Posted on 07/19/2010 2:18:51 AM PDT by Ayn And Milton
So, not much text necessary... enjoy, think, and remember!
Nice Pictures
bfl
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
The Battle of Britian was a major setback for Germany and the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe was doing a good job of rolling up the RAF in the south of England, prepatory to a channel crossing. Hitler was outraged by a few pinprick raids by the RAF against German cities and demanded that the Luftwaffe switch targets to British cities. This was the decision that cost the battle. An ME-109 operating out of France only had enough fuel to fly to London and operate for five minutes. Many Luftwaffe fighter pilots were lost because they ditched in the channel on the way home. The Luftwaffe never recovered. Towards the end of the war, many German fighter pilots were flying into combat with too few hours to be allowed to solo in the U.S. Army Air Force.
BTW, German radar was (far) technically superior to the Chain Home system, contrary to popular belief. Where the British had an advantage was in better incorporating radar data into an overall real time picture of the battle, giving their commanders better situational awareness.
Thanks, nice addition!
Great. All I see are little red x’s.
The Battle of Britian was a major setback for Germany and the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe was doing a good job of rolling up the RAF in the south of England, prepatory to a channel crossing. Hitler was outraged by a few pinprick raids by the RAF against German cities and demanded that the Luftwaffe switch targets to British cities. This was the decision that cost the battle. An ME-109 operating out of France only had enough fuel to fly to London and operate for five minutes. Many Luftwaffe fighter pilots were lost because they ditched in the channel on the way home. The Luftwaffe never recovered. Towards the end of the war, many German fighter pilots were flying into combat with too few hours to be allowed to solo in the U.S. Army Air Force.Thanks, Lonesome. Your excellent little summary goes great with these amazing photos.BTW, German radar was (far) technically superior to the Chain Home system, contrary to popular belief. Where the British had an advantage was in better incorporating radar data into an overall real time picture of the battle, giving their commanders better situational awareness.
The plane going of Lord Nelson statue in Trafalgar Square demonstrates the stark closeness of the battle over London.
I attended an air show near Oxford at the American Air Museum nearby complete with mock dogfight.
Area looks very much like it did during the war. It was very eerie.
I’m sorry! Others, and I myself can see them, obviously. Can’t think of any reason why you can’t.
It’s not your fault. Must be something on my end. I’m a WWII buff and would like to see them.
Men like this are hard to find in England today. The place has largely surrendered to the Muslims.
*
Very interesting. The author raises some important points, and highlights a few paradoxes that are worth thinking about.
Is it good or bad that so much emotion went into that match?
I myself, being 51 years of age, see younger people being almost frighteningly emotional about a mere game of soccer. But that is my perception. I need to remind myself that someone aged 20 nowadays may not even have grandparents anymore that can relate stories on their experience of the War.
Whereas my own mom and dad, both luckily still alive, were children during wartime. They know what hearing bomber planes is, what being relocated to an entirely different part of the country is (because the Nazi’s confiscated their parental homes), and what hunger is - they were obliged to eat tulip ‘balls’ (sorry, don’t know the word for the onion-shaped thing here...), because there was no real food at all. The word ‘hongerwinter’ still installs fearful memories in many, many old Dutch folks.
I think the behaviour and feelings of young soccer fans reflects their (relative) lack of direct experience with a real war.
Is that good? Well, bad it ain’t, because you don’t wish war on anyone innocent, of course.
Moot point.
Good post. The word you’re looking for is Tulip bulbs.
Battle of Britain photos you might enjoy ping.
Well said and a very good analogy. Lack of experience in worldly matters indeed contributing to an excess of zeal misplaced.
There was a German pilot that got a bit confused on directions and landed on a British air-strip
Wonder if was that one lined up with those Spitfires in those pics
Pretty good gift
I just went searching for one of the opening scenes from the movie.....spitfire low level pass.....*smiles*...thought for sure I could find it...
Green Beach is a book about Brits going to France and trying to learn about German radar. The British radar technician had a soldier with him that had one job...to kill the technician before he was captured by the Germans.
Before I read your caption, I glanced at the picture and wondered how many of them ‘came home’....
Great Pictures...Thanks.
Just the opposite of your statement is true: If it hadn't been for the Hurricanes numbers Britain would have been lost.
There’s an old Len Deighton novel titled “Bomber” which is the fictional story of an RAF raid over Germany. If you have a chance to find a copy I highly recommend it. Get past the personal crap in the first chapter or two and it’s a riviting story of what it must have been like for the men doing the flying. And they did it mission after mission.
That was a Stuka dive bomber and I wondered about that one also!:)
Their musical score should have won awards.
Check out one minute into video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QVZ4W_2Iec&feature=related
A brief history lesson on the Spitfire, he he
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDDDKnNhuE
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
thanks for the pics. I shudder to think how Britian might react today to annihlation. Are there enough patriotic men and women to stand up to tyranny today or would they meekly go quietly into servitude? I can’t answer that question myself but I shudder to think what the answer is...
Great pictures. Thanks for posting. Thanks to all posters on this educational thread.
..been on my favorites list since 2008
bump for later
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXf1bhEEXd0
Thanks, much appreciated.
The Brits leapfrogged the Germans (and everybody else) by inventing the multicavity magnetron. This made microwave radar possible. German sets were still UHF and VHF (Chain Home was ridiculously long wave HF. Yet it was just good enough.) While the Germans and Japanese eventually produced limited number of microwave sets, they never produced them in the numbers that the Allies did.
When the Tizard commission carrying the latest British scientific inventions arrived in the U.S. by ship, they landed first in Boston, where they were greeted by Roosevelt’s scientific advisor Vannevar Bush. (No relation to Prescott or the George’s.) Bush, just happened to be a founding director of Raytheon Company. He showed the multicavity magnetron to Percy Spencer, later famous as the inventor of the microwave oven (in 1947!). Although the British scientist who carried the tube over from England had kept it in a case chained to his arm, Spencer took it home to play with. The next day he proposed that instead of machining it out of a solid piece of copper, he could produce them by stamping sheets of copper, bolting them together and then machining out the inner surface of the resonant cavity. In the event Raytheon went on to produce over half of all the magnetrons made during World War II.
Airborne surface search radar turned the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. In this role, cheap microwave radar was a truly a war winning invention. The U.S. spent more money developing radar during the war than it did on the Manhattan Project. It has truly been said, that while the atomic bomb ended the War, radar won it.
Plus the breaking of the German and Japanese ciphers.
ENIGMA gave no warning the the Ardennes Offensive. While the Germans enforced strict radio silence, possibly to thwart traffic analysis, perhaps they smelled a rat, Allied commanders had become too reliant on ENIGMA giving them the German order of battle. Radar did come through, even in the Bulge. The Army had anti-personnel artillery shells with radar altimeter fuzes. They had kept them back lest the Germans reverse engineer duds and use them on us. Their use was first authorized during the Bulge. The effect, both tactical and psychological was devastating. Some German infantry units mutinied. Patton was so aghast that he thought they should be outlawed by international treaty, like gas and germ warfare.
I figured you has seen it but just in case.
I showed that to a co-worker at work a while back, he was an engine mech on C-124s and A-1s way back yonder and he almost dived under his desk:-)
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Please don't misunderstand my question as disrespectful to the R.A.F. or their contributions in WWII.
Different sorts of war, I think. After the Battle of Britain, the Germans spent a lot of their air power defending against Allied bombing raids; and they also used their airpower extensively on the Eastern Front against the Russians.
The RAF fighters were more fully engaged in North Africa and the Mediterranean, and I think there was less air-to-air combat there.
I think the numbers are skewed primarily because a lot of German aces made their bones early in the war against the air forces of nations flying obsolete aircraft with marginally trained pilots (i.e. France, USSR, Poland, etc.) For example the German "Ace of Aces", Erich Hartmann is recorded as having 352 aerial victories. 345 of these were against the Soviets.
Thank you for the info. I knew Hartmann fought on both fronts, but I didn't realize the balance was that skewed.
Wouldn’t know, sorry. But there are some WWII experts in this thread, perhaps someone can answer?
And: I think your question makes eminent sense. I’d like to know the answer too... it doesn’t show any disrespect at all, by the way.
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