited to the task. 4). His (erroneous) assumption that an army backed against the sea was trapped. But, most of all, Goering's assurance to him, the day before the order was given, that the destruction of the surrounded allied forces was 'a special job for the Luftwaffe.'
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  3. It didn't work, then. Largely because there were very few U-boats at Dunkirk. Largely because the Channel was unsuited to the operations of WW2 submersibles.
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  4. 'As for the British, they let France pay the price for the land war without giving it much support.' Much as the French let, or would have let, the British pay the price for the sea war without giving it much support. That was the accepted trade-off between the two allies. Mr. Phillips rather exposes the weakness of his argument when he compares the number of divisions in the BEF in 1940 with those of 1918. When the BEF went to France in 1914, it consisted of only six infantry divisions and one cavalry division. In WW2 the forces sent by the British were gradually to be increased by conscription, and by the arrival of additional divisions from Canada, India, Australia, and New Zealand, as had happened in WW1. Allied strategy assumed a defensive posture at the beginning, which would become more offensive as these extra resources arrived. Obviously, because of the 1940 collapse, this was never possible. I am surprised Mr. Phillips is unaware of this. Assuming, of course, that he is actually unaware, rather than simply avoiding the fact.
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  5. German efforts to produce 'Wonder Weapons' only really began in 1942, when the war situation began to turn against them.
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  6.  @annoyingbstard9407  No. I don't 'imagine they designed them the day before they came into mass production?' The first design for what became the V1 was sketched out by Lusser & Gosslau on 27 February, 1942. The technology for what became the V2 had only been available from late 1941. Hitler, by the way, dismissed the concept as 'an artillery shell with a longer range and much higher cost,' at the time. Certainly, a number of theoretical ideas, leading in some cases to tests of prototypes existed before those dates, but nothing in the way of government sponsorship or finance was provided. Jet engines were not part of the 'wonder weapon' concept. More than one nation had been working on them, as a normal line of aircraft engine development. Similarly, several nations were working on nuclear weapons, Britain especially being well in advance of Germany. The German programme was, by the way, hamstrung by the involvement of anti-semitic prejudice, which led to a bias against theoretical physics, especially quantum mechanics.
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  7.  @annoyingbstard9407  I don't say so. I simply refer to the facts.
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  8. You need to inhabit the world of the Sealion 'Would haves.' Those people who constantly assert what the Luftwaffe 'would have' done to the poor old Royal Navy Never mind that the two largest navies on the planet, one of which had been planning and executing assault landings for around 200 years, took around two years to assemble the resources, and produce the plan, to carry our a successful landing in Normandy. The mighty Germans 'would have,' with no navy, a few aircraft largely untrained in anti-shipping techniques, and a few hundred towed canal barges, have planned and carried out a successful invasion in around 2-3 months. Please don't put these people off; they are enormously entertaining!
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  9. The Luftwaffe had had no training in anti-shipping operations at the time, and had just failed badly at Dunkirk. In fact, even after being so trained, they sank a total of 31 RN destroyers in the whole of the war. The RN had 64 destroyers within five hours' steaming of Dover. Luftwaffe fighters taking on Spitfires wouldn't stop the Royal Navy attacking and destroying the German river barges.
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  10.  @danishkfd  They had had their rest between late June and early September. What they didn't have was any means of getting their troops past the Royal Navy anti-invasion forces.
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  11. I take it that you haven't heard of the 'Reconstituted BEF' or General Weygand's comment to General Brooke that the French Army was 'no longer capable of organised resistance?'
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  12. I don't think Hitler cared much about slaughter, but more realistically most of the surrounded troops were likely to have surrendered. The probability is that, like most of his generals, Hitler regarded a surrounded army backed against the sea as trapped, whereas, by contrast, the British, with hundreds of years of sea power behind them, saw the sea as a large open highway.
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  13. No, they weren't. The RN sent evacuation ships to St. Nazaire, but fog prevented a lift on the first night, and the French corps with which 51HD was serving surrendered the following morning. That, by the way, was well after Dunkirk had ended in any case.
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  14. I urge you either to read, or at least ask someone to read to you, one of the many books which cover the details of German planning in 1940, and describe the extent to which they were commandeering freighters, barges, and tugs in order to produce a workable operation. I can recommend a few to help you out of your ignorance, if it would help?
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  15.  user-wj6dt5bq3w  As I have already written, little strange person, I read the book, years ago, and am fully aware of how unreliable it is. Goodbye.
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  16.  user-wj6dt5bq3w  The British never claimed any invincibility, only that any possibility of invasion of invasion had been prevented. Please don't quote from a source as tainted as Hesse, as it hardly reflects credit upon you.
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  17. Yes, they did. The Kriegsmarine had produced a plan, and had by September 1940 had assembled around 2,000 barges, 0ver 500 transports and tugs, and over 1100 motor boats, in French & Belgian ports. There is a fully detailed explanation in 'Invasion of England 1940,' by Peter Schenk. The fact that the plan had minimal hope of success in view of the overwhelming supremacy of the Royal Navy in Home Waters is a separate issue.
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  18. The alliance between Britain/France and Poland was quite specific. The allies undertook to declare war on Germany if Germany invaded Poland, but made no similar commitment where the Soviet Union was concerned. At the time of the declaration of war, Germany & the USSR had a non-aggression pact. Are you seriously suggesting that the events of June 1941 were predictable in September, 1939?
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  19.  @martinlarios8669  I am not 'implying' anything. I am simply stated what the terms of the alliance actually said.
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  20.  @iroscoe  No, it is a lot stupid. You can imagine the discussions between Hitler and his staff. 'How can we persuade the British to come to terms?' 'I know, let their entire army be evacuated back to Britain. That will teach them!'
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  21. The sinking of a few hundred German barges and tugs, and the death or capture of seventy thousand or so German troops might have resulted in Germany acting more cautiously thereafter, certainly.
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  22. The British armour had already been lost at the Battle of Arras, when a counter attack was attempted without much of the promised French support. Vehicles & artillery, both French & British, were destroyed at the last minute, immediately prior to evacuation.
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  23. Unfortunately, there seems to be a number of people who have convinced themselves that the Germany of WW2 was capable of achieving anything it chose and, therefore, because no invasion attempt took place, that must have been because the Germans never intended to try. If they had, of course, these people 'just know' that it would have succeeded. In general terms, the less someone knows about the facts, the more sure of this they are.
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  24. Hitler, since coming to power, had reoccupied the Rhineland and incorporated Austria into Germany. He then, without declaring war on anyone, invaded Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Belgium. Of course Britain & France declared war, in accordance with their agreements with Poland. This was, some would say belatedly, a line in the sand, and Hitler ignored it. By 1940, the world was quite clear how seriously Hitler took peace treaties. France was in the process of finding out. As to Britain being humiliated, hardly. The RN was more or less untouched, and had just organised the evacuation of over 300,000 allied troops from Dunkirk. Hitler, by the way, did not 'allow' the British to escape. Von Rundstedt stopped the armour in order to prepare it for the second stage of the invasion of France. Finally, if you see Germany as a military super power, compare the size of what, after Norway, was left of the tiny Kriegsmarine with the resources available to the Royal Navy, and then try to explain precisely how any sort of invasion was even remotely conceivable. If the Germans did not want war, they made a rather poor effort of showing it, don't you think?
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  25. Utter nonsense. There were, I believe, four companies of Indians with the BEF, in charge of mule transport units. None saw combat because they were not combat units, and almost all were successfully evacuated. If you want to write about the important role of Indian troops in North Africa, Italy, and Burma, then fair enough, but posting the kind of stupid comment you have done here simply exposes you, and their memory, to ridicule.
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  26. Not possible. Look at the distance involved, and the lack of repair/resupply facilities, to give two examples of the problems involved. Then ask a simpler question. WHY? The Japanese had ambitions to expand their possessions in the Far East, by taking over areas rich in oil, rubber, and minerals, and were coming under increasing pressure from US sanctions. Their concern in 1940 was the possibility of military action by the United States. Sacrificing much of their fleet in support of Germany in a European war, even had it been possible, would effectively have ended further expansion plans. In short, what was in it for Japan?
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  27. In terms of military casualties as a percentage of national population, the figure for Britain was higher than any allied nation except the Soviet Union. Obviously, you didn't know that, of course.
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  28.  @joonamikkonen_  Sorry, but it is simple statement of fact :- United Kingdom :- Population in 1941:- 48,216,000. Military deaths by 1945, 383,700 = 0.795% United States :- Population in 1941 :- 133,417,000. Military deaths by 1945, 407,300 = 0.305% France :- Population in 1941 :- 40,400,000. Military deaths by 1945, 210,000 = 0.519% Incidentally, my post referred to statistics which may be confirmed on any site. Where in it did I suggest that the French were 'incompetent?' The only comment so far attacking any particular nation has been yours.
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  29.  @joonamikkonen_  If you include French colonies, then the total population increases to 111,524, 472, as of 1939. The figures I quoted earlier of french military deaths, included French colonial soldiers. If you choose to base the % on the French empire as a whole, then the figure becomes 0.188% Poland, by the way : Population 34,849,000, Deaths 240,000 = 0.688%
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  30. Nonsense. He is still alive in the secret nazi moon base. I believe that Princess Diana and Elvis Presley live in adjoining domes.
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  31. You must understand that many Americans don't differentiate between England & Britain. Mind you, many Britons refer to America when they mean the US of A, as well.
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  32. PHL's answer is nonsense. The British & French had been planning their campaign for some time. Most of France was protected by the Maginot line, but this did not extend into Belgium. In the event of a German attack, the best French units, supported by the small but fully mechanised BEF, would move to support Belgium. The assumption was that a WW1 style western front would re-establish itself, the British and Commonwealth contribution would gradually increase with conscription and the arrival of Dominion & Empire troops, whilst the RN would establish a naval blockade of Germany along the lines of the one which starved her into submission in WW1. Unfortunately, the French High Command made wrong assumptions about the Ardennes. There was never the remotest possibility that the war would be fought on British soil, and the British did not 'ask' the French to declare war following the invasion of Poland. The French had a military alliance with Poland already in place.
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  33. They did.
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  34. For the same reason that everyone else disarmed. It isn't possible to maintain the kind of huge forces required in wartime during peacetime. Moreover, German rearmament only began after 1933.
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  35. What were these 'generous terms? Where might the texts of these many offers be read?
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  36. The Allied treaty with Poland in 1939 promised support in the event of an attack on Poland by Germany, but made no such similar promise in the event of an attack by the Soviet Union. Read the details of the alliance terms for yourself if you don't believe me.
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  37. Didn't the British also evacuate around 120,000 French troops?
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  38.  @jean-luchochart6960  Indeed, French boats did take part. 108 of them. They lifted 22,160 men. 45 Belgian boats lifted 3464 men, Two Dutch boats lifted 214 men, and one Norwegian freighter 3500 men. 689 British vessels lifted 308,888 men.
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  39.  @jean-luchochart6960  I only work in terms of history as it was, rather than as it might have been in some alternative reality.
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  40.  @jean-luchochart6960  As best I can recall, I haven't been critical of anyone. I have simply presented a series of facts. The reality was that both the British and French expected WW2 to follow a similar pattern to WW1, in that the British would run the war at sea, and would re-impose the blockade which had strangled Germany in WW1, whilst the French took the bulk of the (defensive) land war in the early stages, until the British & Commonwealth/Empire were able to accept more of the burden as overseas troops arrived in France, and conscription kicked in in the UK. At this point, the Allies would be able to pursue a more aggressive approach. Of course, events evolved rather differently.
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  41. That was why Britain seized French ships in British ports and Alexandria, and attacked the French squadron in Mers el Kebir. Not so much the possibility of the Germans taking over the ships, but the real fear that a collaborationalist French government would commit it in support of Germany.
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  42.  @micksmith106  Rommel wasn't at home. He was commanding 7th Panzer Division. Von Rundstedt (not Hitler) held back Army Group A's armour to have it rested and serviced before beginning the second stage of the campaign. He, like many other German generals, feared that the French might stage a second Miracle of the Marne. Hitler had been assured by Goering that the Allied forces in the Dunkirk pocket could be overwhelmed by the Luftwaffe, and he was foolish enough to believe him. The German command may well have believed that the Allied forces were trapped and going nowhere. But there again, the German command didn't understand the flexibility that sea power provided.
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  43.  @micksmith106  Rommel was celebrating his wife's birthday in 1944, not to the best of my knowledge on 24 May, 1940. Moreover, he was a junior Divisional commander at the time, with little input into the decisions of Field Marshals and fuhrers. The hitler of 1944 was far different from the hitler of 1940. He was at Von Rundstedt's HQ on 24 May, 1940, and agreed with von Rundstedt's decision, and his reasons for it, but he did not initiate the Halt Order.
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  44.  @micksmith106  The War Diary of Army Group A still exists, and it confirms that von Rundstedt gave the order.
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  45.  @micksmith106  The US National Archives has the War Diaries of German Army Groups from WW2. German military archives are kept at the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg.
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  46. An odd sort of a 'bluff.' By September, 1940, there were over 1800 converted barges, over 150 small merchant ships, almost 400 tugs, and over 1100 motor boats concentrated in Channel ports. A number of older warships had been stripped of their crews to man the invasion fleet, and 24 Divisions were concentrated in France to form the three waves of the invasion force. Certainly, Hitler was never enthusiastic about making the attempt, largely because of the overwhelming supremacy of the Royal Navy in Home Waters, but because Sealion wasn't attempted shouldn't be taken as proof that it was simply a 'bluff.'
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  47.  @noidea5984  How were the Western Allies to make any meaningful contribution towards the defeat of Germany on land without landing in France? The landing in the South was successful because the bulk of the German forces in France were opposing Overlord. At the time of Dragoon, the Germans had 10 divisions in Southern France, none of which were front line fighting ones.
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  48.  @noidea5984  When did I suggest that they should have landed in Germany? Don't post nonsense. The first objective was to defeat Germany. Liberation of France was an inevitable consequence. Dragoon was indeed intended to benefit the main action on Normandy. The point I was making was that Dragoon was not, as you claimed, the major part of ther liberation of France, but successful only because the vast bulk of German forces had been drawn into Normandy.
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  49.  @omegacentauri73  The Matilda II was a heavily armoured, slow moving, tank intended to operate in support of infantry. That is a definition of an Infantry tank. A Matilda II weighed 25 tons. The contemporary Cruiser Tank, the A10, weighed 15 tons, and the Mk VIb light tank weighed 5 tons.
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  50. If the British withdrawal was a secret, how is it that Gort & Blanchard met on the morning of Sunday, 26 May, decided that Weygand's planned counter-attack was unrealistic, and both determined to withdraw their forces behind the line of the Lys? Incidentally, when Belgium capitulated, it was a British division which blocked the hole left in the allied line. The British, by the way, didn't deploy all of their air force, but they did deploy more than they originally intended.
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