www.ditl.org

Oddly enough, the Arizona Memorial is a very popular attraction with tourists from Japan.

Many of Japanese, including my Uncle Kyetsu (I think thats how you spell it, I always called him Uncle Ray because none of us could say his name right) who talked about how it reminds him even the greatest can fall. He always talked about being in flames and how new family must sometimes fight in order to come together. Its a lot of deep stuff but I think you might have to be Japanese to understand it.

Captain Seafort wrote:
He was First Lord of the Admiralty, not 1SL, and he had a good few very good ideas. Even Gallpoli was a good idea as first conceived.

Ahh, thanks for the correction. As I recall he had a bizzare fascination for the Med and pushed for the Italian WWII campaign, which didn't go to well.

Oh? Well, he must have been a formidable tactician then.

No, he wasn't really. His strength was in his charisma and personal strength. He convinced an entire nation that they could beat back the Nazis indefinitely.

Deepcrush wrote:

Oddly enough, the Arizona Memorial is a very popular attraction with tourists from Japan.

Many of Japanese, including my Uncle Kyetsu (I think thats how you spell it, I always called him Uncle Ray because none of us could say his name right) who talked about how it reminds him even the greatest can fall. He always talked about being in flames and how new family must sometimes fight in order to come together. Its a lot of deep stuff but I think you might have to be Japanese to understand it.

Very likely. My wife is Japanese, and when we saw Pearl Harbor (the movie) she ended up in tears, saying something about racial guilt. She had a great uncle (or something like that) on her father's side who died in the Pacific fighting against the US, so maybe that has something to do with it as well. I hate to admit being less than understanding, but I think you're right.

Cpl Kendall wrote:As I recall he had a bizzare fascination for the Med

An understandable one, given that for most of the war it was the only theatre where British forces could take the war to the enemy.

and pushed for the Italian WWII campaign, which didn't go to well.

True, although that was, again due to his tendency to advocate taking the war to the enemy and exploit the success of the North African campaign. It did lead to the Italian armistice, but overall, as you say, didn't go at all well.

The effective failure of the campaign was mainly due to Hitler supporting Kesselring's plan of defending the peninsula as far south as possible with successive defensive lines, over Rommel's plan to withdraw as far north as possible while retaining a relatively short line, to avoid the risk of being outflanked by an amphibious landing. Anzio could have proved Rommel's fear justified, if it hadn't have been for the idiot in charge.

Captain Seafort wrote:
An understandable one, given that for most of the war it was the only theatre where British forces could take the war to the enemy.

True and I'm sure that he was looking post-war at what the Empire could keep a hold of.

True, although that was, again due to his tendency to advocate taking the war to the enemy and exploit the success of the North African campaign. It did lead to the Italian armistice, but overall, as you say, didn't go at all well.

The effective failure of the campaign was mainly due to Hitler supporting Kesselring's plan of defending the peninsula as far south as possible with successive defensive lines, over Rommel's plan to withdraw as far north as possible while retaining a relatively short line, to avoid the risk of being outflanked by an amphibious landing. Anzio could have proved Rommel's fear justified, if it hadn't have been for the idiot in charge.

Well one things for sure, there were more than enough fools to go around.

A northern defensive wall would have been near unbreakable. If Germany had pulled all of its forces to the Alps and held the northern cup of Italy. I don't think the Allies would have been able too build a successful campaign. If the Gothic Line would have held and maybe been a little further up the Germans could have capped the allied advance and made the "Soft Underbelly" a lot harder then it already was.

Something like this would have broken what was left of British control in the war.

Deepcrush wrote:A northern defensive wall would have been near unbreakable. If Germany had pulled all of its forces to the Alps and held the northern cup of Italy. I don't think the Allies would have been able too build a successful campaign. If the Gothic Line would have held and maybe been a little further up the Germans could have capped the allied advance and made the "Soft Underbelly" a lot harder then it already was.

Something like this would have broken what was left of British control in the war.

Rommel was talking about a retreat to what became the Gothic line, not the Alps - any further north would have allowed an uncontested allied advance into France and the Balkans, rendering Anvil/Dragoon unnecessary. There's also the problem that the allies would, eventually, have broken through such a line, just as they eventually did at Cassino, but without the strategic depth to withraw to another defensive position further up the peninsula, as Kesselring's strategy allowed for.

Churchill was a horrible tactician and a horrible human being in many ways.

What he did have, however, was two things. An absolute determination to stay the course irregardless of the cost, and an incredible ability to motivate others to do the same. Which is exactly what was needed at the time.

For those who don't know, it's hard to understand how close this country came to losing World War II. At one point we were pretty much defeated on all fronts. The army was in disarray; it had most of its men intact, but so little equipment that most of them didn't even have rifles, let alone tanks and such. Hell, at the lowest ebb we only had two weeks worth of food left. Meanwhile an army that was probably one of the best equipped in the world and which had just conquered most of Europe had us next on its list of places to invade. People were openly talking about how much we would have to give up if we sued for peace, because it just looked like we couldn't win.

Churchill came in and said to hell with that; he would rather fight and lose than compromise, because he saw the people we were up against as being genuinely evil (which they were). When everyone else was mired in disasters and problems, he would ask his military leaders to present him with the one thing they would most need in order to be able to go on the offensive. When everyone else was talking about giving up, he said it plainly :

"We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

For all his faults, if it wasn't for Churchill my country might well not exist today. In fact the whole of Europe might well look a great deal different.

Ok, good point. But then the German forces still should have pulled back there to begin with. A solid line would have tied up allied forces and shorten the German supply lines.

Plus, they should have left Russia alone. They had allies, but then the turned on them as well. I read this book once written by David Eddings where a character said "only an idoit fights a war on two fronts, but only a madman tries to fight one on three. I'll go as far as idiocy, but the world has had enough of madmen"

Deepcrush wrote:Ok, good point. But then the German forces still should have pulled back there to begin with. A solid line would have tied up allied forces and shorten the German supply lines.

Kesselring considered the longer supply lines and the risk of being outflanked worth it to have decent strategic depth. Given that he was able to hold of 15th AG for the best part of two years, and specifically was able to resume the defensive on the Gothic Line after the retreat from Cassino, I'd say he was right.

Conceeded.

Don't forget a horrible painter and a formidable wit. For those unfamiliar with the latter, it was Churchill who had the following dialogue with a lady at a dinner party, when she commented on his table manners:

woman: "If you were my husband, I'd put poison in your tea."

Churchill: "If I was your husband, I'd drink it."