The Second World War.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Hitler's miscalculation in declaring war on the United States was arguably less strange and irrational than Japan's decision to initiate hostilities against Britain, Holland and the United States simultaneously. There were a lot of easily seized prizes on offer, but although Holland was under enemy occupation, Britain was her ally and Britain's hinterlands were far beyond Japan's reach. As for the United States, Japan could no more invade her mainland than she could land on Mars. But these countries could and did send forces to the Far East to replace the forces they lost in Japan's first victories, and their will to revenge themselves on Japan was limitless.

As Admiral Yamamoto is supposed to have said to Prime Minister Konoe, 'In the first six months of a war with the United States and Great Britain, I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success'

[crinolynne]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

... in this scenario Britain's ability to carry on with the war for years on end would have been doubtful.

the Empire was not then a spent force and the support of the various Dominions considerable. In addition, Britain's level of creativity and innovation as capable as any. With the Battle of Britain won - the Battle of the Atlantic in the process of being won - with the support of Canada, Britain's ability fo carry on the war for years on end was assured.

Whether German society could sustain the shame of using slave labour, murdering in the most horiffic manner millions of innocent men, women and children, managing belligerent populations and more, I would posit that the third reich would collapse from within.

[gunner]

Originally Posted by crinolynne

the Empire was not then a spent force and the support of the various Dominions considerable. In addition, Britain's level of creativity and innovation as capable as any. With the Battle of Britain won - the Battle of the Atlantic in the process of being won - with the support of Canada, Britain's ability fo carry on the war for years on end was assured.

Whether German society could sustain the shame of using slave labour, murdering in the most horiffic manner millions of innocent men, women and children, managing belligerent populations and more, I would posit that the third reich would collapse from within.

Not only did German society sustain the shame, they re-emerged to become the most powerful economy in Europe. To such an extent that they now want to punish the U.K. for having the audacity to say enough is enough and leave the E.U. Both they and the French seem to have forgotten that had it not been for the resolve of the British, Hitler would probably have won with all that it would have resulted in.

[haroldeye]

Having had several discussions with Germans of my age group recently (early sixties) they believe that the only way to avoid Hitler happening again is the EU. They didn't want to punish us but they didn't understand why we should want to leave.

[hound dog]

I came across a video on YouTube of a relatively modern day walk around and tour of the B-24 Diamond Lil, serial number 18. One of only two B-24's still flying. Here's a link for anyone interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnItTltKQkc

[Thinkwell]

. . . a feast and concert in my honour. At this meal there was a meat dish about which there appeared to be some mystery. I found it very good, being less rank than monkey though not as good as jungle pig. After the meal I was told that I had been eating Jap.

F. Spencer Chapman The Jungle is Neutral


_ _ _ _


I have posted another quote relevant to the Second World War at the bottom of this page: http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t76...forth-etc.html

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Good mechanics can make solutions. The British in Malta had a logistical nightmare keeping their handfuls of surviving fighter aircraft operational; for months at a time they were cut off, except for very risky supply runs by submarines and fast surface ships like the minelayer, HMS Abdiel. If you couldn't order the parts, you could cannibalise it (as rupertramjet says) or manufacture it, or bodge a repair. On November 11th 1940, Malta had only one photo-reconnaissance Martin Maryland left capable of flight and it was imperative that it check out Taranto prior to the RN torpedo attack.* Incidentally, think what the IJN might have achieved at Pearl Harbour if it could have briefed its pilots in advance using aerial reconnaissance photographs, but it would have been madness to advertise their presence by mounting such a mission.

The mission was nearly aborted because the tailwheel tyre had punctured and there was no replacement. The chief mechanic used a tyre recovered from a crashed German aeroplane as a liner for the punctured tyre and some rubber sealant to make it air-tight. The tyre blew out on the return landing but the plane survived and brought home the photographs, and meanwhile the machine shop at RAF Hal Far had improvised a tailwheel mounting to fit the plane using a different wheel, for which they could still find tyres.

The Martin Model 167 was much better than the British equivalent, the Bristol Blenheim. It was about 40mph faster, could carry 2,000 lbs of bombs rather than the 1,200 lbs the Blenheim could carry, and was quite well armed, with two separate machine guns, dorsal [top] and ventral [bottom] facing rearwards and four machine guns in the wings. The French bought two lots, one of 150 units and one of 100 more units, and the British side ended up shooting quite a few French Martin Model 167s down during the parallel war against Vichy France. But the RAF also acted swiftly to seize control of 75 Martins which were still in the pipeline when France surrendered in June 1940 and they were impressed; so Britain also ordered 150 units to add the 75 France had paid for. Most of these aeroplanes ended up in North Africa, used for photo reconnaissance because by 1940 standards they were quite fast and had range. They were quicker than a Dornier as well as a Blenheim and they were rather manoevrable for a twin engined bomber.

A few ended up in Malta and one of these ended up being assigned to Pilot Officer Adrian Warburton, a man not very popular with senior officers. One of Warburton's first acts as a Martin Maryland pilot was to shoot down an Italian Cant Z506 float plane. He soon became noted and not with great approval for flying his Maryland as if it was a single seat fighter. Photo-reconnaissance pilots should be risk-averse; their job is to take photographs and get the photos safely home. Warburton took excellent photographs, but his default reaction when he encountered enemy fighters was to attack them and kill them; his senior officers were not sure whether to decorate him, kick his teeth in, or both of the above.

On 9th November, Warburton came home with his aeroplane full of shell splinter holes but with photographs showing a heavy concentration of major naval units at Taranto. Senior RN officers aboard HMS Illustrious were extremely excited, but needed a follow up mission on November 10th, so despite the unrepaired damage and a well-dodgy tail wheel, Warburton went to Taranto again and secured the photos proving that Taranto was still a target rich environment. Even though his aeroplane was so full of holes that it sounded like a flute (his crew called the plane "Whispering Mary"), Warburton went out again at dawn of November 11th and bagged the photos which showed how very second-hand the Italian fleet were feeling after HMS Illustrious had left her calling card. For these three not very safe missions, PO Warburton received his first DFC.

Warburton and his Maryland spent most of 1941 on anti-shipping patrols. His job was to find the German-Italian convoys and sick the bombers onto them. Not a very safe assignment; but September 1941, due to his liking for confronting interceptors instead of running away, Warburton was an ace with six kills, a bar to his DFC, had been promoted to Acting Flight Lieutenant but had been stood down and sent to Egypt because his superiors, not without reasons, thought he was barking mad. He didn't help his case by"borrowing" a Blenheim in Egypt and flying it back to Malta so he could carry on fighting in the Malta campaign when he had been explicitly ordered to go away. By March 1942 he had received the DSO and a second bar to his DFC but Air Vice Marshall Park, now AOC in Malta, grounded him again because he was even madder than previously, absolutely woof baa donkey. The more dangerous things were, the better Warburton liked it; Park thought this was a little bit too much of a good thing, and so Warburton spent most of 1942 in Malta but on the ground in places where Park could personally see what he was up to.

In November 1942, American Army Air Force officers in Algeria wanted to know whether the French at Bizerta in Tunisia were friendly or hostile. Everyone else ummed and erred. Warburton flew to Bizerta, tried to land, got shot full of holes, shot down a Ju88 on the Bizerta landing circuit, came back to Malta, phoned the Americans and advised them that the French at Bizerta weren't friendly at all. The Americans took a shine to Warburton, at once extremely British in his manners and very American in his lack of inhibition (lack of sense of self-preservation was the RAF assessment) and he did sterling work in Sicily in 1943, providing top quality photographs to Patton and the US forces during Operation Husky znd afterwards at Salerno and in Italy. By January 1944 he was a Wing Commander with DSO and Bar, DFC and two Bars, and an American Distinguished Service Cross to boot. He had flown nearly 400 operations, many of them deep penetration reconnaissance missions; and he had shot down nine Axis aircraft despite never flying fighters. But he had had a serious car crash and was unfit to fly, and was sent home to the UK.

In April 1944, Warburton went missing. It turned out that despite being unfit to fly he couldn't be kept out of a good fight forever and he talked the Americans into letting him fly a P38 and go on reconnaissance over Bavaria. He was buried in Bavaria as an unidentified American because his wrecked aeroplane was a USAAF P38. He had been looking for evidence of the new Messerschmitt jet fighters and it is thought that one of these got him. His grave was identified in 2002. A memorial service was held for him at the church local to his grave in Bavaria in 2003. His widow never remarried and she attended his funeral, 59 years after she was bereaved.

May the earth lie softly on Adrian Warburton.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Originally Posted by scoundrel

A few ended up in Malta and one of these ended up being assigned to Pilot Officer Adrian Warburton, a man not very popular with senior officers.

Warburton had arrived in Malta under a cloud- his first assignment as a pilot had been to 608 Sqn, Coastal Command, flying convoy escort and anti-submarine patrols over the North Sea, however he had incurred the displeasure of his CO by, amongst other things, being openly critical of the squadron's Blackburn Botha aircraft. This eventually led to him having his pilot status suspended and being posted to Malta to serve as an observer on reconnaissance duties.

To be fair, Warburton had a point about the Botha- it's one of the lesser-known RAF aircraft of WW2, and with good reason- it was a bloody awful deathtrap of a thing which was rapidly withdrawn from front-line duty, and retired from service altogether by 1944, after a career of only 5 years.

Designed as a twin-engined reconnaissance aircraft and torpedo bomber, the Botha entered service in 1939, but it rapidly became evident it was a hopelessly ineffective tool for the job. Originally designed for a 3-man crew, this requirement was altered during the development phase to a 4-man crew, the increase in weight requiring an increase in power. Unfortunately, the chosen Bristol Perseus engine was severely underpowered, resulting in an aircraft with a very poor rate of climb.

It was a high-wing monoplane, and this placed the engines directly outboard of the cockpit, severely compromising the pilot's visibility to the side and rear- a bit of an own-goal in the design of an aircraft intended for general reconnaissance duties!

Worst of all, it suffered from poor lateral stability, giving it some fairly vicious handling characteristics which would result in a worrying number of fatal crashes. The RAF realised from the start it wouldn't make the grade as a torpedo bomber, and although over 400 had been ordered, it was only issued to 4 reconnaissance squadrons, only one of which would ever use the aircraft operationally. 608 Sqn began converting from Avro Ansons to the Botha in June 1940, and by December was reverting back to the Anson...

The Botha was quickly demoted to training (the obvious assignment for an aircraft which had an alarming tendency to kill it's crews...) and target tug duties, and although almost 600 had been built, was out of service altogether by 1944.

It's chief claim to fame may be it's involvement in a tragic accident in August 1941. The RAF's No. 3 School of General Reconnaissance, was in 1941 using the Botha to train reconnaissance pilots from RAF Squires Gate in Blackpool. Squires Gate was also home to the Boulton Paul Defiants of 256 Sqn, providing night-fighter defence for the North-West coast.

On the afternoon of 27th August 1941, four of 256's Defiants took off on a formation flying exercise- for some reason the flight commander was recalled to base, leaving the exercise under the command of his wingman. By 3.00pm, the remaining three aircraft were flying off the sea-front of Blackpool, in the general vicinity of Blackpool Tower heading North-East at about 2000 feet. At the same time, about 500 feet below them, one of 3SGR's Bothas was flying North-West on a flight test.

As the Defiants and the Botha crossed each other's paths, witnesses on the ground saw the 3 Defiants in turn peel off from their formation and dive towards the Botha, as if carrying out mock attacks. Unfortunately, as the third Defiant dived in, the Botha suddenly banked to the right and the two aircraft collided, cutting the Botha in half- Shorn of it's tail, much of one wing and an engine, it plunged out of control, crashing through the roof of Blackpool Central railway station in a fireball as it's fuel tanks ignited. Other wreckage fell on the promenade

Two of the Botha's crew appear to have baled out, but came down in the sea- Neither P/O Aubrey 'Pinder' Horn or P/O Kenneth 'Jack' Sale survived. The Botha's third occupant, Frank Longson, a civilian ground crew member flying as a passenger, was killed when the aircraft hit the station.

The Defiant came down in a street, Reads Avenue about half-a-mile from the station, destroying a house. Both the pilot, Sgt. Lincoln Elmers and gunner, Sgt. Noel Clifford, were killed, although the occupants of the house escaped uninjured.

Eight civilians in the station were killed, with a further five dying from their injuries over the next few weeks. The final toll was 18 dead and around 40 injured.

http://laituk.org/Botha-Defiant.htm

Returning to Adrian Warburton, there's an excellent biography 'Warburton's War' by Tony Spooner, and the BBC's 'Timewatch' series did a documentary on him a few years back, 'The Mystery of the Missing Ace'

For all of his unorthodox behaviour, the head of RAF Middle East Command, Air Marshal Lord Tedder, once described Warburton as 'the most valuable pilot in the RAF'.

To round off, another Warburton escapade- Scoundrel mentioned Warburton's work providing reconnaissance photos for the Americans in Sicily. At one point, he went missing for several days- His aircraft had been damaged by flak, and he was forced to crash-land.

Although Warburton came down in Allied territory, he found himself being detained for two days under suspicion of being a German agent- his characteristically scruffy appearance, with long unkempt blonde hair, and clad in an oil-stained tunic and grey flannels, presumably not helping him to establish his credentials as the much-decorated Sqn/Ldr Warburton, CO of 683 Sqn RAF....

Eventually managing to prove his identity, he borrowed a French aircraft to fly to Gibraltar, where he picked up a Spitfire, which he then flew back to Malta, naturally bagging a Ju88 on the way... On arrival at Malta, several days overdue, his first words when he handed over the film from his cameras were allegedly 'Sorry I'm late'

[scoundrel]

Apparently Warburton's demotion to observer lasted all of 4 days. Things were too hot in Malta for nonsense such as this; pilots could not left on the ground or relegated to mere navigation. In fact, when Warburton's excellence as a reconnaissance pilot was noted, inquiries were made into how he came to be demoted and his former squadron CO, who had given him the black mark, was disciplined. It probably helped that by then a lot of important people in the RAF had assessed the Blackburn Botha as an expensive mistake and, without liking Warburton, were prepared to admit that on this one specific point Warburton was bang on the money.

It is depressing to think Britain built 580 of these POS aeroplanes and even built a satellite factory in Dumbarton, Scotland, where 200 units were produced. It was fit for nothing and the fact that only one squadron flew it operationally and for less than a year speaks volumes about its lack of worth. It should have been scrapped and production halted. The engines were inferior and were used only by inferior aeroplanes such as the Vickers Wildebeest, the Blackburn Skua and the Blackburn Roc: the best aeroplane powered by this engine was the Westland Lysander, a strange machine designed for army air cooperation (artillery spotting) but which found a very useful niche between 1940 and 1944 for sneaking SOE agents, resistance fighters and clandestine supplies into and out of occupied NE Europe. But what this meant was that the Blackburn Botha was pretty useless even as scrap.

If nothing else though, Warburton probably felt happy as a sandboy when he first flew his Maltese Martin Maryland after having been lumbered with the Blackburn Botha. It was fast (did 304mph, which was almost as fast as a Hurricane and well impressive for a light bomber); it handled well and stood up to battle damage pretty good, as Warburton proved.

The working class
Can kiss my arse;
I've got a decent
plane at last.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

the best aeroplane powered by this engine was the Westland Lysander, a strange machine designed for army air cooperation (artillery spotting) but which found a very useful niche between 1940 and 1944 for sneaking SOE agents, resistance fighters and clandestine supplies into and out of occupied NE Europe. But what this meant was that the Blackburn Botha was pretty useless even as scrap.

The Lysander was an odd bird indeed, with it's distinctive high 'seagull' wing and that bulky fixed undercarriage enclosed in streamlined fairings. Designed in the mid-30's, and apparently the fruit of much consultation amongst RAF pilots by Westland's designers Teddy Petter and Arthur Davenport, it may have looked awkward and ungainly, but aerodynamically it was highly-advanced; Leading-edge slats and trailing-edge flaps worked automatically to give it a very low stalling speed and the ability to take off and land on a sixpence, although by all accounts 'Lizzie' is a tricky beast to handle, with some fairly eccentric habits.

About 175 Lysanders would go to France as part of the air support for the BEF, their role was army co-operation, reconnaissance, and artillery spotting. It quickly became clear that in the presence of Luftwaffe fighters the Lysander was hopelessly vulnerable- 118 of those 175 aircraft would be lost, about 90 shot down, the rest destroyed on the ground.

Although not totally defenceless (2x forward-firing Brownings, one in each of the undercarriage fairings, plus a Vickers K or Lewis gun in the rear cockpit for the observer) it was simply too slow and unmanoeuverable to evade fighters in the front line. In the words of Air Marshall Barratt, commanding the RAF's presence in France, it was 'quite unsuited to the task, a faster, less vulnerable aircraft was required'

Worse still, although Petter and Davenport had consulted RAF pilots, they hadn't thought to ask the army what was needed in an aircraft for co-operation work. The Lysander may have been too slow to survive in an environment heavily populated by Bf109s, but conversely it was rather too fast to be an ideal artillery-spotting platform- Basically, it was just the wrong tool for the job

After Dunkirk, it would used in air-sea rescue work, dropping dinghys to downed pilots in the Channel, for target-towing in gunnery training and flying coastal patrols, although in light of the potential threat of German invasion, plans were laid for them to be used in the ground-attack role against the beachhead if the Germans landed (from the start, the Lysander had been designed to carry a bombload of 500lb on optional winglets fitted to the undercarriage, plus a handful of light 20lb bombs under the rear fuselage), which sounds like a suicide mission if ever I saw one!

In 1941, however, the formation of 138 (Special Duties) squadron would provide a task uniquely suited to 'Lizzie's peculiar talents- 138 was intended as SOE's personal taxi service, dropping agents and supplies to the French resistance and other such clandestine tasks, and was equipped with a mixture of Whitley and Halifax bombers, and Lysanders.

You could drop supplies or an agent by parachute from a bomber easily enough, but if you needed to bring someone out again, there was only one aircraft for the job. Under cover of darkness, matt-black painted Lysanders, stripped of armament to save weight and compensate for additional long-range fuel tanks, sneaked across the Channel, their pilots navigating by watch, map and compass, to land in farmers' fields, guided in by torchlight to drop off and pick up agents or retrieve downed RAF crew rescued by the various resistance escape networks. At a pinch you could fit two agents in the rear observer's cockpit, although this made for a pretty uncomfortable ride.

The Lysander remained in RAF service until 1946- It was also built in Canada, and at one point, on paper at least, part of the 'fighter defences' of Canada included two Lysander squadrons- albeit as a temporary measure while they were re-equipped with Curtiss P-40s. The RCAF's Lysanders were mostly employed for training, target-towing, search-and-rescue work, but some were employed on anti-submarine patrols.