The handbook issued to Americans soldiers in Britain during WW2

[surlyseagull]

Yes I really enjoyed reading that .....good post

 

[jakarta]

Sorry Trig,they were very close. They had invasion barges all along the coast of Northern French ports,the main targets were Sussex and Kent some of Devon,they had already taken the Channel Islands...all that Hitler needed now was air superority to launch 0peration Sea Lion.
Our radar stations and airfields were being attacked,some times 3 times a day,we suffered a heavy loss of men and aircraft...the British pilots were exhausted...Had Goering continued for another couple of weeks it would.ve been all over. Then a lone german bomber saved the day...in the confusion of night it dropped it's bombs on London. Our reply was to put as many bombers over Berlin and retaliate,we lost quite a few of them and did very little damage, but infuriated Hitler and Goering (Goering had made a boast that no British bomber would ever bomb Berlin) so they went for all out bombing on London...this gave the RAF time to repair the airfields,radar station,get pilots from the Commonwealth and America,and produce more planes,delivered by women pilots...a much needed respite.
Although Hitler had more planes than us we had the advantage of watching them come over,put up planes to be ready for them,we saved fuel and flying time...our pilots were bailing out over friendly territory...theirs to capture...eventually Hitler realised that he could not invade and called off the invasion and turned his attention to Operation Barbarossa...the invasion of Russia.
Operation Sea Lion was a very very close to happening My Mum took us to Ringwood to an aunt who had a mud cottage in the countryside

Being a kid I wanted to go back to Brighton,loved watching the planes and the dogfights...little did I realise that people were dying up there,Brighton got it's share of Bombing...one hitting the road between our house and my cousins house opposite.

A slight oversimplification of the Battle of Britain, if you read one of the more serious histories of the Battle, such as Stephen Bungay's 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' it becomes very clear that the Germans did not have a real chance of winning the Battle using the forces available to them and the tactics they adopted.

They did not 'bomb radar stations 3 times a day', they gave up bombing them early in the Battle as they didn't think they had put any out of action (they were wrong and it WAS another serious error but the Germans didn't understand how important radar was to the Air Defence system until too late).

The Germans switching to bombing London was not a sensible thing to do either but it didn't decide the Battle.

I wouldn't say Brighton got its share of the bombing either, as important military and civilian Docks both Portsmouth and Southampton were repeatedly heavily bombed but there was little of military value in Brighton to go after.

Opportunist raids to disrupt life down below or dumping an unused bombload on anything vaguely English on the way back over the Channel would have been more like it.

 

[Triggaaar]

Sorry Trig,they were very close.

You don't need to apologise babe, I still don't agree with you.

...all that Hitler needed now was air superority to launch 0peration Sea Lion.

They were nowhere near having the air superiority required to launch an amphibian assault. And you say they had invasion barges along the coast - they didn't have an invasion fleet ready.

Had Goering continued for another couple of weeks it would.ve been all over.

That is just complete nonsense. I'm well aware of Germany switching her attacks to London, and away from our airfields (this is what we were taught at school 30 years ago). Do you know how many of our airfields were out of action in the war, and for how long? I believe the total is something like one airfield, for one day. And look at the number of fighters we had available, the numbers weren't in decline, we were making them as fast as they were being shot down.

Even if Germany had more success in the south of England, our planes would simply have been stationed further north, out of reach of the 109s, but still easily within reach and capable of destroying a an invading fleet. We also had the biggest navy in the world - this would have had to move north if the Germans were successful in the air in the south, but the fleet would still be ready if Hitler invaded.

If you look at the state of Germany's forces on D-Day, and how difficult it still was to mount an amphibious assault, you'll appreciate these things are not easy. Germany was never anywhere near being able to mount an invasion.

 

[Barrow Boy]

A slight oversimplification of the Battle of Britain, if you read one of the more serious histories of the Battle, such as Stephen Bungay's 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' it becomes very clear that the Germans did not have a real chance of winning the Battle using the forces available to them and the tactics they adopted.

They did not 'bomb radar stations 3 times a day', they gave up bombing them early in the Battle as they didn't think they had put any out of action (they were wrong and it WAS another serious error but the Germans didn't understand how important radar was to the Air Defence system until too late).

The Germans switching to bombing London was not a sensible thing to do either but it didn't decide the Battle.

I wouldn't say Brighton got its share of the bombing either, as important military and civilian Docks both Portsmouth and Southampton were repeatedly heavily bombed but there was little of military value in Brighton to go after.

Opportunist raids to disrupt life down below or dumping an unused bombload on anything vaguely English on the way back over the Channel would have been more like it.

Just finished reading this superb book for the second time and can't recommend it enough. I would strongly advise anyone, even with just a passing interest in the subject, to read it.

 

[Bladders]

Interesting thread. I think Eastbourne and Hastings also had a pasting from the Luftwaffe, sadly easy targets for them on their way back from their main targets.

Back to the OP's theme - here in Norfolk there was a huge American military presence with something like 50,000 US air force / army air force personnel and seems like an airfield every 5 miles. That was in addition to a big concentration of RAF stations and Army bases. Yes the Yanks got stick from a minority of locals for 'being overpaid and over here' but 7,000 airmen from just the US 2nd Air Division alone lost their lives. There are lots of memorials around to remind us.

The air museum at Duxford just off the M11 in Cambridgeshire is a superb day out, mainly RAF and civilian stuff but also an excellent museum of US aircraft. The sheer scale of American air casualties in WWII is brought home by the images of every lost aircraft etched on the glass screens as you approach their part of the museum.

Of course the US forces are still operating from Lakenheath and Mildenhall and most weekdays/nights we get several F15s practice dogfighting overhead, in addition to our local RAF Tornados and Typhoons. It's a military anoraks corner in these parts.

Eastbourne was designated by the home office after the war as the most raided town in the south east .

 

[Puppet Master]

I'd love to see the crowd at the Amex shout "Good try!" if a pass gets mis-placed in our own half or the goalie fumbles the ball into his own net...

 

[KZNSeagull]

A slight oversimplification of the Battle of Britain, if you read one of the more serious histories of the Battle, such as Stephen Bungay's 'The Most Dangerous Enemy' it becomes very clear that the Germans did not have a real chance of winning the Battle using the forces available to them and the tactics they adopted.

They did not 'bomb radar stations 3 times a day', they gave up bombing them early in the Battle as they didn't think they had put any out of action (they were wrong and it WAS another serious error but the Germans didn't understand how important radar was to the Air Defence system until too late).

The Germans switching to bombing London was not a sensible thing to do either but it didn't decide the Battle.

I wouldn't say Brighton got its share of the bombing either, as important military and civilian Docks both Portsmouth and Southampton were repeatedly heavily bombed but there was little of military value in Brighton to go after.

Opportunist raids to disrupt life down below or dumping an unused bombload on anything vaguely English on the way back over the Channel would have been more like it.

Thanks! I will read that book. Have you read Ben MacIntyre's books? Very interesting, particularly Double Cross.

 

[SweatyMexican]

Great read!

 

[jakarta]

Thanks! I will read that book. Have you read Ben MacIntyre's books? Very interesting, particularly Double Cross.

Have read Agent Zigzig and Operation Mincemeat, both fascinating, haven't got around to Double Cross as yet.

I hope you enjoy Most Dangerous Enemy, I have been interested in the BoB for around 40 years or so and must have around 50 or so books which relate to it and it is the best one in my opinion.

The out of print After the Battle Book The Battle of Britain - Then and Now is also a favourite but very expensive if you can find a copy. I paid £60 for mine around five years ago and it is a massive (718 pages!) hardback which details all of the RAF Airfields used in the BoB in 1940 (and then shows them postwar) and also has a complete day-by-day list of casualties on both sides and how and where they were shot down including crash site and salvage details where they are available.

Very sobering when you look at the ages of those concerned.

 

[Wellesley]

I say, cracking read chaps, what,what? Absolutely top-hole. Thanks for posting Old Boy.

 

[jakarta]

I say, cracking read chaps, what,what? Absolutely top-hole. Thanks for posting Old Boy.

Why do you clowns open these threads if all you can post is crap like this?

Ah well, another one for my Ignore list.....

 

[Wellesley]

Why do you clowns open these threads if all you can post is crap like this?

Ah well, another one for my Ignore list.....

I don't know how or why you would take offence to that. Still, at least you've put me on ignore, so you won't have to read me telling you to f*** off, you tit.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Have read Agent Zigzig and Operation Mincemeat, both fascinating, haven't got around to Double Cross as yet.

I hope you enjoy Most Dangerous Enemy, I have been interested in the BoB for around 40 years or so and must have around 50 or so books which relate to it and it is the best one in my opinion.

The out of print After the Battle Book The Battle of Britain - Then and Now is also a favourite but very expensive if you can find a copy. I paid £60 for mine around five years ago and it is a massive (718 pages!) hardback which details all of the RAF Airfields used in the BoB in 1940 (and then shows them postwar) and also has a complete day-by-day list of casualties on both sides and how and where they were shot down including crash site and salvage details where they are available.

Very sobering when you look at the ages of those concerned.

I will look out for that as well - I own a bookshop so will see what I can find from my sources!

Double Cross, if you didn't know, is about the D-Day spies the Allies subverted who ended up telling a complete pack of lies to the Germans re D-Day, to the point that at least one was awarded an Iron Cross and Hitler used their intelligence for planning and was convinced that the invasion would come at Calais. Resulted in a complete fabricated army being created in East Anglia (cardboard tanks etc), to mask the fact that the real army was on the south coast. One of the spies ended up spinning these stories about what was going on in England, even though he had never been there and was sitting out the war in Spain! Fascinating stuff.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Have read Agent Zigzig and Operation Mincemeat, both fascinating, haven't got around to Double Cross as yet.

I hope you enjoy Most Dangerous Enemy, I have been interested in the BoB for around 40 years or so and must have around 50 or so books which relate to it and it is the best one in my opinion.

The out of print After the Battle Book The Battle of Britain - Then and Now is also a favourite but very expensive if you can find a copy. I paid £60 for mine around five years ago and it is a massive (718 pages!) hardback which details all of the RAF Airfields used in the BoB in 1940 (and then shows them postwar) and also has a complete day-by-day list of casualties on both sides and how and where they were shot down including crash site and salvage details where they are available.

Very sobering when you look at the ages of those concerned.

Very sobering as you say. I found it very sad to read the accounts of some airfields around here just how many aircrew were not lost to enemy action but just on training flights, crashing on or close to their home base and under good flying conditions. Plus a scary number lost having made it back from a night time mission and only on final approach to a friendly base to have the landing lights turned off because it was feared they had enemy planes following them in. It was a case of sacrifice them but save the airfield. Very harsh decision to make.

One of my local church yards (close to former RAF Bircham Newton) has the first post-WWII memorial to lost servicemen to be erected which overlooks a row of neatly tended RAF graves. All very young men and many of them from across the Commonwealth but lost their lives protecting this small island.

A few yards to one side is a row of Luftwaffe graves. Seeing the graves of friend and foes so close together is very poignant. It seems the Luftwaffe graves were accidentally positioned within the area originally designated for the RAF graves. When the error was discovered they were due to be moved to another part of the church yard but the local community asked that the Luftwaffe graves be left in situ, rather than be disturbed. Forgiveness is a powerful and moving attribute.

 

[Norman Potting]

Have read Agent Zigzig and Operation Mincemeat, both fascinating, haven't got around to Double Cross as yet.

I hope you enjoy Most Dangerous Enemy, I have been interested in the BoB for around 40 years or so and must have around 50 or so books which relate to it and it is the best one in my opinion.

The out of print After the Battle Book The Battle of Britain - Then and Now is also a favourite but very expensive if you can find a copy. I paid £60 for mine around five years ago and it is a massive (718 pages!) hardback which details all of the RAF Airfields used in the BoB in 1940 (and then shows them postwar) and also has a complete day-by-day list of casualties on both sides and how and where they were shot down including crash site and salvage details where they are available.

Very sobering when you look at the ages of those concerned.

Another vote for "The Most Dangerous Enemy" from me - a superb book which analyses things from many angles. I think that in this book is stated the the German Navy considered that the day the war was lost was the 3rd September 1939.

With regard to operation Sealion is there a book which critically analyses the whole thing? From various websites there seems to be a view that using Rhine Barges, suitable for inland waters, towed in numbers by tugs, was not a very sound plan (the wash from a passing vessel of any size could have sunk them); also the Luftwaffe didn't have the weapons or planes designed for sinking large vessels at sea.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

Another vote for "The Most Dangerous Enemy" from me - a superb book which analyses things from many angles. I think that in this book is stated the the German Navy considered that the day the war was lost was the 3rd September 1939.

With regard to operation Sealion is there a book which critically analyses the whole thing? From various websites there seems to be a view that using Rhine Barges, suitable for inland waters, towed in numbers by tugs, was not a very sound plan (the wash from a passing vessel of any size could have sunk them); also the Luftwaffe didn't have the weapons or planes designed for sinking large vessels at sea.

Not sure if there is a book specifically but Anthony Beevor has looked at it in his analyses of WII. It boils down to the fact that he (Hitler) could not attempt to invade via the Dover Straits with the Royal Navy intact and without air superiority. They were forced to look at beaches from deal to Brighton and that relied on extremely benign weather as it is a long way over a choppy sea in a flat bottomed barge.

Most serious thinkers have concluded that Hitler decided to leave Britain isolated from the continent while he sorted out the Russians and figured he'd starve us into submission once he had beaten Stalin.

He was right too, up to a point. Britain was, by then, fighting alone and without any artillery, tanks and infrastructure which had been largely left on the Beach at Dunkirk. Simply put we were a minor irritant completely incapable of posing a threat to Nazi Europe.

Obviously several events changed everything. Firstly the Russians didn't surrender,then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and Hitler decided to declare war on the USA. After that, the fate of Germany was sealed.

Military historians have also pointed out that even if Hitler had somehow managed to cross the channel under a vast cloud of Paratroopers to some other audacious move then we had well prepared stop lines across Kent, Essex and up to Greater London ( some of which is still clearly visible in the fields around the A130 in Essex and Across the Kent Weald) would have given the Germans a massive hurdle to overcome.

 

[el punal]

That's not my understanding of it. I don't think they were ever anywhere near being able to invade us.

I believe, that, in 1941 the country was within a week of being starved because of the success of German U-Boats in destroying some many ships in the North Atlantic convoys.

 

[beorhthelm]

With regard to operation Sealion is there a book which critically analyses the whole thing?

there must be. someone did a full wargame analysis with NATO commanders and computer simulations running through the plans and likely counter and counter-counter attacks. it does not end well for the German expeditionary force. the key reason, as you allude to, is the Royal Navy. it would have been near impossible to secure the channel for any length of time, they'd have a couple of days to land as many troops and equipment as possible before the fleet arrived (moored at distant bases to be out of range) and cut them off. this is why they wanted complete air superiority, to support the ground forces once in south of England with unreliable supply lines.

 

[GT49er]

Wonderful OP. Assuming it was written by an American, it was a wonderfully sympathetic and perceptive piece of writing - and instantly recognisable (Foyle's War, for example - and my growing up in England years, only a few years later) and it fair brought a lump to my throat. I wonder how much of it would apply today.

 

[Nigella's Cream Pie]

Yes a very good read.. and how did they turn out when they arrived here ?

Made the ladies lives a good sight more interesting I guess... lol

Surprised no warnings not to date any women, of course they did as is no doubt revealed in Juliet Gardiner's book 'Over Here: GI's in Britain During the Second World War', available at:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Over-Here-Britain-During-Second/dp/1855851156/ref=sr_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381092475&sr=1-18