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Engines only I'd think.
Although we Brits tend to denigrate those who require creature comforts as inferior species (and within the UK forces there's generally a competition to see who can endure the most for fun - we had a phone message once to pass to an SAS officer who was somwehere nearby on leave, our crew Captain told the Wingco 'Oh, he'll be dug into a hillside somewhere') - any idiot, as the saying goes, can be unconfortable.
I know that when I visited US bases I got my own TV with satellite (one channel on my last visit - but it WAS satellite) a microwave, fridge, ironing stuff and private bathroom. Back at my own base we'd upgraded to private bath, and the rest was available 4 miles away in the local town's electrical store....
At least one sub was fitted out with ice cream maker etc when the crew paid to have commercial items rewired to suit the boat's electrical system - and I don't blame them for a minute... hell, if I'd been skipper I'd have televised the attacks and had popcorn ready.
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Originally posted by davejb1167:
Engines only I'd think.
Although we Brits tend to denigrate those who require creature comforts as inferior species (and within the UK forces there's generally a competition to see who can endure the most for fun - we had a phone message once to pass to an SAS officer who was somwehere nearby on leave, our crew Captain told the Wingco 'Oh, he'll be dug into a hillside somewhere') - any idiot, as the saying goes, can be unconfortable.
I know that when I visited US bases I got my own TV with satellite (one channel on my last visit - but it WAS satellite) a microwave, fridge, ironing stuff and private bathroom. Back at my own base we'd upgraded to private bath, and the rest was available 4 miles away in the local town's electrical store....
At least one sub was fitted out with ice cream maker etc when the crew paid to have commercial items rewired to suit the boat's electrical system - and I don't blame them for a minute... hell, if I'd been skipper I'd have televised the attacks and had popcorn ready.
Maybe their next boats will have a MacDonald's!
Banned
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Originally posted by jarmstroHX229:
pcisbest - I think we are probably singing from the same hymnsheet. As you say it's all ifs and buts and at the end of the day, its all history.
For my part I do hope you will take my comments as they are intended - that of friendship and respect. I honestly have no reason or wish to insult you or anyone else. Suely, we can forcefully discuss these issues without feeling any personal offence?
However, the impression you give is, in my opinion, quite wrong. You, perhaps unintentionaly, give the impression that Britain and its allies were crushed, on their knees and about to loose the war. And in the nick of time, over the hill, shining in all their glory, comes the cavalry in the form of the USA to save the day.
Loosing/winning are irrelevant. What matters is that Btritain had not lost. I can assure you that its population at no time felt defeated. I have spoken to many war veterans, both those who served and civilians, and have been astonished by their universal determination to see it through regardless of the cost. Logic and statistics are simply inadequate for a full and rounded view of the war.
Again, you see the Battle of the Atlantic purely in terms of the USA's oustanding merchant shipbuilding effort (truly an astonishing feat). There were many, many other factors involved: Donitz's inablilty to get enough boats to sea. The successful and ongoing development of the convoy system. Counter sumarime weapons and tactics. Air cover. etc etc. These measures were steadily evolved with increasing effect from the start. I would maybe conceed one point: The crisis (or turning point) was probably Spring 1943 with convoys SC122 and HX229 when Donitz made his supreme effort. He failed.
I appreciate the mature response, and I agree we are probably talking about the same thing, but from different vantages.
It definitely is true that the USA did not soley ensure the U-boat downfall. You make a valid point that much of the reason for Germany's failure in the tonnage war was in a way self-induced through Doenitz being unable to field the number of U-boats necessary.
If I remember right, German strategists figured 300 boats would need to be put to sea to ensure British capitulation, and at the start of the war, they actually had only about 50 odd, with 9 boats actually patrolling the Atlantic. So truly, the shortsightedness of Raedar, with his preoccupation with surface ships (and Hitler's tendency early on to agree with him) did much to lose them the war.
But as you said, we cannot have one without the other. German u-boat forces were less than desirable in number, but on the other hand, they were certainly exacting a toll that was becoming unbearable and if the trend had continued, we can only wonder what the end result would have been as U-boat production steadily ramped up. But going back to the first hand again...would that have mattered with British advancements in centimetric radar and such?
Anyway, bottom line I guess is that if I gave the impression that the USA came and saved everyone, that was not my intent. But the U.S. undeniably allowed for the war to brought to the decisive conclusion it had in the time line that it did. I think we can agree without U.S. involvement, the war would have been considerably longer and overall more costly. The invasion of Europe would have been extremely more difficult, given lack of U.S. air support and ground forces, not to mention logistics. Even allowing for the UK and Allied forces to beat Germany down, how would they have approached taking back the Pacific? It would have been very interesting indeed if the USA had never entered and they lived in a world with a Japanese detente.
Banned
It would have been very interesting indeed if the USA had never entered and they lived in a world with a Japanese detente.
One of the "early war" hopes of the Japanese was that the Germans would win in Europe, and that hostilities would cease with a negotiated armistice with the U.S.; ....leaving them in possession of their newly acquired Pacific Territories.
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pcibest-Thanks for your reply.
I agree with (nearly) all you have written.
Allow me a couple of 'buts':
1) I honestly do not believe that Britain would have ever capitulated. No matter what. Under any circumstances. Starving or not. Such was the populations resolve. I realise that it is dificult to understand why this might have been so as we live in a different time and age. It is a smaller world now. I do not say this through any sense of patriotism but because I have lived amongst those who lived through the war. Russia did not capitulate when it was clearly beaten and Britain and The Commonwealth would not have done either. As long as Britain stood unconquered, beaten and starving or not, Germany's war was lost. Utter anihilation would have been necessary. Hitler never wanted war with Britain and he misjudged the mood of the British people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=belzgoxfayo
2) The war would have been considerably shorter if the USA had entered it, with Britain, in 1939. I find it hard to fully understand why they did not?
EDIT: It is easy now to consider Britain as part of Europe. But it was no so then. Britain is an island seperated from France by a sea. As wide a gap then as the Atlantic is now to the USA.
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Rather in the way Hitler mistakenly thought that the British would negotiate following the fall of France, possibly (at least in part) as our upper classes had a bit of a tendency to flirt with the Nazis, 'our sort of chap' and all that.
One thing I always find surprising about these arguments is that nobody seems to mwention that the US entered as a result of being attacked - Japan and Germany were allied, the US was by default in the war, it had very little to do with choice. (Britain CHOSE to be at war, by jointly guaranteeing Poland, which was probably a darn stupid thing to do but there you go).
I don't consider either reason for entering to have any greater moral right than the other - ie choosing to do it or being manoeuvred into it. The Brit way allowed us some PR value in that we could claim to be defending the poor downtrodden against the big bad bully, but in reality it suited our political purposes to guarantee Poland and we didn't lift a finger for Czechoslovakia prior to that - so much for being the good guys!
I remain surprised that the Germans managed as much as they did considering they had so many nations against them - Russia bled them to death, American production was the free world's armoury, and it would be difficult to have anything (from a Brit viewpoint) but admiration for the clear bias Roosevelt showed despite a strong isolationist lobby at home. Equally I think it was a very selfless decision to put the Pacific on hold while Germany was dealt with - right or not, it must have been a courageous decision from the US point of view.
I think it just goes to show that we all rely on each other - and at times different nations, or even individuals, provide the leadership and/or examples needed to show the rest of us what we really ought to be doing. Do you reckon, if you got off a space ship and met the locals a few star systems along (we come in peace, arm phasor banks Mr Chekov <g>you'd say
'Hi, I'm from Earth'
or
'Hi, I'm from Winter Haven, Florida'
(Edited as the misspelled phrase 'string isolationist lobby' sounds like an angry violin section)
Member
Originally posted by davejb1167:
Rather in the way Hitler mistakenly thought that the British would negotiate following the fall of France, possibly (at least in part) as our upper classes had a bit of a tendency to flirt with the Nazis, 'our sort of chap' and all that.
One thing I always find surprising about these arguments is that nobody seems to mwention that the US entered as a result of being attacked - Japan and Germany were allied, the US was by default in the war, it had very little to do with choice. (Britain CHOSE to be at war, by jointly guaranteeing Poland, which was probably a darn stupid thing to do but there you go).
I don't consider either reason for entering to have any greater moral right than the other - ie choosing to do it or being manoeuvred into it. The Brit way allowed us some PR value in that we could claim to be defending the poor downtrodden against the big bad bully, but in reality it suited our political purposes to guarantee Poland and we didn't lift a finger for Czechoslovakia prior to that - so much for being the good guys!
I remain surprised that the Germans managed as much as they did considering they had so many nations against them - Russia bled them to death, American production was the free world's armoury, and it would be difficult to have anything (from a Brit viewpoint) but admiration for the clear bias Roosevelt showed despite a strong isolationist lobby at home. Equally I think it was a very selfless decision to put the Pacific on hold while Germany was dealt with - right or not, it must have been a courageous decision from the US point of view.
I think it just goes to show that we all rely on each other - and at times different nations, or even individuals, provide the leadership and/or examples needed to show the rest of us what we really ought to be doing. Do you reckon, if you got off a space ship and met the locals a few star systems along (we come in peace, arm phasor banks Mr Chekov <g>
'Hi, I'm from Earth'
or
'Hi, I'm from Winter Haven, Florida'
(Edited as the misspelled phrase 'string isolationist lobby' sounds like an angry violin section)
I agree fully, especially with the parts in bold.
Too often the moral high ground is seized by the "original Allies" like France and Britain for taking up the struggle on behalf of Poland...but people seem to to forget that this was really the last straw in a long train of abuses by Hitler that he was allowed to get away with through appeasement. To then see people attack the U.S.A. for wishing to remain aloof from looming war in Europe seems somewhat hypocritical.
Both Chamberlain and Deladier must take responsibility for letting Hitler get to the position where he could even contemplate invading Poland. I think many of us know the cliche "rape of Czechoslovakia" and the quote from Hitler himself where he said something along the lines that if only a few divisions in France had been mobilized, he would have backed down.
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