| Flags to mark VE day 08:45 - May 5 with 3176 views | Bluefish |
would it not be a better way to mark VE Day by waving EU flags? This would show what those brave people achieved in the war. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:29 - May 5 with 1758 views | Guthrum |
| Flags to mark VE day on 11:57 - May 5 by MattinLondon |
Just a quick question for you - hope you don’t mind.
In your opinion, if Britain was not an island and connected to continental Europe, would Britain have fallen? Did the fact that we’re an island save the country from being conquered?
I did read somewhere that the Nazis hesitated after Dunkirk- not sure if this is true or not. Ta. |
Almost certainly. The necessity to stop and mount an amphibious invasion was the only thing which prevented the German army from rolling on.
Unless, perhaps, it was only by a very narrow isthmus, which could have been heavily fortified. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:34 - May 5 with 1753 views | Guthrum |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:13 - May 5 by WeWereZombies |
To say that the Japanese did not know if the Russians were coming is, frankly, ridiculous. |
They didn't anticipate the Kwantung army would collapse so rapidly and completely. It was supposedly an elite formation.
Even Stalin's allies were not sure if, when or to what extent he would act against Japan. It could be argued that using the atomic bombs at the earliest possible time (before any kind of stockpile had been created) was an attempt to cut short the War before he had a chance to. | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:37 - May 5 with 1752 views | Guthrum |
| Flags to mark VE day on 11:47 - May 5 by WeWereZombies |
Your second point is completely wrong. The Japanese were considering surrender, with an almost certain verdict that they had to, to avoid a Russian invasion. However, the Allied demands for unconditional surrender were very unpalatable to the Japanese mentality. A battle was going on between the Hawks and the Doves in Washington on whether to relax those terms, but there are suspicions (not least because of Truman's enthusiasm for his 'new toy' as documented in the minutes to the Atlantic Conventions) that some in the United States had to drop the bombs regardless just to find out what they would do in a real war situation.
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/debate-over-japanese-surrender
It is still a source of much contention between historians, and I will admit that I am much swayed by having gone to Hiroshima and Nagasaki back In January, but please do not go making sweeping statements about the most sombre of historical events; the understanding of which may still be vital to all our futures. |
On another note, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (plus Japan in general) are places I'd very much like to visit one day.
I remember being very sobered by visits to some of the battlefields of the First World War, notably Verdun. | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:39 - May 5 with 1749 views | flimflam |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:29 - May 5 by Guthrum |
Almost certainly. The necessity to stop and mount an amphibious invasion was the only thing which prevented the German army from rolling on.
Unless, perhaps, it was only by a very narrow isthmus, which could have been heavily fortified. |
They had to take out our air force first else they would have been blown to pieces before reaching England by the RAF and RN.
If we had lost The Battle Of Britain we would have been invaded thats a certainty. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:42 - May 5 with 1744 views | Guthrum |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:39 - May 5 by flimflam |
They had to take out our air force first else they would have been blown to pieces before reaching England by the RAF and RN.
If we had lost The Battle Of Britain we would have been invaded thats a certainty. |
Altho even that may have been a failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)
The Germans lacked a lot of the specialist beach-landing equipment and portable harbours the Allies developed for Normandy. | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 12:57 - May 5 with 1736 views | MattinLondon |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:29 - May 5 by Guthrum |
Almost certainly. The necessity to stop and mount an amphibious invasion was the only thing which prevented the German army from rolling on.
Unless, perhaps, it was only by a very narrow isthmus, which could have been heavily fortified. |
Thank you. |  | | |
| Flags to mark VE day on 13:10 - May 5 with 1733 views | WeWereZombies |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:24 - May 5 by Guthrum |
The experience of the aftermath of the First World War, wich had ended with an armistice and a traditional negotiated peace, informed a lot of decisionmaking in the West. Particularly that the idea of "not really being militarily defeated" had allowed the Nazis to build a platform of having been unfairly penalised. Hence unconditional surrender. They couldn't reasonably offer to Japan anything better than they had to Germany, both were aggressors who had launched destructive wars (arguably Japan first, against China). After everything which had happened during the War, I'm not sure that would ever have been negotiable on the Allied side, if they had the means to gain outright victory.
The - mainly military - faction subscribing to the 20th century concept of Bushido and fighting to the death in honorable self sacrifice for the Emperor (itself founded on a historical myth as tenuous as European chivalry) was still in the driving seat at the beginning of August. That was the option on the table, not capitulation. When the decision to bomb was taken, the Soviets had not yet given any hint of when they might move, or how far. It wasn't until the shocks of the atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria* that the pragmatists (of whom there were, indeed, several**) managed to sieze control of the decisionmaking in Tokyo - but only just.
* The extent and rapid success of which, from 9th August on, was at least as big a factor as the US atomic bombing, if not more so. But prior to its launch, the Japanese hoped their armies could make a hard fight of it.
** Including the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. But their influence was arguably less than the that of the military, until events strenghtened their hand. |
Your first paragraph may or may not be correct, but it does not address the issue of whether Japan was about to surrender.
Your second paragraph assumes that the Japanese were all of one mind. This is patently wrong, they would not even have been discussing surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped if there was a unified position. Contemporary reports even say that it was the Emperor who wanted to surrender and was prepared to negotiate terms close to unconditional surrender, but the opportunity to 'save face' was necessary. This would have avoided the nuclear catastrophe.
Even the most rudimentary appreciation of game theory will permit you to understand the manoeuvres that Russia was making, a post war land grab was clear for all to see and Japanese political theory of the time is very clear about expected outcome as Russia moved towards the Korean peninsula..
I said in a subsequent post that I found your conclusion on this latter point ridiculous but rather than reiterate that may I suggest that you read a little more widely on the subject. Your grasp on the military hardware is certainly impressive but I think it leads you to rely on technological outcomes only rather than the social outcomes also. The Japanese, pioneers in pension provision and citizen welfare, are no slouches at the latter. A failure to appreciate cultural differences (and similarities) will inevitably lead you to the wrong conclusion. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 13:20 - May 5 with 1725 views | WeWereZombies |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:37 - May 5 by Guthrum |
On another note, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (plus Japan in general) are places I'd very much like to visit one day.
I remember being very sobered by visits to some of the battlefields of the First World War, notably Verdun. |
The A-bomb dome in Hiroshima is the most sobering place I have ever been (and I have visited Toul Sleng prison and the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Auschwitz and a few other of the 'dark tourist' sites' as Dom Joly calls them). It is the nearest thing to a commemoration location that can be provided because the event took place hundreds of feet in the air and slightly to the south of the building. But to think that people came into this, designed by a Czech architect, building to carry out rudimentary administrative tasks and not too soon into their morning, maybe as they were turning a page or lifting a telephone, they became dust. Hundreds of them.
The A-bomb in museum in Nagasaki is a tremendous repository of artefacts and information, not just about the tragic event but on current nuclear arsenals, efforts at disarmament and even arguments to retain current weaponry to enforce force other nations to disarm.
I am still processing it all, but it has changed me. In some ways this weeks episode of 'The Reunion' on Radio our is a necessary antidote to a complete subscription to the alternate view of what happened to end the war in Asia, concentrating as it does on the prisoner of war experience. [Post edited 5 May 2020 13:26]
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| Flags to mark VE day on 14:05 - May 5 with 1696 views | Radlett_blue |
I think the Home Guard of Walmington-on-Sea would have seen them off. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 16:10 - May 5 with 1675 views | Churchman |
| Flags to mark VE day on 12:39 - May 5 by flimflam |
They had to take out our air force first else they would have been blown to pieces before reaching England by the RAF and RN.
If we had lost The Battle Of Britain we would have been invaded thats a certainty. |
Had we lost the Battle of Britain, I’m sure we would have approached Germany for an Armistice. we would have lost the war. It was the key turning point. The RN, though powerful, learned at Dunkirk that it was highly vulnerable to air attack, in particular the Ju87 Stuka. That much maligned aeroplane went a long way to closing the Mediterranean to the RN over the next few years.
However, the Germans tried to win a strategic battle with a tactical Air Force and was a long way from winning it. Warfare of this type and scale had never been tried before and while the quality of aircrews were excellent, it’s leadership at senior level was not. While the Bf109 fighter was excellent and a match for the Mk1, 1a and 2 Spitfire and superior to the Hurricane, it was hampered by a critical short range and misuse by air fleet leaders. The Bf110 heavy fighter was another excellent aeroplane for what it was, but it couldn’t live with front line single engine fighters. Fast, heavily armed with a good dive climb performance, it’s lack of manoeuvrability and poor defence is often cited, but its key weakness was lack of acceleration.
The bombers, particularly the Ju88 were good for the time (a lot better than our death traps), but carried a small payload and very poor defensive armament. The German system of aircraft production, repair and replacement was also poor and pilot training slow. the Ju87 was a close support aeroplane for use with complete air superiority. It was impossible to protect.
We had a mix in quality of pilots and initially out of date combat tactics. We had though two first rate front line fighter types. We had excellent organisation, a brilliant rotation system and crucially an integrated method of tracking raiders including radar defence - the Chain Home system. In Hugh Dowding we had one of the true heroes of WW2 along with Keith Park who commanded 11 Group. They were ousted after because they we’re not ‘yes men’ or tactful with their ‘betters’. Crazy.
I think the RAF was quite some way from losing the battle. I don’t think Sealion was ever a serious plan either. Converted barges, a tiny navy suggests it was an expensive game of who blinks first. Hitler would never have risked his army (the greatest in the world) over 26 miles of water.
As for the atomic bomb, they were perfectly justified and saved millions of lives. As for somebody describing them as a ‘war crime’ that to me is as PC daftness, as is describing Bomber Commands campaign on Germany as a ‘war crime’. [Post edited 5 May 2020 16:41]
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| Flags to mark VE day on 16:29 - May 5 with 1667 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Flags to mark VE day on 11:24 - May 5 by flimflam |
It was tongue in cheek.
The only thing that saved us from the same fate was Dunkirk, The English Channel, The RAF and the bonkers decision to bomb London instead of the airfields.
Edit - And our Navy although that would of been be overcome by owning the skies. [Post edited 5 May 2020 11:35]
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I told you I couldn't tell the difference. I think there should be a law on here that sarcasm has to be in italics. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 16:30 - May 5 with 1662 views | Chutney |
I'm just going to wave my Paul Rambo Lambert flag. |  | | |
| Flags to mark VE day on 18:12 - May 5 with 1635 views | WeWereZombies |
| Flags to mark VE day on 16:10 - May 5 by Churchman |
Had we lost the Battle of Britain, I’m sure we would have approached Germany for an Armistice. we would have lost the war. It was the key turning point. The RN, though powerful, learned at Dunkirk that it was highly vulnerable to air attack, in particular the Ju87 Stuka. That much maligned aeroplane went a long way to closing the Mediterranean to the RN over the next few years.
However, the Germans tried to win a strategic battle with a tactical Air Force and was a long way from winning it. Warfare of this type and scale had never been tried before and while the quality of aircrews were excellent, it’s leadership at senior level was not. While the Bf109 fighter was excellent and a match for the Mk1, 1a and 2 Spitfire and superior to the Hurricane, it was hampered by a critical short range and misuse by air fleet leaders. The Bf110 heavy fighter was another excellent aeroplane for what it was, but it couldn’t live with front line single engine fighters. Fast, heavily armed with a good dive climb performance, it’s lack of manoeuvrability and poor defence is often cited, but its key weakness was lack of acceleration.
The bombers, particularly the Ju88 were good for the time (a lot better than our death traps), but carried a small payload and very poor defensive armament. The German system of aircraft production, repair and replacement was also poor and pilot training slow. the Ju87 was a close support aeroplane for use with complete air superiority. It was impossible to protect.
We had a mix in quality of pilots and initially out of date combat tactics. We had though two first rate front line fighter types. We had excellent organisation, a brilliant rotation system and crucially an integrated method of tracking raiders including radar defence - the Chain Home system. In Hugh Dowding we had one of the true heroes of WW2 along with Keith Park who commanded 11 Group. They were ousted after because they we’re not ‘yes men’ or tactful with their ‘betters’. Crazy.
I think the RAF was quite some way from losing the battle. I don’t think Sealion was ever a serious plan either. Converted barges, a tiny navy suggests it was an expensive game of who blinks first. Hitler would never have risked his army (the greatest in the world) over 26 miles of water.
As for the atomic bomb, they were perfectly justified and saved millions of lives. As for somebody describing them as a ‘war crime’ that to me is as PC daftness, as is describing Bomber Commands campaign on Germany as a ‘war crime’. [Post edited 5 May 2020 16:41]
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Although the Stukas restricted the full impact of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean I don't think they came close to 'closing the Mediterranean to the RN', that is not the impression I got from a close family member who served in the Med fro the outset of the war until he was switched to the Arctic Convoys in 1943.
I think you need to read up on the subject before you make statements like your final paragraph, may I suggest A.C. Grayling's 'Amongst the Dead Cities'? Even Guthrum has acknowledged that the bombing of civilians has been going on since 1914 in contravention of all the decent rules of war. It is far more than PC daftness to condemn the murder of millions, rather like the coronavirus what started out as a mad Italian pilot firing a pistol from a biplane in the Libyan desert at some tribesman (and was condemned at the time as an unsavoury act) became a contagion of savagery. And the war in Asia would have been over in weeks with or without the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The rest of your post is decent. | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 18:16 - May 5 with 1637 views | Trequartista |
The biggest economy and the driving force of the EU is the country that was defeated! |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 19:05 - May 5 with 1621 views | Radlett_blue |
| Flags to mark VE day on 18:16 - May 5 by Trequartista |
The biggest economy and the driving force of the EU is the country that was defeated! |
Possibly the Allies had learned that imposing incredibly harsh terms on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles had indirectly led to the rise of fascism & World War II? | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 19:37 - May 5 with 1606 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Flags to mark VE day on 11:04 - May 5 by Guthrum |
Wrong. It was well known that the Little Boy design (which was very rudimentary) was a lot less efficient than the Fat Man implosion design tested at Trinity. The latter was technically far more complex, hence the test to make sure it worked.
The key with an atom bomb (hydrogen bombs work differently) is to have fission take place in as much of the material as possible before it blows itself apart. The uranium gun design (Little Boy) has nothing more than the steel gun barrel down which one part of the core was fired at the other. Whereas the implosion design (fat man) had inward momentum, ensuring that far more of the material would undergo fission. Still only a very small percentage, but the latter was a significant improvement.
The Hiroshima weapon was less powerful (16 kilotons TNT equivalent) than the Nagasaki one (21 kilotons).
When you say 'the whole war', effective US bombing of the Home Islands was only possible for the final 12 months of the war. Also, those cities had not been bombed even before target selection for the atomic bomb raids had started.
You say "war crimes" with regard to the bombing of Tokyo, but the absolute prohibition against aerial bombing had been ignored by everybody since 1914 (and, in any case, the wording specifically referred to balloons). They weren't an "undefended locations", having anti-aircraft guns and military garrisons (not to mention military installations and arsenals). Most of the prosecutions for war crimes by the Allies were for waging aggressive war, for the mistreatment and killing of PoWs and for genocide. |
I gave not a clue on the detail of any of this...I do note that you haven't questioned the 15 square miles and a whole lot more. Thoroughly depressing all of it. |  |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 19:39 - May 5 with 1606 views | Churchman |
| Flags to mark VE day on 18:12 - May 5 by WeWereZombies |
Although the Stukas restricted the full impact of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean I don't think they came close to 'closing the Mediterranean to the RN', that is not the impression I got from a close family member who served in the Med fro the outset of the war until he was switched to the Arctic Convoys in 1943.
I think you need to read up on the subject before you make statements like your final paragraph, may I suggest A.C. Grayling's 'Amongst the Dead Cities'? Even Guthrum has acknowledged that the bombing of civilians has been going on since 1914 in contravention of all the decent rules of war. It is far more than PC daftness to condemn the murder of millions, rather like the coronavirus what started out as a mad Italian pilot firing a pistol from a biplane in the Libyan desert at some tribesman (and was condemned at the time as an unsavoury act) became a contagion of savagery. And the war in Asia would have been over in weeks with or without the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The rest of your post is decent. |
Yes, the Stuka claim is an exaggeration and fails to recognise the effectiveness of the Italian SM79 Sparviero torpedo bomber and the astonishing bravery and skill of Italian Midget submariners And others. However, Stuka RN losses included Panther Hereward, Kelly, Kashmir, Greyhound, Fiji, Gloucester, Juno, Ydra, Psara, Illustrious wrecked for a year, Warspite badly damaged. It also played a big role during the astonishing Operation Pedestal, the convoy sent to relieve Malta. One of the most amazing episodes of the war. One Ju87 even wound up crashed on the deck of Ohio.
Was the Med actually closed? No it wasn’t, but it wasn’t a healthy place to be for a few years as the siege of Malta and fall of Crete testify. It proved even less healthy for the Italians and Germans later. My parents neighbour was a submarine captain out of Malta. A lovely man, he wrote a book on his war. Jeez, what brave men they were.
I’ve not read Graylings book but I will. I’ve read plenty of others though and have as good an understanding as anyone of Bomber Commands campaign. How the participants have been treated since the wars end is to me an insult to the 55000 who lost their lives, including a relation of mine. What exactly are the ‘decent rules of war’? I don’t think they ever existed, whether at Agincourt, the Napoleonic wars, Zeppelins in 1914 or the starving of Germany in both wars. Were we under decent rules of war obligation to leave them free to feed themselves while the uboats and Luftwaffe starved this country? There is just winning and ending it any way you can and for us from 1940, I think the air war was the only serious way to do it. | | | |
| Flags to mark VE day on 19:45 - May 5 with 1600 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
This thread has been better than any history lesson I ever had...cheers all! | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 22:36 - May 5 with 1563 views | flimflam |
| Flags to mark VE day on 18:12 - May 5 by WeWereZombies |
Although the Stukas restricted the full impact of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean I don't think they came close to 'closing the Mediterranean to the RN', that is not the impression I got from a close family member who served in the Med fro the outset of the war until he was switched to the Arctic Convoys in 1943.
I think you need to read up on the subject before you make statements like your final paragraph, may I suggest A.C. Grayling's 'Amongst the Dead Cities'? Even Guthrum has acknowledged that the bombing of civilians has been going on since 1914 in contravention of all the decent rules of war. It is far more than PC daftness to condemn the murder of millions, rather like the coronavirus what started out as a mad Italian pilot firing a pistol from a biplane in the Libyan desert at some tribesman (and was condemned at the time as an unsavoury act) became a contagion of savagery. And the war in Asia would have been over in weeks with or without the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The rest of your post is decent. |
Useless fact of the day.
The wailing sound the Stukas made was 2 jericho trumpet sirens attached to the front of each wing. It was obviously to instill fear into whoever was on the receiving end of the deadly accurate dive bombers. So accurate in fact that troops manning guns on the ground soon learnt that just running 20 metres away usually meant you survived which was a lottery with other less accurate bombers.
The wailing sound of the jericho trumpets is now and has been since WW2 the default sound for planes in all cartoons and most films even though it is an unnatural sound for a plane. | |
| All men and women are created, by the, you know the, you know the thing. |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 22:55 - May 5 with 1556 views | Churchman |
| Flags to mark VE day on 22:36 - May 5 by flimflam |
Useless fact of the day.
The wailing sound the Stukas made was 2 jericho trumpet sirens attached to the front of each wing. It was obviously to instill fear into whoever was on the receiving end of the deadly accurate dive bombers. So accurate in fact that troops manning guns on the ground soon learnt that just running 20 metres away usually meant you survived which was a lottery with other less accurate bombers.
The wailing sound of the jericho trumpets is now and has been since WW2 the default sound for planes in all cartoons and most films even though it is an unnatural sound for a plane. |
Another useless fact about Jericho trumpets on a Ju87 Stuka was that they not only reduced the speed of the aircraft by 10-15 miles an hour - not good in an already slow aeroplane, but the noise drove the crew nuts. In service, many were actually removed for those reasons.
Other odd facts were that the pilot had a little window in the floor between his feet to help judge when to start the dive. Shame oil from the engine and dirt made it useless. Not so useless was the remarkable automatic pull out system. Set the aircraft up and it would do it all for you. It made sure if you blacked out the aircraft would recover itself. That’s as long as it was set up right. Just before the war there was a demo for Hermann and the scrambled egg brigade. They’d set the height wrong and two squadrons dived literally into the ground. Oops!
It was according to Eric Brown (test pilot) a delight to fly and the only one that could by dived truly vertical. [Post edited 5 May 2020 23:00]
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| Flags to mark VE day on 23:23 - May 5 with 1544 views | WeWereZombies |
| Flags to mark VE day on 14:05 - May 5 by Radlett_blue |
I think the Home Guard of Walmington-on-Sea would have seen them off. |
The Home Guard were actually given a very specific and vital job to do in the event of a Nazi invasion. It was their duty to put 'stop lines' in place. This involved erecting barriers between physical obstructions such as rivers, railway embankments, quarries and so on. It would have involved unravelling miles of barbed wire and the supporting formwork. The plan for this operation was lodged with captains in the Home Guard and the Nazis knew this to be the case, so would have tortured those part time soldiers to get the information. That episode of 'Dad's Army' where John Le Mesurier has his fingernails pulled out, Ian Lavender is garroted and Arthur Lowe put on the rack never got aired... | |
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| Flags to mark VE day on 23:52 - May 5 with 1541 views | reusersfreekicks |
| Flags to mark VE day on 09:46 - May 5 by flimflam |
Most of Europe waved flags at the Germans so should come natural to them. [Post edited 5 May 2020 9:46]
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That's despicable. You have no idea what people went through. |  | | |
| Flags to mark VE day on 23:53 - May 5 with 1540 views | SpruceMoose |
| Flags to mark VE day on 23:52 - May 5 by reusersfreekicks |
That's despicable. You have no idea what people went through. |
Typical FlimFlam response. Waste of oxygen, |  |
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