What have you learned about WW2 recently?

Discussion in 'General' started by dbf, Oct 22, 2010.

  1. Dave55

    Dave55 Atlanta, USA

    Wow. Didn't know they were resupplying U-boats there. So it was serious business, what with the 'Happy Time' and all.
     
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  2. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    Yeah that was all new to me as well. Posted something about it on this thread awhile back, probably after someone mentioned the Bogart movie, To Have and to Have Not I believe. Started reading about it and one thing led to another.

    Also, Inspector Clouseau was posted in Martinique, walking a beat in uniform for sometime after he bungled a case when he was a detective in the Sûreté.

    Here's an excerpt from his tour of duty there.

     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2020
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  3. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    Well, the British used Japanese troops in a constabulary capacity in French Indo-China after the surrender. Similar concept I guess. Those Japanese were a nasty lot, made the SS look like schoolboys for the most part. Maybe the Brits used them in Malaya too. Can't remember where I read this before, but possibly they were used in other areas of the DEI as well. Haven't read anything about surrendered or disarmed Japanese forces used in this manner in areas overrun by the Rooskies. They just carted a lot of them off to POW camps to be used as slave labor just like the German POWs from the ETO were.
     
  4. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    The US naval bases established in Trinidad were part of the agreement to lend 50 USN Great War vintage destroyers to Britain in exchange for those bases.Hitler had plenty to say about that agreement as recorded by the English version of Signal....available to the Channel Islands and the US.

    As regards Iceland,WSC it was a question of occupying Danish territory in addition to the Faroes to ensure that the Germans had no presence in the North Atlantic to prosecute the war. WSC is recorded as inviting FDR to replace British troops in Iceland so that they could reinforce British Middle East strength by a division and related to FDR,I am encouraged by....your Marines taking over that cold place.He was referring to US Marines taking over Camp Alafoss,15 miles from Reykjavik,the capital being known as "Rinky Dink" to the US Marines.

    The Azores were thought to be on the list of Hitler's expansion policy.In March 1941,10000 crack Portuguese troops had been dispatched to the Azores to protect the islands.Plans were put in place to rescue Salazar,the Portuguese leader and dictator from the Azores should Hitler invade Portugal.Overall, Salazar was regarded as being acceptable to US protection should it be necessary
     
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  5. Ewen Scott

    Ewen Scott Well-Known Member

    For anyone interested in learning more about this I can recommend the following

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mountbatte...tbatten+samurai&qid=1594293163&s=books&sr=1-2
     
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  6. WiltsHistory

    WiltsHistory Member

    True, brave men. Shame there weren't more earlier on.
    Pity the once fine German soldiers didn't care too much about their state committing mass-murder.
     
  7. A-58

    A-58 Not so senior Member

    While reading more in the wiki article about the US 551st PIB (parachute infantry battalion), it seems that the US Army Airborne Department experimented with dropping paratroopers out of gliders. The men of the 551st PIB were used in this experiment at Ft. Bragg, NC. The experiment was deemed a failure as there was no slipstream, and this led to the men to fall straight down after exiting the glider. Additionally, the nature of the glider's flimsy construction led to the anchor line cable ripping out. The anchor line cable is where the static line is hooked to inside the aircraft. When the jumper exits the aircraft, he falls approximately 90 feet before the parachute fully opens. The stress of the static line pulling the canopy out of the pack tray on the jumper's back is what caused the ripping out of the anchor line cable. This could pose a real problem for those involved. No deaths were reported, but numerous injuries were sustained.

    At first glance, this concept really seems to be, well, not very well thought out. Not really sure what they were thinking about when someone dreamed up this ploy, but no doubt that the ones who came up with this caper weren't directly involved in the process (actually jumping). The only thing that I figure what they were thinking was the possibility of putting more men in the air at the same time. In the attached link, there's a pic of a C-47 (a Dakota to you Commonwealth types) pulling two gliders full of jumpers. Not sure if the C-47 was loaded with jumpers, but I figure probably not since it was probably under enough strain pulling two loaded gliders.

    “We Badly Needed Something to Do”: Glider Jumping At Camp Mackall, 1943
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2020
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  8. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    While hopefully planning a trip to Cosford to annoy the kids I was looking up the Hampden which is under restoration there. I was amazed to then discover that one is being restored in Lincolnshire to flying condition! Yes, I’m aware these ‘restorations’ are a bit like triggers broom, but it’d be great to see one in the air.

    Edit- Looks like I’m a Wikipedia victim as the Lincolnshire Aviation site says static display. Grrrrrr.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2020
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  9. Richelieu

    Richelieu Well-Known Member

    I don’t think they did – it’s a big leap from the footnoted source which only stated that “it was suspected, German U-boats were being resupplied” to Wiki’s definite statement.
     
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  10. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream...ers_2014_Chapter07.pdf?sequence=9&isAllowed=y
    page 12:
    Vichy France had cautioned the Germans that the Allies were patrolling Fort-de-France with one cruiser and four destroyers.What was taking place at Martinique was, in fact, a classic game of tit-for-tat. The Allies worried lest Admiral Georges Robert’s tidy fleet of 70,000 tons of warships and treasury of 12 billion francs in gold would join the U-boats in their assault on the vital Caribbean oil supply. In the near-panic atmosphere of 1942, J. Edgar Hoover at the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned the Administration that “1400 airplanes and 50 submarines are near readiness at Martinique for an attack on the Panama Canal, Puerto Rico, Florida or the Florida Keys and Cuba.” The Germans, for their part, were equally panicked that Robert, far away from Vichy, might have had a change of heart and joined the Allies. Whatever the case, both stepped up their surveillance of Martinique.
     
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  11. JimHerriot

    JimHerriot Ready for Anything

    That an increasing number of the current generations have little or no understanding of the definition of the word "history".

    Kind regards, always,

    Jim.
     
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  12. Richelieu

    Richelieu Well-Known Member

    If you take statements out of context you are liable to reach flawed conclusions.

    The passage quoted is sourced as “Cited in Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 62”, which is a derisive analysis of Hoover and the FBI. Nazis and Good Neighbors

    Hoover’s claim was hysterical nonsense: where are these 1,400 aircraft; their crews and ground crews; their fuel; their bombs and ammunition, supposed to have come from exactly? Did the USN simply fail to see the vast quantity of shipping that would have been required?

    How often did the Kreigsmarine deploy 50 U-boats to the Western Atlantic at the same time?

    Where is the intelligence from other agencies?
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jul 17, 2020
  13. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Calm down, please :lol:
    the colour-coded quotation referred to “it was suspected, German U-boats were being resupplied” as quoted...really thought that this would be clearly recognizable from the context, hence the corresponding quote in full - with reference to source;)

    For a quick overview:
    https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/docu...c-histories/german_clandestine_activities.pdf
    By the way, Martinique is mentioned there only once briefly in a subordinate clause :cool:
     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2020
  14. Richelieu

    Richelieu Well-Known Member

    I don’t think it’s me that needs to calm down Itdan.

    The link that you provided does nothing to support the proposition that Martinique was used to refuel U-boats, which is the point in contention.

    If you wish to develop your case, please be specific and provide relevant sources.
     
  15. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Stories of secret U boat refuelling points were common in both World Wars. In general either total myth or hugely exaggerated. Just another common war legend in the same way that 5th columnists were.
     
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  16. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    SIGH....
    Of course not, as Martinique never was a refuelling point or else.
    German submarines operating in the carribbean seas exercised replenishment at sea, be it tenders or converted subs. Preferably far, far away from shipping lines or bases.
    If interested I will have a look for a post-war Intel regarding the entire replenishment and logistics infrastructure of the Kriegsmarine buried in my archive. There it is described in great detail - but not the slightest mention of Martinique or some other obscure hidden island or the like ;)
    So once again: it was quoted Martinique was SUSPECTED being a resupplying point and the quote from Hoover could be assumed as a possible source for such claims - and that's all there was to it.
    :cheers:
     
  17. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    Mark Felton's video on Ray Holmes ramming a bomber over Buck House in 1940 mentions a malfunctioning flamethrower in the rear turret of the first bomber he tried to intercept. I wasn't aware of this method of aircraft defence! I don't recall any mention of this in any memoirs I've read so i found it very interesting and worth further digging.
     
  18. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Stephan Schmidt, radio operator on a Do 17 F1+FS Werk Nr 2555 of 8.Staffel/KG 76 fired a flamethrower at Sgt Ray Holmes' No 504 Sqdn Hurricane, as he fired at it from 400 yards. Holmes' windcreen was covered in oil, temporarily obscuring his view so that he had to break off his attack. Schmidt was later fatally wounded by a spitfire and the Do 17 crash landed in a a hops field near Castle Farm, Shoreham.
    entire account + pictures:
    OVERLORD'S BLOG: Luftflammenwerfenzeug
     
  19. Markyboy

    Markyboy Member

    Cheers Itdan, great link!
     
  20. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Gern geschehen :D

    And for Richelieu (or everyone else who might be interested) BEWARE - 579 pages, but not the slightest mention of Martinique :lol::
    special report on operations and organization of the german naval supply system during world war II
    Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, 1953.
    https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0617953.pdf
     

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