Dunkirk... was it that bad a German idea?

[Metullus]

One of the problems with Hitler is that he removed many of his good generals. He was afraid they would take over his job.

That was more a Stalin thing than a Hitler thing. Off hand I cannot think of a single General that Hitler relieved because he was afraid of his political influence. Stalin made a habit of executing his generals.

 

[Henri McPhee]

In my innocence years ago I used to think that the Duke of Windsor was somehow involved in negotiations about Dunkirk. To put it bluntly he was a British spy along with the Duke of Kent, who obtained important intelligence before the war about German intentions because of his German relations and other important connections. The historical truth seems to be that the Duke of Windsor was packed off to the colonies as a security risk.

The Duke of Kent was a pal of Noel Coward who was also a British spy. The point is that the Duke of Kent died in a mysterious plane crash during the war. The history books now seem to say that he was bumped off by Churchill because he was supposed to be involved with Rudolf Hess and was trying to overthrow Churchill. This has never been proved and the documentation has vanished. The implication is that it was about the time Hitler intended to invade Russia and that he wanted Britain to keep out using Hess.

There is a bit of background to this which I admit is not facts or evidence at :

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/t...-and-the-death-of-prince-george-duke-of-kent/

In the end both Britain and America allied with Russia. from that Russian Outlook book published by Sir Giffard Martel in 1947:

The second point was that the operations of the R.A.F and the U.S.A air forces drew away a very large proportion of the German air forces from the Russian front. Germany was forced to concentrate at least three-quarters of her total strength in fighters for her defence against our bombing attacks in the west. moreover, she had to concentrate on the construction of fighters at the cost of bombers, and this upset all her plans for bomber offensives and the training of her crews. It was a very great contribution to the war effort when our air forces drew off a large proportion of the German air strength on the Russian front, and it was, of course, the very greatest assistance to Russia in her mighty land battles that summer and autumn.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The history books now seem to say that he was bumped off by Churchill because he was supposed to be involved with Rudolf Hess and was trying to overthrow Churchill

Which 'history books' are these? the ones in your head?

 

[Henri McPhee]

Which 'history books' are these? the ones in your head?

There is a book by the author Charles Higham and there is a TV documentary on Yesterday TV saying that the Duke of Kent was bumped off by Churchill:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/18317-prince-georges-mysterious-death-in-1942/

An unproven claim has been made that British Intelligence assassinated Prince George.
The appeasement movement, involving many of the nobility and the powerful- even the [then] newly-abdicated King, Edward VIII (George's older brother)- were purportedly Nazi sympathisers.

One possible reason is given by author Charles Higham, in the second, revised edition of his book The Duchess of Windsor:The Secret Life, as serious concern over the Duke of Kent's lack of discretion and his political dealings with Nazi leadership, with negotiations towards a separate peace, to allow Germany to concentrate on its war with the Soviet Union in eastern Europe.

Higham writes that the Special Operations Executive (SOE), worried that the Duke would talk about these matters once he left the British Isles, tampered with the plane before its takeoff, ensuring its crash soon afterwards, with the deaths of all but one of the passengers.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Is that the Higham who fabricated his sources and evidence?

Like the book on Errol Flynn that accused him of being a Nazi Spy where he himself said ""I don't have a document that says A, B, C, D, E, Errol Flynn was a Nazi agent, but I have pieced together a mosaic that proves that he is."

His claims were later identified as fabrications, substantiated by viewing the FBI documents, which Higham altered for his book rather than quoted verbatim.

He was also accused and proved to have fabricated evidence in support of the claims in some of his other biographies.

A very reliable source.

 

[Tolls]

If you are looking for german mistakes in this period of the war, ending the attack on the RAF and attacking civilian populations was a much bigger mistake.

That one is also debatable.
The timing of the shift to city bombing coincides with the change in strategy of the RAF to cycle squadrons around, rather than having a single Group take the brunt of the attacks. The expectation is that the Luftwaffe would have had a bad time of things in September anyway.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

That one is also debatable.
The timing of the shift to city bombing coincides with the change in strategy of the RAF to cycle squadrons around, rather than having a single Group take the brunt of the attacks. The expectation is that the Luftwaffe would have had a bad time of things in September anyway.

Bombings of RAF fields were pretty ineffectual too. They were rapidly rebuilt

 

[Giz]

Bombings of RAF fields were pretty ineffectual too. They were rapidly rebuilt

I'd read somewhere that the main impact of bombing the RAF fields was the strain placed on RAF pilots who would never get a chance to relax (either flying combat missions, or being at risk of air attack), leading to increased nervous exhaustion/combat stress.

(Note: this is the RAF perspective... I presume the German goal was to knock out the fields rather than just to cause RAF personnel some extra stress)

 

[rjh01]

I'd read somewhere that the main impact of bombing the RAF fields was the strain placed on RAF pilots who would never get a chance to relax (either flying combat missions, or being at risk of air attack), leading to increased nervous exhaustion/combat stress.

(Note: this is the RAF perspective... I presume the German goal was to knock out the fields rather than just to cause RAF personnel some extra stress)

If the Germans went after the radar stations as well as the RAF then that would cause major problems for the British. Attacking the airfields would destroy many planes and if the pilots lived on the field killed those too. And good pilots cannot easily be replaced quickly.

 

[Andy_Ross]

They did go after the Radar stations but seeing no apparent change in the RAF response and readiness they stopped, plus, the Chain Home stations were hard tp put out of action for long, the towers were difficult to damage. Bomb blasts did very little damage, the open lattice pylons just let the blast pass through.
Ventnor was put out of action for a while but there were a couple of mobile stations ready for just such contingencies and the gap was filled.
As far as the germans could tell they hadn't damaged anything so never bothered again.

 

[blutoski]

They did go after the Radar stations but seeing no apparent change in the RAF response and readiness they stopped, plus, the Chain Home stations were hard tp put out of action for long, the towers were difficult to damage. Bomb blasts did very little damage, the open lattice pylons just let the blast pass through.
Ventnor was put out of action for a while but there were a couple of mobile stations ready for just such contingencies and the gap was filled.
As far as the germans could tell they hadn't damaged anything so never bothered again.

The RAF also built redundant units that were intended to be used in rotation. The principle being that if the LW bombed active stations by triangulating their signal, inactive ones could be brought online to replace them while the damaged ones were under repair.

Planes could be shot down over the undefended Channel - in contrast, radar installations had to be hit while dodging AA counterfire. The loss to LW planes dedicated to knocking out relatively cheap radar installations was an ugly calculation; the LW was betting that if they focused on planes, which were harder to build/repair/replace/pilottrain, then radar wouldn't matter, there wouldn't be enough RAF planes left to leverage it.

 

[Aber]

the LW was betting that if they focused on planes, which were harder to build/repair/replace/pilottrain, then radar wouldn't matter, there wouldn't be enough RAF planes left to leverage it.

Except that their intelligence services also managed to underestimate the size of Fighter Command, and believe German pilots' victory claims. As a result they incorrectly believed the RAF was near defeat.

 

[rjh01]

Problem with shooting down fighter planes over the UK is that they have a tendency to fight back. Any Germans shot down over the UK is lost to the Germans. A British pilot shot down over the UK might parashoot themselves to safety and be back in the air the next day.
The above posts say the Germans made only a small effort to attack the radar. They should have been able to work out what the British were doing. Keep attacking and lay a few mines to kill the people who come to repair the radar.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Well, the Germans had a very good delayed action 'cluster bomb' they could have used to 'mine' the sites, the Sprengbombe Dickwandig 2 kg or SD2, Nicknamed the 'Butterfly bomb' because of the appearance of the bomblets.
It was used with some effect and was so good the United States manufactured a copy that was used during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War, designating it the M83 submunition. it was used in the US M28 and M29 cluster bombs.

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

Germany never appreciated the importance of the Chain Home sites.
They didn't even realise the British had radar for a long time.
Chain Home worked on a 'Phased Array' system at a quite long wavelength. Stations consisted of a row of four lattice pylon towers hundreds of feet high with the aerial array on them. Receivers were similar but smaller towers.
German Radar used a parabolic reflector on a shorter wavelength.
Before the war a Zeppelin, packed with electronics and technicians flew up and down the channel listening for British radar and radio traffic.
They actually heard the Radar but thought they were hearing interference from the electricity grid.

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

Seperate from the actual radar stations the Germans had no appreciation of the integrated ground-control interception network that it fed in to.

 

[crescent]

I've read that the actual buildings with the radar equipment (not the antennas, but the part with a CRT screens and phones and such) were made to look as nondescript as possible - they looked like little wooden shacks like any farmer might have here and there on a farm.

Thus, the German pilots did not realize what they were at first. They were looking for big, defended structures, not little shacks.

Is there any truth to that?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It depended on the location, West Coast stations relied on dispersal for protection while the East Coast used hardened structures. Some structures were wooden, some brick or concrete, some semi underground. Backup generators and standby transmitter houses were 'buried' and different to the main ones etc.

For example here is Ventnor
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/v/ventnor/index.shtml

Here is Bawdsey
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/b/bawdsey_radar/index.shtml

Compare with Dunnot head on the West Coast

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/d/dunnet_head/index.shtml

Here is a link to a list of all the sites featured on the Sub Brit website. Pictures and descriptions with an active map.
This includes post war 'ROTOR' sites as well as the Chain Home sites. Sometimes the CH sites were converted to ROTOR.
(ROTOR was a radar system that was obsolete before it was completed and was mostly abandoned. Fast jet bombers meant that the old WW2 style plotting and operations rooms and chain of command weren't fast enough to keep up with an attack so a more centralised system was developed rendering all the plotting rooms etc at the ROTOR sites redundant)

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/category/radar

 

[HansMustermann]

Except that their intelligence services also managed to underestimate the size of Fighter Command, and believe German pilots' victory claims. As a result they incorrectly believed the RAF was near defeat.

The biggest underestimation was how many planes a month can the British produce, rather than the initial size of the RAF. Actually the UK produced twice as many as the Germans shot down, and by the time Germany calculated that the UK should be down to its last hundred planes or so, actually the RAF had more planes than ever.

So basically the whole Battle Of Britain was a case of Germany grossly underestimating the speed of the wind they piss against

Kinda like the U-Boat war too, come to think of it.

And Barbarossa.

And... Hmm... you know, they kinda made a habit of it, didn't they?

 

[Andy_Ross]

German Intelligence was woeful right through the war.

Look at 'Operation Double Cross' for example.

Every agent sent to the UK was captured and most were 'turned' and used to feed fake information to the Germans.
Some were even decorated by Hitler for their services.

They contributed massively to the war effort. Germany took all their information at face value and believed everything.
Some real info was sent with the fake and on several occasion obviously outrageous information was sent just to 'test the waters' but it was all lapped uo eagerly.

Brilliant definitive book. Double Cross (subtitle The true story of the D-Day Spies) by Ben Macintyre

The star was Juan Pujol, code-named Garbo was a Spaniard living in the UK and claiming to the Germans he was operating a network of 24 spies. He fed massive amounts of fake info. He wrote his own book about his exploits in the 80s. Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent Ever.

 

[HansMustermann]

Aye, that it was.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Information sent through the Double Cross system was used as a cover for actions taken using Enigma.