Comments by "" (@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684) on "Historigraph"
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Individual cases of honourable treatment of enemy combattants exist within ALL nations. When HMS Dorsetshire picked up 86 Bismarck survivors after it's sinking on 27th May 1941, one of the men rescued was seriously injured, and sadly died on the operating table in the ship's medical bay that evening. The following day, 28th May 1941, on a bleak, steely grey North Atlantic morning, the unfortunate sailor, his body draped in a flag of the German Imperial navy (as there was no swastika flag in the ship's flag lockers, the old imperial German flag was substituted with the permission of the senior ranking German survivor), he was then "committed to the deep" from the deck of HMS Dorsetshire with full military honours provided by both his German colleagues AND Royal Navy sailors of HMS Dorsetshire, complete with a Royal Marine armed guard of honour and a bugler for "the last post"..... this was just 3 days after the sinking of HMS Hood with the loss of 1415 British lives. Sailors of all nations generally share a brotherhood that is largely unknown in land and air forces.
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A great post by Ian above, I'd just like to add that soon after the Dunkirk evacuation the vast majority of French troops that had been evacuated to the UK (~100,000) were quickly shipped back to France via the Normandy, Brittany and French Atlantic ports, to rejoin the fighting to the south of the German's "Ardennes thrust", though the armistice was signed between the French and Germans before most of those repatriated French troops were redeployed.
The second evacuation that Ian alludes to was named "Operation Aerial". This as well as evacuating troops and a large number of civilians also managed to re-embark a fair amount of British supplies and equipment to be taken back to the UK. Most of the second evacuations also took place at the same Normandy, Brittany and Atlantic ports that I mentioned above.
During the evacuation of British troops from the French port of St Nazaire on 17th June 1940 a British troopship, the requisitioned "RMS Lancastria", was taking onboard thousands of evacuees when it was attacked in the Loire estuary by luftwaffe bombers. It was hit by a number of bombs, and sank within 15-20 minutes, resulting in the deaths of 6000 - 7500 people (The accurate figure will never be known due to the chaos of the events and the resultant lack of boarding documentation). It was the largest single loss of life in a shipwreck in history at the time it happened by a LONG chalk, but is almost completely unknown today.... unlike the later losses of the German ships "KDF Wilhelm Gustloff", "M.V Goya", "S.S General von Steuben" and "S.S Cap Arcona" which are regularly covered by contemporary history books and programs.
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Thats some utter nonsense you've wasted your time typing in there.... "Hitler never realy intent to invade the UK" indeed.
Please read below the opening preamble of "Fuhrer Directive No. 16" issued on 16th July 1940 from the Fuhrer HQ to OKW.
"16 Jul 1940
The Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.
Führer Headquarters,
16th July 1940.
7 copies
Directive No. 16 On preparations for a landing operation against England
Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and, if necessary, to carry it out.
The aim of this operation will be to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany and, if necessary, to occupy it completely."
Of course in your addled mind Hitler sacrificed close to 2000 luftwaffe aircraft, and the creme of his prewar luftwaffe "Experten" aircrews, and stripped his inland waterways of 2500 vital large canal barges to carry over the 13 wehrmacht divisions, including 2 panzer divisions, for a laugh.
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@druisteen Below is the vebatim British ultimatum delivered to Adm Bruno-Marcel Gentoul at Mers-El-Kebir on the 3rd July 1940
"It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian 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-Kébir 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 and Italians.
(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 or Italians unless these 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 orders of His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships us from falling into German or Italian hands."
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The initial torpedo hit on the HMS Prince of Wales, was even more fortuitous that the one that struck the rudders of the Bismarck 7 months earlier. If it had struck anywhere else than where it actually did, it's likely that PoW's torpedo defence design would have shrugged off the blast. As it was the torpedo hit the support stanchion of the port outermost propeller shaft. This relatively unimportant looking piece of steelwork actually kept the propeller shaft in solid, correct alignment as it passed through various bearings, seals and "stuffing boxes" as it made its way from the ship's engines out of the hull to the propeller itself.
With the support stanchion blown away, the now unsupported rapidly spinning propeller shaft oscillated and flexed wildly and in doing so tore apart all of the various hull seals and bearings along its length, destroying the water integrity of sealed compartment after sealed compartment throughout the aft of the ship, meaning that as opposed to one or two compartments/tanks being flooded, a far greater proportion of PoW's integrity was destroyed, on top of which the flooding shut down multiple electrical generators thereby knocking out of action many of PoW's systems, the most vital of which in the emergency flooding situation she then faced being her pumping and ballast systems.
Also the absence of the RN armoured aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable, which on the 3rd November 1941, had been damaged in the Carribean as she was about to redeploy to Singapore was a major contributory factor to these events.
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@maxn.7234 I know that the long held German national policy of "drang nach Osten" was still uppermost in Hitler's mind, BUT he was not happy with the western European situation in summer 1940. He first tried to "soft soap" the UK into submission, which failed, and then hoped he could cause the collapse of the UK govt, if necessary by effecting a landing in the south of England. When he failed in achieving this, it wasn't the end of the matter. He only moved on the USSR because he believed that the communists would fall within a year, and then he would have moved back to Britain for another attempt.
It's utter nonsense to say "no one in Germany was serious about it". The simple fact of the economic dislocation that Germany exposed herself to by the stripping of her entire canal system of barges, the marshalling of nearly 30 army divisions (including 4 panzer Divs) just in the initial assault wave, and the creation of 2 regiments of amphibious assault tanks was no "bluff", but most telling of all was the damage that the luftwaffe elected to inflict on itself by its efforts in the skies over Britain. Close to 2000 aircraft destroyed with the majority of the aircrews lost to the luftwaffe. They were only prepared to make that sacrifice because it was their full intention to knock Britain out of the war and welcome those thousands of highly trained aircrew back into the ranks of the luftwaffe after their liberation from British PoW camps, something which obviously never happened.
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@maxn.7234 What part of the world's then largest navy interdicting German merchant naval traffic, and an air force that was increasingly starting to relatiate against German cities, on top of the UK's potential to act as the western allies's largest unsinkable aircraft carrier do you not understand?
I think the Luftwaffe bombing of British cities went a LONG way towards keeping the British public's interest focussed on the ongoing struggle. Of course Hitler made appeals to the UK to accept a "Pax Germanica", What makes you think that the UK was going to settle for that, when every other promise made by Hitler had turned out to be a complete lie?
Remember When the nazis wanted to reintegrate the Sudeten Germans back into the greater German reich.... and then a few months later marched right the way through Czechoslovakia to "Sub Carpathian Ruthenia"? There weren't any "ethnic Germans" there.... or Hitler's "I have no more territorial demands in Europe" shortly before sending the Wehrmacht into Poland.
2000 Barges in Denmark? There wouldn't be any land left for all the canals they have to build to moor them!!! The barges actually employed by the wehrmacht to be adapted as troop carriers were not little narrow boats, but large flat bottomed cargo carrying Rhine barges known as prahms which were used for carrying coal and other bulk cargoes, each one capable of carrying many hundreds of tons of bulk cargo, so a sudden removal of large numbers of them would have had a palpable short term effect on German industry. How do you make out that "none of the barges were sent west" when there are historic photographs of RAF bombers dumping their bombloads over hundreds of them in Ostend, Calais, Boulogne, and Dieppe during August and September 1940?
Also Germany doubled the number of the panzer divisions it possesed by reducing the panzer contingent of each existing divisions to 1 panzer regiment and doubling the number of largely horse drawn panzer grenadier regiments in each division. The Panzer divisions assisgned to "Seelöwe" were of the non-watered down 2 panzer regiment type.
Of course Sealion was a dumb plan... but when you've blustered at your enemy in his bolt hole and he's told you to "get stuffed" what else is there for you to do but attempt to make good your threats, as you KNOW he is going to get stronger and stronger and cause you big problems in the future? As I said above quite simply that the luftwaffe was prepared to lose a few thousand highly trained aircrew into British captivity clearly illustrates that they fully believed that they were going to cause the downfall of Great Britain and recoup their temporarily lost fliers.
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@maxn.7234 Hence why I specifically said the POTENTIAL to become the unsinkable carrier. Do pay attention.
What makes you think Germany controlled all of Europe apart from Spain in 1940? You seem to be forgetting the entire Balkans and Greece were still independent countries, and Italy although part of the "pact of Steel" was NOT under German control, witness their kack handed invasions of Greece & Egypt which were most definitely NOT part of German strategic planning. Also there was NO chance that Spain was going to ally with Germany. The head of German military intelligence Adm Canaris, who had Franco's ear, had secretly advised him NOT to fall in with Hitler, and also the supply of US food which kept the devastated post civil war Spanish population alive was in NO uncertain terms supplied to them on the condition of Spanish neutrality.
While Germany did indeed receive MASSIVE support from the USSR up until the Germans foolishly bit the hand that was feeding them, they did NOT supply the Germans with everything they needed, hence why Germany struggled throughout the entire war for materials such as copper, tungsten, manganese, rubber and other vital supplies. Even during 1940 Germany which had built up prewar stockpiles of many commodities and had benefitted from the ravaged economies of her recent European conquests was already having to re plan her economy after the supply of US materials and fuel dried up because of the unexpected British & French declaration of war in sept 1939. Even after the fall of France the RN stopped most German ships from attempting to trade with the US.... Hence why the early US Policy of "Cash and Carry" so benefitted the UK and hindered nazi Germany... even though the Germans were quite at liberty to trade with the US (because of US neutrality) they had virtually no chance to do so because of RN interdiction.
Of course Britain didn't pose a direct threat to Germany during the summer of 1940, I at no point have said it did, but it WAS a nasty thorn in the side of the nazis and DID pose a threat for the future. The nazis knew that the post Dunkirk evacuation period was THE best opportunity they were ever going to have to remove that problem. Hence why they chose to dash their much vaunted airforce against Fighter Command. Of course Britain could not win the war alone.... but it could not be beaten into submission, and it acted as the SOLE catalyst that carried on the fight that was eventually to see the fall of nazism. IF the UK had surrendered in Summer 1940 as the ENTIRE world expected us to then a nazi Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals would have been the most likely outcome.
Of course there were pacifist anti war voices in Britain, BUT they were in a minority. Being a democracy such voices were not herded into concentration camps as they were in Germany, even potential British traitors such as Oswald Mosley and members of "the Right club" amongst others lived safely at "His Majesty's pleasure" in Great Britain for the duration and then freely in the peace of post war Europe.
You have also ignored the massing of over 30 German army divisions in North Eastern France in Summer/Autumn 1940 and the assembling of thousands of converted maritime craft for their transport across the channel... Don't think because the Kriegsmarine understood the naval reality of Sealion, that the German army and air force concurred with their appraisal. A hamfisted improvised attempt at something is still an attempt.
And remember the German's postwar mindset over their failed first phase of "Operation Sealion"..... "if at first you don't succeed, deny all evidence that you ever attempted it in the first place".
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@Bracus.Reghusk The numbers evacuated from the Dunkirk pocket were.
205,000 British troops,
110,000 French troops
23,000 Belgian troops.
The BEF suffered 66,426 casualties, that was 11,014 killed or died of wounds, 14,074 wounded and 41,338 men missing or taken prisoner
The BEF lost one seventh of its personnel killed and captured, because the TEN BEF divisions on the Belgian border were left isolated by the unannounced withdrawal of the French first army on their right flank, and collapse of the Belgian forces on their left.
The Perimeter of the Dunkirk pocket was manned by British, French and Belgian troops, which fought to allow British French and Belgian troops be evacuated MOSTLY by the RN and British "little ships".
Don't try to blame the DREADFUL performance of the >140 divisions of the French home army on the 10 BEF divisions. They were seconded to the PISS POOR French high Command, and it was THEY who lost the battle.
Luckily We Brits fought on and saved you from the 1000 year nazi reich, while the majority of the French population quietly acquiesced and collaborated with nazi rule.
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Below is the vebatim British ultimatum delivered to Adm Bruno-Marcel Gentoul at Mers-El-Kebir on the 3rd July 1940
"It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian 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-Kébir 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 and Italians.
(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 or Italians unless these 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 orders of His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships us from falling into German or Italian hands."
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My father was a stoker onboard HMS Dorsetshire during this period. On Sunday 5th April 1942, he was off-watch from his normal station in the boiler rooms and called to his "action station" at about 12pm, at this time he was a leader of a damage control party up near the Dorsetshire's bows adjacent to the ships "paint locker". The ship's company were aware that a Japanese reconaissance aircraft (from the Japanese heavy cruiser "Tone") had passed astern of them earlier in the morning and had disappeared in the hazy sky. They hoped that it had not spotted them as they made their way SSW to rendezvous with the rest of the British Eastern Fleet. At around 12:30pm the approaching Japanese aircraft were spotted. Very shortly after the commencement of the Japanese air attack, all comms in the ship were lost, though it was all too apparent that Dorsetshire was receiving a heavy pounding, with the ship heeling over and quaking from the impact of the Japanese bombs.
During the chaos and din in the compartment where dad and his damage control team were stationed, one concussion dislodged a length of heavy suction hose, known as an "elephant's foot", which hit dad on the head, knocking him senseless for several seconds. On regaining his wits in the now blacked out darkness of the compartment, he sensed that the ship was starting to list heavily, and ordered the party to get on the upper deck via a ladder leading to the "bosun's hatch" in the compartment roof. The first man up the ladder shouted that he couldn't unlatch the hatch "dogs". Dad climbed up and used a crowbar to release the latches and the party crawled out into the burning sunlight on the rapidly inclining foredeck. One of the damage control party members, a South African named David van Zyl, confided to dad that he couldn't swim and despite desperate pleas from dad for him to jump overboard, he tragically went down with the ship, the rest of the party all survived.
After swimming away from the sinking ship, dad together with nearly 1000 other men from the two ships (which had both been sink within 10 minutes of the start of the attack) found themselves floating in the ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest land. A few of the Japanese aircraft machine gunned the survivors in the water before departing, and dad said he never forgot the face of one of the Japanese pilots with a large black moustache as he swept overhead before he flew off. Only one boat from the two ships had survived the attack, and it was used to keep the most severely injured sailors safe out of the water. The survivors floated right through the cold of the first night, and then through the burning heat of the second day, most of them were suffering badly from sunburn and being encrusted with salt from the sea water, though to lessen the effects many of them smothered themselves in oil that had started to float up from the 2 sunken ships, which gave some respite.
As night approached on the second day, dad said that the general feeling was that they were all going to die from thirst and exposure, but incredibly the men in the one boat had an oar with a biscuit tin lid tied to the top of it and had taken it in turns to keep the upright oar revolving in the boat, and shortly before sunset a swordfish aircraft from Ceylon spotted a reflection of the sun's rays from the biscuit tin lid, and radioed a report of the survivors back to land. Admiral Somerville, the commander of "Force A" had already sent ships to search for the survivors and these ships (HMS Enterprise, Paladin & Panther) which were about to give up the search were instructed by radio to the location and the 1000 survivors were saved.
He always said that if the Japanese had been able to shadow the Cornwall and Dorsetshire for another couple of hours, they would have wiped out a large part of the RN Eastern fleet as they rendezvoused with his two ships.
After being landed in Durban in East Africa dad went on to serve on the battleships HMS Warspite & Valiant (During the Salerno landings) and also HMS Malaya, and ended the war in Perth (Fremantle), Australia onboard the submarine tender, HMS Adamant.
After his return from Australia to the UK onboard the ship "S.S Maidstone Castle" and his subsequent demobilisation in 1946, dad was a tram then a bus driver in Liverpool until his retirement in 1984, and he passed away in 2013, aged 93.
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Below is the vebatim British ultimatum delivered to Adm Bruno-Marcel Gentoul at Mers-El-Kebir on the 3rd July 1940
"It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian 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-Kébir 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 and Italians.
(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 or Italians unless these 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 orders of His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships us from falling into German or Italian hands."
Jumped up tosser of an inadequate French matelot (Gensoul) thought he would piss about at a time of CRUCIAL importance in European history.
To use a modern turn of phrase the French idiot "Fucked about & found out" causing the deaths of 1300 French sailors.
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