A Tale of Two Helicopters
Reading this article at EU Referendum (a Blog I tend to disagree with about pretty much everything except the EU and defence matters) I had to do two things when thinking of the pathetically triumphal tone adopted by Sec.Def Des Browne at the great victory of sending a whole two more helicopters to Afghanistan. Yes, the once-great RAF is reduced to this - a nonentity of a politician exposing the truth of its reduction to a pitiful shadow of the victors of the Battle of Britain.
Firstly, I laughed - in that dual way that Mr DSD does. First at Browne himself (who wouldnt), then at the irony of a memory of one Adolf Hitler, specifically an anecdote from archives unearthed by Chester Wilmot in his groundbreaking and quite fascinating 1952 book, 'The Struggle For Europe'.
Wilmott was a war correspondent who was one of the first truly 'embedded' journalists in history to work with western forces, and unlike his modern contemparies, he did not accept their protection and viciously slander them by way of recompense. He was besieged in Tobruk with the Aussies, parachuted into Normandy with the D-Day landings and was at Arnhem. And in true journalistic fashion when he tragically died in 1954 he became part of the news himself.
What Wilmott is most remarkable for though is that in the immediate postwar years he managed via the medium of the Nuremberg Trials to gain access to Nazi archives in quite unprecedented fashion, and came away with a quite astonishingly complete record of Nazi internal thinking during World War 2. This means that 'Struggle' is laced through with anecdotes of the most intimate nature from the 'Fuhrer Conferences' and the like - and one of those was the one which sprang to mind, so I dug it out.
Hitler was in conference with his staff on the evening of 23rd March 1945, just as the 5th US Infantry Division had slipped across the Rhine at Oppenheim and opened a massive bridgehead. Hitler asked what units could be spared to contain this breach, and the best his adjutants could come up with were five disabled jagdtigers at a tank depot at Sennelager.
Wilmott writes:
'These five were destined for Remagen, but Hitler enquired how soon they could be sent to Oppenheim. Such were the straits to which the once-mighty Wehrmacht had been reduced. The man whose panzer divisions had made Europe and Russia tremble was now obliged to concern himself with the fate of five disabled tank-destroyers in a repair shop at Sennelager."
Yup. That pretty much says it all really. And we got down to this level without fighting a serious shooting war, boys and girls. Five tank-destroyers, two Helicopters.
Shame on the politicians who brought us to this - Labour and Tory. I hope you rot.
Firstly, I laughed - in that dual way that Mr DSD does. First at Browne himself (who wouldnt), then at the irony of a memory of one Adolf Hitler, specifically an anecdote from archives unearthed by Chester Wilmot in his groundbreaking and quite fascinating 1952 book, 'The Struggle For Europe'.
Wilmott was a war correspondent who was one of the first truly 'embedded' journalists in history to work with western forces, and unlike his modern contemparies, he did not accept their protection and viciously slander them by way of recompense. He was besieged in Tobruk with the Aussies, parachuted into Normandy with the D-Day landings and was at Arnhem. And in true journalistic fashion when he tragically died in 1954 he became part of the news himself.
What Wilmott is most remarkable for though is that in the immediate postwar years he managed via the medium of the Nuremberg Trials to gain access to Nazi archives in quite unprecedented fashion, and came away with a quite astonishingly complete record of Nazi internal thinking during World War 2. This means that 'Struggle' is laced through with anecdotes of the most intimate nature from the 'Fuhrer Conferences' and the like - and one of those was the one which sprang to mind, so I dug it out.
Hitler was in conference with his staff on the evening of 23rd March 1945, just as the 5th US Infantry Division had slipped across the Rhine at Oppenheim and opened a massive bridgehead. Hitler asked what units could be spared to contain this breach, and the best his adjutants could come up with were five disabled jagdtigers at a tank depot at Sennelager.
Wilmott writes:
'These five were destined for Remagen, but Hitler enquired how soon they could be sent to Oppenheim. Such were the straits to which the once-mighty Wehrmacht had been reduced. The man whose panzer divisions had made Europe and Russia tremble was now obliged to concern himself with the fate of five disabled tank-destroyers in a repair shop at Sennelager."
Yup. That pretty much says it all really. And we got down to this level without fighting a serious shooting war, boys and girls. Five tank-destroyers, two Helicopters.
Shame on the politicians who brought us to this - Labour and Tory. I hope you rot.
posted by Dangerouslysubversivedad at 10:14 AM
4 Comments:
Wow!
I have found some friends at last! Here was I busy wanking away alone on my blog......suddenly I am popular! You have made an old man very happy!
They are no more (typically ) Muslim than I am Typically "Christian". What about all those good Christian Boys& Girls who get pissed up most weekends & start fighting in lumps ?Religion is an excuse not a reason?
If people fight amoung themselves its one thing.If Christians & Muslims start fight each other then we end up on Holiday in Bosnia.Do want that?
The reason for violence is economic........not voodoo. I dont use the "M"-Word because it has nothing to do with it.
Where does the BNP stand on The Middle East? Are the Jews the good-guys now?I would have thought the Yids & The Ragheads were to blame for almost everything?
White Supremists supporting Jewish Troops?.........strange bedfellows................
Dont thank me Tony, thank Laban Tall...
I'll pop over to your Blog and carry this one on if you dont mind - seeing as this thread has naff all to do with what we were commenting about anyway probably a lot easier to discuss it there.
Well I use the term "Fascist" just because i believe things havnt really changed greatly.all Political movements these days seem hell-bent on image-makeovers/spin/etc blah blah blah.Its all old wine (or pick a liquid of choice) in new bottles.
I agree very much with your last point.I do think that ordinary whites have been totally ignored,spoken down too, ridiculed & exploited. Every Culture in the World being more "real" than Our own.I agree 100%
............i just think its the fault of "them" (politicians;middle class;etc etc) not the fault of the Pakistanis.Dont forget we invited them over here in the first place......if my memory serves me,wasnt it Enoch P.who changed the immigration laws in a way that encouraged whole families to settle here.You can argue the rights & wrongs ,but we are stuck with it and,after all, they do say Bosina is quite a pretty place to visit...........
yea,7th July......yea your right that has nothing to do with Poverty etc.However had mass immigration never happened...We would still be a target given Blair's position.You can blame Blair for the London Bombs as much as those few sick Muslim's who bombed London.
DSD,
the UK was bankrupted by WW2. our survival was possible only by ploughing all resources into the RAF and backfilling from the US. The apparently non-imperial US was happy to provide low quality naval vessels in exchange for atlantic bases, and bankroll us only after it was clear that we had spent out last shilling.
even back then america could the oppurtunity to become a major superpower. it wasnt germany who stood in the way, nor was it japan. britian first needed to be effectively neutralised as a major power, whose strength lay in its navy.
it wasnt a sinister plot, but i do think they saw oppurtunity and made the gamble. the state of our armed forces today is a direct result of our debt to america, only completed very recently.
i am capable of distinguishing between the great american people and their parasitic politcal elite before you go down the easy road.
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