Russia - worrying?

[handymanz]

Haven't you heard of Operation Sealion and the Blitz?

Yeah my parents in London lived through the blitz. And I have a brief understanding of operation sealion. Just can't get my head around why Hitler didn't use the Luftwaffe to finish off the British Troops at Dunkirk.

Also with Germany invading Poland from the west & Russia invading from the East, I thought maybe you're better off out of it, and just let them get on with it.

[gringo]

 New York Times today(archived link-no paywall) https://archive.ph/kPnrE

   It is getting desperate for Empire(excerpt from article below;

So desperate is Ukraine for ammunition, it is firing considerably fewer artillery shells than it otherwise would, its defense minister says.
But it is still going through shells faster than the West can produce or supply them, and making more shells is expensive. If arms manufacturers are to increase production and build new factories, they want large orders with guaranteed money — and those factories can take two to three years or more to come online.

Arguing that their efforts to hold back current Russian attacks in the Donbas are being hampered by lack of ammunition, Ukraine’s defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, told EU counterparts in a recent letter obtained by The Financial Times that, at a minimum, Kyiv needed 250,000 artillery shells a month. He also said that his forces were firing only about 120,000 a month, a fifth of the rounds they would ordinarily use.

But a senior European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said that the 12 companies in 10 EU countries that make such artillery shells can currently produce only 650,000 a year — and that includes other types of ammunition that are in short supply, including 120-millimeter rounds needed for German Leopard 2 tanks and 105-millimeter rounds needed for the older Leopard 1 tanks.

The United States, too, does not make many 155-millimeter shells and is trying to increase its own production. It is ramping up from about 14,400 rounds a month to 20,000 a month this spring, with plans to be making 90,000 rounds a month by 2025.

    Do the maths-all that remains is signing the surrender terms.

[Steve_uk]

Yeah my parents in London lived through the blitz. And I have a brief understanding of operation sealion. Just can't get my head around why Hitler didn't use the Luftwaffe to finish off the British Troops at Dunkirk.

Also with Germany invading Poland from the west & Russia invading from the East, I thought maybe you're better off out of it, and just let them get on with it.

I think we probably did hope for some accommodation with Nazi Germany in the very early days. But after the so-called phoney war ended with the invasion of the Low Countries and France it became clear Britain was in it for the long haul. The Dunkirk incident was probably a gesture made by Hitler, who was all too focused on his invasion of the Soviet Union the following year.

[gringo]

Yeah my parents in London lived through the blitz. And I have a brief understanding of operation sealion. Just can't get my head around why Hitler didn't use the Luftwaffe to finish off the British Troops at Dunkirk.

Also with Germany invading Poland from the west & Russia invading from the East, I thought maybe you're better off out of it, and just let them get on with it.

   My mother, now 94, was evacuated from Hull along with all children during WW2. The house that she was evacuated from was bombed and the house near York, where she was evacuated to, was also bombed. Perhaps the entirety of WW2 was Hitler after my mam. She is surely one of very few people to have had two homes bombed.
     Hull also had it's own blitz and per capita was the most bombed city of the UK. It was also subject to a "D" notice, in that it was only ever referred to as a north eastern city or some such. The docks in Hull were vital in the UK war effort and any naming of Hull being bombed regularly was seen as damaging to the war effort. Many bombing raids heading back after bombing Liverpool or elsewhere would drop their remaining bombs on hull on the way back.

[gringo]

Haven't you heard of Operation Sealion and the Blitz?

    Do you think that the crimes of Churchill are comparable to your favourite bogeymen Stalin and Hitler?

   

[handymanz]

I think we probably did hope for some accommodation with Nazi Germany in the very early days. But after the so-called phoney war ended with the invasion of the Low Countries and France it became clear Britain was in it for the long haul. The Dunkirk incident was probably a gesture made by Hitler, who was all too focused on his invasion of the Soviet Union the following year.

This is a subject that has long fascinated me.
I've read numerous accounts that Hitler was an admirer of the British Empire and it was his model for a future Germany.
Using the Slavic Nations for German Industries to set up exploiting the cheap labour.
Somewhat naively, Hitler thought he could make peace with Britain and carry on with his plan.

[handymanz]

   My mother, now 94, was evacuated from Hull along with all children during WW2. The house that she was evacuated from was bombed and the house near York, where she was evacuated to, was also bombed. Perhaps the entirety of WW2 was Hitler after my mam. She is surely one of very few people to have had two homes bombed.
     Hull also had it's own blitz and per capita was the most bombed city of the UK. It was also subject to a "D" notice, in that it was only ever referred to as a north eastern city or some such. The docks in Hull were vital in the UK war effort and any naming of Hull being bombed regularly was seen as damaging to the war effort. Many bombing raids heading back after bombing Liverpool or elsewhere would drop their remaining bombs on hull on the way back.

My Mother turns 95 in June. Her favorite story is that the first V-1 (doodle bug bombs) fell on London on her 16th birthday.

[Roch]

Just reading some of the posts on here. I find British fascism a fascinating topic. I read a book on it by some author called Dorrel. A lot of names in it and a bit haphazard but really enjoyed it.

[Steve_uk]

    Do you think that the crimes of Churchill are comparable to your favourite bogeymen Stalin and Hitler?

   

I'll let members make up their own minds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767

[gringo]

I'll let members make up their own minds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767

    Have you made up your mind? A BBC apologia and whitewashing of Churchill's crimes, which literally begins;

The UK is marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. He is regarded by many as the greatest Briton ever, but for some he remains an intensely controversial figure.


    "Many" regard him as the "greatest Briton ever", whilst only "some" regard him as a "controversial figure". Sounds perfectly balanced to me? I have to say that the term, "controversial figure" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If controversial is simply a euphemism for, "genocidal, white supremacist, working class hating bigoted drunkard and racist war criminal", then I agree that he was controversial. All of that is merely the printable things that Churchill's contemporaries said about him. The 10 "greatest controversies" that the BBC listed actually manages to miss out his "greatest controversies".
    I look forward to the BBC article listing Stalin's "greatest controversies"
    Anyway a less flattering view of Churchill's "greatest controversies"/war crimes below;

https://medium.com/@write_12958/the-crimes-of-winston-churchill-c5e3ecb229b3

    The BBC article forgot quite a few that definitely should be in the top 10,
    Kenya-At least 150,000 men, women and children were forced into concentration camps. Children’s schools were shut by the British who branded them “training grounds for rebellion”. Rape, castration, cigarettes, electric shocks and fire all used by the British to torture the Kenyan people on Churchill’s watch.
     Afghanistan-Churchill found his love for war during the time he spent in Afghanistan. While there he said “all who resist will be killed without quarter” because the Pashtuns need “recognise the superiority of race”. He believed the Pashtuns needed to be dealt with, he would reminisce in his writings about how he partook in the burning villages and peoples homes.

“We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.” — Churchill on how the British carried on in Afghanistan, and he was only too happy to be part of it.

Churchill would also write of how “every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once”. Proud of the terror he helped inflict on the people of Afghanistan Churchill was well on the road to becoming a genocidal maniac.
     
      Those two "controversies" didn't even make the BBC list

      The printable comments that I referred to above about Churchill are all from his contemporaries. A mixture of my grand-father, father and various uncles and aunties. I'm sure you can figure out the less printable ones. 

[David1819]

Gloom Envelops Putin’s TV Propagandists

https://cepa.org/article/gloom-envelops-putins-tv-propagandists/

[handymanz]

I'll let members make up their own minds. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767

No mention of his incompetance over the slaughtering of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli, & the fire bombing of Dresden, but apart from all that a really great guy.

[gringo]

No mention of his incompetance over the slaughtering of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli, & the fire bombing of Dresden, but apart from all that a really great guy.

   The BBC article reads like the "mitigation" his legal team could have read out at the War Crimes Trial that he should have faced.
   

[David1819]

"Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities have alienated even those who previously supported closer ties with Moscow. And even Odesa, a city with an historically pro-Russian outlook, has embraced the movement toward Ukrainization, further underlining the loss of influence of Russian imperialism."

https://www.politico.eu/article/fall-russia-odesa-ukraine-war-nationalism-catherine-great-statue-empire/

[Steve_uk]

    Have you made up your mind? A BBC apologia and whitewashing of Churchill's crimes, which literally begins;

The UK is marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. He is regarded by many as the greatest Briton ever, but for some he remains an intensely controversial figure.


    "Many" regard him as the "greatest Briton ever", whilst only "some" regard him as a "controversial figure". Sounds perfectly balanced to me? I have to say that the term, "controversial figure" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If controversial is simply a euphemism for, "genocidal, white supremacist, working class hating bigoted drunkard and racist war criminal", then I agree that he was controversial. All of that is merely the printable things that Churchill's contemporaries said about him. The 10 "greatest controversies" that the BBC listed actually manages to miss out his "greatest controversies".
    I look forward to the BBC article listing Stalin's "greatest controversies"
    Anyway a less flattering view of Churchill's "greatest controversies"/war crimes below;

https://medium.com/@write_12958/the-crimes-of-winston-churchill-c5e3ecb229b3

    The BBC article forgot quite a few that definitely should be in the top 10,
    Kenya-At least 150,000 men, women and children were forced into concentration camps. Children’s schools were shut by the British who branded them “training grounds for rebellion”. Rape, castration, cigarettes, electric shocks and fire all used by the British to torture the Kenyan people on Churchill’s watch.
     Afghanistan-Churchill found his love for war during the time he spent in Afghanistan. While there he said “all who resist will be killed without quarter” because the Pashtuns need “recognise the superiority of race”. He believed the Pashtuns needed to be dealt with, he would reminisce in his writings about how he partook in the burning villages and peoples homes.

“We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.” — Churchill on how the British carried on in Afghanistan, and he was only too happy to be part of it.

Churchill would also write of how “every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once”. Proud of the terror he helped inflict on the people of Afghanistan Churchill was well on the road to becoming a genocidal maniac.
     
      Those two "controversies" didn't even make the BBC list

      The printable comments that I referred to above about Churchill are all from his contemporaries. A mixture of my grand-father, father and various uncles and aunties. I'm sure you can figure out the less printable ones.

I don't excuse unnecessary loss of life. Churchill made some bad decisions.