THE BRITISH THREAD

Wasn't that the high altitude one, Set?

I knew a bomb aimer who flew Lancasters (I think he's still alive). He was 6ft 7 and as skinny as a rake, with a handlebar moustache.
First time I met him was a party at his house...he introduced himself and said "Fancy a snifter old boy?....G and T is it?"

I nodded, and he came back with a tumbler three quarters full. I went to take a drink, he put his hand on my arm and said "Don't you want any tonic in it, old man?"

He spent the evening going on (in a very funny way) about Germans, French and the like, and I eventually plucked up some courage and said "John, it sounds like you're a bit of a Euro sceptic".

He walked over to his sideboard, picked up a bloody great long chromium thing, held it to his eye, whilst motioning his thumb on the other hand as if he was pressing a button, and said "I bloody well was during the war, old boy"

It was a Norden bombsight device, I believe.

Yes, that's the one, LE. The Americans intended to do daylight precision bombing using that device, and it worked, despite the best efforts of United States Army Air Force intelligence officers to prove that it wasn't working. The idea was to put 10% of bombs within 1000 feet of ground zero. The first major trial was against Schweinfurt in Franconia, the ball- and roller-bearing "capital" of Germany. Our losses were appalling, more than 150 aircraft and their crews. The USAAF grounded our bombers for months, and intelligence officers pored over aerial reconaissance photos and pronounced the mission a failure. On the other hand, Albert Speer, then head of production in the Third Reich, arrived at Schweinfurt the next day, and estimated that 65% of German ball- and roller-bearing production had been lost for three months.

If you want to build a fight plane, you need ball and roller bearings. If you want to build a submarine, you need ball and roller bearings. If you want to build a bloody farmer's lorry, you need ball and roller bearings. The Schweinfurt raid was devastating and the Germans could not understand why the exercise wasn't repeated. They would gladly have paid twice the price to accomplish the same in a raid against England. Of course, the exercise was eventually repeated, and when Mustangs came along which could escort bombers all the way to Berlin and back (and have fuel for an old-fashioned shoot-em-up after), it was curtains for the Hun.

There is an excellent policy study on the subject, which i know is available in paperback (the link is for the hardcover edition, but look around, maybe you can get it through library loan).

Decision Over Schweinfurt

Winston freely admits in his book that he and Arthur "Bomber" Harris took the line that bombing workers' neighborhoods at night meant they would get no sleep and be unproductive the next day (when they weren't actually dead). The Brits long tried to convince the Americans to switch to nighttime bombing, and came within an ace of doing so. The Royal Air Force bomber crews used to call themselves "Arthur Harris and Sons, House Removers." Luckily for all concerned (except the Germans), the USAAF prevailed with their policy of daylight raids.

In late 1943, Eishenhower sought and obtained permission to take control of all 8th and 9th USSAF and Royal Air Force resources, and implement "the Transportation Plan." They started hitting bridges, highways, rail lines--all communications facilities in France and Germany. They tried to spread it around, but if you read The Rommel Papers (ed. by Frau Rommel and B H Liddell Hart), you'll see that Erwin wasn't fooled. He looked at bombing patterns and pronounced Normandy as the Allied landing target. OKH wasn't having any of that though, because they had other plans and they just knew that the Tommies and the Amies would think their way.

On D-Day, the Allies flew 14,827 sorties in France, almost all of them over Normany. The Germans flew 160 sorties in all of France, and just two of them over the invasion beaches. Kinda made the rest a foregone conclusion.

His Worshipped Highness wrote-



How patronising can one get. The condescension can be heard rushing through the pipes.

And they call me a misogynist.

Bendius, very sniffily says:



Please recignise humour when you see it, old boy.

You should know me better than that by now.

He's right about one thing--we do call him a misogynist.





























But only because he is a misogynist--there's no personal animus involved.

It seems like I am the proud possessor of a little terrier today, Set...wherever I am, it seems to be there, either trying to trip me up or snap at my heels.


I shall take it as a compliment, however, and may take it for a walk later on.

later on? way past bed time. And you.

Come on Ellpus.

It was patronising alright.

You had done post after post on smorgsy's thread about a war involving millions of fighting men with whole economies backing them up for five years and with millions of dead and maimed and bereaved and it ended up with--



which is worth quoting because I've seen the phrase in comics.

Now that's really patronising and you weren't joking about that. Using WW2 to place on display your extremely limited knowledge of military matters as if you can suck some bravado out of it sat in your chair.

I've seen it done many times. "We are leaving the ladies out so a quick put down about their handbags and back to the war/cars/sport about which the magazines have been read and partially absorbed.

It was patronising alright. Goodstyle. Not as bad as the war though.

Did Setanta start it off?

Bendi, you are one hell of a superior, sniffy, picky, incoherent front bottom

Sober up and go to bed.

I shall avoid you like the plague in future.

It's a shame you boys and girls can't stay up later to play with us . . . but, the upside is that Spurious will probably be sleeping it off in the morning, and you'll have some good innings before he drags his sorry, hung-over ass in here to make people regret inhabiting the same planet with him.

I think its for the fillies to say if they feel patronised spendy.

Ha, that's funny. I just stopped in to visit the British thread and this is the first thing I see.

Spendi is consistent across threads and continents.

ha ha ha

delighted to see you Ros

all fruit cases here old bean

let it all hang out....er no please dont do that

As the Setanta man says, very late here. Way past bo bo times.

N'tall

Has everyone gone to bed?

I'm ready to party!

x

Yes, that was a trifle hurried, I'm sorry to say.

I would like to add sour, argumentative and lonely.

Thank you.

Who won the match, Ellpus?

I watched the Freddie thing...

x

Setanta wrote, referring to me I think,



I am content to allow smorgsy to adjudicate on a matter like that.

Utd Celtic tonight.

Good to see none of the personal animosity has gone out of the Ferguson/Strachan relationship.



Rooney's back, this could be a classic. 3:1 to Utd is my bet.

There'll certainly be an electric atmosphere tonight.

I'll go with 4 - 2 to Utd.


Also Arsenal are playing tonight........I'll be hiding behind the couch.