Churchill a myth?

Discussion in 'General' started by Slipdigit, Feb 4, 2008.

?

Was Winston Churchill 'real' ?

  1. Yes.

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  2. No.

    71.7%
  3. I do not understand the question.

    6.5%
  4. I am a UKTV watching under 20 year old and refuse to believe in the existence of anybody.

    21.7%
  1. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    The Churchill poll is interesting.
    The revisionism stuff is interesting.
    Post-war generations perceptions of the war is interesting.
    The veteran's perception of those perceptions is interesting.

    The Willy-waving bickering is deeply uninteresting.

    In short... calm down a bit. ;)

    Cheers,
    Adam.
     
  2. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    AND isn't Adam just having such a great time with a debate like this?....where else, I ask can you find Alexander, Churchill and Kylie Minogue's bum all in the same thread?
     
  3. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    Don't worry Adam......I'm simply outraged that our modern generation are so ungrateful. Bashing somebodie's head in to gurantee their lifestyle is something I hope these kids NEVER have to do....but the least they could do is show some basic respect for the very lives that were ruined to put them all here.....
     
  4. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    To get back on track its proof that History is becoming less popular on the curriculum of schools
     
  5. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    NO....I think it's proof that kids are becoming more selfish, self centred, arrogant, ill educated and any other label you care to choose.....ALL they respect as a group is MONEY or physical beauty. Shows you how shallow they really are.....I despair ......as I say, lets see who remembers all these plastic media nothings that they all worship for very little, whilst the serious history goes begging....symptomatic of diseased minds, priorities gone wrong, and a simple lack of respect for anything or anyone that does not fit in to their narrow world.....APOLOGISTS like their teachers merely seek to justify their own failure to get these idiots thinking about anything not firmly emplaced between their legs...

    History has been classified by these individuals as "too hard"......Lets stop apologising for their own mental atrophy and start to blame them for their own actions for a change. They even need a calculator for basic arithmatic!.....Have you listened to the conversation of the average western school child?....SHALLOW......I am not the first to notice this, merely another in the line. Give these kids something truly challenging....like coming on to this website as part of a class experiment.....challenge their ill informed opinions.....I challenge each and every one of these mentally challenged "individuals" to come here, in class, and be revealed for the shallow human beings they are, and to have a look at themselves through the looking glass......I BET you get a negative responce. I will continue to hold to this until you can wheel somebody in here thats in high school and can demonstrate some kind of original thought about something NOT connected to Stars, Movies, Models, Soap operas, or anything else in their "Fairyland" existence.....The Challenge goes out.....I'll be waiting an eternity without result.....
     
  6. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    Gotthard......RANTING is a little harsh......If it is such meaningless drivel....pick up the challenge and let me proove it for all to see....otherwise, my opinion is really no worse than others Ive seen.....Does everything not in the catagory of "humble pie" qualify as a "rant' simply due to you disagreeing?.....Wake up and see what a mess these 'people' will make of this world that others have fought for.....another challenge that will go begging.....And, if you don't want bites, don't use words like JEALOUSY....Is it not funny that long termers here can accuse me of practically anything, and I don't see you leaping to my defence....NOT ONCE have you ever sat here and taken my side over a personal attack on me....but you are so quick to leap to the defence of mindless kids....and others that seem to make sport out of their own lack of ability....
     
  7. Lucy Stag

    Lucy Stag Senior Member

    Christos, I was in highschool two years ago, or rather I was the proper age for it. If you're looking for exceptions to the rule, you could look at 18 year old me, and many of my friends. Don't give up on the younger generation, there have always been shallow people, and there always will be.

    There are still young people out there who know about the past, and even care about it. I get sick to death of the shallow conversations of my peers, but then I go out and find my old friends, and I am reminded that there are great, smart people in their teens and 20s. I swear, they're out there. Some of them went to public school, and some of them were homeschooled like me. Some of the populations might be in dire shape, not knowing their grandparents' history from King Arthur, but there will always be people who know, and who care.

    Errr, or maybe that's young and optimistic youth speaking.

    Honestly, I weary of my peers often, but I don't have any sense that they are different from what they ever were. I care about history more than most people; it can be a little lonely, but it's fine. My sister is smart, she knows more about the universe and planets than I do, but she didn't know which war my father was nearly drafted into (Vietnam.)
     
    Owen likes this.
  8. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Without extensive intelligence knowledge, US submarines would have been no more effective than Japanese submarines were. The proof can be found in the very over the top success by a fleet of subs of no more than 230 at their peak, and performing many operations that had nothing to do with chasing merchants and warships. When you sink over 5 million tons of merchants, and more Warships than the Germans, British and Russians combined, something must have put these subs in the right spot at the right time in a consistent manner. Losses were 52 boats to ALL causes, a figure that is VERY low by comparison with British, German and Russian submarine services. Check the figures and see for yourself. As a friend of mine said of this puzzle, "EVERY mission for those subs was a classified operation."

    Not necessarily entering into the discussion on the intelligence aspect.

    A large part of the success of the US submarine offensive has to do with two things:
    1. The US doctrine behind submarine use vs Japanese doctrine, which followed Mahan's theories.
    2. Lack of any coherent convoy system and an almost nonexistent attempt at antisubmarine warfare by the Japanese until it was too late in the war to be effective.

    Japanese subs were by and large tied to fleet actions, acting as a screen or attacking well defended warships, frittered away supplying islands, or sent on lenghthy hair-brained stunts that required them avoid contact with US ships (What were they possibly thinking with the I-400 boats?). The fact that the Japanese nation was almost totally dependent on on shipping begs disbelief that it took until early 1944 to get their act together and try to establish an effective convoy and escort service and begin building the necessary escorts. They were already behind the curve by then.

    By late in the war, I'm not sure that they had the necessary fuel to engage their boats efffectively against shipping, as the trips across the Pacific would have lessened their ability to remain on station and they would have faced a large number of ASW warships.
     
  9. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    I beg to differ on the point of a "lack of a coherent convoy system".....this is a fallacy....check the records and see that Japanese Convoys could and were in exisitence, and their escorts were just as deadly as any....American Commanders like Mush Morton used to wade into these convoys at nighttime and SURFACED, firing deck armament and torpedoes with great abandon....their problems with the reliability of thier MK14 Torpedo meant that for the first 18 months of the Pacific war, American submarines had a torrid time hitting and sinking anything!...In the early Pac War period, only the old S-14 could claim a warship sinking (The Cruiser KAKO). These abundant facts make their success all the more incredible, for they crammed all of this into a two year period.....something fishy there!...look at German losses....OVER 1000 uboats and 23,000 personnel, and from a country that had significant intelligence 'coups' that produced not one but TWO 'Happy Times"......Face it...the figures just don't hold water for the US service...their intelligence info was FAR BETTER than we have been previously told.....FIFTY TWO boats to ALL causes (including accidents)...if you honestly think it was due to Japanese incompetancy, think again....the figures speak volumes for an intelligence effort that had the IJN by the goolies from the very day of Pearl Harbour....and before that as well.....I have often wondered why a nation would, after committing 90% of it's military resources to China, then turn around and take on the most powerful industrial nation on Earth when their principle Naval expert (Isoruku Yammamoto) was advising them that he could "run wild for six months, and then after that time period, I just don't know"

    Wake up guys......The American submarine services operational record is the true window to their intelligence effort with JN-25...If you really believe that Joe Rocheforts silly little group of ex-field musics from the Battleship 'California" made all the difference at Midway, only 6 months into the war, when the US Navy claim to have not read JN-25 at any time before this...think again....The looses and service records of their subs give the game away for all to see.....So, Naves and Rusbridger WERE correct after all
     
  10. Christos

    Christos Discharged

    If you want an example of revisionism at it's very best, look at what Civil War Historians are doing with the April 6th-7th 1862 Battle of SHILOH......

    The sunken Road was not there at the time, and is now said to have been created by battlefield tourists traipsing through the field, gradually wearing down this section of the field (known as the Hornets Nest, and by the Peach Orchard, roughly were Albert Sidney Johnston fell).
    Benjamin Prentiss, the so-called 'hero' of the sunken road....guilty of overdramitising his own role in the battle and taking credit for actions made by one of his Brigade commanders, Everett PEABODY, whom he held "personally responsible for bringing on the engagement", when he dared to send piquettes forward to investigate Confederate units testing their powder for dampness by firing it off....
    Union units were said to have been "bayonetted in their tents and taken completely by surprise"......this is a fallacy, as all Union Brigades were formed up and ready for the attack.....
    Arriving Union reinforcements saved the day....another fallacy....Confederate attacks had run out of steam by the time they reached a line of rather large artillery pieces set-up and emplaced personally by U.S. Grant to stop this very thing from happening late in the day....Reinforcements arrived in a piecemeal fashion, and were not ready for action until the morning of April 7th......

    And so it goes on.....this, my friends, is the real role of revisionism, to explode the myths that spring up from the self-serving testimony of soldiers on the actual field. Crosschecking and correllation can expose lies and falsehoods. Sometimes, it's the vets themselves that perpetrate these myths to cover their own lack of action or effort. Not that this happens all the time, but when it does, there is usually no point in rebutting the dissertations of these men, as some really only seek to hide the truth under a blanket, and in the name of their own personal advancement. Prentiss is the obvious example here, building a career on the bones of his dead Brigade commander....

    Without revision, these myths would have gone on for another 140 years.....NOW do you see why REVISIONISM should NOT be lumped into the same catagory as Denialism, Hollywoodism or Neo-Nazi hero worship?.....Comments?
     
  11. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    ....I think it's proof that kids are becoming more selfish, self centred, arrogant, ill educated and any other label you care to choose.....

    Don't blame the kids they are a product of the society they grow up in.
    Blame the generation before.
    They set the education cirriculum, they brought those kids into the world and brought them up, they made the TV programs, they produced this cult of the celebrity.
    We've a few 20 & unders on here I think it is a bit harsh to tar them all with the same brush.
     
  12. onele

    onele Junior Member

    Just found this site and i gotta say, you guys are fun to read! At little over the top sometimes, but i love it. As far as this topic is concerned, i would have to agree with spidge. You cant look at the 25%, you have to look at the 75. Every society has a generous share of idiots and i think 75% isnt doing too bad. i have known women that didnt know how to make instant tea, didnt know that there were 2 sides to a cassette tape and once sent a worker of mine for a left-handed shovel- he came back 2 hours later and said he couldn't find one. I read several years ago that almost half of all the high school seniors in Texas that were surveyed didnt know that Texas bordered Mexico. I remember an argument I had with a group of 20-somethings once where they all laughed and told me i was an idiot for thinking there were 50 states. (all 6 of them agreed on 51) So, while it may be surprising to you that 25% dont realize that Churchill was real, at least they knew his name. I believe that as i was watching the Fox news report on this matter there were perhaps as many as 25% of my fellow Americans watching the same thing, then realizing they had the channel on the news and quickly turned it to something quite mind-numbing where they feel more comfortable. I guess what I'm getting at is that everyone has a fair share of idiots these days, and as for this survey, you should probably be happy that they werent thinking he was the 'guy off Saving private Ryan' because as i would assume, most of the true idiots I have known would never watch a movie such as that, preferring the likes of 'Jackass 2'.

    75% isnt too shabby guys.
     
    von Poop and Owen like this.
  13. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    That's a man who thinks the glass is half-full rather than half-empty.
    Well done on accentuating the positive onele, welcome to the site by the way.
     
  14. Lucy Stag

    Lucy Stag Senior Member

    Yes, welcome!

    You might be right, but I still find thinking he "wasn't real" much weirder than not know his name at all, somehow.
     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Gotthard......RANTING is a little harsh......If it is such meaningless drivel....pick up the challenge and let me proove it for all to see....otherwise, my opinion is really no worse than others Ive seen.....Does everything not in the catagory of "humble pie" qualify as a "rant' simply due to you disagreeing?.....Wake up and see what a mess these 'people' will make of this world that others have fought for.....another challenge that will go begging.....And, if you don't want bites, don't use words like JEALOUSY....Is it not funny that long termers here can accuse me of practically anything, and I don't see you leaping to my defence....NOT ONCE have you ever sat here and taken my side over a personal attack on me....but you are so quick to leap to the defence of mindless kids....and others that seem to make sport out of their own lack of ability....
    I dont like arrogance Christos and you're comments about teens and twentysomethings are arrogant. You look down on them, actually you seem to despise them.
    Check out what Owen said. Its the previous generation's fault and that my friend is us!!!!

    I would like to thank Lucy Stag for proving my point that the youth of today are not all like Christos accuses them of.
     
  16. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Great Post Onelee!! Excellent points made.
     
  17. 4th wilts

    4th wilts Discharged

    hey vp,bevin is the man my nan meant.yours,4th wilts
     
  18. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Christos,
    Concerning your allegations about Shiloh. What history book did you get those from? I've not heard of most of the statements you attribute to revisionism. An example of this is the bayonetting statement. The vast majority of Confederates did not have bayonettes as they used their own rifles, which did not have attachable blades, so how could they have used somenthing they didn't have?

    I have always understood that while it was Prentiss' division that bore the brunt of the initial Confederate attack, but it was the stand of Peabody's brigade that gave him time to pull his division together long enough to disrupt the Confederate drive toward Pittsburg Landing.

    I am almost certain that the sunken road you referenced was mentioned in contempory reports abuut the battle at the time. However, the the term "Sunken Road" is more closely associated with the Battle of Sharpsburg, aka Antietam.

    edit-----

    Here's a drawing of the Sunken Road at Shiloh made at the time of the battle.
    [​IMG]
     
  19. Mark Hone

    Mark Hone Senior Member

    At the risk of repeating myself from previous discussions on this and other forums, whatever the real reasons for the woeful lack of Historical knowledge amongst many British people today it is NOT because History is declining in popularity as a subject at school. Quite the opposite in fact; it is a very popular GCSE subject and the fifth most popular A-Level subject, recently overtaking the arguably easier Geography. Most children who study the subject at GCSE will deal with the Second World War at some point and the vast majority will have studied aspects of the war at Primary school, where it is an element of the standard Key Stage 2 (jargon, sorry) History Curriculum. Many schools also include the World Wars as part of a Twentieth Century History course in Year 9 (Third Year in old money). The war is also a constant feature of TV programmes and popular computer games, not all of them completely Historically inaccurate.
    By contrast, although I had an interest in the war from my Dad (14th Army veteran) the Victor and Valiant comics, War Picture Library, War films etc I was never taught any aspect of the Second World War at Primary or Secondary School or Sixth Form College. At Cambridge I did an optional History Tripos part two course in British Grand Strategy 1933-39, which is as close as I ever got. The First world War was only dealt with through the poetry of Wilfred Owen in the Third Year of Grammar school.
     
    von Poop likes this.
  20. 4th wilts

    4th wilts Discharged

    i remember the t.v series by ken burns,i believe it was called ,the civil war,i will pay more attention next time it is on.yours,4th willts
     

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