Comments by "Simon Nonymous" (@Simon_Nonymous) on "The biggest convoy disaster of WW2 | Convoy PQ-17" video.

  1. Sorry to make you last in my list of replies Mick but yes. I read The Real Cruel Sea about 10 years back, and I was flabbergasted by how badly the MN suffered in the way you describe, and how the basics like pay stoppages when your boat was sunk were at first deemed normal. Rightly, a lot of this was amended during the course of the war, but I take my hat off to them; they bought the cost of our freedom with their lives.
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  2.  @kemarisite  usually when there is a global war on and they would like protection from the enemy who keep wanting to sink them. We didn't seem to have an issue on our side of the pond.
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  3.  @kemarisite  that's a helpful explanation Frank - there may be someone out there who knows better than I - but the real lesson from 1917 was that convoys did work, and did work rewally well, hence they came in here pretty quickly in WWII, no ifs, no buts. King's refusal to accept that was the start of the problem; as I understand him, if he wanted black to be white, it would be so. A matter of authority in a nation at war seems unlikely. Thank you for your response - I am usually wrong, so appreciate hearing what you said.
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  4. And indeed, how many correct decisions did he make, which don't get recognised as quickly. The loss of tonnage and cargo was bad, but percentage wise, a fraction of what was delivered possibly. Every loss or injury is an individual tragedy of course, but the human losses in PQ17 would have been a quiet day in WWI, in 1944 Normandie, or especially on the Eastern Front where these supplies were heading.
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  5. Perhaps research a bit more. Churchill did say that if Hitler invaded hell, he would at least make a decent refernce for the Devil. Ie - my enemy's enemy is my friend. I would not call that sympathy, I'd call it good realpolitik, and no one really seems to have any good alternatives apart from A Bomb the Commies. (Which in 1941 wasn't really an option was it?)
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  6. And how is the weather in Beijing numbnuts? He'd more balls than you.
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  7.  @dovetonsturdee7033  a comprehensive and helpful reply - I am indebted to you. Thank you.
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  8.  @dovetonsturdee7033  yes, I think I read a lot of this in Clay Blair's books on the U Boat war. Thanks mate!!
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