Britain was "junior partner" to US in fighting the Nazis

[Harleyman]

I watched an interesting film the other week about us doing the dirty on the french navy in harbour, it was after France had fell and Hitler wanted to recall the French fleet. The French bloke in charge of their navy promised Churchill that all the french ships would be scuttled before he let them get in the hands of the Nazis.

 

Anyhow aparrently this shelling of the French ships in port was key to showing the US that we had the balls for the war and would do whatever was nessersary to win.

 

It was apparently one of the darkest days for us in the war because we killed allies and worse still the french really did scupper their ships to give us to keep dominance of the sea's.

 

I love stuff like this on tv, I once watched a film called 'little dieter needs to fly' which was a fascinating film for anyone who hassnt watched it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145046/synopsis

 

 

That act earned the undying hate of French admiral Darlan for the British. But that wasnt really important except that he may have issued the orders for the Vichy French forces in North Aftrica to resist the Operation Torch landing later on which some of them did but the resistance amounted to almost nothing in the end anyway

[natjack]

That act earned the undying hate of French admiral Darlan for the British. But that wasnt really important except that he may have issued the orders for the Vichy French forces in North Aftrica to resist the Operation Torch landing later on which some of them did but the resistance amounted to almost nothing in the end anyway

We were doing it to impress the Americans so they'd come and give us a hand? Why would they want us to do something like that? That's really bad news.

[hard2miss]

That act earned the undying hate of French admiral Darlan for the British. But that wasnt really important except that he may have issued the orders for the Vichy French forces in North Aftrica to resist the Operation Torch landing later on which some of them did but the resistance amounted to almost nothing in the end anyway

No it was totaly unavoidable but we couldnt take the risk and apparently it was pivitol in the US joining us. There was a lot of resistance to join prior to that according to this documentory that dragged up transcrips and corrispondance and all sorts from our leaders and showing that we had the stomach to do this unpallitable act took us over the edge concerning US oppinion about a European war.

 

Don't know how right it is or how much I remember of the documentory but its well worth watching if its on again.

[buck]

I would say speaking from an old fashioned point of view that the ability to spell reasonably well indicates your level of education and intelligence. That doesn't say much for you.

 

Anyway get lost. I've no intention of getting into a slagging contest with someone like you. Your kind are a dime a dozen on this forum

You have to be sorry for the guy, Harley, he comes from Killamarsh ferchrissake. If they had grade schools in UK, he never would have got through fifth.

[hard2miss]

We were doing it to impress the Americans so they'd come and give us a hand? Why would they want us to do something like that? That's really bad news.

Not to impress them. We had the word of this admiral saying that he wouldnt let the Germans get the ships but France had fallen to the Germans and they had recalled the French fleet. We went down North Africa and stopped these French ships leaving port and asked for them to surrender the command of the fleet to us.

Bareing in mind they were our allies and fighting allong side us up till this point and they did not think that we would carry out an attack but they got a shock and it was that shock that made many Americans that had probabily wrote us off at this point, turn round and look at it from the perspective that we were willing to do anything it took to win, including sacrificing our allies to make sure we diddnt give them the upper hand on the sea.

 

Anyhow they joined us after that and the rest is history as they say.

 

 

 

 

Ooops, we now know that history is a bit more flexable than first previously thought

[Harleyman]

No it was totaly unavoidable but we couldnt take the risk and apparently it was pivitol in the US joining us. There was a lot of resistance to join prior to that according to this documentory that dragged up transcrips and corrispondance and all sorts from our leaders and showing that we had the stomach to do this unpallitable act took us over the edge concerning US oppinion about a European war.

 

Don't know how right it is or how much I remember of the documentory but its well worth watching if its on again.

 

 

 

From what I've learned from the state of America at that time entering the war was definitely to be avoided.

 

World War 1 had ended just over two decades earlier and Americans remembered their own losses but even more so the horrific slaughter of British, French and German troops. In addition to those against the war there were the German Bunds whose members were German-Americans and more recent immigrants from Germany.

 

Roosevelt took a considerable risk in supplying Lend-Lease to the British. Many of his enemies saw it as a violation of America's neutrality and possibly an impeachable offence

 

There were several incidents involving American warships and German U-Boats in the Atlantic and the drift towards war was already manifesting itself before Pearl Harbor anyway.

[Harleyman]

We were doing it to impress the Americans so they'd come and give us a hand? Why would they want us to do something like that? That's really bad news.

 

It was done simply to deny the Nazis the use of French warships. I dont know if there were any aircraft carriers amongst the French fleet but imagine if the German navy had got a hold of one of them, sailing into the Mediterranean loaded with Me 109s and escorted by Tirpitz and Bismarck.

 

Not a very pleasant scenario

[MadnBad]

It was done simply to deny the Nazis the use of French warships. I dont know if there were any aircraft carriers amongst the French fleet but imagine if the German navy had got a hold of one of them, sailing into the Mediterranean loaded with Me 109s and escorted by Tirpitz and Bismarck.

 

Not a very pleasant scenario

 

There were no aircraft carriers though there was a seaplane carrier, there was no chance that tirpitz was ever going to go anywhere though it remained a great fear for us. I've always found the story of the tirpitz very sad "the lonely queen of the north" was an apt name.

You should watch the film "above us the waves" it's a good tirpitz related film relating a little operation carried out by mini subs.

[buck]

There were no aircraft carriers though there was a seaplane carrier, there was no chance that tirpitz was ever going to go anywhere though it remained a great fear for us. I've always found the story of the tirpitz very sad "the lonely queen of the north" was an apt name.

You should watch the film "above us the waves" it's a good tirpitz related film relating a little operation carried out by mini subs.

I was a sea cadet in 1946 on summer training at Prestwick airport, which was then a Naval Air Station. We were takn on a trip to the Gareloch where a lot of warships were waiting to be scrapped. There was a carrier with a big shell hole in her side, some japanese midget submarines and lots of destroyers, but there was also the Tirpitz upside down. She had finally beem hit by a 20000 pound bomb from a Lancaster bomber and had capsized. She had been towed like that from Tromso Fjord in Norway.

[freyasdad]

As this is a Sheffield forum i would like to suggest that cameron and his sidekick " i want power at any cost " clegg go and live in the States where they will be obviously recognised as the great men they are.

Cameron is either an idiot or a creep for his comment and to be honest i dont know which is worse.

As for the Yanks they only came in to the war for thier own needs nothing more.