Two-Ocean Navy Act timeline

@SuperbattleshipYamato hard to argue against any of this really. The IJN was so far gone by this point in the war that there’s not really much they could have done to salvage their situation one way or another. The bit about the allies not having many LSTs in general is something I never knew before though.

@CWO-Marc said in UK World War Two Bombing Site Map:

German bombers attacked the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh on 16 October 1939. The last raid was a V2 rocket attack near Iwade in Kent on 29 March 1945.

Thanks for the interesting link!

The map seems to be offline right now ‘due to high demand’, but the data can still be accessed. And indicate that the first ‘attack’ actually consisted of two unexploded shells on 6 September 1939. Also, the last raid was actually a V1 according to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22124479@N03/5001363807
The Wikipedia article on the V1 has Datchworth as its final British target, however. And the dataset lists 7 attacks on that day, apparently listing Datchworth as ‘Batchworth’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSaScGMPJi0

I voted for the RN fighting for Malta whatever. Understand that Malta was a vital part of the UK’s efforts to interrupt supplies to N Africa and so defend the Suez canal and thus the UK’s whole middle east position. I am presuming this was understood at the time - but that’s an assumption others may challenge.

Maybe a movie about it will be made, similar to “War Horse”.

Thank you Garg. We were great pioneers in this and is not that well documented. Probably because it had to be kept secret and most of them died. Reading the Italian comments most Italians would rather forget about it now!

Goering’s boost: “everything that fly’s belongs to me” this is the major source of the problem. Inter-service rivalry was catastrophic to getting the needed changes done. Goering would not let his power diminish to booster Karl Donetz.

The real prize was the fleet at Toulon under Admiral Jean de Laborde. Even with Darlan’s ceding of his fleet to the Allies, Toulon had 77 available french ships.  Darlan tried to barter with his old rival to throw his lot in with his, but laborde remained silent over the topic  In occupying Vichy France after the African landings, the Germans stopped short of Toulon  demanding the surrender of the fleet.  Soon the German’s grew tired of waiting for a reply and moved in to take the fleet by force.  Quoted as “one of the greatest acts of self immolation in military history”, Laborde scuttled his fleet and sabatoged it before it could get into German hands. In all 3 battleships, seven cruisers, and thirty-two destroyers were lost amongst the fleet.  Eisenhower had mixed feelings, he was dismayed that the fleet was gone, but relieved the prize was not in German hands.