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Informative and Adult.
It's a good episode with a novel perspective. The general picture one gets is that after America entered the war and into 1942 and 1943, they disagreed with Churchill on strategy. Churchill wanted to nibble at the edges of occupied Europe, meanwhile bombing the German war plant to smithereens. The Americans didn't want to play footsies in North Africa, Italy, or the Balkans. They wanted to rush across the channel and punch Hitler in the nose. Americans saw Churchill as too timid. The English saw the Americans as hot-headed.
It's a good thing the American plan wasn't followed. A raid on the French port of Dieppe, mainly by Canadians, was a kind of practice invasion of Europe. It was a disaster. If anyone challenges that statement, they should compare the feature films that have been made about Allie victories -- El Alamein, Midway, and the rest of that familiar list -- with the number of feature films made about Allied failures -- Dieppe, the Battle of the Java Sea, or Operation Market Garden. Also, Churchill, as Lord of the Admiralty, was responsible for the dismal failure of the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War I. He'd seen amphibious landings fail, while Americans had not.
In 1942 no one was ready for a cross-channel invasion. In 1943, American industry (matched only by the USSR) was grinding out armaments and training an army and navy. Britain couldn't do much in the way of producing tanks, so instead, under the guidance of General Hobart, they turned Allied tanks into specialized devices, called "Hobart's funnies." Ordinary tanks were modified so that they could unroll a canvas mat over marshy or sandy ground, lay a bundle in a tank trap, carry a spinning flail on extended spars that would detonate land mines, and float ashore from a landing craft in what amounted to a huge canvas life raft. Most of them were considered too eccentric for Americans, and they used only the duplex drive tank designed to float ashore. They worked very well on lakes, not so well in the heavy swells of the channel.
Another invention of the Brits was the artificial harbor called "Mulberries." They'd learned from the failure at Dieppe that the landings could not be near a port, but that in order for gear to be disembarked, some sort of pier was necessary. The Mulberries served the purpose, though made of concrete.
The Germans too had used novel technology along the French coast, such as steel triangles in likely landing areas, with anti-tank mines attached. And the fortifications along the coast were formidable.
Much of this is already familiar, like the creation of a fake US Army Group across from Calais, with multitudes of tanks and other equipment made of nothing more than inflatable balloons designed by art directors from the London theaters and from Hollywood. Most of us also know about the fake parachutists.
What was new, to me anyway, was the simulation of an approaching fleet aimed at the coast between Le Havre and Calais -- not Normandy. A flight of Lancaster bombers flew in a carefully planned spiral path dropping aluminum strips that would show up on German radar as an invasion fleet approaching at 8 knots. A few ships would follow, making smoke and broadcasting the sounds of anchors dropping, officers shouting, and other nautical noises.
Other difficult engineering tasks are described, like the laying of an underwater pipeline to supply fuel to the captured city of Cherbourg. Not all of the inventions worked as well as they might have.
You'll probably find it interesting.
It's a good thing the American plan wasn't followed. A raid on the French port of Dieppe, mainly by Canadians, was a kind of practice invasion of Europe. It was a disaster. If anyone challenges that statement, they should compare the feature films that have been made about Allie victories -- El Alamein, Midway, and the rest of that familiar list -- with the number of feature films made about Allied failures -- Dieppe, the Battle of the Java Sea, or Operation Market Garden. Also, Churchill, as Lord of the Admiralty, was responsible for the dismal failure of the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War I. He'd seen amphibious landings fail, while Americans had not.
In 1942 no one was ready for a cross-channel invasion. In 1943, American industry (matched only by the USSR) was grinding out armaments and training an army and navy. Britain couldn't do much in the way of producing tanks, so instead, under the guidance of General Hobart, they turned Allied tanks into specialized devices, called "Hobart's funnies." Ordinary tanks were modified so that they could unroll a canvas mat over marshy or sandy ground, lay a bundle in a tank trap, carry a spinning flail on extended spars that would detonate land mines, and float ashore from a landing craft in what amounted to a huge canvas life raft. Most of them were considered too eccentric for Americans, and they used only the duplex drive tank designed to float ashore. They worked very well on lakes, not so well in the heavy swells of the channel.
Another invention of the Brits was the artificial harbor called "Mulberries." They'd learned from the failure at Dieppe that the landings could not be near a port, but that in order for gear to be disembarked, some sort of pier was necessary. The Mulberries served the purpose, though made of concrete.
The Germans too had used novel technology along the French coast, such as steel triangles in likely landing areas, with anti-tank mines attached. And the fortifications along the coast were formidable.
Much of this is already familiar, like the creation of a fake US Army Group across from Calais, with multitudes of tanks and other equipment made of nothing more than inflatable balloons designed by art directors from the London theaters and from Hollywood. Most of us also know about the fake parachutists.
What was new, to me anyway, was the simulation of an approaching fleet aimed at the coast between Le Havre and Calais -- not Normandy. A flight of Lancaster bombers flew in a carefully planned spiral path dropping aluminum strips that would show up on German radar as an invasion fleet approaching at 8 knots. A few ships would follow, making smoke and broadcasting the sounds of anchors dropping, officers shouting, and other nautical noises.
Other difficult engineering tasks are described, like the laying of an underwater pipeline to supply fuel to the captured city of Cherbourg. Not all of the inventions worked as well as they might have.
You'll probably find it interesting.
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- rmax304823
- Jul 2, 2015
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