Britains secret weapon during the Battle of Britain

[NutLoose]

Scroll down the page...


Just eight pilots remain of the Battle of Britain Few | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5051269/Just-eight-pilots-remain-Battle-Britain-Few.html)




:ugh:

[Cazalet33]

The Battle of Britain was crucial in preventing a Nazi invasion. Pictured: RAF De Havilland Chipmunk's

Ah! So that was the secret weapon.

[pettinger93]

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight has some, so they must be from 1939-45? How could we have won without them?

[Wander00]

Spitmunks, or were they Chipfires

[ShotOne]

Unfortunately that probably came about through a journo glancing at the list of bbmf types

[unmanned_droid]

Everyone forgets about the Hurrimunks.

[Herod]

One of my base captains once said that sitting in a Chippie and opening the throttle was like being in a Spitfire.... for the first half-second.

Chipfires That's what you get when you forget to turn the gas down.

[Fonsini]

Achtung Chipmunk !!

The cry that would strike fear into the hearts of German bomber pilots.

[Tankertrashnav]

Not even a picture of RAF Chipmunks but a picture of RAF Chipmunk's :ugh:

[NutLoose]

The men took to the skies in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Blenheims, Beaufighters and Defiants in the summer of 1940 to fend off the Nazis. They shot down plane after plane to hold off an invasion and provide a platform for the Allies to win the war



And the Meteor F8's shown flying past Big Ben, those other wonder weapons used during the Battle.

[MPN11]

I always thought (inevitably) that the Secret Weapon was Radar ... and the C&R system ...

... we have two secret weapons, Radar and C&R and indominatble courage ...

... we have three secret weapons, and we are BRITISH!

... and Free French, and Polish, and Czech, and Aussie, and Kiwi, and Canuck ...

Who do you think you are, Mister Hitler ... ?

[Danny42C]

pettinger93 (#93),

The DH Chipmunk did not come into service until 1946 [Wiki]. Our (not-so-secret) weapon was the Chain Home System, without which the BoB could not have been successfully fought.

..."Chain Home proved decisive during the Battle of Britain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain) in 1940"... [Wiki]

[MPN11]

Thank you, Danny42C, even though you were excusably late on parade for that particular event ;)

[Danny42C]

MPN11 (#13),

Sadly true - but it spurred me (and just about every red-blooded young man in Britain and the Empire) to scurry round to the nearest Recruiting Office and beg, on bended knee, for admission to the RAF to train as a pilot !

Would do it again (in the circs).

Danny.

[diginagain]

I thought we had the Navy to thank for our survival in 1940?

[EGTE]

Our secret weapon was the Royal Observer Corps.
The Chain Home radar system only looked out to sea. Once the enemy aircraft had crossed the British coastline it was useless.
Only the ROC (or the Observer Corps as it was in 1940) could track both enemy and friendly aircraft and pass that information to the Fighter Command plotters.

[MPN11]

Worked briefly with the ROC at HQ11Gp before they were binned ... a great history! I was able to acquire [where I do not recall] a mountain of ROC Journals covering the war period which I donated to them ... undoubtedly lost to history now.

[Wensleydale]

....and so it was all decided by a secret spot landing competition.....

[Danny42C]

diginagain (#15),

From the "Battle of the Atlantic" [Wiki]:
..."In essence, the Battle of the Atlantic was a tonnage war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnage_war): the Allied struggle to supply Britain and the Axis attempt to stem the flow of merchant shipping that enabled Britain to keep fighting"...
and.." 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 Glückliche Zeit").[29] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic#cite_note-29) Churchill would later write: "...the only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril"...
I believe that at this time, the Navy had its back to the wall, as tonnage was being sunk faster than it could be replaced...

Any notion that the Navy could divert ships to combat a cross channel invasion without air supremacy is fanciful, Later experience (Malaya ?) showed what happens when surface vessels without air support come within range of a land based enemy air force.

None of this diminishes the heroism of the RN, and of the merchant seamen, which (IMHO) has never been properly acknowledged.
Danny..

[tartare]

Your secret weapon was Colossus...

[Danny42C]

tartare (#20), (#Colossus was a set of computers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer) developed by British codebreakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis) in the years 1943–1945 )..." [Wiki].
Bit late for BoB, I'm afraid.

Danny.

[tartare]

I stand corrected Danny - thank you.

[jmelson]

tartare (#20), [Wiki].
Bit late for BoB, I'm afraid.

Danny.
The Bombes were more directly responsible, as the important traffic telling where U-boats would be, were largely sent by naval Enigma cipher. Britain made several Bombes to break the Enigma codes, then the US helped out with several HUNDRED high-speed bombes built by the NCR company. These ran about 60 times faster than the British version, and by using dozens of machines in parallel, they could solve the arrangement of rotors used at the beginning of the day very quickly. Once that was determined, it did not change for a whole day, and then the machines could be run individually to crack different messages.

If you knew where the U-boats would be, you could either try to sink them, or just route the ocean convoys around them. Since the U-boards were slow, and REALLY slow when running deeply submerged, the ships didn't have to divert very far to avoid the U-boats.

The British used strategies to avoid revealing the messages were being cracked. When they knew a sub would be meeting a tender to refuel, they'd send a patrol plane over that spot, so the crews could not help but know they'd been seen. The Germans must have thought the Brits had an amazing number of patrol planes scouring the oceans for them.

The Colossus was designed to crack the VERY much more difficult Lorentz SZ42 cipher, the Brits called it "Tunny". This was used to send much higher level messages from/to the OKW (German high command) and was of much greater strategic importance, as it revealed planning for the next several months.

Jon

[POBJOY]

Not one 'secret weapon' but a combination of many that made the 'system' work.
Often overlooked is the humble telephone which was responsible for most of the messages from sighting (Radar and Observer Corps) right through to the telephone in the dispersal hut.
Probably the Telephones finest hour !!!

Hello Stanmore I have some trade for you

A great confirmation of this is the Kenley ops room painting, (there all on the phone)

[Cazalet33]

The really clever thing about Dowding's version of UKADGE was that it networked the vox and telex telecomms in a way which was actually a precursor if the internet.

The real secret of that part of the war, though, was the fact that the Luftwaffe's intel was crap.

[BEagle]

Luftwaffe fighter comms were also very poor, both A/A and A/G. The arrogant Galland had decided that they didn't need radios at all in the Bf109 and could rely on wing-waggling etc. But eventually some RT became available, although of short range and interference prone - RT discipline wasn't very good either as few pilots had any RT training. Frequently the escorting fighters couldn't talk to the bomber formations they were accompanying, as they were on different frequencies, so couldn't warn them of any threats.

A good job for Britain that the Luftwaffe's comms were so poor during the Battle.

[typerated]

I though the secret weapon was the Boulton Paul Defiant?

Probably more Hitler at Dunkirk and Goring during the BoB?

[Martin the Martian]

When you look at the reporting and control system the RAF had in place, the first of its kind anywhere, you can't help but feel a little sorry for the Germans in trying to tackle it.

Maybe.

[pettinger93]

Danny4C:
Thanks for the correction on the dates of the Chipmunk, but I was trying to be ironic!

[VX275]

Before he designed the Chipmunk its designer Wsiewolod Jakimiuk had designed the PZL fighters that the Polish air force fought the Luftwaffe with in September 1939. So at least it does have a fighter pedigree.

[Danny42C]

pettinger93 (#29),

Sorry ! - I was being too pedantic (shouldn't have joined if I can't take a joke !)

Danny.

[XR219]

The Spitfire pictured above the Chipmunk photo is a later Griffon-powered example too. A rather more subtle error though!

[langleybaston]

Perhaps the secret weapon was the received wisdom of taking Met. forecasts with a large large pinch of salt.

The suckers' gap was surely a BoB construct.

At least we had the advantage over Germany of much of the "weather" moving from west to east, but many a forecast has been ruined by taking too much notice of Irish coastal actuals.

[pax britanica]

I think the integrated air defence system which Dowding put together of radar, observers, resilient comms and centralised battle management was the key not just any part of it. Remarkably far sighted and un-British , presumably why he was sacked as soon as the threat passed.

Not sure how it resembled the internet in any way other than resilience through redundancy which is pretty much a feature of all types of critical application telecom networks.

Did Bletchley play any part in BoB, I have not really ever seen any reference to it , was it too early in the war or was the Bletchley operation focused solely on the Atlantic , I assume the Luftwaffe had an enigma variation !

[DODGYOLDFART]

pb you may well be right as the first working bombe did not get up and running until the autumn of 1940. However Bletchley Park did play an important role in collecting and collating Sig. Int. from the various signals intercept units. The Germans were not good at coding a lot of low level traffic and often used plain language. Orders to specific airfields in France giving no's and type of aircraft, plus bomb loads were often transmitted in plain in the late afternoon of the day before the raid. This information was of significant value to Fighter Command, so much so that perhaps only Dowding was trusted with it.

[Basil]

and of the merchant seamen, which (IMHO) has never been properly acknowledged.
Hear, hear!

[Herod]

I believe, and stand to be corrected, that another advantage to the RAF was the fact that the Me109 had a very short range, therefore little combat time. Add to that the fact that any German airman who bailed out was a prisoner, whereas an RAF pilot was back to ops pretty quickly. The same applied to damaged aircraft; the German was a total loss, whereas the British ones could be recovered/repaired.

[FODPlod]

diginagain (#15),

From the "Battle of the Atlantic" [Wiki]:

and.."
I believe that at this time, the Navy had its back to the wall, as tonnage was being sunk faster than it could be replaced...

Any notion that the Navy could divert ships to combat a cross channel invasion without air supremacy is fanciful, Later experience (Malaya ?) showed what happens when surface vessels without air support come within range of a land based enemy air force.

None of this diminishes the heroism of the RN, and of the merchant seamen, which (IMHO) has never been properly acknowledged.
Danny..
The Luftwaffe had minimal anti-shipping capability in 1940; certainly no torpedo aircraft to speak of. As for bombers, the RN lost only four destroyers from air attack during the entire Dunkirk evacuation. See here for the RN's myriad MTBs, MGBs, armed trawlers and drifters, minesweepers, destroyers, cruisers etc., that would have created mayhem for any German landing craft, towed lighters and river barges:Home Fleet, June 1940 (http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-4006-15RNHome1.htm)
Nore Command, June 1940 (http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-4006-15RNHome2.htm)
Western Approaches, June 1940 (http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-4006-15RNHome3.htm)
Their wakes alone would have been enough to capsize most troop carrying vessels and I doubt they would have presented clear targets to aircraft when mixing it with the invasion force. Most of the German surface fleet had already been sunk during the Battles of Narvik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Narvik).

REPULSE and POW were sunk off Malaya in Dec 1941, over a year after the Battle of Britain and more than two years after the start of the Battle of the Atlantic. These vessels were totally bereft of air cover when they were saturated by Japanese aircraft which had taken a leaf out of the Fleet Air Arm's book and specialised in attacking ships. For all that, the two capital ships managed to evade over 40 of the 49 torpedoes launched against them and as few as six (but possibly eight) found their target (link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Prince_of_Wales_and_Repulse)).

Interestingly, the initial wave of 25 Japanese aircraft dropped a total of 33 bombs (17 x 500 kg and 16 x 250 kg) on the two ships but only achieved a single hit with a 250 kg bomb. This started a small fire on the hangar deck of REPULSE. Several high level bombers also straddled the capital ships during the later torpedo attacks but, again, only achieved a single hit with a bomb that fell among the wounded gathered in POW's hangar and caused extensive casualties. Neither of these bombs succeeded in penetrating the ships' armour.

Nine other Japanese aircraft mistook one of the three escorting destroyers for a battleship. They each dropped a 500 kg armour-piercing bomb but all missed their target. The destroyer was left unscathed and subsequently helped rescue the survivors from the battleships. In the absence of RAF air cover, a supporting carrier might have made all the difference, especially as the Japanese bombers had no fighter escort owing to the distances involved.

[SASless]

Pax,

Did the Swedes provide any intercepted Enigma Messages with the UK during the early years of the War?

Their Intelligence Service had broken the German Codes by 1940 due primarily to the work of Arne Buerling.

His work was simply amazing....as he did it using his genius math skills and some pencil and paper work.


I have read that Bletchley was reading German Air Force Codes in mid-1940.

[melmothtw]

Of all the comments at the bottom of the article, I found this one to be the most amusing/pertinent:

Shame the Daily Mail supported the other side.

[Wensleydale]

I have read that Bletchley was reading German Air Force Codes in mid-1940


I understand that there was a Luftwaffe unit in France that always used the same 3 letter start groups when setting up their enigma: HIT and LER. They would then send a weather forecast which always started in the same format... these keys allowed the codebreakers to crack the Luftwaffe enigma within a couple of hours (if not sooner) for most days during the War (including the forewarning of the raid on Coventry, but measures could not be taken in case ULTRA was compromised).

[Herod]

I also believe that a lot of operators finished their messages with "HH" (Heil Hitler). Another way in.

Ref the Swedes and intercepted messages, following the German invasion of Norway, the Germans asked for the use of the Swedish telephone system. The Swedes were quite happy to provide this, and sent thousands of intercepted messages to the British.

[GeeRam]

I thought our secret weapon was Hitler and Goering :E

:ok:




Eight left :(

The few of the few indeed. God bless em.

[Danny42C]

typerated (#27),
Probably more Hitler at Dunkirk and Goring during the BoB?
I've read somewhere that Hitler ordered Guderian to halt his armour for 72 hours on the dash to the coast, simply to enable the evacuation from Dunkirk to take place.

That way Britain would have to feed and house the 300,000 + returning troops, who would otherwise have been his problem as POWs. We (he thought) were finished anyway, and had no option but to sue for peace. It was on the cards in those few days, till Churchill took over power, and the rest is history.

[Danny42C]

FODPlod (#38)
...These vessels were totally bereft of air cover when they were saturated by Japanese aircraft...The story that we were later told out there was: After the first attack, Admiral Phillips broke radio silence, not to ask for aircraft cover against the second attack which was sure to come - but merely for a tug from Singapore to help his crippled flagship POW (limping, on one shaft at 1½ kts), back to port. AHQ at Singapore took no action; and it was left to a Flt Lt Tim Vigors (temporarily in command of a "Buffalo" squadron), to recognise the danger and order a scramble. But he was too late: when they arrived on the scene, the second attack had come, and the ship was on the bottom.

What good the "Buffaloes" could have done is questionable, but you do not have to shoot down a torpedo bomber, it is enough to molest it, to put it "off its stroke" on its torpedo run. (Or so I would suppose, knowing, as I do, nothing about it). "Owt is better'n Nowt", as they say in these parts.
...which had taken a leaf out of the Fleet Air Arm's book and specialised in attacking ships...
Taranto was the model for Pearl Harbor.
... For all that, the two capital ships managed to evade over 40 of the 49 torpedoes launched against them and as few as six (but possibly eight) found their target (link)...But they were enough !

"A properly handled capital ship can always beat off air attack". Phillips had declared - and, to be fair to him, I believe it was the Admiralty thinking at the time (he went down with his ship).

It was one of our greatest Naval disasters of the war, and Wiki states 840 casualties tho' at the time 1,200 was the figure IIRC.

[Vendee]

typerated (#27),

I've read somewhere that Hitler ordered Guderian to halt his armour for 72 hours on the dash to the coast, simply to enable the evacuation from Dunkirk to take place.

That way Britain would have to feed and house the 300,000 + returning troops, who would otherwise have been his problem as POWs. We (he thought) were finished anyway, and had no option but to sue for peace. It was on the cards in those few days, till Churchill took over power, and the rest is history.

As I understand it, Goering asked Hitler to halt the armoured advance so that his Luftwaffe could finish the job.

[oxenos]

"A properly handled capital ship can always beat off air attack". Phillips had declared - and, to be fair to him, I believe it was the Admiralty thinking at the time (he went down with his ship).
Not the only example of the self delusion of the R.N. at that time. I posted this some time ago.
In the 1930's the RN were convinced that the submarine threat was completely neutralised by their ASDIC.

There was, however, something worrying them.

During the First War, the Wicked Hun had sent ships to bombard East Coast ports. Their cunning plan was that the RN would send some cruisers down from Rosyth to investigate, and just out of sight they would have a force of heavy cruisers waiting to spring the trap

The RN, intent on fighting the previous war all over again, wanted the RAF to ensure that this could not happen.

The RAF therefore spent a lot of their pocket money on Ansons, which, while a lovely little aeroplane, was not suitable for anti-submarine work. It was, however just the thing for patrolling the seaward approaches to West Hartlepoole They even called this force Coastal Command.

When the penny dropped, there was a mad scramble to get more suitable aircraft.

[Danny42C]

oxenos (#47),

'Bout time there was another "mad scramble" (or any scramble !) But there are no more pennies in the piggy-bank to be dropped.

[ValMORNA]

D O F. Re your #35,


It was also significant that, prior to a raid, each aircraft conducted a radio check using the a/c call-sign. Thus RAF sigint knew which units and numbers of aircraft would be involved, thereby forewarning Fighter Command.


(Allegedly)

[FODPlod]

Not the only example of the self delusion of the R.N. at that time. I posted this some time ago.

Point conceded but the RN didn't have a monopoly on self-delusion. The RAF's faith in the accuracy of its own bombing was misplaced too.

In 1940 an investigation revealed that just one in five RAF aircraft was dropping its bombs within five miles of its target, even in daylight. In December 1941 it was estimated that only three in every hundred RAF bombs dropped at night came within five miles of the intended target.

Can you tell I used to work in OA? :)

[MPN11]

FODPlod ... with that background, you would be interested to know that the RAF "Survival to Operate" (STO) team in MoD used a very detailed study into the bombing of Malta to try to extract some data on mass HE effectiveness. I wouldn't say every German/Italian bomb dropped was plotted, but it was close to that.

Surprisingly, much of Malta still exists, as I noticed last month whilst on holiday. Plenty of shrapnel scars though, just like Berlin.

[Hipper]

The Bombes were more directly responsible, as the important traffic telling where U-boats would be, were largely sent by naval Enigma cipher. Britain made several Bombes to break the Enigma codes, then the US helped out with several HUNDRED high-speed bombes built by the NCR company. These ran about 60 times faster than the British version, and by using dozens of machines in parallel, they could solve the arrangement of rotors used at the beginning of the day very quickly. Once that was determined, it did not change for a whole day, and then the machines could be run individually to crack different messages.

If you knew where the U-boats would be, you could either try to sink them, or just route the ocean convoys around them. Since the U-boards were slow, and REALLY slow when running deeply submerged, the ships didn't have to divert very far to avoid the U-boats.

The British used strategies to avoid revealing the messages were being cracked. When they knew a sub would be meeting a tender to refuel, they'd send a patrol plane over that spot, so the crews could not help but know they'd been seen. The Germans must have thought the Brits had an amazing number of patrol planes scouring the oceans for them.

Jon


That was good thinking but they nearly ran out of luck when, after the Bismarck episode in May 1941, it was decided to sink all but one of her supply ships dotted around the Atlantic using the same strategy. Their positions for each day were known so it was just a case of pretending to find them with air patrols, then sinking them. One was to be spared so that the reading of enigma wasn't compromised.


Unfortunately the RN just happened to find this one in the course of normal duties and sank it!


This caused much consternation in the UK and Germany but after an investigation the Germans decided it was not possible to break the code. They continued with that thought for the rest of the war.

[MPN11]

Ah, the multiple deceptions of this and that, and not knowing what you know. Those must have been fascinating times.

[PPRuNeUser0139]

It was also significant that, prior to a raid, each aircraft conducted a radio check using the a/c call-sign. Thus RAF sigint knew which units and numbers of aircraft would be involved, thereby forewarning Fighter Command.
(Allegedly)
I seem to remember reading somewhere in the dim and distant past that, prior to an op, it was SOP for Bomber Command crews to check out their aircraft, including a ground radio check (on HF!) - all of which was being monitored by the Luftwaffe Signals Intelligence Agency (Luftnachrichten Abteilung 350 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftnachrichten_Abteilung_350)).

[Brat]

Britains secret weapon(’s) were numerous, one probably being from a genetic pool of overly aggressive absolute hairy arsed bastards who invade these islands over the centuries, raping the women and donating their more progressive tendencies, from a survival point of view.

[Danny42C]

I believe that, on occasion, Churchill had on his desk an Ultra transcript of an Oberkommando order before the intended recipient had seen it.

There was no "silver bullet" to be credited with winning the war, but I reckon "Ultra" came close.

[Schiller]

Some years ago I knew a chap who had been involved in codebreaking in the western desert in the days before Ultra - just stick and string stuff. The Italians could be pretty careless. He said that occasionally they could break a signal and have the result laid reverently on the CinC's desk, to be followed by a further signal from the original recipient saying

''Your XYZ received corrupt. Please send again''

and thus they were able to claim that they were reading the enemy's signals faster than real time.

[Cazalet33]

Britains secret weapon(’s) were numerous, one probably being from a genetic pool of overly aggressive absolute hairy arsed bastards who invade these islands over the centuries, raping the women and donating their more progressive tendencies, from a survival point of view.

An Aryan master race of supermen?

How well did that theory work out over the second half of that 20thC game?

Who won?

[MPN11]

America ;)

[Wander00]

Puzzled by an episode of 100 Years of Women at war on Beeb2. Nicky Campbell's Mum implied that there was radar control from UK of outgoing bombers - not heard of that before, or was it a journalistic short cut to confuse the unwary?

[pr00ne]

Wandr00,

GEE

[oxenos]

GEE

Gee arrived rather later, and as a navigation aid for Bomber Command

[Danny42C]

Wander00 (#60),

That - and I think the lady probably meant that she could "see" the bombers going out to the East over the North Sea, but AFAIK, they were not controlled in any way. I have heard of "Gee-Stooging" (which is probably what was in pr00ne's mind). Here the Navigators had given up the fag of navigating the hard way, and relied solely on a succession of "Gee" fixes to take them to their targets.

Some bomber crews conspired to fly out over the North Sea, orbit for 6-7 hours, drop their bombs in the sea, come home and declare "D.C.O." The ground radar operators watched for any "blip" trying this knavish trick. The requirement for a target photograph put an end to the practice. (Or so I would imagine, being far away in a much safer war at the time).

And was it true that the Nav's log had to show hat you'd gone more than 2°E before you were entitled to your "operational egg" for breakfast, when (if ?) you got back ?

Danny.

[ricardian]

D O F. Re your #35,
It was also significant that, prior to a raid, each aircraft conducted a radio check using the a/c call-sign. Thus RAF sigint knew which units and numbers of aircraft would be involved, thereby forewarning Fighter Command.
(Allegedly)

RAF Cheadle (Woodhead Hall, Staffs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhead_Hall)) was one of the Y stations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-stations) that were involved. It's CO was Group Captain Winterbottom (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol19no3/html/v19i3a05p_0001.htm)

[AR1]

I'm with the Defiant on the secret front - it had "Fly And Forget" capability.

Mrs Ar1 was in the ROC too (though not in 1940) her AC recognition skills were top notch.

[Wander00]

Thanks for the info, chaps

[Cazalet33]

Orders to specific airfields in France giving no's and type of aircraft, plus bomb loads were often transmitted in plain in the late afternoon of the day before the raid. This information was of significant value to Fighter Command, so much so that perhaps only Dowding was trusted with it.

Not only Dowding. Churchill too.

He was no fool. He knew when a raid was planned against central London and he almost invariably scarpered to Ditchley for the night when he knew that he would have been at personal risk if he'd stayed at Downing Street.

Warmongers are rarely brave. They get other people to do the brave bit and then they cover themselves in vicarious glory. That was Churchill's style.

[Herod]

And the alternative was..?

[Cazalet33]

Alternative to what?

Alternative to running away like a startled rabbit to drink himself to sleep?

There was a German family just up the Mall who could have run away to Sandringham or Balmoral or to a less conspicuous locus, but they didn't.

[Bing]

Alternative to what?

Alternative to running away like a startled rabbit to drink himself to sleep?

There was a German family just up the Mall who could have run away to Sandringham or Balmoral or to a less conspicuous locus, but they didn't.

There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity. But if you're trying to run a war leaving yourself in a position to get bombed definitely falls under the latter.

[Cazalet33]

So run, rabbit, run.

That's what a war "leader" does. Isn't it?

[Cazalet33]

That wee Scottish wumman was a cunning PR genius. She knew that the warmonger was a fasle idol. She had her idiot husband sit still and then she paraded himself and herself before the cameras when a bomb from her in-laws' heimat landed on the grounds of Buck House.

The warmongering coward tried to replicate such a parade and hoisted his Bowler on his walking stick for the cameras, but it was a sham.

[Prangster]

Off the top of my head. Dams raid article picturing Liberators and A26 Invaders.

[izod tester]

He may well have taken the sensible precaution of avoiding air raids when it was arguably imperative that he was not taken out of action. However, he served as a battalion commander of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front in 1916. He served in the Punjab, Sudan and Cuba and was a war correspondent in South Africa. He had no hesitation in putting himself in harms way then.

Why are you so bitter?

[roving]

Britain recalls ...

87Xkr8z3lEo

[Bing]

So run, rabbit, run.

That's what a war "leader" does. Isn't it?

You get that the idea of a war is to kill the other side, not get killed yourself right?

[Herod]

How does going to war to help an ally you have a treaty with (Poland), when they are under attack, make you a warmonger? In that case, any NATO member who is under attack would, of necessity, cause the leaders of all other NATO countries to be classed as warmongers. Yes, I know it was Chamberlain who was PM at the time, so perhaps he should also be indicted.