Too much American 'culture' in the UK?

[SUPERTYKE]

I don't care if you're queer or not. It is of no importance to me, and neither are you. But your spite and nastiness to others is like that which is common in some gays. I'm as American as I want to be and no more, you have no idea how I think other than knowing I dislike blowhards like you. I am liked by my many friends as a person with a great sense of humor and generous to a fault. I am adored by my wife, sons, and grandchildren. I seek no censure from the likes of you. Go hate someplace else.

 

Don't presume to tell me to go ANYWHERE Mr Nasty. I live here in good old Sheff. Why don't you try to find an ALL American forum - Or won't they put up with you??

[buck]

Don't presume to tell me to go ANYWHERE Mr Nasty. I live here in good old Sheff. Why don't you try to find an ALL American forum - Or won't they put up with you??

See what I mean folks.

[buck]

[/b]

 

So....... Army lost and RAF eliminated? That still leaves the matter of the Royal Navy far greater in numbers and power than the Kriegsmarine and neither defeated nor neutralized? What then? How do you move a force of some 200,000 troops or more across a channel 22 miles wide without the cover of a large neval escort? The German navy in 1940 didnt have that many subs to put to sea and as for their surface fleet the Bismarck, Tirpitz, Gneisau etc were bottled up in Norwegian Fjiords. It had already suffered a number of lost ships during the invasion of Norway.

 

Even in June 1944 at the time of D-day when the Allies had complete air supremacy the mighty armada was still escorted by a huge naval force.

 

The preparation for the invasion of Britain were amateurish anyway. Not at all typical of the usual practice of German efficiency and know how.

All they had was a fleet of old barges and no troop transports whatsoever.

 

That's why it's believed that Hitler was never serious about invading. Just carrying out his usual policy of intimidation by the threat of force

 

BTW I'm a reasonable enough bloke if treated politely. I react to the way people approach me. I try not to let myself be blinded by false assumptions. America has it's faults as much as it's many blessing just as any other country has. The country has been very good to me. I worked hard to get to the good life I now enjoy but the opportunities were there also which were not available to me before I moved here.

 

I'll always put in a good word for the country when it's unfairly portrayed in a negative light

There is a faint possibility that he would have attempted an invasion if he had succeeded with his Russian campaign. But by the time that would have happened, Britain would have rearmed from the losses at Dunkirk, and well on the way to beating Rommel in the Western desert. Japan would by the end of 1941, just over a year from the Battle of Britain, have attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the US into action. There as not even the faintest possibility of Hitler being able to conquer Britain. Tyke needs to learn his lessons better instead of putting his own people down like he does.

[Harleyman]

There is a faint possibility that he would have attempted an invasion if he had succeeded with his Russian campaign. But by the time that would have happened, Britain would have rearmed from the losses at Dunkirk, and well on the way to beating Rommel in the Western desert. Japan would by the end of 1941, just over a year from the Battle of Britain, have attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the US into action. There as not even the faintest possibility of Hitler being able to conquer Britain. Tyke needs to learn his lessons better instead of putting his own people down like he does.

 

If you look at all the complexities involved in the D-Day operation it's mind boggling.

There were several million Allied troops based all over Britain, fully equipped and ready to go, thousands of tanks, trucks and artillery pieces, an air fleet of thousands of fighters, bombers and the combined might of the Royal Navy and the US Atlantic fleet. The greatest concentration of military power and the mightiest armada that ever saild across water some historians have called it. All this to land on a narrow stretch of beaches concentrated along the Normandy coast.

Yet for all that this operation could have easily become the greatest military disaster in history.

 

Eisenhower knew it and so did the rest of the Allied High Command. Eisenhower in fact had prepared a message beforehand in case of a total failure placing the blame on himself for making the wrong decison.

 

There was a lot of luck involved in the success of the invasion and a lot of Allied deception also.

 

A whole dummy army was created in the south of England facing the coast of Calais, rubber tanks, trucks and field guns which looked from the air like the real thing and it was also "leaked" out that Genl Patton was to head this force. It fooled the Germans enough for them to concentrate several elite Panzer divisions in the Calais area plus a few hundred thousand troops also

 

As for the actual landings themselves circumstances and luck also played a part in averting a potential disaster.

 

The US Airborne divisions were all scattered to hell and gone

 

Omaha beach was almost a catastophe and Omar Bradley momentarily contemplated evacuating the surviving troops. Utah Beach, which my father-in-law landed on could have been also. They were mistakenly landed on the wrong stretch of that beach far out of range of Germans guns concentrated further up the beach which saved their bacon.

 

Hitler the night before had taken a sleeping pill and when the first reports of the landings started coming in his lackeys were too afraid to wake him and disturb his beauty sleep.

 

None of his commanders had the nerve to make decisons in his absence and therefore the Panzers were held back. Had they ben ordered to attack while the landings were taking place they could hve easily driven a wedge between the US and British and Canadian forces and exploited it enough to drive the whole force back into the channel

 

Even after the landings the Allies hold on the captured areaswas conisdered tenuous until tanks, vehicles and artillery could be offloaded.

 

So why therefore considering all this could anyone believe that Hitler given the resources that were available to him in 1940 have carried out a successful invasion of England?

The Germans had no transports capable of ferryings hundreds of tanks and artillery across. Even if they could have achieved a bridgehead along the Sussex coast without a timely backup of heavy tanks and artillery they wouldn't have lasted long,

 

Bad shape that it was in the British army could have still thrown them back into the sea and Churchill had also seriously considered turning the south coast beaches into blazing infernos and even the use of poison gas.

 

Hitler, rank amateur that he was nevertheless knew that his army was only capable of invasion by land and nowhere capable of undertaking a major seaborne operation.

 

So any threat of invasion was pure bluff right from the start !

[Harleyman]

I'm sure theres snobbery within the rich, but I find more snobbery in England within the working /middle class..not the wealthy, the Brits look down on people that live on the council estates, don't they ? they even dislike their own people that live in certain parts of Sheffield I don't find that in the US in working class areas like Sheffield, people doin't care what you do for a livng or if you own your own home or rent a place or what you drive.......but it does matter in England, I've spent many years in both places to have seen it.

 

I grew up on a council estate and was well aware of my station in life

You'd see all these knobs on TV and in the British films all talking real posh and my poor old mum bless her soul often told me that I should learn to pronounce my words better (and her with a thck Northern Ireland accent). I suppose she thought that by doing so I might end up working in a solicitor's office instead of on a factory floor.

 

Then along came Albert Finney and other British actors like him and the days of

public school accents which had predominated in Britsh films came to an end.

The rough around the edges type of Brit was the new hero in the kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s

 

Americans have never judged me by my accent. Many of them liked it, some made fun of it. Three years in the US military taught me a lot about Americans. If they make fun of you it's because they like you and you are one of the crowd. When you give back as good as you get they take it in the same spirit. Those who get offended and huffy are regarded as stand offisih and snobby

[poppins]

My cousin emigrated from the UK at the age of nine, so lost his Limey accent very fast, later in life he worked as an air traffic controller in Bahrain, living and working with Brits, he would tell us the Brits would pretend to like the Yanks, but when they got in the pubs the truth would come out, that was 20 years ago...no wars, no Pres Bush, just a dislike for the Americans for no reason, it was just "the thing to do " , Brits would suck-up to the Arabs over there, then be two faced again in the pubs....Oh! what drink will do

 

Brits should stay home and not wander too far away, although they do admit themselves they have a bad reputation in other countries.

[Harleyman]

My cousin emigrated from the UK at the age of nine, so lost his Limey accent very fast, later in life he worked as an air traffic controller in Bahrain, living and working with Brits, he would tell us the Brits would pretend to like the Yanks, but when they got in the pubs the truth would come out, that was 20 years ago...no wars, no Pres Bush, just a dislike for the Americans for no reason, it was just "the thing to do " , Brits would suck-up to the Arabs over there, then be two faced again in the pubs....Oh! what drink will do

 

Brits should stay home and not wander too far away, although they do admit themselves they have a bad reputation in other countries.

 

 

 

I know the British servicemen in Singapore hated the yanks. It was because whenever the US 7th fleet docked for a stay the prices in all the clubs, hotels, restaurants and dens of iniquity would suddenly double

 

I didn't like em much either long before I emigrated. Whenever you saw an Air Fore GI in London they always had one or two gorgeous looking girls on their arm and I couldn't even get a date with little Nellie Squires.

 

It was of course a severe case of the Green Eyed Monster

[Quinnwok]

yanks are ace, they have B52's

[buck]

yanks are ace, they have B52's

And they've had them for a very long time. You can see them coming cos the engines smoke.

[buck]

I grew up on a council estate and was well aware of my station in life

You'd see all these knobs on TV and in the British films all talking real posh and my poor old mum bless her soul often told me that I should learn to pronounce my words better (and her with a thck Northern Ireland accent). I suppose she thought that by doing so I might end up working in a solicitor's office instead of on a factory floor.

 

Then along came Albert Finney and other British actors like him and the days of

public school accents which had predominated in Britsh films came to an end.

The rough around the edges type of Brit was the new hero in the kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s

 

Americans have never judged me by my accent. Many of them liked it, some made fun of it. Three years in the US military taught me a lot about Americans. If they make fun of you it's because they like you and you are one of the crowd. When you give back as good as you get they take it in the same spirit. Those who get offended and huffy are regarded as stand offisih and snobby

"Saturday Night and Sunday Morning " remains one of the great classics of post war British cinema. Taken from a novel by Alan Sillitoe about working class Nottingham, it could just as easily been Sheffield except for the Raleigh bike factory that Arthur Seaton worked at. Albert Finney was brilliant, and its said that Greta Garbo went to see it about fifty times in a row in NYC.