Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary

jan nelder said:
going back to V1 and 2: last summer I visited Blockhaus d’Eperlecques, a fascinating military site nearish to Calais, where the Germans, using slave labour, built a launch site for V1s and 2s, near end of war. The Barnes Wallace Tallboy bomb did almost no damage to the enormous concrete block building, but it DID dissuade them from continuing with V2 launch plans, due to liquid oxygen explosion fears....
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The Tall Boy bomb caused an earthquake which helped to de-stablize the foundation’s.
I found the whole site quite creepy.
 
The V1, aka BuzzBomb, aka DoodleBug.
Every time I hear that last one it brings me a chuckle, just so British to bring humour into such a dreadful situation.
 
In Australia, very few places got bombed during WW2. However when I was in London in 2008, I came to realise how deeply the memory of the bombing stamped in the British memory. I was alive during WW2 and I am so glad that did not happen to us. Some people dislike Americans. When I was very young, they were the best people on the planet - they were here for us when we needed them.
 
acotrel said:
In Australia, very few places got bombed during WW2. However when I was in London in 2008, I came to realise how deeply the memory of the bombing stamped in the British memory. I was alive during WW2 and I am so glad that did not happen to us. Some people dislike Americans. When I was very young, they were the best people on the planet - they were here for us when we needed them.
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A lot of that came from propaganda that the Germans were putting out to British troops
Plus American GIs got around 5 times the pay of the British Tommy
There's bound to be some problems!
When I started work nearly all of the blokes there were ex ww2 veterans, none of them had anything bad to say about the (yanks)
Sometimes the British humour gets misinterpreted
If we take the piss it means we like you
If we ignore you ................
 
What I dislike about the Yanks does not have to do with the ordinary soldier. My father was a ww2 soldier and said 'the Americans die easily'. That sounds terrible, but what he meant was the Yank's upper echelon just keep feeding men into the grist mill with no worries about attrition. The Australian army usually finds another way when they are in a hole. What really upsets me is the thought that those guys who came here to fight-off the Japanese, were mainly conscripts, and many of them were killed.
I really dislike American individualism - I think it is the result of indoctrination. Collectivism is much better - nobody gets left behind. With Australians, they will fight to the last man to keep you alive. With them, you are usually as safe as you can be.
 
acotrel said:
What I dislike about the Yanks does not have to do with the ordinary soldier. My father was a ww2 soldier and said 'the Americans die easily'. That sounds terrible, but what he meant was the Yank's upper echelon just keep feeding men into the grist mill with no worries about attrition. The Australian army usually finds another way when they are in a hole. What really upsets me is the thought that those guys who came here to fight-off the Japanese, were mainly conscripts, and many of them were killed.
I really dislike American individualism - I think it is the result of indoctrination. Collectivism is much better - nobody gets left behind. With Australians, they will fight to the last man to keep you alive. With them, you are usually as safe as you can be.
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The Japanese soldiers in the Pacific were some of the worse soldiers to be fighting against durning WW2, this is no reflection on all the other battles elsewhere in the world, it's all horrible where people died elsewhere, in uniform or not. One WW2 veteran stated that it was rather odd that whilst fighting a lone or a few Japs would come at you , waving a Samurai sword in the air yelling at the top of their voices as if they could frighten off. But that is how they lived their code of conduct.
 
Management, in their infinite wisdom, dispatched me today with a dodgy tyre: 'Just keep an eye on it and pump it up if necessary'.... So, spent much time wasting my time and their money cruising rural Kent looking for petrol stations with air lines.
Found myself by chance in Brasted, passed the White Hart, favoured watering hole of many of the BoB pilots. Alas, not sure if it's the PC brigade at work but viewing the pub's website shows no mention at all of it's past links with the RAF, albeit unofficially...
 
“May we never forget” said the man.

Trouble is, I think we are forgetting, forgetting just how monumental the outcome of that battle was.

Had that battle been lost then most of the British Empire would have fallen into German and Japanese hands. A massive part of the globe to Axis powers.

There would have been no Britain for allied forces to mass and prepare for D-Day.

There would have been no D-Day.

There would have been no victory at El Alamein, no defeat of the Africa Korps.

Russia may well have fallen, or at the least been bogged down in an unimaginable bloody stale mate without the allied support that got there via Britain.

Without the RAF and the RN to hinder them, German U Boats would have absolutely dominated the oceans. American resources would not have been able to leave America. With Britain lost and America stuck at home, the game would have been well and truly lost.

Honestly, the entire globe would have been a VERY different place.

That is what Churchill meant about so much being owed, by so many, to so few.
 
EstuaryBoy said:
Management, in their infinite wisdom, dispatched me today with a dodgy tyre: 'Just keep an eye on it and pump it up if necessary'.... So, spent much time wasting my time and their money cruising rural Kent looking for petrol stations with air lines.
Found myself by chance in Brasted, passed the White Hart, favoured watering hole of many of the BoB pilots. Alas, not sure if it's the PC brigade at work but viewing the pub's website shows no mention at all of it's past links with the RAF, albeit unofficially...
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celebrating and remembering our forefathers war time endevours is now a crime i think. never known such a pussy country give in so meekly!!!
 
freddie1105 said:
excuse the language. but an effing disgrace!!!!!!!!!!
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Sorry chaps I really don't get all this apparent anger - borderline hate - out of nothing.
It's quite clear just by Googling White Hart, Brasted that it was used by WW2 pilots from Biggin Hill https://whatpub.com/pubs/TTW/12/white-hart-brasted
What is the PC brigade exactly? A bit like the 'blob' of Govey & Cummings or the Liberal elite or the deep state. All cobblers awls to me.
WW2 is well taught in schools.
My kids understand what the Battle of Britain means and I speak as one who can get emotional at the sound of a Spitfire engine and whose parents served in WW2 - my Mum was a doodlebug spotter!
Andy
 
DevonNorton said:
Sorry chaps I really don't get all this apparent anger - borderline hate - out of nothing.
It's quite clear just by Googling White Hart, Brasted that it was used by WW2 pilots from Biggin Hill https://whatpub.com/pubs/TTW/12/white-hart-brasted
What is the PC brigade exactly? A bit like the 'blob' of Govey & Cummings or the Liberal elite or the deep state. All cobblers awls to me.
WW2 is well taught in schools.
My kids understand what the Battle of Britain means and I speak as one who can get emotional at the sound of a Spitfire engine and whose parents served in WW2 - my Mum was a doodlebug spotter!
Andy
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You are lucky, my grandmother was a bed bug spotter! :)
 
DevonNorton said:
Sorry chaps I really don't get all this apparent anger - borderline hate - out of nothing.
It's quite clear just by Googling White Hart, Brasted that it was used by WW2 pilots from Biggin Hill https://whatpub.com/pubs/TTW/12/white-hart-brasted
What is the PC brigade exactly? A bit like the 'blob' of Govey & Cummings or the Liberal elite or the deep state. All cobblers awls to me.
WW2 is well taught in schools.
My kids understand what the Battle of Britain means and I speak as one who can get emotional at the sound of a Spitfire engine and whose parents served in WW2 - my Mum was a doodlebug spotter!
Andy
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Yes, the information is out there for those who wish to dig, just seems strange the pub themselves make no mention of this well known aspect of it's past.. PC brigade:

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Derbyshire | Train group in Nazi soldier row

news.bbc.co.uk
 
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Those were days when folks gave when called by their country.... now everyone has their hands out expecting them to be filled. Brave men patriotic young men.

The 111's & 109's both came from Spain.
 

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