Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Chruchill's Darkest Decision
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Message 1.Β
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
According to Channel 4, it was Churchill's decision to attack and sink the French fleet, which was stationed in Algeria, to prevent it falling into German hands. But was it as difficult a decision as the programme made it out to be? Or was it hyped up for TV dramatic effect? Was it really a slap in the face of one of our allies? Or is all fair in love and war?
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Message 2
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Arguably Churchill ran away from his most difficult decision; the occupation of patrs of Eire in order to secure the Treaty Ports for the Battle of the Atlantic.
Regards Catapault, it was botched. Gensoul nd Darlan were a pair of pompous and duplicitous oafs with inflated egos and a misplaced sense of honour, but that does not entirely excuse the British.
Form the outset, the West Indies option was the one to push, but it was not mentioned to Darlan and witheld from him by Gensoul. Even the ultimatum was making demands for the exiled fleet to be held captive in the Carribbean by the Royal Navy which was needlessly provocative. -
Message 3
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
JB-on-Sea'
I have noticed that in several 'histories' that the 'options' given to the French included proceeding to a 'neutral' port in America. This would of course meant internment for the duration, something which as you point out would have been anathema to Darlan and others. To return to 1939 I think that the threat of the powerful French ships eventually being snatched by the Germans was too high a risk for Churchill(remember the perceived threat of surface raiders to our Atlantic trade or the threat should they be sent into the Med'). He therefore had no other option and displayed the ruthlessness that might have seen as a warning to Hitler. -
Message 4
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Regards Catapault, it was botched. Gensoul nd Darlan were a pair of pompous and duplicitous oafs with inflated egos and a misplaced sense of honour, but that does not entirely excuse the British.
Form the outset, the West Indies option was the one to push, but it was not mentioned to Darlan and witheld from him by Gensoul. Even the ultimatum was making demands for the exiled fleet to be held captive in the Carribbean by the Royal Navy which was needlessly provocative.Β
As an interesting aside its worth noting that the French ships at Alexandria complied with "instructions" given.
I will never understand why a fourth option was,not offered,removal of the breech blocks and destoring as the German High Seas Fleet did in 1919 and permament station at Oran.
Personally I think Churchill wanted to show reslove,that Britain wasnt going to throw in the towel.The French,I dont think expected Britain to fight on (I cannot remember who said it but Im sure a French a french general said that "Britain would have its neck wrung like a chicken") and if the programme is to believed both countries had sighned a declaration to say that niether would would surrender without consultaion with the other.Now its very easy to be critical of te French in the fact that that this agreement was broke,but then it was France that was being torn apart and not Britain.On the other hand Petain or Darlan shouldnt have been suprised that Churchill and the British would be somewhat sceptical about assuarances in regards to the fleet.
As we know the French DID scuttle their Fleet in 1942,but that was a very different time to 1940 and the turmoils and tribulations and uncertainties of that summer.Part of me wonders if Gensoul and Darlan actually thought that the British would actually go through with it.
If you think "Catapult" was botched you should read about "Operation Menace"!
Vf -
Message 5
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Arguably Churchill ran away from his most difficult decision; the occupation of patrs of Eire in order to secure the Treaty Ports for the Battle of the Atlantic.Β
Churchill made the right decision in this. An invasion of southern Ireland by UK forces would have been catastrophic for the UK's moral authority and international standing - much worse so than the invasions of Iran and Iceland etc. It's also certain that (unlike in Iceland) a UK invasion of Ireland would not have gone unopposed. This would have played entirely into the hands of Goebbels etc.
As it happened the main defence needs of the British with regard to Ireland were met anyway via the 'Donegal Corridor' agreement whereby RAF and RN aircraft based at RAF Castle Archdale on Lough Erne in County Fermanagh were permitted to overfly neutral Irish airspace and straight out into the Atlantic. -
Message 6
Posted by Scriptofacto99 (U3268593) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Had Churchill implemented an invasion of southern
Ireland during WWII, it would have resulted in widespread mutiny in many units of the British army by thousands of British soldiers of Irish descent. My English-born father (of Irish descent) was serving in the Western Desert with the 'Desert Rats' when rumours of Churchill's intentions began to emerge. There were a number of discussions amongst the troops about what they would do if Churchill carried out his threat. The truth is there was a higher regard for Rommel by many who served in the British army in the Western Desert than there ever was for Churchill. -
Message 7
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
As per the "Ireland" question.I doubt that we (the UK) would have got much change from the Americans if we had have done.
VF -
Message 8
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Personally, I'd treat the programme with considerable caution.
Given that they mispronounced Roosevelt's name and showed Mackenzie King, the then Canadian Prime Minister, with a "Maple Leaf" flag which Canada did not adopt till about 1960, I'm not exactly filled with confidence about anything elde they said/showed. -
Message 9
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
I thought the chief weakness of this programme was the presentation of Darlan as some kind of apolitical military figure of honesty and integrity. In fact he was an anglophobe and sympathetic to the Axis cause who replaced Laval as Premier and Petain's deputy in the collaborationist Vichy regime between 1941-2 and negotiated the Paris Protocols setting out military cooperation between Vichy and Wehrmacht.
Reference was made to the fact that Churchill knew Darlan from before the war. More reason then for him not to have placed any credence on any promises he might make. Eisenhower only agreed to accept Darlan as head of newly-liberated French North Africa in 1942 to end the resistance by Vichy forces. When he was assassinated on Christmas Day by a French monarchist, according to Eisenhower, "no tears were wept at his funeral".
In fact the French had already broken their treaty obligation not to negotiate (although in effect accept a diktat) a separate peace with Germany rejecting Churchill's offer of common union and his suggestion that the government continue the fight from North Africa and changed the capital to Algiers (which they could have easily done as there was a large colonial army both there and in the Middle East and the prospect of an Anglo-French Mediterranean fleet and being attacked from both sides in Libya might well have made Mussolini think twice about entering the war).
Vichy France could also hardly be described as neutral after 1940. Anti-Jewish legisalation was enacted without even a Nazi request. There was active cooperation between the Vichy authorities and the Gestapo in the round-up of Jews, dissidents, partisans and downed Allied pilots. Vichy paid reparations to Germany (in all more resources were either given or taken by Germany in 4 years of occupation than went in the reverse direction in the 11 years following WWI). French troops were sent to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (as well as fighting against the Allies in North Africa and Syria). The Vichy authorities conscripted a million workers to do war work in Germany. Vichy France also gave the Japanese a valuable boost by agreeing to Japanese forces being stationed (and effectively taking over these territories) in French Indo-China in the summer of 1940 imperilling the British position in Malaya and Singapore and further weakening the already desperate Chinese position - a stark contrast with their attitude to the British.
Whilst the Navy might not have been put to German use other valuable assets such as the aircraft, munitions and car factories certainly were. These were not sabotaged by the workers (as they certainly had been during the "Phoney War" of 1939-40 by Commiunist Party activists cf. Chap.5, 'A Queer Kind of War' in A.Horne's "To Lose A Battle; France 1940") but were often put out of action by the RAF.
In effect, by unilaterally surrendering in 1940 the Petain Government effectively allied themselves with the Axis placing their financial, industrial, manpower and military resources at Hitler's disposal. If anyone should be blamed for the tragedies at Mers-el-Kebir and Oran it is Petain and Darlan not Churchill. The correct course would have been for the crew of these ships to have taken them to either British or French West Indian ports and placed themselves and their ships under the command of De Gaulle and the Free French Government. This would have preserved French sovereignty as well as continuing the fight with what would have been invaluable resources in the Battle of the Atlantic rather than destroying them. -
Message 10
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
One thing that has aways made me wonder id that even if the Germans "took" the ships.Would they be able to run them?
I mean they would have French instruments in French Language with equipment that would different to the Germans.If you look at the post WW1 "prizes" that France aquired from Germany apart from a couple of small cruisers most did nothing and were either laid up or used as targets.
Vf -
Message 11
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Yes it was melodramatic rubbish. In addition to the points it misrepresented, it failed to explain how the Strasbourg could escape form a mined harbour blockaded by a big-gun fleet.
The wider point is that yet again big capital ships like all expensive dterrent weapons are more trouble than they are worth once the shooting starts and you conclude the best thing you can do with them is hide them away in case you lose them. -
Message 12
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Totally agree, Mike. I thought the whitewashing of Darlan and omission of his pro-Nazi and anti-semitic views (and actions) particularly obnoxious. Presumably the next in this series of programmes will be entitled:
"Sinking of the Bismarck: Necessity or War Crime?"
The Maple Leaf Flag was adopted by the Canucks in 1965, btw. -
Message 13
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Virtual :...One thing that has aways made me wonder id that even if the Germans "took" the ships.Would they be able to run them?..."
Well, firstly, if you were in Winston Churchill's position, would you take that risk ?
Secondly, I believe that the Germans were quite adept at using captured equipment. I think that a large amount of Soviet artillery and the like was captured and used against the allies across different theatres of operations.
As far as the point about language goes, these things could be replaced in a relatively quick re-fit. Heavy calibre ammunition could be produced quite easily specifically for the captured ships. In any case, the Germans already had access to the French munitions manufacturing capacity, so I doubt that this would be a problem.
If you watched this programme, they did say that the Germans attempted to take what was left of the French navy later in the war. -
Message 14
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Well, firstly, if you were in Winston Churchill's position, would you take that risk?Β
Nope,Given the circumastances of the time I would have done the same.
Secondly, I believe that the Germans were quite adept at using captured equipment. I think that a large amount of Soviet artillery and the like was captured and used against the allies across different theatres of operationsΒ
They certainly were,but its one thing to run a tank and another to run a battlecruiser.
As far as the point about language goes, these things could be replaced in a relatively quick re-fit. Heavy calibre ammunition could be produced quite easily specifically for the captured ships. In any case, the Germans already had access to the French munitions manufacturing capacity, so I doubt that this would be a problemΒ
But you still have the problems of spares etc.When the Russians obtained the "Giulio Cesare" from the Italians it took them a fair while to adapt her for service in their fleet.Apart from japan I cannot think of a country who has successfully employed the battleships of another country.Whilst Erin,Agincourt and Canada were built for foreign nations they were British built and British designed with British equipment,which made it a lot easier to refit them to RN standards.Im not saying it couldnt be done,but that it would probably more involved than imagined.
If you watched this programme, they did say that the Germans attempted to take what was left of the French navy later in the warΒ
I did watch the programme and yes the Germans did attempt to sieze the fleet.That was at Toulon and the French scuttled pretty much everything they had (believe that they used depth charges as scuttling charges).And it has to be said that they did a pretty good job of it as the pictures in the link testafies
Regards VF -
Message 15
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Interestingly, there is a precedent for Churchill's actions, and I'm surprised that Channel 4 didn't dig this up....
When Napoleon came to an agreement with the Tsar on that famous raft, Pitt the YOunger was worried at how this alliance would isolate Britain. Napoleon was already talking up an invasion of England, and had his eyes on the fleet of Denmark, who were neutral at the time. Pitt called on the Danes to sink their fleet, or hand it over to the British, and the Danes refused. So, what did Pitt do? He ordered an attack on the Danish fleet, and sank it, even though Denmark was a potential ally.
Critics like Wilberforce bemoaned this attack as one of Britain's 'darkest hours'....
Now, Churchill is a man who took pride in researching and writing history, and I'm sure he would've known about this. -
Message 16
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
Napoleon was already talking up an invasion of England, and had his eyes on the fleet of Denmark, who were neutral at the time. Pitt called on the Danes to sink their fleet, or hand it over to the British, and the Danes refused. So, what did Pitt do? He ordered an attack on the Danish fleet, and sank it, even though Denmark was a potential ally.
Critics like Wilberforce bemoaned this attack as one of Britain's 'darkest hours'....
Now, Churchill is a man who took pride in researching and writing history, and I'm sure he would've known about this.Β
He certainly would.
His old colleague, Admiral Sir John Fisher, had advocated doing this to the German fleet as recently as 1905. -
Message 17
Posted by Triceratops (U3420301) on Tuesday, 26th May 2009
His old colleague, Admiral Sir John Fisher, had advocated doing this to the German fleet as recently as 1905.Β
And as the Japanese had done to the Russians at Port Arthur -
Message 18
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Wednesday, 27th May 2009
Could the Germans use the French Ships?
Quite simply yes they could. Not only were the Germans very adaptable but there would have been plenty of French sailors, of all ranks, who would have been only to happy to assist them against their 'old enemy'.
If, as I have already mentioned you consider what the perceived threats to Britain were in 1939, then Churchill and his advisers had little choice. How were we to know for example how many large bore shells were at the disposal of the Germans had they taken over the ships? And the speed at which the Germans advanced in 1940 only gave credence to the Admiralty actions. -
Message 19
Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Wednesday, 27th May 2009
VirtuaF,
I seem to recall that it was a speech by Goebbels that included the threat that "... Britain would have its neck wrung like a chicken". In response, Churchill said in a speech to the Americans "Some chicken! Some neck!" -
Message 20
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 27th May 2009
Apart from japan I cannot think of a country who has successfully employed the battleships of another country.Β
Didn't FDR send us 50 WWI destroyers in August 1940 following the Mers-el-Kebir and Oran as the programme pointed out? -
Message 21
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 27th May 2009
Perhaps the most disturbing element of what was an extremely tendentious and unbalanced programme was the constant repetition of the photograph showing Churchill holding a Thompson machine gun. This was in actual fact part of a much larger picture showing not only Churchill but also Ismay and Alanbrooke testing out a consignment of weapons sent by the FBI to Britain at a firing range.
Goebbels leapt onto this image of Churchill after Churchill had described the Nazi leadership as "gangsters" - a fairly accurate description one might have thought - giving it the caption:
"Who Is The Real Gangster"
I found this use of unattributed Nazi propaganda by the programme makers extremely repulsive and one wonders what their real agenda was in making the programme. -
Message 22
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Wednesday, 27th May 2009
Churchill is a man who took pride in researching and writing history, and I'm sure he would've known about this.Β
In Volume 3 of his "History of the English-Speaking Peoples", "The Age of Revolution" Churchill wrote the following:
"This act of aggression [the destruction of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen] against a neutral state aroused a storm against the Government in Whig political and literary circles. But events vindicated the promptitude and excused the violence of their action. Two days after the British Fleet left home waters Napoleon had informed the Danish Minister in Paris that if England were to refuse Russian mediation in the Great War Denmark would be forced to choose sides. Had the British Government not acted with speed the French would have been in possession of the Danish Navy within a few weeks." -
Message 23
Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Well pointed out, Allan....
Churchill started writing 'A History of the English-speaking peoples' in 1937, and his work was interrupted by that nuisance we now call the Second World War. He then resumed his writing after the war ended, and it was published in the 1950s.
I suppose it's debatable as to whether Churchill had covered the Napoleonic Wars by the time WWII broke out, but given his love of history, I would expect Churchill to have been aware of Pitt's attack on the Danish fleet. It's just disappointing that Channel 4 did not see fit to draw such a comparison.... -
Message 24
Posted by JB on a slippery slope to the thin end ofdabiscuit (U13805036) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
The Churchill-Tommy Gun crop is one of the two used in media textbooks to illustrate bias. The other is a shot of Pierre Trudeau looking desperately embarrassed at a formal function whilst his wife adopts a hysterical facial expression with her hands in the air.
The wider shot reveals that they are backstage at the ballet and Margaret Trudeau is having a girlie chat with the principal ballerina in her dressing room. Her husband's blushes are because of the location. -
Message 25
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Which leads me to a quote by Irving Layton;
'In Pierre Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a Prime Minister worthy of assassination.' -
Message 26
Posted by peteratwar (U10629558) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
It was Weygand who made the comment about Britain having its neck wrung like a chicken
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Message 27
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Thanks for pointing that out peteratwar. That's fascinating.
I've often heard of Churchill's Ottawa speech but had assumed that he was referring to a comment by Goebbels or Goering or some such.
A popular misconseption no doubt. -
Message 28
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
The 3rd volume of "A History of The English-Speaking Peoples" has a foreword by Churchill dated Christmas Eve 1956, some 20 months after he left office for the final time so one would imagine it had been completed long before. It was part of a project drawn up to forestall bankruptcy (which would have cost him his political career) before the war for which his publisher, Sir Ernest Cassel, paid him an handsome advance.
He worked at a frantic pace aided by a bevy of research assistants from the two anicient universities, principally (Sir) William Deakin and Maurice Ashley, the Cromwellian expert. In his Commons speech attacking the Munich Agreement at the beginning of 1938 he refers to "his study of the reign of King Ethelred the Unready" during the summer recess and quotes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. However this was most likely a refresher course rather than the point the project had reached since, according to his assistants, Churchill was familiar with the history of England (and Britain) from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards but needed considerable tuition in pre-Conquest history, having ferocious disagreements with them over his preference for "Boadicea" over the historically correct "Boudicca" - his only concession was to insert "whom the pedants call Boudicca" after his first use of "Boadicea".
Once he was recalled to office on the outbreak of WWII his ministerial (and later Prime Ministerial) salary eased the financial pressures and Cassels were willing to put the book on hold. After the war and his ejection from office Cassels negotiated a new contract for his (as it turned out) 6-volume memoir of WWII which would be far more lucrative for them both and which took up most of his time while in opposition.
It is likely that Churchill did not work through "AHOTESP" chronologically but produced a series of galley proofs across a whole range of periods according to taste which was then subject to correction by his academic assistants. It is probable that most of the book had been completed, at least in some form, before the outbreak of war, and only awaited his retirement from public office (which turned out to be longer than both he and many others ever imagined) to be published.
Also, as a matter of fact, although Pitt ordered Parker to assemble the fleet, primarily to deal with the Russian threat rather than that of Denmark (although Parker needed considerable prodding from Nelson), the actual attack on the Danish fleet occurred during Addington's premiership in April 1801, well over a fortnight after Pitt had resigned due to George III's refusal to accept Catholic Emancipation following the union of the British and Irish Parliaments.
Nelson's success at Copenhagen preceded by the assassination of Tsar Paul 10 days previously led to the collapse of the League of Armed Neutrality which, along with the destruction of Napoleon's army in Egypt by Abercromby, enabled Addington to open peace negotiations with the French which resulted in the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. The collapse of this the following year however led to Pitt's recall in 1804.
Another example of a recycled ship is of course the General Belgrano, formerly the USS Phoenix, which survived, although not sunk by, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Like Copehagen Mrs Thatcher's decision to sink the Belgrano during the Falklands War in 1982 aroused fierce controversy in opposition circles and still does today (which Churchill's decision to sink the French fleet didn't although one got the impression that this was the unspoken historical analogy which the C4 programme was seeking to draw).
However like Copenhagen and Mers-el-Kebir the longer-term strategic benefits as far as winning the war was concerned greatly outweighed the controversy since, after Belgrano's demise, the Argentinian fleet (and the naval part of the junta had been reputedly the most sceptical about the invasion) remained firmly in port and thus there was not a navy vs. navy engagement in the South atlantic which would have likely cost capital ships on both sides. It is arguable that far more Argentinian sailors' lives were saved by their fleet's reluctance to venture out into the open sea than were lost aboard the Belgrano.
Another example of recycling are the Spitfires that flew operationally until the 1970s in the Spanish and Portuguese air forces but whose main service was to be used in film companies' recreation of the Battle of Britain. -
Message 29
Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Churchill was familiar with the history of England (and Britain) from the reign of Elizabeth I onwards but needed considerable tuition in pre-Conquest history, having ferocious disagreements with them over his preference for "Boadicea" over the historically correct "Boudicca" - his only concession was to insert "whom the pedants call Boudicca" after his first use of "Boadicea".Β
Aren't both versions wrong?
"Boudicca" as I understand it, is what her enemies called her. It's the Latin form of her name. "Boadicea" would be an Anglicisation of the previous Latinisation.
I'm not sure what her Celtic compatriots knew her as. Something like "Budig" perhaps? -
Message 30
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
I've often heard of Churchill's Ottawa speech but had assumed that he was referring to a comment by Goebbels or Goering or some such.Β
The quotation in a speech given to the Canadian Parliament on 30 December 1941, after an almost month-long visit to the USA following the attack on Pearl Harbour, occurs in a passage devoted to the French capitulation 18 months when Churchill still felt the necessity to justify his position:
"On top of all this came the great French catastrophe. The French Army collapsed, and the French nation was dashed into utter and, as it has so far proved, irretrievable confusion. The French Government had at their own suggestion solemnly bound themselves with us not to make a separate peace. It was their duty and it was also their interest to go to North Africa, where they would have been at the head of the French Empire. In Africa, with our aid, they would have had overwhelming sea power. They would have had the recognition of the United States, and the use of all the gold they had lodged beyond the seas. If they had done this Italy might have been driven out of the war before the end of 1940, and France would have held her place as a nation in the counsels of the Allies and at the conference table of the victors. But their generals misled them. When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Some chicken; some neck."
It is obvious from this that the pain of the French betrayal was still keenly felt and he felt it necessary to justify, by implication, his action against the French fleet in Canada where there was a large French-speaking population and the offshore islands of St Pierre and Miquelon were still directly controlled by the Vichy Government although soon to be taken over by De Gaulle (much to Churchill's chagrin as De Gaulle's action cast a blight in his relationship with Rossevelt, who still maintained that Vichy was the legitimate government of France).
He also does not refer to Weygand by name but simply to anonymous French "generals" but the implication is obvious since by that time Weygand had been summoned from Syria to take over from Gamelin.
It was not the only occasion Churchill quoted Weygand. 18 months earlier, in the peroration of perhaps the most notable speech he ever delivered on the day that the Wehrmacht staged its victory parade in Paris Churchill borrowed the nomenclature that Weygand had coined to describe the phase of war that had just ended before coining an even more memorable title to describe the phase that was about to begin:
"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."" -
Message 31
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
"Boudicca" as I understand it, is what her enemies called her. It's the Latin form of her name. "Boadicea" would be an Anglicisation of the previous Latinisation.Β
Probably right, but since the Iceni, as far as I know, did not leave a written record everything we know about Budig, Boudicca or whoever comes through Suetonius and other Roman authors so the Latin form is probably acceptable. As far as I understand it, "Boadicea" owes itself to the sloppy handwriting of some mediaeval transcriber and entered popular usage in Victorian times and has never subsequently left despite the efforts of the academic community. -
Message 32
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Didn't FDR send us 50 WWI destroyers in August 1940 following the Mers-el-Kebir and Oran as the programme pointed outΒ
They certainly did,but then although "neutral" there would be no problems in running them as tehy were on the friendly side of neutral1.As for the Belgrano?Well they probably were not short of spares and such and experience running them as they had not long decommissioned the ARA Nueve de Julio in 1978, the ex USS Boise.
My point about the Japanese was that in modern terms I cannot think of another nation that employed the captured prizes of another (thinking Battleships Orel and Poiedba).The French were given the Prinz Eugen (battleship) and Thunderigen plus several cruisers and destroyers,the Russians recieved the Guilo Cesare and yet the French never employed there prizes as anything but targets and the cruisers were gone pretty quickly too.The Russians took a fair time to the get used to the Novorossiysk.
Im not saying that it could not have been done,only that its more involved than just putting 1000 german sailors on them....
But then Churchill dint have the benefirt of hindsight -
Message 33
Posted by VF (U5759986) on Thursday, 28th May 2009
Although.......
They would make a good "fleet in being" and perhaps if they had been seized this could have been their greatest role.Given Tirpiz's success in this role and her ability to tie up large numbers of British vessels I think the idea of Strasbourg and Dunkerque being under German control would give Cunningham and Churchill more than a few sleepless nights.
Even if they did nothing.
VF -
Message 34
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Friday, 29th May 2009
Yes, which is why, after Mers-el-Kebir and Oran so much effort was put into the destruction of the Italian fleet, first by the Swordfish raid at Taranto in November 1940 followed by the more comprehensive naval action at Cape Matapan in May 1941.
One argument the programme might have in it favour though is that if the Vichy fleet posed such a threat why was no effort made to finish the job on the ships moored at Toulon? Were the actions at Mers-el-Kebir and Oran more of a warning to the French than a surgical removal of a supposed threat or were they merely symbolic of Britain's desire to resist at all costs, including offending recent allies, and that they fulfilled their purpose when Roosevelt committed the US Administration to maintaining Britain in the war which ultimately led to the passage of the Lease-Lend Act in March 1941 and this had far more significance than the supposed threat from captured ships.
You may be right about the difficulties of interchangeablity of ships with the arrival of the steam turbine and sophisticated machinery but prize ships were common in the age of sail, especially in an era when governments were even more reluctant to spend money on defence, even in time of war, than they are today. It was only with the arrival of Nelson that it was thought better to sink ships than capture them. -
Message 35
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Sunday, 31st May 2009
Couple of points here :
The Naval part of the Argentine Junta under Anaya was keen on the Falklands adventure, it was Lami Dozo of the FAA who was reluctant.
The real reason why prizes were seen as more advantageous than sinkings was - the captain, admral commanding, and even the crew (to a small extent) benefitted from the "prize money". Although "gun money" was paid on sinkings as late as WWI (Carmania's crew got it for sinking Cap Trafalgar, Grant's crew in Canopus didn't get a share after the sinking of Scharnhorst et al at the Falklands), it was paid at a much lesser rate.
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