Tom from Cornwall wrote: ↑01 May 2021 19:49
daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑01 May 2021 19:09
Would you agree that the British chose to put significant RN manpower into their capital ship, carrier, and cruisers in 1943-44
Um, yes, of course I would agree that the British chose to keep significant RN manpower in their capital ships, carriers and cruisers. They also, as EwenS pointed out in post #64 decommissioned many older capital ships, carriers and cruisers during this period. You pretty much ignored his rather informative post though.
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daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑01 May 2021 19:05
My apologies; that was for Gooner. Sincere apologies.
Don't worry about it. I'm not entirely sure what kind of basic training a RM went through before say 1942 when some began to be used to form RM Commando units and obviously went through much more intense light infantry training. It would be interesting to find out though.
daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑01 May 2021 19:21
The questions here were for Gooner, who posted the reference. Do you have the memorandum?
No, but it looks like you can download it for free at the moment (CAB 66/51/16):
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... r/C9080108
I think there was a higher level British Manpower Committee at which the kind of questions you are raising were more likely to be debated. That would be where decisions about distribution between armed forces and industry would be made.
Regards
Tom
So the bottom line is in 1943-45, the British had sailors aboard large warships that were, to be frank, excess to Allied requirements after Italy's surrender and before the formation of the BPF for basing in Australia in the (northern hemisphere) winter of 1944-1945. Interesting the period of the ETO campaign that covers where landing craft crews would have been useful, isn't it? Glad we agree.
RMs serving as landing craft crews were, presumably, at least as useful as the re-purposed British Army AA troops and RAF Regiment personnel who filled the ranks in 21st AG in 1945, so whatever training the RMs had was as adequate as anyone else. QED
The Grigg memo is interesting reading; June, 1944, is a little late to be raising the issues, of course, but it is interesting he specifically called out the RAF Regiment and the British Army AA units (which apparently, everyone agreed could be tapped after the removal of the DIVER - V-1, apparently - threat; the uselessness of AA against the V-2 should have accelerated the desire to perform ABM at the source). Interestingly enough, he says nothing about Bevin's Boys, which would seem an obvious pool of physically fit manpower that was in the UK and
available.
Along with the obvious question about diverting 48,000 physically fit British conscripts to the coal industry in 1944-45, the acknowledgement the British Army's AA forces were over strength, the questionable use of the RMs, RAF Regiment, and RN, conscription in Northern Ireland (for labor service, if not military service), Dominion and Commonwealth manpower, Italian ISRU and German POW personnel, and labor recruitment in European neutrals, what's clear is that decisions the British
Army (meaning Brooke) made in 1943 - raising 6th Airborne Division, keeping separate armoured brigade groups with organic motor battalions in the order of battle, rather than organizing them as tank brigades for attachment to infantry divisions, throwing away a brigade+ of infantry in the Dodecanese, using Army infantry battalions in beach groups when British and colonial pioneer and labor units, or RN manpower, could have been at least partly substituted, the proliferation of special operations forces, etc. - all could have gone the other way and helped keep the 2nd and 8th armies (and Canadian 1st, for that matter) up to strength in the theater that actually mattered.