I was wondering, does any other country in the world treat its heroes in the same way as Britain? Two classic examples are the way the men most responsible for victory in the Battle of Britain were sacked in virtual disgrace at what should have been their finest hour.
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I've always believed this was due to jealousy on the part of their rivals & is a national disgrace. Depite both being eventually proved right they never received the official credit they deserved - yet as true gentlemen & loyal officers they accepted their fate without criticising others. Theirs was by no means an isolated case & there are many more examples. I'm ashamed that this was allowed to happen.

Recently (trying to) read the book " The Right of the Line" enlightened me on this subject as far a Dowding was concerned. From what I remember reading, Dowding was supposed to retire before the Battle of Britain, sometime in 1939 or 1940, but was asked to delay his retirement two or more times before he eventually left. The quote below I found on rafweb.org, in the biographies of Air Officers. The site also mentions the biggest conflict of the BoB - between Park and Leigh-Mallory...

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I also seem to remember from previous readings that Sholto Douglas replaced Dowding, and then replaced Park with Leigh Mallory (who had commanded 12 Grp and its "Big Wing" in the BoB, and who eventually replaced Douglas as AOC Fighter Command in 1942)

I think it's apt however, that Dowding became Lord Dowding of Bentley Priory.

Also I agree that these two men never did and probably never will get the credit they deserve

Charlie

Canada in no better.

Hell we send our people off to keep the peace without the proper equipment.

Members of Parliament should have their salaries cut until the military is back to strength and properly trained and equipped.

Some day the people will learn you can not put a budget on FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY.

It's sad when the prisoners in Federal and Provincial Institutions are better treated than the Military or Our Senior Citizens.

Cheers..Happy Landings...Doug

From what I've read over many years I've come to the conclusion that the whole thing stemmed from petty jealousy on the part of Trafford Leigh-Mallory. He was in charge of 12 Group, north of the Thames, which was originally thought would be in the front line if an attack was mounted on Britain. Nobody had forseen the rapid German advance into countries on the northern coast of Europe. This meant that Luftwaffe aircraft based in France were much closer & came into the area of 11 Group under the direct command of Keith Park. These two commanders obviously disliked each other & disagreed on tactics. Park complained that 12 Group should have done more to protect the air bases in his area instead of going off hunting for German planes to shoot down.
Leigh-Mallory seized on the Big Wing theory when it was proposed to him by Douglas Bader & others. It was his chance to bring attention back to himself & strike a blow against Park. I find the idea of personal gain & all this pettiness abhorrent, especially when the whole future of the country was at stake.

Park disagreed with the whole idea as he said, quite rightly as it turned out, that it would take far too long to assemble the wing. This meant that enemy bombers could not be attacked until after they had dropped their bombs & were on their way home. It also shortened the effective range of the fighters & by attacking in large numbers they would get in each other's way. By a strange twist of fate, the first time the Big Wing was tried it was a success. This was mainly because the Luftwaffe had been delayed for 1 hour on this particular day, giving the wing time to assemble. The date was 15th September 1940, generally considered the turning point of the BoB. Leigh-Mallory had proved his point which must have influenced Churchill & other leaders. I think this more than any other event sealed the eventual fate of Dowding & Park. With all due respect to Douglas Bader & its other proponents I've always thought this Big Wing theory was flawed. It's possible it would work later when the immediate threat was over.

The Hurricane & Spitfire were both short-range interceptors designed primarily for defence. Park's method of scrambling individual squadrons & taking advantage of Radar to direct them onto specific targets was more flexible & the most effective way of using the resources at his disposal. IMHO
By attacking a large force in small numbers almost any aircraft crossing their sights would be a valid target.

Leigh-Mallory never seemed a suitable choice for a senior command position to me. He was forced to resign as commander of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces before D-Day after coming into conflict with Arthur Harris & Carl Spaatz. His resignation was at the insistence of General Eisenhower himself. Leigh-Mallory was then appointed Commander in Chief of Southeast Asia & killed on his way to Burma when the aircraft he was travelling in crashed on 14th November, 1944.

PS. Another objection to the Big Wing is the large formations involved. Many of the RAF reserve squadrons were still using the outdated squadron formation tactics. This involved more effort on the part of every pilot except the leader & they were often more concerned about keeping a neat formation & colliding with other aircraft than looking out for the enemy. When these squadrons were sent into action the job of Tail-end Charlie, who was supposed to weave around behind the squadron to protect their blind spot, often fell to the most junior pilots. These easily got lost & were sometimes shot down before they saw the enemy. The Luftwaffe pilots had discovered in Spain that these tactics did not work & developed the Schwarm formation of 4 aircraft that could be easily split in to 2 as a Rotte (leader & wingman) when in action. The RAF squadrons involved from the start had soon adopted this idea themselves but it was unofficial & not passed on to the others.

a lot of countries do not respect war veterens properly.  Ever heard of Gordon Olive?  Australian pilot during the Second World War (he actually flew with the RAF not the RAAF).  Well he aquired the rank of Wing Commander in Britain and when he transferred back to Australia and the RAAF during the latter parts of WW2 they dropped his rank to SQNLDR.  That is an utter disgrace as is the non-recognition of the Vietnam War veterens.

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I assume that this is why America lost in Vietnam...
And why Nazi germany failed to invade russia...
And why we lost the Battle of Rorke's drift.

However hightech an army might be, if they face a dedicated force of superior numbers with inferior equipment, numbers will always win.

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Badly planned,much too early,one of too many goals.
Not caused by a numerical inferior army.

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I disagree. Germany had some of the best tactical geniuses in the world in WWII. If the loss in Russia had anything to go by it was that the Russians could afford to lose huge amounts of men.

In the battle of Kursk the Russians had over 300,000 casualties. The Germans had fewer than 90,000. During the capturing of Berlin the Russians again had over 300,000 casualties. The Germans again lost less than 100,000. In these two battles alone the Russians losses are comparable to British and American losses for the entire war.

Basically, numbers will always win against technology.

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I had the same thought.

I think Woody is referring to "conventional" warfare.

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One situation that comes to my mind is Admiral Kimmel and General Short who were in charge in Hawaii during the Pearl Harbor raid.  I read a book titled "Day of Deceit"  by Robert Stinnett, who claims to have researched recently unclassified documents which prove that President Roosevelt had created a plan to get America into the war by provoking the Japanese to attack.  He knew that if the allies fell we would most likely have to face them on our own.  However the majority of Americans were against participating in any foreign wars and something had to be done to rally support.  Kimmel and Short were kept in the dark about any of these plans and became scapegoats for the disaster.  Last thing I heard is that their families are still trying to clear their names.  Very interesting reading although I do still take it with a grain of salt.

Here's a link:
http://www.liberty-tree.org/ltn/dayofdeceit.html


Jim

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Ten to fifteen...

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Just hope against hope that this never happens. If it ever does we're not likely to be around to discuss these things.

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Well, am I right thinking that the Chinese did a certain amount of brain washing of POW's...