[Doug64]

This is the standard history and I don't doubt that Dowding was feeling massive pressure. But there was zero chance of Goering breaking fighter command. Yes if he'd continued with his previous tactics, fighter command might have been forced to pull back their fighters from the most forward air bases, but there was no chance of Goering achieving the level of air superiority necessary to launch an invasion. Of course there were two further problems. The Germans lacked the transport fleet for an amphibious assault and they lacked the surface fleet to defend it.

Sealion was a pipe dream. Never in the field of human conflict, have so many been so frightened, by such a none existent threat by so few.

I took a look into this, whether the Luftwaffe could have gained air superiority if they’d stayed focused on the airfields and radar stations, and found opinions divided. OTOH, I also found a suggestion that if the Luftwaffe had gained the air superiority they needed and Operation Sealion went forward, it might had led to catastrophic failure for the Germans—even with that air superiority, the Luftwaffe was unlikely to have been able to protect the sealift from the Royal Navy, not well enough. The result would likely have been 100,000 German soldiers dead or captured and Europe’s river transport (a vital part of the continent’s economy) devastated.

[Potemkin]

I took a look into this, whether the Luftwaffe could have gained air superiority if they’d stayed focused on the airfields and radar stations, and found opinions divided. OTOH, I also found a suggestion that if the Luftwaffe had gained the air superiority they needed and Operation Sealion went forward, it might had led to catastrophic failure for the Germans—even with that air superiority, the Luftwaffe was unlikely to have been able to protect the sealift from the Royal Navy, not well enough. The result would likely have been 100,000 German soldiers dead or captured and Europe’s river transport (a vital part of the continent’s economy) devastated.

Operation Sealion was likely a gigantic bluff on Hitler’s part, to force Britain to the negotiating table. After all, nothing short of a threatened invasion of the British mainland could have forced this. That threat did not necessarily have to be completely credible, but it had to at least exist. After all, it worked on Lord Halifax. But Churchill, of course, was made of sterner stuff.

Hitler always, it seems to me, lacked the killer instinct when it came to Britain. He would put on his devil mask, but when the moment came he would never commit himself to destroying us. Hitler saw the British Empire as a necessary part of his ‘New World Order’ after a successful conclusion to the War, so destroying us was never really on his ‘To Do’ list. Russia, of course, was a different matter….

[Rich]

So I invite you to take a look at this short article: The Nazi Party's lean years, 1924-1929

However, the period up to 1929 is known as the Nazi Party’s ‘lean years’ because two apparently contradictory things were happening to it:

it was growing in size – its membership increased from 27,000 in 1925 to 130,000 in 1929
but it struggled to win seats in the Reichstag

What is the glaring omission from this article? Or perhaps I should say what is the omission from this article that should be glaring?

[Doug64]

September 18, Wednesday

Despite bombs, London stays defiant

The Luftwaffe returns to London in daylight today, but even after two days’ rest following its defeat last Sunday, it can only put seventy heavily escorted bombers into the air in three waves, and they achieve little.

However, the bombs continue to rain down on the capital at night, with the drone of some 230 bombers making every night hideous. Unable to pinpoint their targets, they drop their bombs at random, causing terrible damage and casualties in the streets and among civilians.

Some of London’s most famous landmarks have been damaged or destroyed. Eight City churches have been hit. One bomb, weighing a ton, lies unexploded outside the west door of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where Royal Engineers bomb disposal experts are working on it.

The West End, Downing Street, the Law Courts, and the House of Lords have all been hit by high explosives or incendiaries. But the ordinary people are taking the brunt of the attack. Sheltering in the Underground, they still raise the Union Jack over the rubble of their homes or declare “Business as usual” on handwritten signs nailed to the wreckage of their shops and businesses.

The King and Queen, who have been bombed twice in Buckingham Palace, have made several visits to the East End, where they have been greeted sympathetically as fellow sufferers of German barbarism. When Churchill, cigar clenched in his teeth, visits the bombed-out areas, he gets a clear message from the people: “Give it ‘em back.”

[Potemkin]

[Doug64]

Operation Sealion was likely a gigantic bluff on Hitler’s part, to force Britain to the negotiating table.

I have to disagree. True, all indications are that Hitler was less than enthusiastic about destroying Great Britain and would have been delighted by Churchill offering to negotiate a peace. But I think that, lacking that offer, he would have invaded if the opportunity had presented itself. Mind, if that invasion resulted in such an offer--to include a withdrawal of German troops from the island--he might have accepted that as well.

[Doug64]

September 21, Saturday

Bomb disposal teams: brave new heroes of the Home Front

“Suicide Squad” reads a cheerful handwritten sign on the back of one of the vans driven by men of the Bomb Disposals Section of the Royal Engineers. Typically, they make light of the mortally dangerous tasks that are all part of a day’s work.

On September 17th, it was announced that four members of the section are to be given the Medal of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of their bravery. One of the awards goes to Lieutenant E.W. Reynolds for his work in defusing time bombs. Twice in a fortnight, he dealt with fuses in delayed-action bombs that were still ticking, despite the imminent likelihood of explosion. Lieutenant Talbot is receiving the award for having carried a live time bomb on his shoulder for 200 yards to a safe place while keeping his men under cover.

Lance-Sergeant W.J. Button is being decorated for a story with a less happy ending. He and his team were ordered to continue excavating an unexploded bomb that was likely to explode at any minute. He persevered with great coolness. Finally, it did explode, killing five members of the team.

Pilots who came to Britain from occupied Europe to help fight Nazis in the air

Miroslav Liskutin is a young Czech pilot who escaped to France when the Germans invaded his country. The French put him and fifty other aviators into their Foreign Legion until April when he transferred to an air squadron near Bordeaux, where aircraft were sabotaged.

Liskutin now flies with the RAF, whose Czech airmen (in three squadrons, 310 to 312) fought their first action in the big battle of August 26th, shooting down a Dornier bomber and a Messerschmitt Bf110 fighter. His story can be repeated many times. Poles, Yugoslavs, Norwegians, Danes—even, it is rumored, some Germans—have joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve in the battle to stop Hitler.

The Polish Air Force, with its own London HQ, will now retain its separate identity under general RAF command. Its 300 pilots, who have two years of training, an average of 500 flying hours, and a burning hatred of Germans, are a huge asset. The first two Polish squadrons, 302 and 303, flying from Northolt, Middlesex, are already claiming many kills.

Some volunteers have a talent for flying but still need training. About 700 Norwegians are at an air school near Toronto. Neutral Ireland is another small European country represented in the air. The RAF is delighted to have Paddy Finucane as an emerging ace.

Regardless of nationality, volunteers are desperately needed. The aircraft industry can produce more than 200 aircraft a week, making good most of the airframe losses, but pilot attrition is a different matter. Such casualties, killed and disabled, are running at 120 a week. Survivors are exhausted, premature veterans of more than one crash who (like Ginger Lacey) often conceal burns and other injuries. The total fighter pilot strength is 840 pilots, and the trainers produce only 260 pilots a month. Some squadrons needing 26 pilots have only 16.

[Doug64]

September 22, Sunday

French Indochina in Japanese air deal

With just two hours to go before its ultimatum expires, Japan has gained a strategic foothold in French Indochina. This allows it to station troops and aircraft in Tongking to prevent supplies from reaching China from the south.

The decision by the Governor-General, Admiral Decoux, to capitulate to the Japanese demands leads to an immediate protest from China. Under the deal, Japan can use three airbases in Indochina and station 62,000 troops there.

King gives George Cross to civilian heroes

King George has instituted a new decoration called the George Cross for “deeds of valor by civilian men and women in all walks of life.” It will rank with the Victoria Cross and be worn in front of all other decorations.

The king himself announces the award in a broadcast from Buckingham Palace during an air raid this night. “It is London that is for the time being bearing the brunt of the enemy’s spite,” he tells the nation. “I am speaking to you now from Buckingham Palace, with its honorable scars, to Londoners first of all. The queen and I have seen many of the places which have been most heavily bombed.”

He thanks the ARP workers of the capital “who work on regardless of danger, though the sirens have sounded, and all who night after night uncomplainingly endure discomfort, hardship, and peril in their homes and shelters. The walls of London may be battered but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed.” The George Medal is also being instituted for civilians to rank with decorations for gallantry. Bomb disposal men are expected to be among those to receive the GC.

U-boat fears grow in North Atlantic

The Royal Navy is anxious about the growing U-boat menace in the Atlantic. Merchant convoys carrying essential supplies from the US are obvious—and vulnerable—targets: convoy HX-72, for instance, has lost twelve ships in the last two days. The U-boat threat isn’t confined to civilian shipping; last month, an evacuee ship, the Volendam, was torpedoed. All lives were saved, but on September 17th, 77 children sailing to Canada were among 325 who died when a U-boat sank the City of Benares.

[Doug64]

September 23, Monday

Vichy France hits back: Gibraltar bombed

The Rock of Gibraltar is hit by bombs for the first time in the war—dropped by a former ally. It was inevitable, after the British operation in Dakar, that the Vichy government would have to make some reprisal. The 100-bomber raid should wreck the port, but a large number of the French pilots appear to deliberately drop their loads into the sea, and a larger number of the fuses of the bombs that do land have apparently been tampered with so that they don’t explode. The authorities will now strenuously apply themselves to retrieving the unexploded bombs, but these are the least of their problems. The diplomatic efforts of Hitler to bring Spain into the Axis and President Roosevelt to browbeat Spain back into neutrality are most concentrating their minds. If Spain does come in, then Gibraltar’s anti-aircraft gun toll of three planes this night isn’t a good sign. Gibraltar remains Britain’s most vital strategic outpost, a key base for convoy escorts. Now, with Mussolini’s fleet menacing the Mediterranean, any threat to the rock must be viewed very seriously.

[Potemkin]

September 23, Monday

Vichy France hits back: Gibraltar bombed

The Rock of Gibraltar is hit by bombs for the first time in the war—dropped by a former ally. It was inevitable, after the British operation in Dakar, that the Vichy government would have to make some reprisal. The 100-bomber raid should wreck the port, but a large number of the French pilots appear to deliberately drop their loads into the sea, and a larger number of the fuses of the bombs that do land have apparently been tampered with so that they don’t explode. The authorities will now strenuously apply themselves to retrieving the unexploded bombs, but these are the least of their problems. The diplomatic efforts of Hitler to bring Spain into the Axis and President Roosevelt to browbeat Spain back into neutrality are most concentrating their minds. If Spain does come in, then Gibraltar’s anti-aircraft gun toll of three planes this night isn’t a good sign. Gibraltar remains Britain’s most vital strategic outpost, a key base for convoy escorts. Now, with Mussolini’s fleet menacing the Mediterranean, any threat to the rock must be viewed very seriously.

Having an Empire turned out to be jolly useful during WWII. Lol.

[Doug64]

September 25, Wednesday

De Gaulle abandons attack on Dakar

The fleet of British and Free French warships that have been shelling Dakar for two days sails away into the Atlantic mist. On the city’s street, the pro-Vichy police are rounding up the usual suspects. The Allied invasion of Dakar has failed, and Senegal’s Black middle class, which has demonstrated in support of General de Gaulle, is paying the price.

The pro-Allied street demonstrations and an unsuccessful naval mutiny persuaded the Allies that Senegal was fertile ground for the Free French. And so it was. Then the pro-Allied Governor was replaced by Governor Boisson, and the colony was purged of Free French sympathizers. Worse, the amphibious force arrived two days after three French cruisers had docked, bringing reliable Vichy reinforcements—although the Royal Navy did prevent several more French warships from sailing further south to overawe the Free French supporters in French Equatorial Africa. For the Royal Navy, failure is bad news since it fears that Dakar may become a German U-boat base.

A landing at Dakar and an air attack by planes from HMS Ark Royal were both resisted and failed. Throughout both days, shore batteries and the immobilized battleship Richelieu engaged in shelling with the battleship HMS Barham. Finally, de Gaulle has been forced to admit defeat—this time.

[Rich]

So I invite you to take a look at this short article: The Nazi Party's lean years, 1924-1929

What is the glaring omission from this article? Or perhaps I should say what is the omission from this article that should be glaring?

The glaring omission is that it doesn't mention the Italianisation of South Tyrolia. Hitler did not oppose the Italianisation of South Tyrolia. This was a deeply unpopular policy antithetical to German nationalism. Now obviously this was important in the fact that it exposed the hypocrisy of western liberals, that there claimed adherence to such principles as self determination and civil rights were empty.

But its also important in that exposes Hitler's obsession with re-fighting the war with France. This was insane. If Germany was to reestablish itself as a geopolitical power, France was the one country that Germany should have been seeking reconciliation with. If Germany could avoid conflict with France, at least until it had established a much more powerful geopolitical position, significantly more powerful than it had in 1914, then Germany could almost certainly avoid getting entangled in conflict with Britain and the US.

Hitler was a racist, a bigot, a vindictive bully. All this is true. But the idea that Hitler was lasar focused on making a Germany a super power, lasar focused on world conquest is just simply untrue. Hitler was lasar focused on refighting the war with France. War with France and Belgium was the centre piece of Hitler's life from October 1914, when the List Regiment was sent to the western front. So through out the nineteen twenties Hitler's strategy was to form an alliance with Britain and Italy to have a chance of victory over France and its presumed allies of Czechoslavakia, Poland and Romania.

[Rich]

I think its difficult to understand and make sense of the situation that Hitler found himself in the summer and autumn of 1940, unless we grasp what Hitler was trying to achieve from the nineteen twenties. This myth has come about and is constantly pushed that Hitler went to war with France to enable conquests in the east, to enable his great racial vision. This gets it completely the wrong way round. In Hitler's vision, control of the Ukraine's food production was a minimum requirement to be able to sustain the war with France. In World War I Germany failed to break the blockade, even if Britain was to remain neutral in this later conflict, the balance of Naval forces would be expected to be worse in a future war with France.

The question that should arise in relation to Hitler's desire for war with France is Why? Why on earth should you seek conflict with Europe's overwhelmingly most powerful land power? A land army so out classing any other European power including Germany's puny one hundred thousand man army, that Hitler had to resort to fantasies about an alliance with Britain and Italy. I mean yeah that was really likely to come to actuality, not. Note that when the war did happen, Hitler got neither the alliance with Britain or Italy. Italy only entered the war with France once it was clear that France had already lost.

Obviously we know Hitler's personal motivation for seeking another war with France, its pretty obvious what his psychological motivation was. What I'm asking is what was the geo political justification for this insane venture, this mad gamble? There were racial / ethnic Germans in Alsace Lorraine. Yes but there were significant German minorities in Italy, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Denmark. Plus other German communities in the Baltics, Hungary Romania and on the Volga. Alsace Lorraine was not a serious justification. France had significant quantities of coal and significant farming output, but it had no oil or major quantities of other primary resources. Coal was probably Germany's least pressing concern in terms of control of primary resources. The French empire had ample primary resources, but not much oil. So in the fantasy scenario where Italy and Britain were allies, then Germany might have got a share of France's Empire, but we saw in reality, when Hitler did conquer France he showed no interest in the French Empire.

There was no geopolitical justification in conquering France, given the immensity of the task of defeating the French army without getting embroiled in a conflict with Britain and America.

[Doug64]

September 27, Friday

Japan joins the Axis

Today, in the Berlin chancellery, the Japanese ambassador, Saburo Kurusu, signs a tripartite pact extending the Rome-Berlin Axis to the Far East. In a move clearly directed at the United States, the three countries pledge to aid one another with “all political, economic, and military means” should one of them be attacked by “a power not involved in the European war.”

Japan accepts Germany's and Italy's hegemony in Europe, and they, in turn, recognize Japan’s right to organize “the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.” The pact contains a clause promising to preserve the status quo in relations with the Soviet Union.

In Washington, Roosevelt calls his defense advisers to the White House to review the implications of the pact. Asked if he had expected Japan to join the Axis, the president says, “Yes and No.”

A Navy Department spokesman says the pact does not mean a change in policy. The navy will continue to be based at Pearl Harbor, he says.

[Doug64]

September 29, Sunday

Britain to reopen China’s road to Burma

Britain has notified Japan that it intends to reopen the Burma Road to China when the current three-month agreement expires on October 17th. The move, announced by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, is the first direct result of the Japan-Axis pact. Mr. Churchill tells the House of Commons that Britain had originally agreed to ban the transit of war materials from Burma to China while the two sides tried to reach a settlement. Japan hasn’t taken the opportunity and has signed a ten-year pact with the Axis. To cheers from the House, the Prime Minister says that under the circumstances, Britain cannot see its way to renewing the agreement.

[Doug64]

September 30, Monday

How British rescuers save lives during air raids

When a high-explosive bomb falls, the first person on the scene is the local air raid precaution (ARP) warden, patrolling the sector on foot or bicycle—one in six are women. Wardens fix the location of the “incident” and report their assessment of casualties and likely survivors to their posts. They keep lists of who sleeps where in their sector. The post calls out the rescue services.

The scene is a chaos of brick and plaster dust, filling the lungs and shrouding everything in a reddish-brown pall. In the fog, gas mains are often ablaze, water mains gushing, and broken glass littering the area. People who can’t recognize each other under the dust are stumbling around in the dark, screaming or numb with shock. There is a raw smell of explosives, brick dust, and escaping gas.

Heavy Rescue Squads are based at depots in each borough, mainly made up of building workers and led by surveyors or engineers, who know the pockets in collapsed buildings where people are likely to survive. Tunneling into the debris, they keep silent every few minutes while they call, tap, and listen for answering sounds. Digging out a wrecked house is done mostly by hand and basket so as not to injure buried bodies. Often, rescuers have to drop through crevices, risking a collapse on top of them, followed by a nurse or doctor with morphine for the trapped. Many won’t end their shift until they reach their quarry, especially if it’s a child.

Edinburgh station’s German spy drama

A dramatic arrest is made at the left-baggage office at Waverley station at Edinburgh tonight of a German agent who had earlier landed by seaplane on a remote beach in northeast Scotland. He was traveling under the name of Werner Walti with two accomplices, Karl Drucke and Vera Erikson, who are arrested at another station.

The suitcase Walti had deposited is water-stained and proves to contain a transmitter. When he returns to claim it, a detective superintendent disguised as a porter grabs his wrist as he reaches for his pistol.

France’s Jews face harsh Nazi laws

The Nazi noose is starting to tighten around the neck of the Jewish community in France. Last month, Marshal Petain repealed France’s law forbidding the incitement of racial hatred. This month, Jews were ordered to carry special identity cards and their shopkeepers had to put up notices in their windows saying “Jewish business.” Today, the Reich Chief Security Office sets up a special section in Paris under orders from Adolf Eichmann in Berlin. It will register France’s entire Jewish population.

[Doug64]

October 1940

October 2, Wednesday

Imperial Strength adds to British muscle in East African battles against Italians

There are New Zealand troops in Palestine, Australians in Egypt, South Africans in Kenya, Canadians in Britain and the Caribbean, and Indian troops in Singapore; Malta is raising its own regiment, and there is even a “Bikaner Camel Corp,” the private army of an Indian prince, in the Middle East.

But nowhere are the benefits of Britain’s Empire more apparent than in East Africa, where—save for a mere half a dozen battalions—Imperial troops man the entire theater of war. To the indigenous Sudan Defence Force, Somali Camel Corps, and Kenyan King’s African Rifles have been added troops from India, South Africa, Uganda, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, and West Africa. Virtually all the logistical support for the war effort in Sudan comes from India, and that for the war effort in Kenya from South Africa, whose prime minister, General Jan Christian Smuts, is the effective continental warlord, playing the same role in Africa as his friend and former Boer War adversary, Winston Churchill, plays in Britain.

[Doug64]

October 3, Thursday

Londoners go down Tube

Nobody has invited Londoners to use the Tube stations as shelters—they’ve taken them over for themselves. On the fifth night of the Blitz, the East Enders invaded Liverpool Street and other stations to get away from the ruin and the racket. They had no Anderson shelters because they had no gardens to put them in. They mistrusted the brick street shelters as dank deathtraps. Many huddled in warehouses under railway arches, church crypts, or cellars. Underground stations offer deep protection and—almost as important—comparative peace after sleepless weeks.

They bought the cheapest penny-ha’penny tickets and rode from station to station, looking for spaces to camp on the platforms. The authorities gave way, and now there are queues outside the stations from early afternoon to be first for the best pitches at the back of the platforms. Along the front edges, spaces two yards deep are left for passengers until 7:30 pm. After that, one yard is left clear. The current is switched off when the trains stop at 10:30 pm, and people bed between the rails. The Aldwych branch line and a tunnel at Liverpool Street are now permanent shelters for over 10,000 people. Altogether, some 177,000 people spend the night at 79 different stations. Piccadilly Circus station attracts 5,000, many latecomers having to sleep on the escalators.

Herbert Morrison, who becomes Home Secretary and Minister of Home Ssecurity today, is urged to “Go to it, Herbert” by the Daily Herald, which talks of Londoners “seething with resentment” at the inadequate provision for them. He plans to install a million bunks and sanitation in shelters and Tubes.

[Potemkin]

Fun fact: Herbert Morrison was Peter Mandelson’s grandfather. The Second World War was to cast a long shadow over British politics…. Lol.

[Doug64]

October 4, Friday

Italy doubts Fuhrer’s boasts of victory

“The war is won,” Hitler tells Mussolini today when the two dictators meet for a three-hour exchange of views in an armored train—a gift from the Fuhrer to the Duce—at the Brenner Pass. The British people are under an “inhuman strain” and, the Fuhrer claims, it is only a question of time before they crack. Hitler fails to mention that he has lost 400 aircraft over Britain in seven weeks and has decided to abandon daylight raids.

In Berlin, a foreign office spokesman tells neutral correspondents that the principal subject discussed by the two leaders and their foreign ministers may have been an appeal to the British to call off the war. However, the Italians are quick to note that Hitler no longer talks about invading Britain.

Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, notes in his diary that this obvious setback for their Axis partner has put Mussolini in an exceptionally good mood. “Rarely have I seen the Duce in such good humor,” Ciano comments. Back in Rome, Ciano seems to have organized a briefing for the press. Il Popolo di Roma, commenting on the Brenner talks, speaks of a long war in prospect and says Hitler’s plans for invading Britain have failed, at least for this year.