Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "RACIST or HERO - Winston Churchill - Forgotten History" video.

Exactly right, although Britain's prestige went down hill also because she wanted Dominions to keep buying British manufactured goods, and those goods by post-war standards were of poor quality and delivered late or never due to strikes. Armaments supplied by Britain to Australian forces in North Africa were of poor quality. For instance, British-made tanks broke down far too much, and would loose their tracks on turns. When the Australians had run out of operable tanks, they got American tanks as replacements. In theory these tanks were inferior - they were lighter and had smaller guns. But Australian crews called the "honeys" because they only broke down if a German gun actually got a direct hit. They didn't loose their tracks in the tightest turns, so they could race in, get a few shots off and mess up a few enemy vehicles, then turn around and clear off quick before the enemy gets himself organised and fires back. I used to know Australian aircrew who first flew British aircraft in the War and then changed to American aircraft. They all said the US planes were easier to fly, more reliable, and much easier to fix when they did go wrong. When a British fighter plane was delivered, in its crates, it took several skilled mechanics a couple of days to get it in flying condition. They could have a crated American fighter flying within an hour, using one trained mechanic assisted by a couple of untrained helpers.
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He definitely was the man Britain needed. The World, not so much. Churchill had been very keen on pressuring the USA to impose economic sanctions on Japan as punishment for invading China. These sanctions put Japan in a nasty corner facing ruin, and like a cornered rat, they struck out, bombing Pearl Harbour, thereby starting the War in the Pacific. Japan saw that as their only option. Because of the Tripartite Treaty previously signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan, this more or less automatically brought the USA into the War in Europe as a fighting force too. Before Pearl Harbour the USA had only been selling equipment to Britain. The Pearl Harbour bombing was the most marvelous news for Churchill - he knew very well the Britain could not win the War against Germany on her own, but with America fighting, backed by its immense population and industrial capacity, winning was assured. Churchill was both ruthless and cunning - it was probably his intention in pressuring for sanctions to get the USA into the war, notwithstanding its neutrality policy. The Japanese were quite aware that all the men Australian could train and equip had been sent to North Africa and so Australia could be assumed to be defenseless. Not true in practice as it turned out, but that was the picture the Japanese had. Thus, without Churchill, there probably would not have been a war in the Pacific, Britain would have lost to Germany, and possibly Germany later would have lost to the USSR. And the USA and the rest of the World would have carried on quite happy, but for the Chinese being enslaved by the Japanese.
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I was surprised that Heaton quickly glossed over Churchill's and Harriss's policy of bombing German cities willy-nilly. In this Churchill was a war criminal, causing death and hardship on a vast scale in Germany, but having negligible impact on Germany's ability to fight and no effect at all on the German leadership's desire to fight. The British area bombing of residential and light commercial areas greatly disappointed US military leadership because strategically it was pointless. When the War in Europe ended, a major independent investigation was commissioned by the US President, and this confirmed that the British bombing had little significance in winning the War. Churchill sacrificed all those RAF men for nearly nothing. You cannot blame Churchill for the RAF bombing at night, however. British bombers could fly only at fairly low altitudes, and were not very nimble in handling. They had to bomb at night to have any chance of getting home or even reaching the target area. American aircraft could fly and bomb accurately at twice the altitude, rendering German anti-aircraft guns much less effective.
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@coling3957 Yes, they did use British aircraft and other equipment successfully.- because that's what they had. it does not imply equipment quality. And the Spitfire was somewhat special. It had exceptionally good handling in the air -pilots could push it to its limits, confident that they would survive. My mother bought a Moriis car, because it was easier to park than father's big Chevrolet. But the Morris wore out faster and had a fault rate about double that of the Chev. So the Morris was successfully driven but it sure didn't have the Chev quality. It is true that US Generals including Macarthur did not regard available Australian troops highly. That was because the British blocked the expeditious return of Australian troops from North Africa to fight the Japanese. Macarthur had to send in Australian troops that had just been recruited and had completed only half their basic training. They never the less defeated Japanese troops in New Guinea and won respect for that. Another factor in American attitudes was that Australians were trained on British lines - the star-level officers were all British trained. This caused problems at all levels - at grunt on the ground level, incompatibility of methods, at general officer level, a lack of strategic thinking. The poor quality of officers trained by the British, who were very nearly defeatist, was recognised by the Australian government, who asked the US to send a general to take over. The US sent a spare one that had reached retirement age - Macarthur. Macarthur proved so much better than the British trained officers it was a joke. Your claim that Australians refused to serve abroad needs verifying. In 1939 almost all males of suitable age were recruited and sent to North Africa at British request. However British officers and Churchill never forgave Australia for sending troops to New Guinea and elsewhere to fight the Japanese instead of to the European theatre. Churchill couldn't care less about the Japanese threat - wasn't his problem.
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@JeffreyHornick-ep3si No. The British made no attempt to bomb infrastructure that supported the German war effort, except for a few special missions, such as the skip-bomb dam busting. Hitler and his generals were the sort that were neve once swayed by the suffering of his people. Churchill thought fighting a war was about punishing the enemy people. In contrast, the American leadership thought that fighting a war was about strategicaly crippling the enemy's ability to fight. The British bombed houses and block of flats, whereas the Americans bombed oil refineries and industrial estates. Hitler gave orders that the Luftwaffe bomb only military targets in Britain. He only changed that order after the British started bombing residential areas willy-nilly.
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Heaton startled me at 11:40 when he said that Churchill won prime-ministership. "Win" in this context means win in an election, which Churchill did not do. The King appointed him PM as the elected party had no leader who knew how to win the War. Churchill did. Heaton claimed at 16:45 that Lend-Lease supply of equipment was a violation of US strict neutrality laws. This is not so, since an amended Neutrality Act had been passed (the 1939 version), permitting the sale and delivery of equipment of a commercial basis - essentially buy now, pay on easy terms, as TV salesmen used to say. In theory, Germany was free to buy arms from the US as well on a commercial transaction basis. Of course, if Germany did, the British Navy would never have allowed delivery. This is also how Britain got equipment before Lend -Lease came into effect - again a commercial transaction, this time on a cash on the barrel basis. In any case, Lend -Lease was created by the 1941 Lend-Lease Act passed by the US Government - so it was legal anyway. Heaton seems to think Churchill was not heartless. Churchill was certainly ruthless. That's how he got the War won in Europe - get the Yanks in, and forget about British colonies and dominions in the Pacific theater - if they fall to Japan, too bad. However, Australia wisely had other ideas. Churchill and Stalin got on well with each other. That's because each saw himself in the other - both ruthless bastards, prepared to do whatever it takes.
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@coling3957 You are clearly totally wrong about Singapore. Singapore was lost because Churchill ignored Australian warnings and left an incompetent general in charge. This fool did not position his forces properly and surrendered way too quickly. It is on record that the Japanese were shocked when they found out how many British and British Commonwealth troops were suddenly their prisoners. The Japanese were clearly outnumbered - the British should have been able to quickly defeat the Japanese and prevent a siege situation - they had three times as many troops and more than adequate guns, transport, and ammunition. Australia had been listening to Japanese radio communications and knew the Japanese were coming, and by what route. This was urgently communicated to Churchill, he had time to react, but he ignored it. When the fight started, Churchill sent a message - "fight to the last man". This told the British officers that no help was coming and demoralised them. British officers as a class then were not keen at putting their own selves at risk.
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@ijm1963 What? You a Brit who can't face cold hard facts, huh?
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@JeffreyHornick-ep3si By Hitler's direction, the Germans only attacked military targets in Britain until the RAF started their carpet bombing of German residential areas. Hitler THEN ordered civilian targets in England to be bombed in retaliation. So there was no justification for the British attacks. They started it.
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@rcha2024 That's not accurate - you have mis-interpreted the facts. The German action that led to the Dunkirk fiasco stared 10 May 1940 - the very same day the King appointed Churchill prime minister and in effect British commander-in-chief. Thus the near loss of the British Army was something Churchill inherited, not created. In any case, the fiasco came about largely due to a useless French command - they didn't do what they were supposed to do - coordinate with the British and defend their country. In regard to the Americans, Churchill was always well aware that Britain could not win against Germany. It wasn't Churchill who declared war on Germany, it was the idiot who was prime minister before him. Churchill's strategy all along was to use, persuasion, trickery, and any strategy possible to get around the US policy of not taking sides and get them into the War. Britain could not win against Germany, but the USA certainly could. The USSR being on the same side certainly helped - helped a lot, but the USA would have prevailed anyway - possibly less than a year later. Thus Churchill was the man who won the War, by the strategy he adopted, he deliberately got someone else to fight for Britain - it didn't just happen. Britain never suffered anywhere near the level of destruction that was heaped on Germany - a fact that came about due to the very smart fast response way the RAF controlled its fighter aircraft, Goering's incompetence, and Churchill's unique support for the Bletchley Park team decoding German radio communications. British military officers typically didn't believe in eavesdropping the enemy communications, but Churchill did, made available all the resources needed, and disciplined generals who ignored the information gained.
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@FORGOTTENHISTORYCHANNEL : You are utterly wrong. Illegal under exactly which laws (name of act and date)? In your Part 2 on FDR you made the same claim, I posted there explaining why it was not illegal in a little more detail than I did above. You then posted in reply that it was illegal but did not explain why. Just making an unsubstantiated claim is no good - you need to back it up. The US 1939 Neutrality Act is known as the "Cash and Carry" act simply because it permitted US firms to sell arms and equipment to belligerent nations on a normal commercial transaction basis provided it was on a cash on the barrel basis and the goods were shipped by normal commercial means, which they were. When Lend Lease came into effect in 1941, it allowed time payment and allowed the US government to provide the credit. Nothing illegal about it. In Churchill's 6-volume history of World War 2 he explained that he had to have British firms place normal commercial purchase orders or contracts directly on US firms and pay cash up front in order to conform with US neutrality law then in place. This is what sent Britain bankrupt - stumping up the cash. The cash and carry provision of the Act was never tested in court. If there was any possibility that selling arms to Britain was illegal in some way (usually laws are illegal if they violate the Constitution), one would expect it to reach court. There was objection raised in Congress, with some opposing members claiming the Act was illegal, but that is what opposition members do all the time. That's how democracy works - the party in power presents laws and policies, and the opposition objects, causing debate, which teases out any real problems. Then they all vote on it, and if its passed, it's legal..
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