D-Day November 1942

[ChristopherPerrien]

Another rant I see. It would seem that you are twisting what went on to try and satisfy some preconceived notions of your own.

Your first comment even if there were a nugget of reason in it totally ignores the fact that Churchill on his own did NOT set up British/Allied Strategy

Your comments re Roosevelt seems to be a tirade against Roosevelt and contains no evidence whatsoever. Granted he trusted Stalin too much.

Your reason with regards to Overlord is of course a total non-starter. Overlord went in because there was a need to defeat Germany. The timing was right in that involved the first time sufficient trained troops and support and supplies and means of transport were available to throw against a much weakened enemy with a good chance of success. Roundup did not meet these criteria for 1943 let alone 1942.

The North African/Italian campaign had of course been successful. If you think it was like Gallipoli then you can't be reading the same books as the rest of the world. Allied strategy was based on what was possible given the circumstances of the war. The Normandy landings were chosen after very careful deliberation and worked well. It fooled the Germans and clearly you as well. It did NOT dismiss the value of having a port, it recognised the difficulty of capturing one big enough and in working order in order to be a supply base. Events proved correct.

No the Allies weren't lucky, they judged well. Your implied threats of V2 and nerve gas in obliterating UK just doesn't stand up to serious consideration

Hi Peteratwar,

Judging by the fact you almost only post in the what-if forum, and I don't see much depth to any of your points here other than History Channel level history, I don't feel like it would be that constructive to debate your post.

Excuse me,
Chris

Past that , I 'll leave this topic now. I never wanted to get seriously involved in this "what-if", to begin with.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Adm KING never forgave the Royal navy for that

Ernie King didn't need anything extra to "not forgive the RN for" - he was a recorded Anglophobe with a VERY bad chip on his shoulder about it.

the British would not send any re-inforcements to the US fleet

This would be the SAME Ernest J. King that prevented the RN having any role in the Pacific war for several years?

Well Phylo, it was the lack of aid from the Britsh Navy in late 42 that made Ernest King not want their "help" :roll: . I suggest you read up on the issue.

Past that I remember some extremely obnoxious punk comments you made in a topic a while back, something about the "raid on Iran" and US Armed forces, for which I will not forget anytime soon.

Last Post on this topic ,
Chris

[JonS]

Judging by the fact you almost only post in the what-if forum, and I don't see much depth to any of your points here other than History Channel level history, I don't feel like it would be that constructive to debate your post.

"Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You're black."

[The_Enigma]

I think this little back and forth shows how much credibility you have:

Your post:

First off, I highly admire Churchill, not because of what he wrote or the views presented in the history books. ABout the only problem I have with Churchill was by the time of WWII, his views were outdated. He was an old man highly set in his ways and Victorian era POV. This affected Allied strategy in that it put it about a 140 years out of date. Sabe'.

My reply:

Considering when it came down to military planning the actual army made most of it i dont see how this is a valid point - you say Brooke, earlier on, was just a figurehead who could be sacked any time would be invalidated by the fact he argued the toss with Churchill quite a bit and stayed in post till the end of the war.

Your reply:

Nope , I was refering to Roosevelt and the US command structure.

See i can understand where i got confused now - by you rambling about how Churchill was inflicting his Victorian principles on everyone and screwing up the Allied war strategy i failed to realise how you were actually talking about Roosevelt and the US command structure. My fault good sir! :roll:

Well Phylo, it was the lack of aid from the Britsh Navy in late 42 that made Ernest King not want their "help"

Why dont you provide some evidence? So the Americans requested the help of a Navy you earlier labelled as completely and utterly useless – it would seem the US Fleet had a better opinion of it than you do. But then why would the massive US Fleet need help from the Royal Navy? If my understanding is correct by late 1942, following the Coral Sea and Midway, the naval dominance in the Pacific had been shifted from the Japanese due to the loss of quite a number of their carriers.

Let me just address a couple of other little things:

Glad you think Ethopia was worth something.

Well it refutes your claim that Britain was just in it to grab more land for the Empire or did you miss that?

Germans , the Italians were there before the Germans

Here you are helping to refute your own point – previously the British were just land grabbing old French possessions according to you. Here you have helped support that one of these old possessions was attacked because the Axis was there first.

Gee ,another one of them sensible things. real reason: Iceland was necessary for ASW.

So I guess when the British state they are taking Iceland to stop it from being captured by the Germans and likewise land in Norway to prevent German occupation that’s all right – but when taking Madagascar under the same guise its all of a sudden just imperial expansion…

WOW, All this talk about fears, and Germans. Sensible reasons for doing anything I guess.

Fears make people do or not do allot of things. Look at the recent past and Iraq. Look at the Cold War – it didn’t “heat” up due to fears. Likewise Middle East Command had to act due to the fear that the Germans may encircle the British position, ruin their chances of prosecuting the war and capture the Middle East oil fields. German plans had already been acting out of Syria at the time so it wasn’t just some groundless decision made.

Chris since you don’t really back up your points - considering all the official histories and historians work since the work is fake - and you fail to address everything thrown your way, discredits your positions I think its fair to say your just trolling....

[peteratwar]

I wonder if Chris has ever read the Alanbrooke diaries ?

He is right in that Alanbrooke could be dismissed at any time. It would probably trigger the mass resignation of the Chiefs of Staff which in turn would have triggered a major political storm.

Alanbrooke stood up to Churchill and kept him under control and forced him to see strategic sense. Churchill trusted him absolutely.

[phylo_roadking]

I'm also sloightly at sea over the comments in several places that Churchill didn't decide grand strategy, but the the War Cabinet did, in associated with the CIGS..given that Churchill retained the portfolio of BOTH Prime Minister AND Minister for War in said War Cabinet...

[peteratwar]

Not sure quite why you are at sea.

Churchill was not a dictator. He could be forced out of office at any time by a vote in the House of Commons.

Strategy was decided by the War Cabinet acting on the advice of the Chiefs of Staff after much discussion over what was possible.

Churchill did indeed have those positions but as said didn't make him a dictator by any means

[phylo_roadking]

Churchill was not a dictator. He could be forced out of office at any time by a vote in the House of Commons

Peter, see my comments elsewhere on this recently; as head of a coalition government his position was more secure than, say, FDR's - that could have been changed on the result of a single election vote. In effect - he had to BOTH loose the support of the House AND his coalition partners....AND there to be somone ELSE capable of forming a government

Strategy was decided by the War Cabinet acting on the advice of the Chiefs of Staff after much discussion over what was possible.
Churchill did indeed have those positions but as said didn't make him a dictator by any means

I didn't say he was a dictator; but he had a much greater role IN that War Cabinet and its overall decisionmaking power on strategy than Chris' comments would indicate; and as Minister for War he was in the position to generate said concepts/ideas etc. for discussion.

[Tim Smith]

"ACTION THIS DAY" memos! Guaranteed to get everyone chasing their tails.

[The_Enigma]

Peter, see my comments elsewhere on this recently; as head of a coalition government his position was more secure than, say, FDR's - that could have been changed on the result of a single election vote. In effect - he had to BOTH loose the support of the House AND his coalition partners....AND there to be somone ELSE capable of forming a government

Thats a Vote of no confidence - if i understand correctly if he lost those he could have been dumped for someone else.
An election vote would be what he lost in 1945 would it not - before the war was over.

There was always Attlee and Eden, both iirc quite agreed with the proscution of the war and would have kept it going along the same lines.

I didn't say he was a dictator; but he had a much greater role IN that War Cabinet and its overall decisionmaking power on strategy than Chris' comments would indicate; and as Minister for War he was in the position to generate said concepts/ideas etc. for discussion.

While i agree that he played an important role i do not for a minute agree with Chriss' statement that Churchill was soley calling the shots like some sort of Hitler. We know he generated ideas and some of them were carried out (Tiger convoy, Greece etc) but we also know Brooke spent the better part of 4 years fighting with him and shooting down numerous of his ideas. We also know the military acted on its own without referring back to London (i.e. launching of tactical operations and the three higher tier commands in the Middle East got there own "political officer" who acted as London) all the time and that the military also resisted Churchills butting in (i.e. Monty and Alexander not acting until they felt ready etc).

[phylo_roadking]

Thats a Vote of no confidence - if i understand correctly if he lost those he could have been dumped for someone else.

Not necessarily. That depends on a LOT of variables - particularly on his capacity to muster a new majority by renegotiating the coalition or building a new one. OR of course a PM can decide to continue with a "minority government", and simply horse-trade at every single division of the House that didn't have a party whip applied - but that's a VERY exhausting and nerve-racking way of doing business Chamberlain for example hung on for some days after the Norway debate, until it was clear that the movement against him was snowballing; meetings of a Conservative group focused on removing him started getting a lot of LABOUR MPs attending, for example

Also - and this is where the modern continental examples come in, but apply under british law - it can also be a Vote of No Confidence in the GOVERNMENT...and a PM who's confident of doing so can simply dissolve his Cabinet and attempt to form a new government that WILL win the support of a majority in the House of Commons. IIRC it's never actually been tried that way HERE...but the provision is still there. It would depend on the exact crisis and who was responsible for it; MPs, being closer to the centre, might have a different view of exactly who would be responsible for a particualr crisis, rather than the figurehad PM over the government.

Churchill, for example, had to stand up and give a rigorous defence of the Government's policy and conduct of the Norwegian Campaign! Well - after all HE had been responsible for most of it! Yet after the resignation of Chamberlain he was the ONLY politican in a position to attempt to form a stable government.

[JonS]

Then there was Tunisia but well the Germans occupied that first leaving your rant

Germans , the Italians were there before the Germans

Is this true in any meaningful way?

Tying down more German forces than Allied forces committed and actually making progress makes this little comparison sort of naff.

If you think there was a larger forces of Germans tied down in the Italian campaign than Allied ones , I don't know, I think I don't want to argue any further points with you about this topic.

No thinking required. It's quite true - although you do have to be a little careful with what you count. For instance, 15th AF doesn't really count in the Allied column, for what should hopefully be obvious reasons.

Not only that, the forces and resources that the Allies expended in Italy were far more affordable to them than the forces Germany expended there.

[Delta Tank]

I wrote a post for another topic and somehow it appeared here? So I removed it, sorry!

Mike