Posts made by RJL518

The First Battle of Smolensk was a large scale battle during the opening stage of Operation Barbarossa in World War II, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It took place in the region around the city of Smolensk between 10 July and 10 September 1941, about 400 km west of Moscow. At that point the Wehrmacht had advanced 500 km into the USSR in the mere 18 days that had elapsed since the start of the invasion on 22 June 1941. During the battle the German army encountered unexpected resistance, leading to a severe delay in their advance on Moscow.

Ultimately, three Soviet armies (the 16th, 19th and the 20th army) were encircled and destroyed just to the south of Smolensk, though significant numbers from the 19th and 20th managed to escape the pocket. Some historians have asserted that the losses in terms of men and materiel incurred by the Wehrmacht during this drawn-out battle, together with the 2-month delay in the march towards Moscow, were decisive for the Wehrmacht’s defeat by the Red Army at the end of the Battle of Moscow three months later in December 1941.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Smolensk_(1941)

Historians say that this battle had a profound effect on Germany’s drive to Moscow in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa.  
What do you guys think?

Operation Barbarossa (German: Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the code name for Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which began on 22 June 1941. The operation was driven by Adolf Hitler’s ideological desire to conquer Soviet territory as outlined in his 1925 manifesto Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”).

In the two years leading up to the invasion, the two countries signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Nevertheless, on 18 December 1940, Hitler authorized an invasion of the Soviet Union, with a planned start date of 15 May 1941. The actual invasion began on 22 June 1941. Over the course of the operation, about four million soldiers of the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, the largest invasion force in the history of warfare. In addition to troops, the Germans employed some 600,000 motor vehicles and between 600,000 and 700,000 horses. It marked the beginning of the rapid escalation of the war, both geographically and in the formation of the Allied coalition.

Operationally, the Germans won resounding victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine, both inflicting and sustaining heavy casualties. Despite their successes, the German offensive stalled on the outskirts of Moscow and was subsequently pushed back by a Soviet counteroffensive. The Red Army repelled the Wehrmacht’s strongest blows and forced Germany into a war of attrition for which it was unprepared. The Germans would never again mount a simultaneous offensive along the entire strategic Soviet-Axis front. The failure of the operation drove Hitler to demand further operations inside the USSR of increasingly limited scope, all of which eventually failed, such as Case Blue and Operation Citadel.

The failure of Operation Barbarossa was a turning point in the fortunes of the Third Reich. Most importantly, the operation opened up the Eastern Front, to which more forces were committed than in any other theater of war in world history. The Eastern Front became the site of some of the largest battles, most horrific atrocities, and highest casualties for Soviets and Germans alike, all of which influenced the course of both World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century. The German forces captured millions of Soviet prisoners who were not granted protections stipulated in the Geneva Conventions. Most of them never returned alive; Germany deliberately starved the prisoners to death as part of a “Hunger Plan” that aimed to reduce the population of Eastern Europe and then re-populate it with ethnic Germans. Over a million Soviet Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppen death squads and gassing as part of the Holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

Okay.
I present to you the 75th Anniversary of the largest land operation in military history.
It also is the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.
There is so much to discuss on Operation Barbarossa.
Where did Hitler go wrong?
What did he do right?
Did his generals fail him or succeed him?
What would you have done with Army Groups North, Center and South?
Did you think Stalin could have done better or worse?
Even though Barbarossa is the main subject, so many great battles took place during this awesome land manuever.
Smolensk, Kiev, Minsk, Leningrad, and of course, Moscow.
I will probably make a discussion for those battles later.
But in the meantime, lets discuss Operation Barbarossa as a whole.
The Eastern Front has arrived!

The last battle of the German battleship Bismarck took place in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 nmi (350 mi; 560 km) west of Brest, France, on 26�27 May 1941. Although it was a decisive action between capital ships, it has no generally accepted name.

On 24-May before the final action Bismarck’s fuel tanks were damaged and several machinery compartments, including a boiler room, were flooded in the Battle of the Denmark Strait and her intention was to reach the port of Brest for repair.[4] Late in the day Bismarck briefly turned on her pursuers (Prince of Wales and the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk) to cover the escape of her companion, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen to continue further into the Atlantic. Early on 25 May the British forces lost contact with Bismarck, which headed ESE towards France while the British searched NE presuming she was returning to Norway. She was rediscovered late morning on 26 May by a Catalina flying boat from No. 209 Squadron RAF and subsequently shadowed by aircraft from Force H steaming north from Gibraltar.

The final action consisted of four main phases. The first phase late on the 26th consisted of air strikes by torpedo bombers from the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal, which disabled Bismarck’s steering gear jamming her rudders in a turning position, preventing her escape. The second phase was the shadowing and harassment of Bismarck during the night of 26/27-May by British destroyers, with no serious damage to any ship. The third phase on the morning of 27-May was an attack by the British battleships King George V and Rodney supported by cruisers. After about 100 minutes of fighting, Bismarck was sunk by the combined effects of shellfire, torpedo hits and deliberate scuttling.[5] On the British side, Rodney was lightly damaged by near-misses and by the blast effects of her own guns.[6] British warships rescued 111 survivors from Bismarck[7] before being obliged to withdraw because of an apparent U-boat sighting, leaving several hundred men to their fate. In the final phase the withdrawing British ships were attacked on 27 May by aircraft of the Luftwaffe, resulting in the loss of the destroyer HMS Mashona, and German ships and U-boats arrived later at the scene of the sinking and saved five more survivors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_battle_of_the_battleship_Bismarck

We have arrived at the 75th Anniversary of one of the greatest naval engagements in the history of WWII.
The sinking of the German Battleship Bismarck.
You are the captain of the Bismarck.
You have just sank the HMS Hood during the Battle of the Denmark Strait.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait
A huge bulls-eye has just been placed on you by Winston Churchill.
You command the most hunted warship on the seas.
You did receive damage by the British during the battle against the Hood.
We all know what Admiral Gunther Lutjens and Captain Ernst Lindemann did historically.
The question is:
What would you have done to try to save the pride of the Kriegsmarine?

The Siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against the British Western Desert Force (WDF) in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. In late 1940, the British had defeated the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) and trapped the remnants at Beda Fomm. German troops and Italian reinforcements reached Libya, while much of the WDF was sent to Greece and replaced by a skeleton force, short of equipment and supplies.

Operation Sonnenblume (6 February – 25 May 1941), forced the British into a retreat to the Egyptian border. A garrison was left behind at Tobruk, to deny the port to the Axis, while the WDF reorganised and prepared a counter-offensive. The Axis siege of Tobruk began on 10 April, when the port was attacked by a force under Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel and continued during three relief attempts, Operation Brevity (15–16 May), Operation Battleaxe (15–17 June) and Operation Crusader (18 November – 30 December). The occupation of Tobruk deprived the Axis of a supply port closer to the Egypt-Libya border than Benghazi, 900 miles (1,400 km) west of the Egyptian frontier, which was within the range of RAF bombers; Tripoli was 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) to the west in Tripolitania.

The siege diverted Axis troops from the frontier and the Tobruk garrison repulsed several attacks. The port was frequently bombarded by artillery, dive-bombers and medium bombers, as the RAF flew defensive sorties from airfields far away in Egypt. British Mediterranean Fleet and Inshore Squadron ships ran the blockade, to carry reinforcements and supplies in and wounded and prisoners out. On 27 November, Tobruk was relieved by the 8th Army (the name of British, Commonwealth, Imperial and Allied forces in the Western Desert since September 1941), during Operation Crusader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tobruk

I have decided to no longer post polls, but instead post questions for discussion instead.
Might make your answers to my questions easier to give an opinion on.

The Siege of Tobruk began in April 75 years ago.
Rommel was tenacious, and the British certainly did not want to give up this important port to the Axis powers.
History says that this was one of Rommel’s greatest victories when Tobruk finally fell.
History also says that this one of Britain’s finest hours, holding out as long as they did.
Tell me your impressions as we now enter the heart of the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa.

The Lend-Lease policy, formally titled “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States”, (Pub.L. 77–11, H.R. 1776, 55 Stat. 31, enacted March 11, 1941)[1] was a program under which the United States supplied Free France, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. This included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941 and ended in September 1945. In general the aid was free, although some hardware (such as ships) were returned after the war. In return, the U.S. was given leases on army and naval bases in Allied territory during the war.

A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to $6.59 trillion today) worth of supplies were shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S.[2] In all, $31.4 billion went to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies. Reverse Lend-Lease policies comprised services such as rent on air bases that went to the U.S., and totaled $7.8 billion; of this, $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. The terms of the agreement provided that the materiel was to be used until returned or destroyed. In practice very little equipment was returned. Supplies that arrived after the termination date were sold to Britain at a large discount for £1.075 billion, using long-term loans from the United States. Canada operated a similar program called Mutual Aid that sent a loan of $1 billion and $3.4 billion in supplies and services to Britain and other Allies.[3][4]

This program effectively ended the United States’ pretense of neutrality and was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy, which had dominated United States foreign relations since 1931. (See Neutrality Acts of 1930s.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

This month we recognize the start of the Lend-Lease Act, which was done to give help to the UK and the Allies in their early struggles against the Axis Powers.  In your opinions, before the USA entered the War, how well did we do?  Did we give enough?  Did we give too little?  Did we give too much?  Did we hold back just in case we had to get into the war?

The Missouri had better range than those two Japanese battleships and could fire further away.
Assuming the Japanese ships don’t turn and run, the Missouri would have already hit those two ships before the Japanese would even get into firing range.  
The Missouri also had better fire control and was newer than the Kongo and Haruna.

The real question to be asked is how would a battle have gone if the Missouri and Iowa took on the Super-Battleships Yamato and Musashi.  
As Samuel Eliot Morison, author of the History of US Naval Operations in World War II, once said…“What a brawl that would have been!”
Even though the Yamato and Musashi had 18.1 inch guns compared to the 16 inch of the Iowa class, the Iowas were still faster and still had better range.  
But who knows.  
IMO it would have depended on the tactics and strategy of the captains in a great battle at that time.

‘The Happy Time’ (June 1940 � February 1941)
See also: First Happy Time

The early U-boat operations from the French bases were spectacularly successful. This was the heyday of the great U-boat aces like G�nther Prien of U-47, Otto Kretschmer (U-99), Joachim Schepke (U-100), Engelbert Endrass (U-46), Victor Oehrn (U-37) and Heinrich Bleichrodt (U-48). U-boat crews became heroes in Germany. From June until October 1940, over 270 Allied ships were sunk: this period was referred to by U-boat crews as “the Happy Time” (“Die Gl�ckliche Zeit”).[29] Churchill would later write: “…the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril”.[30]

The biggest challenge for the U-boats was to find the convoys in the vastness of the ocean. The Germans had a handful of very long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft based at Bordeaux and Stavanger which were used for reconnaissance. The Condor being a converted civilian airliner, this was a stop-gap solution for Fliegerf�hrer Atlantik. Due to ongoing friction between the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, the primary source of convoy sightings was the U-boats themselves. Since a submarine’s bridge was very close to the water, their range of visual detection was quite limited. The best source proved to be the codebreakers of B-Dienst.

In response, the British applied the techniques of operations research to the problem and came up with some counter-intuitive solutions to the problem of protecting convoys. It was realised the area of a convoy increased by the square of its perimeter, meaning the same number of ships, using the same number of escorts, was better protected in one convoy than in two. A large convoy was as difficult to locate as a small one. Moreover, reduced frequency (fewer large convoys carry the same cargo, and large convoys take longer to assemble) also reduced the chances of detection. Therefore, a few large convoys with apparently few escorts were safer than many small convoys with a higher ratio of escorts to merchantmen.

Instead of attacking the Allied convoys singly, U-boats were directed to work in wolf packs (Rudel) coordinated by radio. German codebreaking efforts at B-Dienst had succeeded in deciphering the British Naval Cypher No. 3, allowing the Germans to estimate where and when convoys could be expected. The boats spread out into a long patrol line that bisected the path of the Allied convoy routes. Once in position, the crew studied the horizon through binoculars looking for masts or smoke, or used hydrophones to pick up propeller noises. When one boat sighted a convoy, it would report the sighting to U-boat headquarters, shadowing and continuing to report as needed until other boats arrived, typically at night. Instead of being faced by single submarines, the convoy escorts then had to cope with groups of up to half a dozen U-boats attacking simultaneously. The most daring commanders, such as Kretschmer, penetrated the escort screen and attacked from within the columns of merchantmen. The escort vessels, which were too few in number and often lacking in endurance, had no answer to multiple submarines attacking on the surface at night as their ASDIC only worked well against underwater targets. Early British marine radar, working in the metric bands, lacked target discrimination and range. Moreover, corvettes were too slow to catch a surfaced U-boat.

Pack tactics were first used successfully in September and October 1940, to devastating effect, in a series of convoy battles. On September 21, convoy HX 72 of 42 merchantmen was attacked by a pack of four U-boats, losing eleven ships sunk and two damaged over two nights. In October, the slow convoy SC 7, with an escort of two sloops and two corvettes, was overwhelmed, losing 59% of its ships. The battle for HX 79 in the following days was in many ways worse for the escorts than for SC 7. The loss of a quarter of the convoy without any loss to the U-boats, despite very strong escort (two destroyers, four corvettes, three trawlers, and a minesweeper) demonstrated the effectiveness of the German tactics against the inadequate British anti-submarine methods. On December 1, seven German and three Italian submarines caught HX 90, sinking 10 ships and damaging three others. The success of pack tactics against these convoys encouraged Admiral D�nitz to adopt the wolf pack as his primary tactic.

Nor were the U-boats the only threat. Following some early experience in support of the war at sea during Operation Weser�bung, Fliegerf�hrer Atlantik contributed small numbers of aircraft to the Battle of the Atlantic from 1940 onwards. These were primarily Fw 200 Condors and (later) Junkers Ju 290s, used for long-range reconnaissance. The Condors also bombed convoys that were beyond land-based fighter cover and thus defenceless. Initially, the Condors were very successful, claiming 365,000 tons of shipping in early 1941. These aircraft were few in number, however, and directly under Luftwaffe control; in addition, the pilots had little specialized training for anti-shipping warfare, limiting their effectiveness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic#.27The_Happy_Time.27_.28June_1940_.E2.80.93_February_1941.29

The First Happy Time has come to an end.  
The Allies are still losing merchant ships at terrible speed.
Germany is sinking merchant shipping and escorts right and left, and we all know it got worse as we go further into 1941.
In your opinions, do you follow along with the historical plan of the Allies to defeat the U-Boats?
Or do you come up with a different alternative that might change the fortunes of the Atlantic Campaign sooner than what really happened?

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), popularly known as the Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs, About this sound listen (help·info)), was a German Generalfeldmarschall (general field marshal) of World War II. He earned the respect of both his own troops and his enemies.[1][2]

Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Mérite for his exploits on the Italian Front. In World War II, he further distinguished himself as the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign established him as one of the most able commanders of the war, and earned him the appellation of the Desert Fox. He is regarded as one of the most skilled commanders of desert warfare in the conflict.[3] He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy.

Rommel is regarded as having been a humane and professional officer.[4] His Afrika Korps was never accused of war crimes, and Allied soldiers captured during his Africa campaign were reported to have been treated humanely.[5] Orders to kill Jewish soldiers, civilians and captured commandos were ignored.[6] Later in the war, Rommel was indirectly linked to the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Because Rommel was a national hero, Hitler desired to eliminate him quietly. He forced Rommel to commit suicide with a cyanide pill, in return for assurances that Rommel’s family would not be persecuted following his death. He was given a state funeral, and it was announced that Rommel had succumbed to his injuries from an earlier strafing of his staff car in Normandy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel

In February of 1941, Erwin Rommel is appointed the head of a new German army corps sent to help the Italians in North Africa. 
The “Afrika Korps”.
Rommel has a storied and famous history in the annals of WWII.
He would later be known as “The Desert Fox”, and was very well respected by Axis AND Allied leaders during that time.
Of course he made mistakes, like all leaders usually do.
So many debates on who the best general was during the Second World War.
Rommel is also my personal favorite.
If i was drafting an army like i would a baseball team, Rommel would be my first pick and i would make him manager of the team.
So…the question of the month is this…
Was he the best general of WWII?

In May, 1927 Lindbergh emerged suddenly from the virtual obscurity of being a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo nonstop flight made on May 20–21 from the Roosevelt Field[N 1] in Garden City on New York’s Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km), in the single-seat, single-engine, purpose-built Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. As a result of this flight, Lindbergh was the first person in history to be in New York one day and Paris the next. The record setting flight took 33 hours and 30 minutes. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve officer, was also awarded the nation’s highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.[2]

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, his infant son, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the “Crime of the Century”. It was described by journalist H. L. Mencken as “the biggest story since the resurrection.”[3] The kidnapping eventually led to the Lindbergh family being “driven into voluntary exile” in Europe, to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to “seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria” in America. The Lindberghs returned to the United States in April 1939.

Before the United States formally entered World War II, some accused Lindbergh of being a fascist sympathizer. He supported the isolationist America First movement, which advocated that America remain neutral during the war, as had his father, Congressman Charles August Lindbergh, during World War I. This conflicted with the Franklin Roosevelt administration’s official policy, which sought to protect Britain from a German takeover. Lindbergh subsequently resigned his commission as a colonel in the United States Army Air Forces in April 1941 after being publicly rebuked by President Roosevelt for his isolationist views. Nevertheless, Lindbergh publicly supported the war effort after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant, though President Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel’s commission. In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, inventor, and environmentalist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh

As we now move into the pivotal year of 1941, the year where World War II truly became a WORLD war, i thought i would start the new year on a discussion about Charles Lindbergh. 
Some people say he was truly a war hero, which according to his biographer, he was. 
Others believe that since he asked the USA to form a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler, they believe he was an anti-Semite and a Nazi/Fascist sympathizer. 
Either way, history has painted an interesting picture of the man who flew “The Spirit of St. Louis”. 
What do you guys think?

Operation Compass was the first big Allied military operation of the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) during World War II. British and other Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces in western Egypt and Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, from December 1940 to February 1941, with great success. The Western Desert Force (Lieutenant-General Sir Richard O’Connor) with about 30,000 men, advanced from Mersa Matruh in Egypt on a five-day raid against the Italian positions of the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani), which had about 150,000 men in fortified posts around Sidi Barrani and in Cyrenaica.

The 10th Army was swiftly defeated and the British prolonged the operation, to pursue the remnants of the 10th Army to Beda Fomm and El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte. The British took 138,000 Italian and Libyan prisoners, hundreds of tanks and over 1,000 guns and aircraft for a loss of 1,900 men killed and wounded, about 10 percent of their infantry. The British were unable to continue beyond El Agheila, due to broken-down and worn out vehicles and the diversion beginning in March 1941, of the best-equipped units to the Greek Campaign in Operation Lustre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Compass

Operation Compass, IMO, was one of the most successful military strategies of the entire war.  Italy was pretty much overrun during this maneuver as they were practically put out of business in North Africa.  After getting their A$$es kicked, the Italians asked Big Brother (Germany), for help.  My question for this month is this:
Did Italy have any chance of surviving this Allied master-plan, and if you guys can go over the history of Compass, what would you guys have done if you were Marshall Rodolfo Graziani?

Arthur Neville Chamberlain, FRS (18 March 1869 � 9 November 1940) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany. However, when Adolf Hitler later invaded Poland, the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, and Chamberlain led Britain through the first eight months of World War II.

After working in business and local government and after a short spell as Director of National Service in 1916 and 1917, Chamberlain followed his father, Joseph Chamberlain, and older half-brother, Austen Chamberlain, in becoming a member of parliament in the 1918 general election at age 49. He declined a junior ministerial position, remaining a backbencher until 1922. He was rapidly promoted in 1923 to Minister of Health and then Chancellor of the Exchequer. After a short Labour-led government, he returned as Minister of Health, introducing a range of reform measures from 1924 to 1929. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government in 1931.

When Stanley Baldwin retired in May 1937, Chamberlain took his place as Prime Minister. His premiership was dominated by the question of policy toward the increasingly aggressive Germany, and his actions at Munich were widely popular among Britons at the time. When Hitler continued his aggression, Chamberlain pledged Britain to defend Poland’s independence if the latter were attacked, an alliance that brought Britain into war when Germany attacked Poland in 1939. Chamberlain resigned the premiership on 10 May 1940 after the Allies were forced to retreat from Norway, as he believed a government supported by all parties was essential, and the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government headed by him. He was succeeded by Winston Churchill but remained very well regarded in Parliament, especially among Conservatives. Before ill health forced him to resign he was an important member of Churchill’s War Cabinet, heading it in the new premier’s absence. Chamberlain died of cancer six months after leaving the premiership.

Chamberlain’s reputation remains controversial among historians, with the initial high regard for him being entirely eroded by books such as Guilty Men, published in July 1940, which blamed Chamberlain and his associates for the Munich accord and for allegedly failing to prepare the country for war. Most historians in the generation following Chamberlain’s death held similar views, led by Churchill in The Gathering Storm. Some recent historians have taken a more favourable perspective of Chamberlain and his policies, citing government papers released under the Thirty Year Rule. Nevertheless, Chamberlain is still unfavourably ranked amongst British Prime Ministers.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain

Neville Chamberlain died 75 years ago this November.  This really isnt a poll as much of a matter of opinion.  What do you guys think of him as the British Prime Minister and how he handled Adolf Hitler before the start of WWII?  Remember…we have the benefit of hindsight, where Chamberlain did not.  Lets discuss the man and his legacy if you guys feel he had one.

The Greco-Italian War, also known as the Italo-Greek War, was a conflict between Italy and Greece, which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. The conflict marked the beginning of the Balkans campaign of World War II and the initial Greek counter-offensive, the first successful land campaign against the Axis powers in the war. The conflict known as the Battle of Greece began with the intervention of Nazi Germany on 6 April 1941. In Greece, the war against Italy is known as the “War of '40”

Italy had invaded Albania in the spring of 1939 and attacked the British Empire in Africa, completing the conquest of British Somaliland and began an invasion of Egypt in the summer of 1940 but could not claim victories like those of Nazi Germany. Benito Mussolini wanted to reassert Italian interests in the Balkans, feeling threatened by German encroachments (the Kingdom of Romania in the supposed Italian sphere of influence, had accepted German protection for the Ploiești oil fields in mid-October) and secure bases from which British outposts in the eastern Mediterranean could be attacked.

On 28 October 1940, after Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas rejected an Italian ultimatum demanding the occupation of Greek territory, Italian forces invaded Greece from Albania. The Greek army counter-attacked and forced the Italians to retreat. By mid-December, the Greeks occupied nearly a quarter of Albania, tying down 530,000 Italian troops. In March 1941, Operation Spring (Operazione Primavera), an Italian counter-offensive failed and on 6 April, Nazi Germany invaded Greece through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, beginning the Battle of Greece.

On 12 April, the Greek army retreated from Albania to avoid being cut off by the rapid German advance and on 20 April, the Greek Epirus Army Section surrendered to the Germans. On 23 April, the armistice with Germany was repeated with the Italians, ending the Greco-Italian war. By the end of April, the Axis occupation of Greece had been completed by Italian, German and Bulgarian forces, with Italy occupying nearly two thirds of the country. The Greek victory over the initial Italian offensive of October 1940 was the first Allied land victory of the Second World War and helped raise morale in occupied Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Italian_War

Adolf Hitler was not very pleased with Mussolini’s initiative to invade Greece which started The Balkans Campaign of WWII.  You are Germany.  Instead of being angry with Italy…do you decide to help Mussolini earlier in the campaign, intercede historically, or help later?

The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Adolf Hitler, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive military alliance that was eventually joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Bulgaria (1 March 1941) and Yugoslavia (25 March 1941), as well as by the German client state of Slovakia (24 November 1940). Yugoslavia’s adherence provoked a coup d’�tat in Belgrade, and Italy and Germany responded by invading Yugoslavia (with Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian assistance) and partitioning the country. The resulting Italo-German client state of Croatia joined the pact on 15 June 1941.

The Tripartite Pact was a piece of propaganda directed primarily at the United States. Its practical effects were limited, since the Italo-German and Japanese operational theatres were on opposite sides of the world and the high contracting powers had disparate strategic interests. Some technical cooperation was carried out, and the Japanese declaration of war on the United States propelled, although it did not require, a similar declaration of war from all the other signatories of the Tripartite Pact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact

We finally get a question about Japan in these polls.
Did Japan do the right thing signing the infamous Tripartite Pact which officially formed the AXIS powers?  What should have Japan done if you think they shouldn’t have joined the AXIS?

Early skirmishes (September 1939 – May 1940)

In 1939, the Kriegsmarine lacked the strength to challenge the combined British Royal Navy and French Navy (Marine Nationale) for command of the sea. Instead, German naval strategy relied on commerce raiding using capital ships, armed merchant cruisers, submarines and aircraft. Many German warships were already at sea when war was declared, including most of the available U-boats and the “pocket battleships” (Panzerschiffe) Deutschland and Admiral Graf Spee which had sortied into the Atlantic in August. These ships immediately attacked British and French shipping. U-30 sank the liner SS Athenia within hours of the declaration of war—in breach of her orders not to sink passenger ships. The U-boat fleet, which was to dominate so much of the Battle of the Atlantic, was small at the beginning of the war; many of the 57 available U-boats were the small and short-range Type IIs, useful primarily for minelaying and operations in British coastal waters. Much of the early German anti-shipping activity involved minelaying by destroyers, aircraft and U-boats off British ports.

With the outbreak of war, the British and French immediately began a blockade of Germany, although this had little immediate effect on German industry. The Royal Navy quickly introduced a convoy system for the protection of trade that gradually extended out from the British Isles, eventually reaching as far as Panama, Bombay and Singapore. Convoys allowed the Royal Navy to concentrate its escorts near the one place the U-boats were guaranteed to be found, the convoys. Each convoy consisted of between 30 and 70 mostly unarmed merchant ships.

Some British naval officials, particularly the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, sought a more ‘offensive’ strategy. The Royal Navy formed anti-submarine hunting groups based on aircraft carriers to patrol the shipping lanes in the Western Approaches and hunt for German U-boats. This strategy was deeply flawed because a U-boat, with its tiny silhouette, was always likely to spot the surface warships and submerge long before it was sighted. The carrier aircraft were little help; although they could spot submarines on the surface, at this stage of the war they had no adequate weapons to attack them, and any submarine found by an aircraft was long gone by the time surface warships arrived. The hunting group strategy proved a disaster within days. On September 14, 1939, Britain’s most modern carrier, HMS Ark Royal, narrowly avoided being sunk when three torpedoes from U-39 exploded prematurely. U-39 was forced to surface and scuttle by the escorting destroyers, becoming the first U-boat loss of the war. The British failed to learn the lesson from this encounter: another carrier, HMS Courageous, was sunk three days later by U-29.

Escort destroyers hunting for U-boats continued to be a prominent, but misguided, technique of British anti-submarine strategy for the first year of the war. U-boats nearly always proved elusive, and the convoys, denuded of cover, were put at even greater risk.

German success in sinking Courageous was surpassed a month later when Günther Prien in U-47 penetrated the British base at Scapa Flow and sank the old battleship HMS Royal Oak at anchor,[20] immediately becoming a hero in Germany.

In the South Atlantic, British forces were stretched by the cruise of Admiral Graf Spee, which sank nine merchant ships of 50,000 GRT in the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans during the first three months of war. The British and French formed a series of hunting groups including three battlecruisers, three aircraft carriers, and 15 cruisers to seek the raider and her sister Deutschland, which was operating in the North Atlantic. These hunting groups had no success until Admiral Graf Spee was caught off the mouth of the River Plate by an inferior British force. After suffering damage in the subsequent action, she took shelter in neutral Montevideo harbour and was scuttled on December 17, 1939.

After this initial burst of activity, the Atlantic campaign quieted down. Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander of the U-boat fleet, had planned a maximum submarine effort for the first month of the war, with almost all the available U-boats out on patrol in September. That level of deployment could not be sustained; the boats needed to return to harbour to refuel, re-arm, re-stock supplies, and refit. The harsh winter of 1939–40, which froze over many of the Baltic ports, seriously hampered the German offensive by trapping several new U-boats in the ice. Hitler’s plans to invade Norway and Denmark in the spring of 1940 led to the withdrawal of the fleet’s surface warships and most of the ocean-going U-boats for fleet operations in Operation Weserübung.

The resulting Norwegian campaign revealed serious flaws in the magnetic influence pistol (firing mechanism) of the U-boats’ principal weapon, the torpedo. Although the narrow fjords gave U-boats little room for manoeuvre, the concentration of British warships, troopships and supply ships provided countless opportunities for the U-boats to attack. Time and again, U-boat captains tracked British targets and fired, only to watch the ships sail on unharmed as the torpedoes exploded prematurely (due to the influence pistol), or hit and failed to explode (because of a faulty contact pistol), or ran beneath the target without exploding (due to the influence feature or depth control not working correctly).[21] Not a single British warship was sunk by a U-boat in more than 20 attacks. As the news spread through the U-boat fleet, it began to undermine morale. The director in charge of torpedo development continued to claim it was the crews’ fault.[22] In early 1941 the problems were determined to be due to differences in the earth’s magnetic fields at high latitudes[23][page needed] and a slow leakage of high-pressure air from the submarine into the torpedo’s depth regulation gear. These problems were solved by about March 1941, making the torpedo a formidable weapon.[24]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic#Early_skirmishes_.28September_1939_.E2.80.93_May_1940.29

I have yet to ask any questions concerning one of the most important campaigns of World War II.  The Battle of the Atlantic has been raging for one year now.  Who has the advantage at this time and why and if you wish, please explain what you do at this time if you are the Axis or Allies?

The Italian conquest of British Somaliland was a military campaign in the Horn of Africa, which took place in August 1940 between forces of Italy and those of several British Commonwealth countries. The expedition formed part of the East African Campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_conquest_of_British_Somaliland

Question:  Even though Italy gets a quick victory against the UK in the early stages of the East African Campaign, you are Germany, and even though we have hindsight, do you tell Italy to stop the offensives in Africa thinking that one day you might have save their a$$es?

The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England, literally “Air battle for England”) is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces,[18] and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date.

The objective of the Nazi German forces was to achieve air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially its Fighter Command. Beginning in July 1940, coastal shipping convoys and shipping centres, such as Portsmouth, were the main targets; one month later, the Luftwaffe shifted its attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in World War II aircraft production and ground infrastructure. Eventually the Luftwaffe resorted to attacking areas of political significance and using terror bombing strategy.[nb 10]

By preventing Germany from gaining air superiority, the British forced Adolf Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion, a planned amphibious and airborne invasion of Britain. However, Germany continued bombing operations on Britain, known as The Blitz. The failure of Nazi Germany to achieve its objective of destroying Britain’s air defences in order to force Britain to negotiate an armistice (or even surrender outright) is considered by historians to be its first major defeat in World War II and a crucial turning point in the conflict.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

Question:  Would you have done anything different during the Battle of Britain if you were Germany, or do you think it wouldn’t have mattered what you did differently…the UK was going to win the campaign anyway?

Operation Sea Lion (German: Unternehmen Seelowe) was Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War, following the Fall of France. For any likelihood of success the operation required both air and naval superiority over the English Channel, neither of which the Germans ever achieved during or after the Battle of Britain. Sea Lion was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940 and never carried out.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion

This is a question that has probably discussed so many times on this forum.  But…it is the 75th Anniversary of this event, so i will ask it again.  How do YOU guys go about with the planning, coordination and actual carrying out of Operation SeaLion?

Or…do you even carry out this operation at all?

The Attack on Meris-El-Kebir, part of Operation Catapult and also known as the Battle of Meris-El-Kebir, was a British naval bombardment of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) at its base at Meris-El-Kebir on the coast of what was then French Algeria on 3 July 1940. The raid resulted in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen, the sinking of a battleship and the damaging of five other ships.

The combined air-and-sea attack was conducted by the Royal Navy as a direct response to the Franco-German armistice of 22 June, which had seen Britain’s sole continental ally replaced by a collaborationist, pro-Nazi government administrated from Vichy. The new Vichy government had also inherited the considerable French naval force of the Marine Nationale; of particular significance were the seven battleships of the Bretagne, Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, which collectively represented the second largest force of capital ships in Europe behind the British. Since Vichy was seen by the British (with a good deal of justification) as a mere puppet state of the Nazi regime, there was serious fear that they would surrender or loan the ships to the Kriegsmarine, an outcome which would largely undo Britain’s tenuous grasp on European naval superiority and confer a major Axis advantage in the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic. Despite promises from Admiral Darlan, the Commander of the French Navy,[2] that the fleet would remain under French control and out of the hands of the Germans, Winston Churchill, still reeling from Dunkirk and stung by the Vichy French collaboration, determined that the fleet was simply too dangerous to remain intact, French sovereignty notwithstanding.[3]

In response to the British attack at Meris-l-Kebir and another at Dakar, the French mounted air raids on Gibraltar. The Vichy government also severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom. The attack remains controversial. It created much rancor between Vichy France and Britain, but it also demonstrated to the world and to the United States in particular, Britain’s commitment to continue the war with Germany at all costs and without allies if need be.[4]
   A great deal of debate has taken place over the motivations of the British. P. M. H. Bell argues that from London’s point of view:[5]

The times were desperate; invasion seemed imminent; and the British government simply could not afford to risk the Germans seizing control of the French fleet…. The predominant British motive was thus dire necessity and self-preservation.
  The French on the other hand thought they were acting honorably in terms of their armistice with Germany, and were fully convinced they would never turn over their fleet to Germany. French grievances over what they considered a betrayal by their ally festered for generations.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir

Pretty simple.  Do you guys agree with what the United Kingdom did to France during Operation Catapult or do you think that the UK could have tried a different tactic?

On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux during the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. As he said to the Army’s Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Badoglio:

I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought.[58]

Mussolini had the immediate war aim of expanding the Italian colonies in North Africa by taking land from the British and French colonies.

About Mussolini’s declaration of war in France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States said:

On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.[59]

After Italy entered the war, because of pressure from Nazi Germany, some Jewish refugees living in Italy were interned in the Campagna concentration camp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Italy_during_World_War_II#Italy_enters_the_war:_June_1940

June 1940 was pretty simple.  
Operation Dynamo had been completed at Dunkirk and France has surrendered.
So…what does Benito Mussolini decide to do?
He decides to join the war on the Axis side.
If you were an Italian during this time of Fascism…and NOT knowing how the war would turn out…would you have still supported Mussolini in his decision to become partners with Hitler’s Germany?

The Battle of Dunkirk was an important battle that took place in Dunkirk, France, during the Second World War between the Allies and Germany. As part of the Battle of France on the Western Front, the Battle of Dunkirk was the defense and evacuation of British and allied forces in Europe from 26 May�4 June 1940.

After the Phoney War, the Battle of France began in earnest on 10 May 1940. To the east, the German Army Group B had invaded the Netherlands and advanced westward. In response, the Supreme Allied Commander�French General Maurice Gamelin�initiated “Plan D” and invaded Belgium to engage the Germans in the Netherlands. The plan relied heavily on the Maginot Line fortifications along the German-French border, but the Germans had already crossed through most of Holland before the French forces arrived. Thus, Gamelin committed the forces under his command, three mechanized armies, the French First and Seventh and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to the River Dyle. On 14 May, German Army Group A burst through the Ardennes and advanced rapidly to the west toward Sedan, then turned northward to the English Channel, in what Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein called the “Sickle Cut” (known as “Plan Yellow” or the Manstein Plan), effectively flanking the Allied forces.[9]

A series of Allied counter-attacks�including the Battle of Arras�failed to sever the German spearhead, which reached the coast on 20 May, separating the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) near Armenti�res, the French 1st Army, and the Belgian Army further to the north from the majority of French troops south of the German penetration. After reaching the Channel, the Germans swung north along the coast, threatening to capture the ports and trap the British and French forces before they could evacuate to Britain.

In one of the most widely-debated decisions of the war, the Germans halted their advance on Dunkirk. Contrary to popular belief, what became known as “the Halt Order” did not originate with Adolf Hitler. Gerd von Rundstedt and G�nther von Kluge suggested that the German forces around the Dunkirk pocket should cease their advance on the port and consolidate, to avoid an Allied break. Hitler sanctioned the order on 24 May with the support of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). The army was to halt for three days, giving the Allies time to organize the Dunkirk evacuation and build a defensive line. Despite the Allies’ gloomy estimates of the situation, with Britain discussing a conditional surrender to Germany, in the end over 330,000 Allied troops were rescued.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dunkirk

We are now heading into the heart of World War II.  
It is now very difficult for me to pick just one event per month and create a poll about it.
I know that some of my polls arent as interesting as some of my others, but trust me, the input you A&A Fans are giving me is so awesome, that i am reading everything that you guys are writing.
Now i will have two or more polls in each month of the 75th Anniversary.
Why?
Well…because there is so much to discuss.
The European Theater of Operations.
The War in North Africa is about to start.
The Battle of the Atlantic i have yet to touch upon.
Among others to come.
I just want to thank you for all that have replied and i will continue to read.
I still will not respond, however, because its your opinions im interested in.
I have my own views, but they are of no account in my polls.
Its okay to criticize my polls and questions if they dont make sense.
I am a WWII historian and i have been studying this conflict since i was very young…i will be 46 years old on May 18.
I dont know everything about the war, of course, and thats why i needed input from the guys who know more than me or have been there or are more learned on the subject.
I would like to thank some of the guys that have always answered my polls and put me in my place.
CWO MARC, KURTGODEL7, AB WORSHAM, NARVIK, WITTMAN, GARGANTUA, PRIVATE PANIC, and HERR KALEUN.

Now to the 2nd poll of May 1940!
You are Germany!  
The BEF is on the ropes with their backs to the sea at Dunkirk!
The British initiate Operation Dynamo!
The German Army approaches the enemy!
What do you do and what do you think would have happened after Dunkirk?