DUFF & NONSENSE!

This, that and the other

It's 8.45 as I write this and I am grimly aware of a long list of outstanding jobs to be done - beginning with my strip of grass in the Churchyard which, because of all that 'global warming' coming down as solid rain, I have not cut for over a month!  It is now "as high as an elephant's eye" and I just know it's going to be a long and tiring job .  Then there is the post-holiday car to be cleaned, followed by the garage to be cleared out and rubbish taken to the tip, and the garden, titchy though it be, has produced some of the most exotic weeds I have ever seen.  I may never go away again!

In my preceding post I moaned about the murder of language at the hands of politicians who say 'black' when they mean 'white' and vice versa.  This morning I heard extracts from various pols at the NATO meeting explaining how and why they had achieved absolute agreement on future planning for Afghanistan, no doubt about it, not a single dissenting voice, honestly, cross my heart and wish to die, no, really  . . . !  It was ever thus but how one longs for, say, the 18th century where you didn't have to watch and listen to the lying liars.  I found myself muttering , "Peace in our time, then, is it?"

My Spanish e-pal, Ortega, responded to the poke in the ribs I gave him during my piece on white asparagus.  He came up with a novel suggestion for cooking the stuff.  You peel it and then seal it in a bag which you place in  boiling water.  Apparently, that conserves the flavour but the drawback is that the water is of no use for making soup afterwards.  I have spoken to the 'Memsahib' about cooking details.  Apparently you must peel from about an inch down from the base of the 'flower' to the end of the stalk.  Boil the water and add some salt, then chuck the peeled asparagus in for about ten minutes.  I could not pin her down to an exact time, she just said, in that irritating way that women have, 'until it's cooked'!  My favourite way to eat it is with new potatoes and pork schnitzels plus, of course, a large dollop of hollandaise sauce.

Sometimes sport reaches the parts other entertainments cannot.  I am not a dedicated 'footie' fan, in fact, I am the very worst sort of fan, the dilletante type who only bothers to watch if it is, so to speak, a 'celebrity' match.  Thus, I did watch Chelsea play Bayern Munich on Saturday and like all the very best sporting events the team that 'deserved' to win - lost!  I write 'deserved' because Bayern had far more chances during their almost non-stop attacks than Chelsea but the aim of the game, so to speak, is to put the ball in the net and that they failed to do despite several opportunities, so it went to the lottery of penalties.  Mind you, there was some delicious Schadenfreude to be enjoyed at the expense of the German goalkeeper who had the sort of tall, blonde, arrogant look of the sort of German one normally expects to see sticking out of the turret of a Mk. III Panzer demanding to know the way to Warsaw! 

Very unfair, I know, because he's probably a very nice chap.  Still, it was good to see him picking the ball out of the back of his own net, particularly as it was situated at the Bayern end of the stadium right in front of the massed ranks of their fans.  Shame!

Well, I can't put it off any longer - the Churchyard calls!

 

Win (the right) friends and influence people!

Some wise advice today from Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph to 'Dim Dave' who needs all the wise advice he can lay his hands on!  Moore begins by re-iterating not just the help the Americans gave us before and during the Falklands war but the nature of it.  These reminiscences are provoked by a commemorative dinner to be held this week in Portsmouth by the Navy Museum.  The main guest is John Lehman, the Sec. of Defence at the time, who describes the 'bottom up' nature of the assistance provided:

Mr Lehman will explain how, contrary to current historical orthodoxy, the Americans helped Britain instinctively, secretly and right from the start of the Falklands war. He should know, because he did it.

Mr Lehman’s key point is that this help came from the bottom up. So great were what were called “the customary patterns of cooperation” between Britain and the US that they could provide the cover for a huge operation. Weeks before the US announced its public policy “tilt” to Britain on April 30, 1982, there was, as Mr Lehman puts it, “already water flowing through the pipes”. President Reagan felt benign towards Britain, and particularly towards Mrs Thatcher, his friend since both were in opposition, but it was not necessary for him to approve anything for help to start.

The point Mr. Lehman stresses is that the very many mutal links up and down the chain of command between American and British armed forces made the donation of aid in its myriad forms from weapons to intelligence not only easier but in reality perfectly natural:

US and British personnel, already in place before the Falklands war, worked together at the headquarters at Northwood in Britain and at Norfolk, Virginia. Mr Lehman and his boss, the defence secretary Caspar Weinberger, made sure Britain was helped with fuel, logistics, intelligence, use of a base on Ascension Island and of a naval missile test range in Puerto Rico, and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. They achieved this without informing the more wobbly State Department, and often without making Britain pay. Later, the US supplied Sidewinder missiles and 200 Mk-46 torpedoes. Lehman was even authorised to prepare the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima in case one of the two British aircraft carriers should be lost.

Far from being a mere phrase in polite diplomatic speeches, the “special relationship” in the Falklands war was what Mr Lehman calls a “functional reality”. The ties of history, culture, kit, intelligence, men and know-how were all there, all ready, all working. They won the day.

But "the times they are a-changin'"!  Whilst it is necessary for 'Dim Dave' to cuddle up close to President Obama despite, or perhaps, particularly given his incipient anti-British feelings, it would be a colossal error to shun Mitt Romney.  'Dim Dave' should ignore the mandarins in the 'Ministry for Foreigners' who regularly illustrate their complete ignorance of the reality behind this or that foreign ruler.  A prime example was given just recently when the FO, presumably, advised 'Dave' to continue the love-in with Sarkozy and snub Hollande even when it became increasingly clear that Hollande was likely to win.  As regular readers of this blog will know, not least because I keep reminding them, I have been telling you all that Obama is 'dead man walking'.  Even after the train crash mutilations which the Republicans inflicted upon themselves during the endless months of their nomination primaries, Mitt Romney, the badly bruised winner, is still ahead of Obama in some of the polls.  It would be a crass mistake by 'Dim Dave' to refuse to hold out a hand to Romney, a fellow conservative, even if Obama has a hissy fit over it.

Alas, given his obvious dimness, 'Dave' is quite likely to do exactly that!

 

'The Kraut' warns: watch Israel!

Going away is such a disruptive business.  It's not just the days of absence away from familiar things like my computer, the internet, The Spectator, Sky and Fox News, but the general busy-ness of packing and unpacking, sorting, laundering, shopping and so on ad nauseum!  All of which is by way of apology for failing to keep up with what is going on in the nooks and crannies of world affairs.  Happily (if that is quite the word) 'The Kraut' (aka: Charles Krauthammer, the distinguished and highly intelligent columnist for The WaPo) has brought me up to date with a bang even if his report is seven days old!

I vaguely remember hearing a report that, first, Netanyahu had called an election and then, second, that he had called it off.  Odd, I thought, but had no time to investigate.  Now 'The Kraut' clears up the mystery writing in The WaPo.  Apparently, by foregoing the chance of an election, Netanyahu has risked the almost dead certainty of another four years of government.  Instead, he has invited the main opposition party to form a coalition.  This has not happened since 1967 and if you don't know what happened then, look it up or read 'The Kraut' in full because the omens are ominous:

On June 5, Israel launched a preemptive strike on the Egyptian air force, then proceeded to lightning victories on three fronts. The Six-Day War is legend, but less remembered is that, four days earlier, the nationalist opposition (Mena­chem Begin’s Likud precursor) was for the first time ever brought into the government, creating an emergency national-unity coalition.

Everyone understood why. You do not undertake a supremely risky preemptive war without the full participation of a broad coalition representing a national consensus.

'The Kraut', like the Israelis, has a long memory and/or an excellent knowledge of 20th century history:

Why did the high-flying Netanyahu call off elections he was sure to win?  Because for Israelis today, it is May ’67. The dread is not quite as acute: The mood is not despair, just foreboding. Time is running out, but not quite as fast. War is not four days away, but it looms. Israelis today face the greatest threat to their existence — nuclear weapons in the hands of apocalyptic mullahs publicly pledged to Israel’s annihilation — since May ’67. The world is again telling Israelis to do nothing as it looks for a way out. But if such a way is not found — as in ’67 — Israelis know that they will once again have to defend themselves, by themselves.

Such a fateful decision demands a national consensus. By creating the largest coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu is establishing the political premise for a preemptive strike, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.”

The other items I remember reading and wondering about are also explained by 'The Kraut'.  It concerns the warnings issued by two top officers in MOSSAD against any attack on Iran, and the general speculation in the MSM to the effect that Israel was badly split over the pros and cons of attacking Iran:

So much for the recent media hype about some great domestic resistance to Netanyahu’s hard line on Iran. Two notable retired intelligence figures were widely covered here for coming out against him. Little noted was that one had been passed over by Netanyahu to be the head of Mossad, while the other had been fired by Netanyahu as Mossad chief (hence the job opening). For centrist Kadima (it pulled Israel out of Gaza) to join a Likud-led coalition whose defense minister is a former Labor prime minister (who once offered half of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat) is the very definition of national unity — and refutes the popular “Israel is divided” meme. “Everyone is saying the same thing,” explained one Knesset member, “though there may be a difference of tone.”

You think the demise of the euro is bad news?  You ain't seen nuttin' yet!

 

When Japan went mad!

 

(Sorry for the tiny font size but TypePad is playing up! 19/4: fixed!)

I am refreshing what passes for my, er, you know, my, um . . . memory and also learning a few more things about Japan and the decision to go to war with the United States.  There is no doubt in my mind that Hirohito was the luckiest war criminal of all time.  He it was who with enormous and lengthy deliberation led his country into an utterly useless and disastrous war that it was bound to lose and who not only survived but continued his reign as emperor!  I have remarked before on the similarities to the psychotic lunacy that gripped Wilhemine Germany in the early years of the 20th century but there was one huge difference.  Virtually no-one in Germany questioned whether or not war was the right policy and, equally, hardly anyone doubted that Germany would win.  But in Japan, the top High Command was riddled with doubters.  IN 1940, Yamamoto, the naval strategist (and near genius - only 'near' because he lost!), said this:

In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory.  But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success. (*)

His views were widely shared throughout Japanese government circles both military and civilian, and yet and yet, they still went to war.

To be fair, it was, to use the words of the dear old 'Duke of Boot' describing his own victory at Waterloo, "A fine run thing, the finest thing you ever saw" using the word 'fine', of course, in the old sense of 'close'.  Pearl Harbour was an unmitigated disaster for the Japanese.  There were only two real objectives in that surprise attack - the aircraft carriers and the dock installations.  The former had been shifted out by orders from Washington where the likelihood of war was well known, if not the details; and the latter were largely missed by the attacking aircrews who wasted their time sinking old and virtually useless battleships.

Six months later, after the inconclusive skirmish in the Coral Sea, the one truly crucial and historic battle was fought at Midway.  The irony drips from the telling when I remind you that Midway is, in the scale of the Pacific Ocean, the tiniest of insignificant specks consisting, as it does, of two microscopic coral shoals barely large enough to get a runway on one of them.  Midway was Yamamoto's next strategic aim.  In attacking them he was certain the Americans would have to commit the carriers he had missed before and in doing so he would trap them and destroy them.  Having cleared the Pacific of American carriers and with Midway occupied, the approaches to Hawaiian Islands were wide open.  They would be easily taken and then the next target was Panama.  This would pose an enormous threat to the southern States of America and in order to defend themselves they would be forced to withdraw support from Britain in its fight against Germany.

So everything, and I do mean absolutely everything, depended on the battle of Midway.  That the Americans won was due in large part to colossal luck and to heroism of the very highest order.  I stress that because the courage required by the aircrews of the attacking American planes was of the cold and calculated variety.  They knew, even before they reached their target, that they simply did not have enough fuel to get back to safety.  And the crews of the later torpedo formations also knew that their chances of surviving the attack as they lumbered slowly and at low level towards the massed anti-aircraft fire from the Japanese fleet, to say nothing of the Zero fighters screaming in at them from above, was virtually nil.  As one writer(*) put it, the Japanese were not the first to invent the kamikaze attack! 

So the Japanese lost but at this point, like their German counterparts who saw the (modified) von Schlieffen plan fail in 1914, the Emperor and his High C0mmand refused to face the inevitable and chose to waste millions of lives rather than lose face.

(*) Japan's Imperial Conspiracy: How Emperor Hirohito led Japan into war against the West by David Bergamini

Beauty and death

I promised a beauty competition when my e-pal, DM, suggested that the wartime Mosquito aircraft ran the Spitfire very close in terms of pure beauty.  So here are some pics of them both, plus, another contender, in my opinion, the P-38 Lightening.  You choose:

This photo shows the proportions perfectly, and also the way in which the wings sweep forward in contrast to the tail.  I'm not sure if it is so but it always looks as though the distance from wing tip to wing tip is slightly longer than the length of the fuselage which adds to its elegance.  Here's a similar picture of a Hurricane which was, I believe, generally reckoned to be a better fighting platform but when it comes to beauty it just lacks the deadly elegance of the Spitfire:

And here is DM's Mosquito bomber.  Very fast, very accurate and only a crew of two.  Some people say that if Bomber Command had used them instead of the huge, lumbering and vulnerable Lancaster the bombing campaign would have been much more effective and the casualty rates, in the air and on the ground in Germany, would have been considerably less:

Here's another contender, the menacing P-38 Lightening.  I simply do not know how effective it was as a fighter but it looks beautiful:

 

Anyway you choose and if you have any other beauty contestants let me know and I will try and dig up some photos - but remember, they must be WWII aircraft.

I'm off to cut the grass in the Churchyard so I will look in later.

 

The Sunday Rumble 15:4:12

I haven't indulged in a Sunday rumble for some time.  For newcomers, what happens is that instead of droning on and on, and then on for a bit more, on one subject, I sit here scratching myself and emitting short burps in different directions on different subjects.

Titanic RIP:  And, boy oh boy, do I mean REST in peace!  I don't know about you but I am sick to death of all this Titanic stuff, there seems to be no end to it.  Of course, there are no really decent wars or famines going on at the moment and so the MSM, bless their smelly socks, have nothing else to waste their ink or their running time on.  Of course, it's worth a pause and a quick thought or three but not his constant ghoulish obsession.

Darlings, I was wonderful!  I know you have all been on tenterhooks wanting to know how my rehearsals went for the important, nay, critical, role of Abhorson in Shakespeare's wonderful play Ye Olde Mysterie of Abhorson, ooops, Measure for Measure.  I think I can say with all modesty that I was a tremendous success.  The rest of the cast, including my understudy, who have been rehearsing the play for some time now were left in stunned silence at the end of my two scenes and one was heard to mutter, "Darling, wonderful isn't the word!"  Of course, it remains a mystery to me as to why the Bard in all his wisdom chose to give quite so many scenes to that bloody nun and Duke but that's the problem with writers, they never listen to actors!

China again - but no politics:  I missed the first half of the Chinese Grand Prix because I was swimming - oh, by the way, have I mentioned that I - oh, right - I have - fine, move on then, shall I? - anyway, I caught the last half and it was the best F1 race I hace seen for some time.  Many moons ago, in part of my rickety-rackety life, I was involved with one of the F1 teams and spent some time following 'the circus' round Europe.  As a man whose interest in cars has always rested somewhere on the minus scale I was surprised to find myself rather hooked on it.  However, like a lot of sports, you really do need to be there.  The sheer brute power of those machines can only be appreciated up close and personal, as it were.  Even so, today's race was terrific.  I think only one driver fell out and the remainder were really racing - at one stage there were three cars side by side hurtling towards a corner - exciting stuff and the fact that no-one was shunted off is a magnificent tribute to the skill of the drivers.  If you can catch a late recording of the race, watch it!  One oddity, I noticed, was the very low turnout of spectators.  I can't believe the Chinese are not interested.  Perhaps the organisers priced it too high, or perhaps times are beginning to get hard in China.

Prize-winning humbuggery:  I am grateful to my e-pal, Dom, who responded to my post on just one of the reasons why Obama and his wrecking crew need to go.  I reported, with glee, the tale of that intrepid investigator, James O'Keefe, who managed to waltz in to a voting office and obtain Attorney-General John Holder's voting ballot because, in line with government policy, no ID was required. All American Left-wing opinion and organisations are resolutely opposed to making voter ID a requirement and you do not need to be Brain of America to guess why.  Anyway, Dom sent me a film from the admirable PJTV who despatched reporters to various bastions of liberal organisations including, of course, John Holder's department and none were permitted to enter without proof of identity.  Watch the film - but have a sick-bucket to hand!

Will 'Dim Dave' make it to the next election?  All prime ministers go through a period of squalls and showers but usually they are confined to the perceived differences between them and their electorate.  The difference today is that Cameron is losing, at an accelerating rate, the support of his own backbenchers and his party workers.  They are catching up with what this erudite blog has been telling them for the last two years, that Cameron simply isn't very bright.  He's an Old Etonian twit with absolutely no political philosophy - and not only do I doubt he would understand what that meant, I doubt he could even spell it!  According to various reports, which began as whispers but are now being spoken out loud, he disdains the so-called 'worker bees' who keep the Tory party running in the country and surrounds himself with ex-public schoolboys of his own ilk.  He has never run anything in his life - and it's beginning to show.  So I ask, will he make it to the next election?  And if he's knifed in the back, who will play Brutus? 

A deadly beauty:  In the history of warfare was there ever a more beautiful but deadly weapon designed than the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire?  Even to today it still looks lethal. 

I am thrilled that we have cut a deal with the Burmese government to extract the twenty Spitfires which were buried there at the end of WWII.  If they can be restored they will be worth a fortune and what I hope is that the government will sell off some of them to provide a trust fund to keep, say, three of them in Britain as a heritage project.  If 'Dim Dave' does that I will forgive him his many sins!

 

Things to do on a holiday weekend

Well, I expect you have your things to do and for sure I have my things and never the twain will meet, I guess, particularly given that my entire weekend so far has been given over to designing a new PowerPoint talk on the subject of - wait for it - How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months!

Alright, I have said before, many a time and oft', that everyman's hobby is a total mystery to every other man.  But in this case several strands have linked in my life to bring about this particular hobby.  First, as you all know, I have a tendency to bore!  (I don't know why I put that doubt-inducing exclamation mark at the end because the fact is that I do like to hear the sound of my own voice or to read my own scribblings.)  Second, a sort of miracle has occurred in that a technophobe like me - no, that's not quite accurate, I think technoprat is better - has managed, against all odds, to master PowerPoint.  Each time I design a new slide filled with ever-more jazzy, snazzy tricks of the trade, I giggle and chortle in total childish pleasure which you will  understand better when I tell you that in this house it's the 'Memsahib' who changes electric plugs - on 'elf 'n' safety' grounds!

Finally, of course, the subject matter of most of my talks is history, mostly military history, by which I am endlessly fascinated.  It is all so much more satisfying than current affairs because  you know the ending!  Also, finding out the details of the colossal bollocks dropped by so many 'Very Important People' who are all supposed to be so much cleverer than me is deliciously satisfying.  Reading of their errors of omission and commission one feels, with absolute certainty, that one could have done so much better had one been in charge at the time!

As you regulars will know, one of my pet subjects has been the lead up to war between Wilhemine Germany and Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century.  The similarities between those unhappy events and the equally disasterous ones which occurred between Japan and the USA in the 1930s  and early '40s is enough to make you weep.  Surely, you are tempted to moan, the fools could have seen where it would all end.  But they didn't, and that's history, and that's what makes it, for me anyway, totally fascinating.  It is also, and I cannot stress this strongly enough, absolutely contemporary.  America is facing yet another burgeoning Oriental state with the mother of all inferiority complexes and enough historical resentments to keep them belligerent for decades.  It is imperative that presidents and secretaries of state, both now and in the future, read up on their history books and understand what went wrong in the past.  Of course, I know this blog is read avidly in the White House  and has its own file in the HQ of the CIA, so let me just say that I am available to provide some of my lectures if the Dean of History at Harvard is otherwise occupied.  Usual terms, of course!

Anyway, enough of this prattle, the 'Cecil B. de Mille of PowerPoint' has work to do!

 

Here speaks your typical British 'Tom'

I have copied this in total from today's edition of The Independent.  It is impossible to paraphrase it.  It is the authentic 'voice' of a British 'Tom' complete with bad language and even worse spelling and grammar.  Much the same might have been written by his counterparts in the Lines of Torres Vedras, the first, and second, Afghan Wars, from a trench at the Somme or a tank lager in the western desert in 1942, or even before the attack on Goose Green in the Falklands.

From The Independent:

In the spring of this year, the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles deployed to Afghanistan. Halfway through the battalion's tour, it has lost nine soldiers, with dozens injured.

Of those to have given their lives, four were teenagers. Here Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher, who was 19 when he was killed by an explosion near Gereshk seven weeks ago, tells his own story, through letters home and the last letter he left behind to bid farewell to his family – his mother Helena, father Robin and brothers Zac, 21, and Steely, 17.

Following are the words of a proud soldier described by his officers as possessing "a rucksack full of potential", and by his friends as a rascal always cracking jokes and helping to keep morale high. Most of all, they are the words of a young son to his mum, dad and brothers.
Terri Judd

27 April 2009

Hello Mum

I've just got your bluey [letter] (the 1st one) yea you are right it does get fucking hot, I can't work out wether I'm tanned or just burnt to fuck!! I've spoke to you on the phone so you no what I've been doing. I'm well proud of you loosing all that weight. Suppose you've got a pretty good insentive. We'v had the same shit maybe a month now. Everyday a Monday out here. You kind of loose track of days. I cant quite work out if its going fast or slow. This pen is shit its doing my head in!!

Iv been thinking of loads of things and places to do, go and see. Me and Elliott are gonna go to Amsterdam after this. THINK WE MAY HAVE DESERVED IT!! It should be a good day (November 5th) [their homecoming parade]. On the 6th we can go Belfast Iv'e got loads of sad things I wanna buy ie Sky+ Big TV. Get the old man to help me rearange my room and help me fix my shelves. Im not the DIY type normally resort to celler tape or blue tack. HA HA HA. Hope everyones safe at home. Complete detox out here – water no drink. So my dance moves might involve a bit of stumbling when I return! Im coming home 2 weeks earlier now so that's kinda good, it might be worth Zac picking me up give me a bit of chill out time so I don't try stab a gobby civvi plus he's a good listener, sumtimes I wonder if he's listening or thinking of sumthing completely irrelivant.

Well pass this round the family so they can all admire my extream spelling (infantry eh!). Lots of love to all the nearest and dearest. Love Ya!! Xxxx

1 May 2009

Hey Mum + family

Ill always address my letters to you cuz I no your probley the only one who gets to the mail!! You'll have to let me no how quick these are getting you ill keep writing the date?? Everything is good up this way getting hotter, still moving at a million miles per hour (HA HA HA) I think Iv'e stopped burning Im slowly going brown and my hair is getting ridiculous just wait till I come home ill look like a fucking wooky?! I was gonna write to granny + grandad but to be honest with the few spare hours I get Id'e rather write home ey? BTW send my regards to Daphne, Joan, Brian etc. Let em no how Im doing?

Every so often we get old people and churches send us little gifts like baby wipes, razors, sweets and stuff so its quite a good bit of moral. Got some really good photos ill have to bring my camera back so we can get that Kosovo collage on the go, to bring back on the 5th of November. If you saw what and where Ive been sleeping you would be shocked!! So pictures will back me up!

Unfortunately 3 blokes died 2 days ago in an IED explosion in one of the FOBs [Forward Operating Bases] bout 2 kilometers away – we visited that FOB 2 days before the attack – fucking mental quite scary actually! We'v had a rest day so Im doing a bit of hand washing and fitness! God you'd be so proud Ha! Ha! Ha! We've still had spam, rice, beans and unflavoured noodles every day – promise me actually I promise you if I see spam in the house ill fucking destroy it!! Im getting pretty good at making flat bread and we bout a goat of a local for 200 dollars and we slaughtered it. I got a good video. Its either catch it, kill it, or make it out here or else you go hungry LOL!! The showers are also freezing whilst Im on the subject of moaning?? Id'e best go again BUT ill keep writing when I get the time + ill be home in a couple of months. Love you'zzz all don't worry bout me to much. Theres only 3 things that kill people over hear BULLETS, BOMBS + EGOS so I might go down with a bad case of swollen head!! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Love ya xxxxx

12 May 2009

Hello Mother

Yesterday was a massive day for moral an american chopper came in yesterday. I got 5 blueys one from Zac, Daphne, I think Sharpie sent one and Dad?? With some pictures that was great. I stared at them for about an hour I cant explain how good it is to get pictures and stuff you get grown men close to tears at the sight of there kid or a good night out its really strange how this place fucks with your head and emotions. A BIG ONE that I NEED you to try do (get started ill help when I get back) is appeal to local charitys, churches, major companys ie Zoo, Cadburys, boots you name it. Write to them and explain my whereabouts and they do send gifts, chocolate, sweets, magazines you name it trust me a lot of the lads parents did it and they've got clothes, the lot. Trust me Red bull, lucazade, fags AND SWEETS are wicked just keep sending them and URGE people to send photos they keep the moral SKY HIGH. I thought Steely and Zacs [poses] in the garden were quality. I can only prove how much a letter or small parcel means by finding time to right back – that's probley the most precious thing I have and Id'e trade hours for a letter.

On some much sadder news one of our rifleman died a few days back, we had a parade and a few minutes silence its so strange how many emotions you go through living in these conditions its like everything wants to beat you and rewin your day. Its about not letting it get to you and don't worry nothing fucking gets to me. Well Im off I love you all loads thanks for my parcels and letters. Lots of love xxx

14 May 2009

Hey Mum!

Its just gone 10 in the morning here Im on a stag rotation for the next 7 days guarding the FOB. Its 6 hours on 3 hours off so not much sleep. (Im already an hour in). If you could see what Im looking at now you'd be pretty shocked. Its pretty stunning to be honest. I could probley sling shot a stone from where we were last contacted [shot at] from Ha! Ha! Ha! Pretty fucking crazy huh? I shouldn't really tell you this but its safer than on the phone – were leaving this place. Its gonna be a fucking massive operation moving this lot + a lot of helicopter rides. So when I come back after R&R [leave] ill fly to [the main British camp] bastion then out to our new FOB. You don't really do much on stag. Swetting my tits of its gonna hit 50 degrees today. AAAAH Shit my grenade just fell out of my [body armour] – we wont mention that to any higherarcy will we now.

I think you said you were going to a weight loss thing a few days ago hope that well? (Just keep going) 37 days ill be home – not that Im counting or anything??? THINK there's a bird coming in today at 13.30 so this bluey will probley arrive with the others – well as always gotta go ill try ring when I get a top-up of minuets on Monday. FUCK knows what day it is I thought it was Sunday today. Ha! Ha! Well lots of love to you all!

Cyrus Thatcher was killed on 2 June 2009. This is the letter he wrote to be delivered to his family if he died:

Hello its me, this is gonna be hard for you to read but I write this knowing every time you thinks shits got to much for you to handle (so don't cry on it MUM!!) you can read this and hopefully it will help you all get through.

For a start SHIT I got hit!! Now Iv got that out the way I can say the things Iv hopefully made clear, or if I havent this should clear it all up for me. My hole life you'v all been there for me through thick and thin bit like a wedding through good and bad. Without you I believe I wouldn't have made it as far as I have. I died doing what I was born to do I was happy and felt great about myself although the army was sadly the ending of me it was also the making of me so please don't feel any hate toward it. One thing I no I never made clear to you all was I make jokes about my life starting in the Army. That's wrong VERY wrong my life began a LONG time before that (Obviously) but you get what I mean. All the times Iv tried to neglect the family get angry when you try teach me right from wrong wot I mean to say is I only realised that you were trying to help when I joined the army and without YOUR help I would have never had the BALLS, the GRIT and the damn right determination to crack on and do it. If I could have a wish in life it would to be able to say Iv gone and done things many would never try to do. And going to Afghan has fulfilled my dream ie my goal. Yes I am young wich as a parent must brake you heart but you must all somehow find the strength that I found to do something no matter how big the challenge. As Im writing this letter I can see you all crying and mornin my death but if I could have one wish in an "after life" it would be to stop your crying and continueing your dreams (as I did) because if I were watching only that would brake my heart. So dry your tears and put on a brave face for the rest of your friends and family who need you.

I want each and everyone of you to forfill a dream and at the end of it look at what you have done (completed) and feel the accomplishment and achievement I did only then will you understand how I felt when I passed away.

[To his brothers:] You are both amazing men and will continue to be throughout your lives you both deserve to be happy and fofill all of your dreams.

Dad – my idol, my friend, my best friend, my teacher, my coach, everything I ever succeeded in my life I owe to you and maybe a little bit of me! You are a great man and the perfect role model and the past two years of being in the army I noticed that and me and you have been on the best level we have ever been. I thank you for nothing because I no all you have given to me is not there to be thanked for its there because you did it cause you love me and that is my most proudest thing I could ever say.

Mum, where do I start with you!! For a start your perfect, your smell, your hugs, the way your life was dedicated to us boys and especially the way you cared each and every step us boys took. I love you, you were the reason I made it as far as I did you were the reason I was loved more than any child I no and that made me feel special.

Your all such great individuals and I hope somehow this letter will help you get through this shit time!! Just remember do NOT mourn my death as hard as this will seem, celebrate a great life that has had its ups and downs. I love you all more than you would ever no and in your own individual ways helped me get through it all. I wish you all the best with your dreams.

Remember chin up head down. With love Cyrus xxxx

 

Monitor me and die of boredom, why don't you?!

Further to my preceding post on government monitoring of all electronic communications and to the gasps of Shlock-Horror from the usual liberal hypocrites who love using governmental powers to beat you up if you break one of their beloved shibboleths on race or colour, forgive me if I yawn!  Acording to them it was going to be the culmination of George Orwell's prophecies when camerers were placed in public places but the only result has been an increase in police arrests following outbreaks of public disorder or criminality.  So what's not to like about that?

The same applies to monitoring communications but if you don't like the idea of your late night, computer visits to 'Pussy Galore's Delights' then don't go there.  Or, if you really cannot resist the urge, then keep going happy in the knowledge that your infinitesimally tiny number of electronic bytes will be the equivalent of four snowflakes in Russia in the winter.  Unless, of course, one of Pussy Galore's 'gels' gets bumped off suddenly, in which case the plod will be quickly at your door - and quite right, too!  And if that's embarrassing, well, tough!

That, of course, is a trivial possibility compared to the all too real dangers and potential tragedies that are being plotted even as I write.  I would rather risk losing my dignity by being exposed as 'Pussy Galore's oldest customer, in all senses of the word, than have bits blown off me in a tube train.  In fact, I would prefer it to reading about other people having bits blown off them, too.  And I would remind so-called liberals that semtex is soooo 20th century now!  In the future, the weapon-of-choice for your urban terrorist is likely to be infinitely more serious and far-reaching in its consequences than anything we have seen so far.

Yes, of course, no-one trusts governments but all that is needed are some simple and effective safeguards.  For instance (and I don't suppose this is comprehensive), the legislation should make it crystal clear as to which suspected crimes and misdemeanours would allow a person's electronic records to be investigated.  Inside the security agencies, only specific and senior officers should be able to give consent to such investigations and they should be warned that they personally will be held legally accountable for their decisions.  In other words, no more hiding behind a minister who, we all know, hasn't a clue!  At this stage, we are dealing with intelligence matters rather than legal ones and so the basis for proceding with an investigation should be 'reasonable suspicion', not 'reasonable proof'.  Obviously, any unauthorised investigation, or release of information, not concerned with the sort of matters covered under the Act would be a criminal offence with severe penalties.

Over 3,000 people were slaughtered on 9/11 and many more injured.  I am not being flippant when I suggest that "you ain't seen nuthin' yet"!

 

The Battle of Britain

My e-pal, Dr. Richard North, has just published a book whose content, I guess because I haven't read it yet, is neatly summarised by its title: The Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain.  In it, I think, he attempts in his usual iconoclastic fashion to dismantle many of the myths that surround that particular bit of our history.  Alas, my guess is that his labours will eventually be filed under 'Gallant but Futile Effort' for I fear that nothing is so strong as the myths that swell our national pride.  Not, mind you, that everything our country did in WWII was myth because there was much that was deserved of the very highest praise and which should be set in the scales of historical judgment against that of which we should be ashamed.

However, it reminded me of the very excellent library of photos covering the whole of WWII which is available courtesy of The Atlantic.  I have published some of them and I needed a reminder that it was time for more.  These examples come from The Battle of Britain section.

This brings back memories although I cannot remember practicing this at my infant school.  However, the mother of the wonderful family who took me in as an evacuee from blitzed London used to make us sit under the kitchen table when the sirens went off.  Quite howmuch protection that would have afforded I did not ask at the time!

This might have been a safer haven but were it taking place today, with my incipient claustrophobia I think I might take my chances with the bombs!

On the other hand, I suppose I might have got over my claustrophobia!

And whatever, darlings, the show must go on, as these Windmill girls demonstrate.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

A Panetta panic

My headline is a dreadful slur on Mr. Panetta, the Americana Sec. of Defence, who almost certainly knew nothing of the decision taken, so to speak, in his name.  He has just visited his troops in Afghanistan and was due to address two hundred US marines.  However, according to World News, some-one gave the order that the marines should be disarmed.  Of course, a spokesman bluffed and blustered that it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a US marine had recently run amok and slaughtered several Afghani families:

"You've got one of the most important people in the world in the room," Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus told reporters at Camp Leatherneck, dismissing concerns related to the shooting. "This is not a big deal."

He said he had given the order because the two dozen Afghan soldiers also there were unarmed and he did not want to treat them differently.

Not too bright, Gen. Gurganus, who could have detailed two senior marines to watch the Afghanis and be prepared to shoot them if they made a move.  I couldn't help thinking of the grumpy face Her Maj might have pulled if some general ordered the Guards to leave their rifles back in barracks.  And Prince Phil's comments would have been unprintable!

My thanks to IHTM.

 

Most of them bounced off 'The iron Dome'

An interesting report in Arutz Sheva, the Israeli National News Service, to the effect that 90% of the rockets fired last week by Hamas into Israel from Gaza were taken out by the Israeli counter-missile system known as 'The Iron Dome'.  One problem for the Israelis is that where-as it only costs Hamas a few hundred dollars per rocket, the (home-made) Israeli missiles come in at roughly $50k each!  However, its very effective use last week has stymied efforts by Hamas to mount a serious attack.  Apparently, the Americans are providing financial assistance to help the Israelis build more of these anti-missile missiles because at the moment Israel lacks sufficient numbers.  It is also interesting when seen in the light of the much greater threat to Israel from some future Iranian missile carrying an atomic weapon.  A counter-missile system to take out ballistic missiles would need to be even more sophisticated and hence will be even more expensive.  Also, of course, in that scenario 90% would not be good enough, only 100% would do! 

Hat tip to Drudge.

 

Iran war? Place your bets!

I would like to recommend to your attention Robert Wright of The Atlantic.  The link takes you to his accumulated columns which are well worth reading especially on the Iran imbroglio.  He is a senior editor at the magazine and he seems to me to take a cool, judicious and intelligent look at this ferociously complicated game of bluff, double bluff and so on ad infinitum, or so it appears to me.  In his most recent article he refers to the "betting on the Intrade.com proposition "USA and/or Israel to execute an overt air strike against Iran before midnight ET 31 Dec 2012."  He concludes that there is good news and bad news.  The former stems from the betting pattern showing people are discounting the possibility of an attack this year, but the latter arises from a big gain in the odds for next year! 

He points out the obvious, that there is no love lost between Obama and Netanyahu.  Of course, Obama is a Leftist in tune with his base which detests Israel.  It is one of the ironies of the last 60-odd years that the Left has spun 180 degrees from support to hatred of Israel; where-as, the Right has overcome its original disdain for all things Jewish and is now a voluble supporter of the Jewish homeland.  Robert Wright points out the highly important nuance between Netanyahu and Obama in their approach to Iran and its nuclear ambitions.  The former draws a line in the sand at the point where Iran gains the capability of building a bomb.  The latter insists that it is the actual manufacture that would be a trigger point.   At this week's meeting, the Israeli PM was trying to bounce Obama into his script but he was having none of it.  With some dextrous footwork he stuck to his position that actual manufacture was the American line in the sand.  However, under the pressure he did commit his administration to the policy that America would not allow Iran to possess a bomb.  If he wins in November he will be held to that policy commitment sometime during the next four years.

In later article Robert Wright considers precisely what sort of an attack would be possible, be effective and be lasting.  His analysis is gloomy.  Almost all the experts are agreed that an air attack would only delay Iran's ambitions by a few years.  There-after, similar air attacks would be useless not so much because they would bury their equipment deeper but because they would disperse it into multiple locations none of which would be easily identifiable.  In other words, it wouldn't be like looking for a needle in a haystack but more like looking for a hundred of them!  A partially successful air attack would simply unite (even more) the Iranian people around their government and make them ever more determined to have their own bomb.  Thus, it becomes clear that the only way of ensuring that all Iranian facilities are destroyed is by putting 'boots on the ground' by means of a full-scale invasion and take over of the Iranian government machine.  Anyone fancy that?  Not too many, I reckon.

On the other hand, who fancies an Iranian bomb with a matching delivery system that could reach western Europe?  Or even just a small Iranian bomb, a crude one would do, that could be passed on to its proxy terrorist hangers-on to use as they see fit?  You see the difficulties.  Sometimes, not often, I agree, but you have to feel some sympathy for the politicians. But read Robert Wright, he's worth it.  For what it's worth from an ex-corporal like me, I do not think that the Israelis will permit an Iranian bomb, irrespective of what Obama or anyone else thinks.  They will bomb and they will keep on bombing until they think the job is done.  Forever in their mind is one word, one memory, one horrific scar - Auschwitz!

 

But this makes me tremble - with rage and fear!

As you regulars will know, I have just finished two histories of the Korean war which left me with my chin sagging onto my chest!  I had intended, with courage above and beyond the call of duty, to begin a history of the Vietnam war but, alas and alack, the biography of von Manstein intervened and has been followed up by David Glantz's very detailed version of Operation Barbarossa and, as I haven't even reached Moscow yet, you will understand my delay in turning to Vietnam.  Well, to be absolutely honest, I was so shocked at the revelations disclosed in my books on Korea that I was sort of looking for any excuse not to touch Vietnam because I just know that is going to be even harder to take.  Now, courtesy of Cafe Hayek, I have been pointed to a memoir printed in History News Network by Lt. Gen. Charles Cooper, USMC (Ret.)

The General describes a day in November 1965, very early in the Vietnam war, when he was on the staff of the senior admiral in the USN who was also, of course, a member of the Chiefs of Staff (CoS).  All three Joint Chiefs plus their chairman, the Head of the CoS, were extremely reluctant to follow the strategy as laid down by Sec. of Defence, McNamara, which involved a huge increase in soldiers to put as many 'boots on the ground' as possible. The CoS, in their efforts to come to a sensible and if possible an agreed strategy, turned to the CIA for help.  The General's description of the result is hilarious until you think of the blood and treasure about to be spilled:

The CIA was of little help, though it produced reams of text, executive summaries of the texts, and briefs of the executive summaries-all top secret, all extremely sensitive, and all of little use. The principal conclusion was that it was impossible to predict with any accuracy what the Chinese or Russians might do.

How much did they cost - even back in those days?  Anyway, rather than commit to a protracted land war, an end to which they could not see, the CoS agreed that a better policy was to impose a naval blockade of North Vietnam and it's ports thus severing supplies from Russia, and mount a massive air campaign against Hanoi to force the North Vietnamese government to come to terms.  (As far as I can tell from this memoir, there was no discussion on the possibility of simply walking away!)  Anyway, the CoS had been pressing McNamara for weeks for a direct meeting alone with the president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief which was their right.  After considerable delaying tactics they were eventually granted a meeting.  It was Gen. Cooper's job, he was then of much lower rank, to bring in to the meeting a large map upon which the CoS could make their points.  An easel was to be provided for this map and he would then leave this very secret and private meeting.  However:

Precisely at two o'clock President Johnson emerged from the Oval Office and greeted the chiefs. He was all charm. He was also big: at three or more inches over six feet tall and something on the order of 250 pounds, he was bigger than any of the chiefs. He personally ushered them into his office, all the while delivering gracious and solicitous comments with a Texas accent far more pronounced than the one that came through when he spoke on television. Holding the map board as the chiefs entered, I peered between them, trying to find the easel. There was none. The President looked at me, grasped the situation at once, and invited me in, adding, "You can stand right over here." I had become an easel-one with eyes and ears.

What ensued defies belief!  The Joint Chiefs, all experienced officers with active service credentials and at the very pinnacle of their various services, presented their reasoned case for a totally different approach to this war.  They might have been right or they might have been wrong but what happened then is jaw-dropping:

Normally, time dims our memories-but it hasn't dimmed this one. My memory of Lyndon Johnson on that day remains crystal clear. While General Wheeler, Admiral McDonald, and General McConnell spoke, he seemed to be listening closely, communicating only with an occasional nod. When General McConnell finished, General Wheeler asked the President if he had any questions. Johnson waited a moment or so, then turned to Generals Johnson and Greene, who had remained silent during the briefing, and asked, "Do you fully support these ideas?" He followed with the thought that it was they who were providing the ground troops, in effect acknowledging that the Army and the Marines were the services that had most to gain or lose as a result of this discussion. Both generals indicated their agreement with the proposal. Seemingly deep in thought, President Johnson turned his back on them for a minute or so, then suddenly discarding the calm, patient demeanor he had maintained throughout the meeting, whirled to face them and exploded.

I almost dropped the map. He screamed obscenities, he cursed them personally, he ridiculed them for coming to his office with their "military advice." Noting that it was he who was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders, he called them filthy names-shitheads, dumb shits, pompous assholes-and used "the F-word" as an adjective more freely than a Marine in boot camp would use it. He then accused them of trying to pass the buck for World War III to him. It was unnerving, degrading.

Rather as the Joint Chiefs were at the time, I am left speechless.  However, I make the same judgment against them as I do against their predecessors at the time of Korea - they should have had the guts to resign.  Men together use profane language but for the most senior officers in their country to be harangued in that fashion should have resulted in their joint resignation.  They didn't, and like Hitler's generals who were similarly treated, they must share the blame of what was to come.

 

Manstein: great general but an ordinary man

I have finished Mungo Melvin's excellent and thorough biography of Field Marshal Eric von Manstein and I am now pondering whether to award myself the Knights Grand Cross for my stamina in marching halfway across Russia and then marching back again, or just the good, old British army's Long Service and Good-ish Conduct Medal.  Yes, it has been a hard, long flog but definitely well worth it.

Melvin, in the title to his book, calls Manstein "Hitler's Greatest General"  and it would take more than the opinion of an ex-Corporal like me to argue against it.  And anyway, ex-Corporals don't come out of this book too well!  As it happens, I didn't really need Melvin's book to convince me of his claim because I had already picked up enough in general reading to realise that Manstein was a brilliant general.  None of the other German generals, not even (or perhaps, especially) the over-hyped Rommel, came near Manstein's tremendous expertise in the handling of not just armies but groups of armies.  This is mainly, but not entirely, a military history and Melvin, an ex-general himself, makes the task of following the various manouvres relatively easy although the uninitiated would do well to brush up on the very useful chart below the first map which explains the military symbols which differentiate the hierarchy of army formations from Army Group down to Brigade via Army, Corps and Division.  This will make the maps easier to understand - and talking of the maps, let me sing a chorus in praise of the publisher of the paper-back edition, Phoenix, for going to the expense of printing all the necessary maps - in colour! - and putting them all in one place so that they can be easily found.  I have lost count of the number of military histories whose maps are utterly useless!

I will not rehearse all the details of Manstein's various campaigns, apart from anything else, Melvin tells it much better than I can.  But what I do wish to dwell upon is Manstein the man, and it is in this area that Melvin's book is superb.  He takes a long, hard, cool look at his subject and hands down a very fair assessment.  Manstein was a cultivated, Christian gentleman, far removed from the bull-necked Nazis who feature in the cartoons of the time.  But, he was also a Prussian officer, born and raised in the ethos of all that being a Prussian officer entails including a profound sense of patriotic duty and obedience!  Until 1918, that unquestioning obedience was offered to the King of Prussia who eventually became the Emperor of Germany.  Whatever private doubts the officer class entertained about Hitler as being, so to speak, 'not quite a gentleman', these had to be quashed after they were forced to take a Christian oath of loyalty to the new head of state.  A man like Manstein would not, could not, easily break such a profound oath sworn over a bible.

In weighing and admiring Manstein's obvious genius as a commander, Melvin never lets his detachment be subverted.  He accuses Manstein, along with virtually the entire German officer corps, of a lack of strategic, as opposed to operational, insight which allowed him to follow Hitler into a war with Russia which was never going to be winnable.  This strategic blind spot, a characteristic shared by most of the Anglo/American high command (with the exception of Alan Brooke and, eventually, Marshall) was exacerbated by excessive hubris, and this hubris was itself inflamed by the easy, early and stunning victories of the Werhmacht in Poland and Western Europe.  What could go wrong?  Well, eventually Manstein found out, but surpisingly late in the day.  According to Melvin, the German high command perpetually under-estimated the ability of the Russians to recover and, above all, to learn from their mistakes.  Not the least of German military weaknesses lay in their constant failures in the field of Intelligence at all levels, and that surprised me.

The book goes on to cover Manstein's eventual arrest and charge as a war criminal responsible for the crimes against humanity that were carried out by the SS who, whilst not under his direct command, nevertheless operated in his area of responsibility.  Again, Melvin weighs the pros and cons, including Manstein's own very carefully worked out defence, and cooly decides that Manstein has much to answer for. 

Two things occurred to me whilst reading this book which the author does not dwell upon.  First, Manstein had an example before him of how a brave and clear-thinking Christian officer and gentleman should have behaved with a malignant creature like Hitler in charge, and that was Gen. Ludwig Beck, Chief of the German General Staff in the late '30s and Manstein's direct superior.  Beck began by falling for Hitler's promises but as time went on he saw through the pretence and sickened by Hitler's attitudes he resigned.  Later he, he joined the conspiracy against Hitler and upon its failure he commited suicide.

The second thing that occurred to me was how, in one respect at least, this 'septic Isle', as I call it rather rudely, has developed some immensely wise and prudent political structures.  Thus, our military swear allegience to the monarch, and the monarch ('Gawd bless 'er!') has virtually no political power at all.  Thus, should some Hitlerite poltroon arise in this country our military need have no moral problems in seeing him off.  (Even as I write that I can sense several of you reaching for your keyboards to hurl the name of Tony Blair at me - don't bother, there is absolutely no comparison).

Anyway, I recommend this book very highly.  Not just a tale of soldierly 'derring-do' but also an accurate portrayal of a great man with great flaw lines running through him.  Did I mention the word 'Shakespearean'?  No, I would never stoop to such a cliché, you know me!

Manstein: Hitler's Great General by Hugo Melvin and it's on Kindle for only £7.99.

 

On the cusp on the Eastern Front!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had volunteered for the Eastern Front in order to serve with Field Marshal Eric von Manstein, arguably Hitler's finest general, courtesy of a biography written by Maj. Gen. (ret'd.) Mungo Melvin.  Little has been heard from me on this subject for some time and I expect you have all been worried, er, you have, haven't you?  Anyway, the book is enormous which is entirely in keeping with the events it is recording.  I have 'fought' my way almost, but crucially not quite, to Stalingrad.  Led by the General (and the author!) I have lost Kharkov but retaken it.  Now Kursk looms!  Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the war on the Eastern Front will know Kursk was quite simply so huge, so mammoth, so gigantic a battle that I am sure you will forgive me for taking a bit of R&R before I continue the advance.  Apart from anything else, the bloody book weighs a ton!  Tomorrow I'm back up the sharp end reading as fast as possible and hopefully I will be able to give you a detailed review next weekend.  In the meantime, if you are hesitating on buying a copy - don't!  It is excellent.

 

Parsing the spooks

Sometimes - not too often, mind! - one has a brief feeling of sympathy for our 'inglorious leaders'.  As we have discussed before on this blog, the situation in Iran is poised dangerously in that cliché between a rock and a hard place.  The problem is that no-one is too sure which is the rock and which is the hard place, and nor does anyone seem too know for certain precisely how hard either of them are in reality.  Pity the poor President - oh, go on, give it a try!  He has now been presented with an intelligence report which represents the combined views of sixteen US intelligence agencies (Sixteen?!)  My immediate thought was that any report upon which sixteen different bureaucracies can agree is probably waste-bin material!  Even so, there appear to be have been some subtle minds at work on this particular effort which comes to us from The LA Times quoted in The American Thinker with my emphasis:

A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003.

The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so.

Although Iran continues to enrich uranium at low levels, U.S. officials say they have not seen evidence that has caused them to significantly revise that judgment. Senior U.S. officials say Israel does not dispute the basic intelligence or analysis.

So, the Iranians are lining up all their nuclear bits and pieces but are not actually assembling them - yet! But, and here you can see the subtle minds at work in the higher reaches of the intelligence agency bureaucracies, it is "a known known" that President 'Peace 'n' Love' Obama would do anything, including surrender, to avoid going to war and this 'intelligence report' meets his needs precisely, as The American Thinker points out:

President Obama has been very careful in saying that we would not allow Iran to build a weapon. In other words, until we have conclusive evidence that Iran isn't merely preparing to build a bomb, but is actually constructing a weapon, we will take no action.

So which came first, the presidential chicken or the intelligence agency egg?  The Israelis, of course, cannot afford the luxoury of such subtle parsing and will strike as and when they are convinced that "there is no alternative", as another very tough and realistic politican once said.  In an uncertain world I am content to leave it to the Israelis to decide if and when.

 

Another possible answer to my impertinent question

A few posts back , rather impertinently, I asked you what you would do about the Iranian problem. Without even waiting for your answers I suggested, in my usual aggressive fashion, that we zap them quick before they were in a position to zap us.  However, acording to Breitbart, those ever-intelligent Israelis appear to be offering an alternative - an 'Iron Dome'!

The Israeli military will on Monday deploy a battery of rocket interceptors from its "Iron Dome" system in the Tel Aviv region, a military spokesman said on Sunday. [...]

The first of its kind in the world and still at the experimental stage, it is not yet able to provide complete protection, but it has successfully brought down several rockets fired from Gaza.

Designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells fired from a range of between four and 70 kilometres (three and 45 miles), Iron Dome is part of an ambitious multi-layered defence programme to protect Israeli towns and cities.

Of course, that is their answer to the very specific problem they face with short-range missiles.  However:

Two other systems make up the programme -- the Arrow long-range ballistic missile defence system and the so-called David's Sling, or Magic Wand, system, intended to counter medium-range missiles. [My emphasis]

So perhaps our strategic counter move should be to buy a similar long-range missile defence system from our American allies, or if they pull their usual trick of over-charging, perhaps we can do a deal with the Israelis.  All the Jewish traders I ever dealt with were always willing to bargain, so perhaps, 10 missiles for the price of 9, my life already!

 

And whilst we're on the subject, what would you do about this?

I do apologise.  I realise this blog is rapidly coming to resemble a school examination, or even worse, an interrogation.  Still, sometimes it's good for the brain, or the soul, or something, to put ourselves in the position of our 'glorious leaders' and try and imagine what we would do in certain circumstances.  Let's start with Iran.

Obviously we are not privy to the intelligence (if any of reliability exists), nor do we know the assessments sent in by all our embassies, but even so, we can take an educated guess and therefore a semi-educated theoretical decision.  There can be no doubt that Iran is striving by all means possible to achieve a nuclear weapon capacity.  The proof lies in their behaviour over the last few years in which they have been given, and spurned, several opportunities to be open and above board with what they were up to.  Their economy, and therefore their governmental standing with their people, is suffering grievously as a result of their secrecy.  Equally, their constant threats to exterminate the state of Israel (with an unspoken implication that others might follow) have been repeated too often to be dismissed as the ravings of an exceptional fanatic.  So let us take it as a given that they are indeed trying to achieve a nuclear weapon capacity and that leaves us with the next question: how far have they progressed?  This is tricky.  Governments of the sort that is running Iran today are usually given to hyperbole, or boasting, if you prefer, and I don't doubt that there is a certain amount of bluster involved.  However, if we grant that they are trying, then it becomes a question of 'when' not 'if'.

Setting aside Israel (and that's a laugh!), for the moment, we (by which I mean 'the west') need to ask ourselves whether we can live with a nuclear Iran?  To begin with, it will be a nuclear Iran with the capability of delivering missiles into the area of the middle east and the eastern Mediterranean.  However, it will not be too long before, with the help of their 'allies', they possess the means to deliver missiles into western Europe. You might ask why they would do that to which I can only reply with the answer to the old question as to why dogs lick their 'blx'? - because they can!

Given all of that there seems to me to be only two possible policies by way of response.  Either we go to war with them now and destroy their capability; or, we attempt a repetition of the old MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) policy which kept the Soviets from indulging their ambitions.  On the face of it, the latter is the more attractive proposition, however, it is necessary to remember that there has been a long-held school of thought, epitomised by Enoch Powell yesterday and Andrew Alexander today, which holds that the Soviets (ie, Russia) never did hold serious ambitions to expand into western Europe having satisfied its security arrangements by holding eastern Europe as a buffer.  The only time they allowed their ambitions to get the better of them was in trying to place missiles in Cuba and they very quickly backed down when faced with American determination.  Turning to Tehran, can we say the same thing about the government there?

It is at this point that my lack of expertise, and access to the expertise of others, makes it almost impossible for an amateur to offer an answer.  Undoubtedly there is an element of bombast is what the Iranian government says and threatens, however, there is a crucial difference, it seems to me, between them and the old Soviet government.  In the latter case, rule was very much from the top down.  The Soviet leadership was not bothered by thousands of communist fanatics constantly agitating to exterminate the west.  The Iranian government is!  Their current leadership might look all-powerful but I suspect that they are uneasily aware that at the next level down anti-Israel and anti-western fanaticism is rife, rampant and ready to take the place of any leader who shows weakness.  Finally, and this is a chilling factor, there are a great many extreme Islamists who positively welcome death and martyrdom if at that same time they can bring death and destruction down onto Israel and the west.  Somehow, I never saw Stalin or Brezhnev as being the stuff of martyrs!  However, lest anyone suppose that I am being 'Persian-ist'(!), let me remind you that it is only a little over 50-odd years ago that we saw the suicidal martyrdom of one of our very own, home-grown, European fanatics who positively relished his and his nation's gottadamerung!

Even so, before we choose the extreme option of war, we need to consider the likely ramifications that will follow.  At this point is necessary to do what the German generals failed to do, that is, to decide what the grand strategic aim is and then suit the means best likely to achieve it.  For example, after Iraq and Afghanistan, I hope - oh, I do hope! - there will be no more talk of "nation-building".  The purpose of military action against Iran is twofold: first, to destroy their nuclear capabilities; second, to maintain oil supplies through the Gulf.  We have no interest worth the 'bones of a single grenadier' in who governs Iran although, as an adjunct to military action, it would be no bad thing if we severely damaged the current government.  Not because we could entertain hopes of a better one to follow but simply pour encourager les autres.  So, putting it more brutally, we must destroy - utterly - the sites and laboratories, we must kill as many scientists and technologists as possible,  and as many members of the government (by which I mean the ruling elite) as possible.  In effect, we go in, do what we can, and then get out!

Happily, if that is quite the word, with today's sophisticated weaponry that is an achievable aim.  There is no such thing as a 'surgical strike' because 'shit always happens' but every effort should be made to avoid civilian collateral damage.  However, I suspect such an operation can only be achieved by the Americans and not by the Israelis acting alone.  There is no avoiding the fact that such an action will have huge repurcussions in the world's economy but they need not be long-lasting.  Iran controls virtually the entire east coast of the Gulf and keeping their raiders away from the oil tankers will be tricky.  However, the west coast is almost entirely controlled by mega-rich oil states who, being Arab not Persian, can be relied upon to help in the policing of the waters upon which they rely for their wealth.

So what would I do?  I would go for "war, war" and no more "jaw, jaw"!

Additional:  So much for my (and others I have read) amateur opinion that Israel would be unable to inflict really serious damage on the Iranian facilities.  Here is a report by David Goldman at PJ Media quoting a long article in Die Welt by a German defence expert, Hans Rühle, with particular knowledge of missile warfare: 

Rühle is highly confident that Israel could knock out Iran’s nuclear program for a decade or more with about 25 of its 87 F-15 fighter-bombers and a smaller number of its F-16s. Each of the F-15s would carry two of the GBU-28 bunker busters, with the F-16s armed with smaller bombs. [...]

Most importantly, Rühle believes that it would take Iran a decade to restore its capabilities — with the exception of Isfahan — unless special forces could inflict more damage from the ground than was possible from the air. There are risks, of course: the Russians might have secretly given Iran more advanced surface-to-air missiles; refueling might be interdicted along a route that overflies potentially hostile countries; and Iran’s proxies (Syria, Hizbollah, Hamas) might retaliate. Nonetheless, he concludes that Israel could lastingly disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

To paraphrase Claudius, again: Do it, Israel!

 

Manstein: Hitler's greatest general?

I have placed a question mark at the end of my title but Maj. Gen. (ret'd) Mungo Melvin leaves it as a statement of fact in the title to his biography of this very enigmatic man.  I am only on p. 58 of this superb book and there are another 450-odd to go so perhaps I am pushing my luck by giving it a 'rave revue' already!  However, two things are instantly very clear.  First, von Manstein was a superb fighting general who deserves a proper biography; and second, Gen. Melvin is a very literate and highly intelligent writer more than capable of explaining and illustrating von Manstein's strengths and weaknesses.  It is also obvious from the fact that Melvin only reached the rank of Major-General that he was too intelligent for his military confreres which is why, I guess, that he went no higher in rank - intelligence, smacking of intellectualism, is not encouraged in the British army!  Knowing it as I do, I suspect that the fact that he was an engineer cannot have helped, either.  (I have some fellow-feeling because I, too, began what I laughingly call my military 'career' as a member of the Royal Engineers and it took me 9 years to reach the rank of corporal.  Mind you, I was thick!)

One fascinating point that he raises, of which hitherto I have only vaguely suspected, is that although the German officer class was superb and well above all others at the tactical and operational level, they hardly gave a thought to what I might call the geo-strategic level.  To give but two examples.  You only have to say, slowly, that in 1906 von Schlieffen's operational plan was to destroy the entire French army in six weeks to realise that, the world being the way it is, that was a rather risky idea!  Similarly, Hitler's assault on Russia broke the 1st rule of war which states that you should never invade Russia.  (The 2nd rule is that you should never attack America however soft and dopey it looks!)  The German generals religiously (and I use that word deliberately) worked out in superbly efficient detail exactly how the attack should be executed but none of them appear to have told Hitler that it was madness and that disaster would surely and inexorably follow because of geo-strategic considerations which had not been, er, considered!

I don't care, rash fellow that I am, but from the basis of having read 58 excellent and fascinating pages, if you have an interest in military history - buy this book!

 

So how stand things in 'plucky little Israel'?

As with most of the subjects about which I write on this blog my knowledge of Israel is minute, and that's putting it at its best!  So all the more reason for me to digest a very useful and measured impression of the country by Lazar Berman of The American Enterprise Institute.  He has recently payed a semi-official visit to Israel during which he was granted access to the Israeli 'establishment'.  The problems pressing in against this little nation are manifold and deadly serious.  I have already touched, in a post last week, on the most dangerous one that emanates from Iran and its nuclear capability.  Obviously, no-one was going to tell Mr. Berman if and when the expected attack will take place but there was absolutely no euphoria at even the the theoretical possibility.  All the top brass stressed the huge technical difficulties facing the Israeli air force with a relatively small number of planes plus an enormous distance to travel.  General opinion seemed to be that it should/could only be undertaken successfully in partnership with the Americans.  (With Obama in charge - fat chance!)  However, as one shrewd observer said some time ago, the chances of an Israeli strike will be at its highest when the Israeli's cease to talk about it!  No-one, according to Mr. Berman, is very sanguine about the prospects and they all realise that whatever the result there will be a huge price to pay in Israel.

Another, but internal, difficulty is that posed by the Haredim, the ultra-Right-wing, orthodox Jews who appear to be the mirror image of the worst sort of fanatical Islamists.  I have picked up reports elsewhere on the subject of their increasingly belligerent behaviour whereby they insist on segregation of women (not all bad, then ? - just kidding, ladies!) and the reduction of their status to that of domestic chattels.  According to Mr. Berman, Israeli society is pushing back against the pressure from this militant minority.

As for the so-called 'Arab Spring', opinion in Israel appears to be divided.  On the whole the Israelis think it better to maintain a low profile and avoid supporting one side or the other, an emminently sensible policy that should have been adopted by HMG.  As for the prospects of a long-term deal between Israel and the Palestinians - well, there aren't any!  No-one's going to cut any deals until the current, bubbling cauldron settles down again.

Altogether an interesting and informative article which might not be definitive but is well worth reading 

'The Kraut' warns: not if but when!

My title has taken a slight liberty with the words of Charles Krauthammer because, although he is forecasting that Israel will whack Iran during the course of this year, he adds the caveat that they will do so 'if nothing changes'.  The Secretary of Defence has said the same thing and pinpoints April, May, June as very likely.  'The Kraut' echoes my own long-held view that the Israelis have six million reasons to be utterly ruthless when faced with an implaccable enemy.  Unlike other nations (not a million miles from our very own 'septic Isle'), the Israelis are more than willing to accept that history can, and frequently does, repeat itself, albeit, in different guises.  The lunatic fringe in Iran have spelled out their intention to annihilate Israel and all its occupants.  There is absolutely no way that the Israeli government will allow them to pass beyond the point of no return in their programme to build a nuclear weapon and delivery system.

To analyse the repurcussions of an Israeli strike (or more likely, strikes) is way above my ex-corporal pay-grade but some things seem fairly obvious.  First, the Iranians will attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz which will send the price of oil into space!  Happily, The USA has a carrier to hand (we do not - well done, Dave!) so I doubt that their efforts will succeed.  The Obama administration will have to step delicately and shrewdly to limit their action strictly to protection of the seaways and avoid being embroiled in an out-and-out war with Iran - which, of course, the Iranian leadership will try to engineer.  My belief in the ability of an American government to act delicately has been under severe strain recently, as regular readers will know, so all I can do is hope for the best.  Secondly, we should not be too alarmed at Gulf Arab re-action.  They will huff 'n' puff for publicity purposes but most of them, especially the oil rich ones, will be quietly pleased.  More troublesome will be the re-action of Egypt, which given its control of the Suez canal and the somewhat shakey nature of the military junta, could be crucial.  No doubt the Israelis will be taking that into account as they plot their moves.

The economic side-draft from such a conflagration will add stress to the already trembling euro economies and if it brings their unresolved matters to a head then it's not all bad news!  Here in Britain we must be deeply grateful that, for a change, there is absolutely no way for us to be involved.  Hague and his FO 'mandarins-not' will no doubt get themselves very excited but most of us have long come to the conclusion that our influence anywhere is minimal when it is not downright trivial.  However, if the Israelis can deliver a coup de grâce and destroy, or at least set back for several years, the Iranian nuclear programme, we can all breath a little easier and if it sets back our already puny economy still further then it is a price worth paying, in my opinion.  So let's hear it for 'plucky little Israel'!

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more"

And paraphrasing the next line:

Or close the wall up with our American dead

To say nothing of the Korean, Chinese, Commonwealth and other dead! 

Probably to your immense relief there has been a slight pause in my reading of the second book(*) I possess on the subject of the Korean war.  The reason is simple, I couldn't face any more of it and I just knew it was going to get even worse!

In my last post on the subject I left you in the winter of 1950.  McArthur, unforgivably, had ignored the mass attack by tens of thousands of Chinese troops that had taken him completely by surprise and which, after five day's fighting, had melted away back into the mountains.  Again, no-one in Washington stopped him when he went back on the offensive intent on pushing an American army up to the Yalu river and the Chinese frontier.  With the remorseless and blindingly obvious result that the Chinese attacked again and this time there was to be no pause, they smashed into the allied armies and within a matter of weeks they had pushed them back south of Seoul.  Such blind stupidity and total military ineptness should have cost MacArthur his job there and then - but still Washington, fearful of public opinion, failed to act.

At this point we touch upon the very heart of democracy and find within it a deliciously rich vein of irony.  Democratic governments are supposed to listen to the voice of 'The People' despite the very obvious fact that 'The People' are usually frequently wrong.  Here we reach one of those double-handed situations where, on the one hand, it is right for politicians to listen to the The People, but on the other hand, politicians are supposed to have the courage to lead The People even against their instincts, and even if it results in their political demise at the next election.  I would suggest that when your own (conscripted) troops are dying in huge numbers the duty of leadership is paramount.  Truman, Acheson, Marshall and the Combined Chiefs of Staff all failed in their duty and stand accused of cowardice.

In 1951, the second year of the war, the field commander of the allied armies was killed in an accident and his place was taken by Gen. Ridgeway, a good fighting general but not necessarily a great student of grand strategy.  However, he did force MacArthur to place all the troops in Korea under his command and he began a fight back which, by the summer, took the allies back to more or less where they were when the North Koreans first began the war.  It was at this point that MacArthur finally overstepped the mark and Washington plucked up its collective courage and sacked him.  Because both sides were now more or less where they started Washington began to make peace moves.  MacArthur, in an attempt to scupper them issued a bulletin, insisting that the war was yet to be won; and then he went one step further by writing a letter to a Republican Congressman, in effect, attacking Truman's policy.  Well, politicians might not understand war but they usually understand politics and MacArthur, having crossed the political Rubicon, was finally sacked.

The peace talks ensued and there then followed nearly two years of such infantile stupidity and folly, mostly on the part of the Americans, as almost to defy description.  These peace talks could have been settled in weeks but instead they dragged on and on and tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians perished needlessly.

Regular readers will know of my deep regard for America.  I am aware of their weaknesses and mistakes in WWII, but if they suffered their Pearl Harbour, we suffered our Dunkirk, too.  At any rate, together (more or less) we learned our lessons and in a partnership (of sorts) we proceeded to overthrow two great powers and win the first global war.  I think it was a remarkable partnership and one which we should look back on with pride.  That, I fear, has been my undoing in considering American policy post-WWII.  I listened to the more realistic voices of the likes of Enoch Powell who warned many times that America was a blundering child in the complex world of global strategy, but whilst I acknowledged that mistakes were made from time to time I remained steadfast in my general support.  This study of the Korean war has not so much changed my mind as shattered it.  Now, with considerable dread, I must turn to the war in Vietnam which, in my unforgiveable idleness, I have never really studied.  If anyone can recommend a really good, detached history which covers the Washington/political end as well as the actual campaign, I would be grateful.

Oh dear, 72-years old and still learning!

(*)Korea: The Lost War by Bevin Alexander

More war - sorry!

I am finding it difficult to choose exactly the right words to express the shock ... the dismay ... the anger ... even the anguish ... I am feeling as I delve into the history of the forgotten war - Korea 1950-1953.  Also, to be honest, the guilt because I really should have studied this long ago and learned the lessons.  However, I will leave all that for later but in the meantime, for those ignoramuses like me, I will continue to tell you the highlights.

In my last post on the subject I told you of MacArthur's stroke of military genius (and enormous luck!) in undertaking the highly risky Inchon landings far to the north, and due west of Seoul, whilst the remainder of his army was bottled up in the far south east corner of the country and in danger of being swept into the sea.  Inchon was a stunning success and vindicated the psychotic old brute in his far-away HQ in Japan.  The unutterable pity of it is that at this, the very pinnacle of his success, MacArthur threw it all away!  Virtually the entire North Korean army was in the south and by landing so far north, there was nothing to oppose him except rear echelon troops.  MacArthur with his army in Seoul could have raced eastwards and cut off the entire North Korean army.  Their leadership, true to style, failed to tell their front-line units that an enemy army had appeared behind them for four days!  Not that there was much they could do anyway because now it was their turn to be pressed backwards and being a 'peasant army' they had no trucks to aid their withdrawal, and anyway, American airpower made movement during daylight almost impossible.

Map courtesy of: http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war10.htm

So there was MacArthur's golden opportunity but instead, obsessed as he was with conquering the whole of Korea, and also with placing a powerful American army on the Chinese border, he ordered an advance to the north, in fact, an advance all the way to the Yalu River.  Even a lowly ex-corporal like me could have told him that the Chinese communist regime which had just won a long and bloody civil war in which the Americans had aided their enemies, were never going to allow that to happen.  The further north the Americans went the more convinced were the junior army intelligence officers and their battalion and regimental commanders in the field that something was not right.  The geography of northern Korea is mountainous and the American army rarely if ever left what roads they could find but up in 'them thar hills' literally tens of thousands of Chinese troops were hiding.  Camouflaged or crammed into caves which they dug during the night, they were invisible during the day to ground troops or even over-flying 'planes.  The junior commanders on the ground were aware of an eerie  feeling of being watched but they could not find hard evidence, and anyway, their intelligence assessments were firmly squashed by MacArthur's ghastly Chief of Intelligence, Charles Willoughby, who sounds as though he was from 'frightfully British' stock but was actually from Prussian lineage and even affected a monocle from time to time.  Willoughby, along with every officer in MacArthur's HQ simply worked on the premise that whatever 'the General' said was right and any information that contradicted it must be ignored or altered.  Truly, reading about MacArthur and his HQ, and bearing in mind the death and destruction that would emanate from his pronouncements, is enough to almost reduce me to tears.

MacArthur absolutely dismissed any notion that the Chinese would intervene and so colossal was his reputation and his political influence, via the Republican party and the MSM of the day, that no-one in Washington, not Truman, not the Chiefs of Staff, not Acheson, the Secretary of State, no-one, despite their doubts and their uncertainties, stood up to the stupid, old brute.  It was dereliction of duty on a mammoth scale and hundreds of thousands died for it.

In the first few days of November as the American army crossed the last big river before the Yalu there took place one of the strangest operations in modern military history.  Suddenly, from the (apparently empty) mountains surrounding the triumphant American (and SouthKorean) armies as they advanced up the roads leading north, tens of thousands of hitherto completely hidden Chinese troops descended on them.  Entire South Korea formations simply disappeared as did many American forces cut off, as they were, from any support because the Chinese had infiltrated round and behind them.  It was bloody carnage but - just as it had suddenly started - so, equally suddenly, after about six days, it ended.  The Chinese simply melted back into the mountains!  The battered, bashed and bewildered Americans were left to try and sort themselves out from the dangerous shambles in which they had been left.

In effect, the Chinese, realising that their diplomatic warnings had been ignored by the Americans, had decided to administer a bloody nose on their army in order to re-inforce the fact that under no circumstances would they allow an American army to be based next to their frontier.  And yet, despite this terrific and terrifying example of Chinese fighting power, still the American establishment ignored it!  Honestly, reading the two books I have on this subject, I cannot tell you how many times I have had to put the book down because I was so shocked and upset at what I was reading.  People rail at the WWI generals because of what they see as the useless slaughter but those men were caught in a technological time-trap between the invention of the machine-gun and the very late invention of the tank.  No-one at that time could work out how to get a man made of soft tissue across 250 yards of open ground against machine-guns firing 600 rounds a minute.  But here, we have some of the best political brains in America, a General Staff made up of officers experienced from WWII and a General who had helped defeat the Japanese, and all of them, absolutely all of them, could not recognise what the Chinese were signalling when they sent the American army reeling backwards  in early November 1950!

Instead, and it almost makes me weep, that evil, old fool, MacArthur, insisted that the enemy troops involved were not regular Chinese army but only volunteers(!) and whilst it had momentarily taken them by surpise, the advance to the Yalu could now begin again.  And Washington caved in - again!  They even allowed him to bomb the bridges over the Yalu river.  Thus, a massive and this time not a temporary intervention by the Chinese was certain.

Sorry to have bored on about this subject - and there will be more - but I cannot think of any history books which have produced such an emotional response in me.  I am all too aware of the folly of political leaders, our own British history is replete with examples, but I don't think I have ever read of an entire political and military establishment, with virtually no exceptions, taking leave of all commonsense and judgment even when provided in the bloodiest way possible with hundreds of body-bags as a warning.  Suddenly, Vietnam is beginning to make a sort of horrible sense.  I'm not sure I can bring myself to read the history of that war, at least, not until I have recovered from this one.  Anyway, thank you for letting me get it off my chest.  This blog is my therapy!

 

All the news that's fit to print!

The principal object of [this blog] is to convey intelligence.  [Look, I do the jokes round here!]  It is proposed that in [Duff & Nonsense] to give this, the first and most prominent place, to a report of all the leading occurrences of the week.  In this department, the reader may always expect a summary account of every public proceeding, or a transaction of interest, whether the scene may lie at home or abroad, that has taken place within the seven days preceding the termination of our labours; which, we wish it to be remarked, close on Saturday on midnight.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The Russians are advancing slowly in their invasion of Bulgaria: the army has crossed the Danube at several points, and thrown a bridge over the river.  The fort of Isakza has yielded and the town is burnt; but the more important fortress of Brailow, or Ibrail still resists; at least, there is no certainty that it has fallen.  The Emperor Nicholas has pitched his camp at Babadagh, a town of Bulgaria, lying between twenty and thirty miles from the south bank of the Danube.  Count Wittgenstein has issued a proclamation to the Bulgarians . . . "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves" . . .  hang on, hang on, that's not right - stop the presses - that's another Wittgenstein, for God's sake!

Oh dear, I knew this would end in disaster so I had better explain.  In the course of the afore-mentioned (see below) 'tidy-up-your-garret-or-else' exercise insisted upon by the 'Memsahib' in which I have been engaged for what seems like days already, I came across a facsimile of the very first edition of The Spectator dated Saturday July 5th 1828, and all the above, er, with a few slight alterations, was their opening column which I thought might add a touch of much-needed class to this blog.  But then Wittgenstein, or his great grandad, had to stick his nose in and confuse me.  Typical!  Bloody philosophers!

 

Megalomaniac? Yes! Swine? Yes! But . . .

I was very rude about the late Gen. MacArthur recently which was quite easy given the wealth of material on his manifold weaknesses and failings but of course, as Shakespeare always demonstrates, men are complex creatures, never entirely one thing or another.  So, to counter-balance the ton of iniquity I spilled on his head the other day it is only right that I should add 'military genius' into the other scale.  Perhaps 'flawed' military genius would be a more accurate description.

For those unfamiliar with the Korean war let me explain that the North Koreans attacked over the border, the 38th parallel, on the 25th June 1950 and within a couple of months they had hurled the South Korean army and the hastily assembled American forces back into the south east corner around the port of Pusan.  A quick glance at the map shows you what a dire state the allies were in by September.

Map courtesy of: http://www.johndclare.net/cold_war10.htm

In fairness, I should make clear that where-as the North Korean communist state was highly militarised throughout its society, the South was not and, despite its president being very hawkish, the army was not in particularly good condition and was totally unable to cope with a massive onslaught from the North.  Equally, the first American army units rushed to Korea did not, on the whole, perform very well.  In fact some of them were dire and in several instances the men simply broke and ran.  However, this was not the battle-hardened army of 1945.  Most of them had long-since been demobed.  These were green troops whose only service had been in the luxoury of occupied Japan where many of them lived better than they did at home.  In the way of all democracies in peacetime, and in an American climate which thought that their sole possession of 'The Bomb' had banished war, basic military equipment and training had fallen away.  Difficult to believe for an American army but they were actually short of ammo!

In addition, the American army was trained to fight in straight lines, so to speak, that is, on a continuous front with supporting units either side.  However, so pitifully small were the numbers in these early days that there was no possibility of a continuous front and this gave the advantage to the North Koreans who were trained to avoid frontal attacks (except for the purposes of pinning an enemy in place) but always to seek an open flank and manouvre through the gap and come up behind the enemy.  Time and again this operational method wrought havoc in the hastily drawn-up plans of the Amrican commanders as they were forced back and back and finally pushed into the Pusan pocket.

But even as they were beaten, smashed and bashed backwards with local commanders fearing for a Korean 'Dunkirk', back in Tokyo that grandest Grand Panjandrum of them all, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, was already working out how he was going to utterly destroy the North Korean army and conquer their half of the country.  And he would do it with a stroke which Hannibal, victor at Cannae in 216BC, and von Schlieffen, designer of the plan that would have destroyed a French army in 6 weeks in 1914, would have applauded.  Instead of pouring yet more troops into the Pusan pocket and using the gradually accumulating American power to start pushing the North Koreans back, he would use his total command of the sea to mount an amphibious landing, not just on the flank of his enemy, but way back behind him where there would be virtually no combat troops only those working to supply their frontline troops.  He chose Inchon, the harbour that is immediately west of Seoul.

He could not have chosen a more difficult site if he had tried!  When the Navy and the Marines looked at the difficulties they were appalled.  It had a small island smack in the middle of the harbour which an attacker would have to assume would be defended vigorously.  There were no beaches to land troops on, only high beach walls like a citadel.  The currents were powerful and fast, and the tides enormous, rising or falling 30 feet.  Time was pressing because the vicious Korean winter was approaching and there was only a tiny window of opportunity of four days maximum in September in which a landing could take place.  All these genuine and enormous difficulties MacArthur simply brushed aside and told his staffs to get on with it.  He understood that precisely because of all these difficulties, his enemy would think it absurd for the Americans to try anything on the harbour at Inchon.

Well, he did it, or at least, his exceedingly brave and skilful servicemen did it and, at a stroke, suddenly the Allies had a knife at the throat of the North Korean army, or at least, a knife across their supply lines.  Thus, the North Korean army which was all in the south thinking that victory was theirs was forced to recoil backwards as fast as it could go.  It was at this triumphal point, his genius vindicated, that 'The Great Architect of Victory', Gen. Douglas MacArthur, beset with pride and hubris made a colossal error.  More of which later.

ADDITIONAL:  Further to the comments added by 'JK' and Hank I would like to pay tribute to this man leading an assault at Inchon; a superb marine, a brave soldier and an excellent leader of men.  Let his memory stand as an example of the best of America - via Wiki:

Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez of the Marine Corps is shown scaling a seawall after landing on Red Beach (September 15). Minutes after this photo was taken, Lopez was killed after covering a live grenade with his body.^[67] He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

 

As my jaw dropped, my eyes opened

First, some personal background to explain this particular post.  I have a fairly good but only a general layman's knowledge of WWII, although that tends to be concentrated on the European side of the conflict.  In any event, my specialist reading more or less stopped from the summer of 1945.  I know virtually nothing of the next 20 to 30 years other than what I read in the papers at the time - yes, quite!  I must have been dimly aware of the gap in my knowledge because I can think of no other reason to explain why I purchased David Halberstam's book The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.  Anyway, I did and I read it and, as my title above suggests, I was both shocked and educated.  This is a first class history book but it is also part-horror story and an almost un-put-downable thriller.  I stress "almost" because there were places where I was so moved by pity or anger that I simply could not read any more for a while.  What Halberstam describes is the best of America and the worst of America!

Let me sketch in the background for those, like me, who are woefully ignorant of the situation between 1945 to 1950.  At the end of WWII in the Far East, the Russians and the Americans agreed to divide Korea, hitherto a Japanese colony, with the northern half given to Stalin's tender mercies, and the southern under the stewardship of Washington.  Frankly, the USA was not particularly enamoured with the country and in their first policy mistake they failed even to include it in their defence strategy plans because they did not consider it important enough.  The north was run by the first of the Kim family, a megalomaniac, the first of a dynasty as we are now finding out.  From the very beginning Kim was agitating to be allowed to attack the south which he was convinced would rise up in support of his communist faith.  However, he was restrained by Stalin, the most cautious of careful dictators.  The south was run by Syngman Rhee whose latent dictatorial tendencies were only just held in check by the Americans.  He, too, needless to say, was eager to march his (mostly useless) army north in order to re-unite his country.

During those five years most attention in the Far East was directed towards China and the mammoth struggle going on in the civil war between Mao and Chiang, the nationalist leader.  The USA, under the generally wise leadership of Harry Truman refused (thank God!) to commit American troops to the war but under pressure from the vociferous (and Republican) China lobby he did spend huge amounts of treasure in the form of money and military equipment.  This was despite growing proof on the ground, and the confirmed suspicions of some smart young men in the State Department, that Chiang’s nationalists were so corrupt, so cowardly and so ineffective that it was all a colossal waste of time and effort.  During this period, as we all know, Mao finally won and Chiang was forced to flee to Taiwan (Formosa, as it was called then).  However, Chiang’s clever, smooth, corrupt and corrupting operators in Washington continued to provide political ammunition to the Republicans which they in turn fired at Truman’s Democrat administration.  They were aided in this by the despicable Henry Luce who owned most of the influential papers and magazines.

Meanwhile, sitting in Tokyo like a latter-day Roman consul, was General Douglas MacArthur.  There are almost no words to describe this man but here are few to give you the flavour of the man - boastful, preening, lying, cheating, insubordinate, delusional psychopath.  It is understandable, but not necessarily forgivable, that Truman took so very long to sack this monster who, primus inter pares, was most responsible for the dreadful casualties amongst American (and allied) lives during the first part of the war.  His two principal ‘cohorts-in-crime’, Ned Almond (Chief of Staff)and Charles Willoughby (Intelligence Chief), should, in my opinion, have been put up against a wall with MacArthur between them and all three shot dead!

Again and again in this tragic tale we see the Janus-like aspects of this war, which was to be repeated ad nauseum in Vietnam, in which all reasonable and intelligent observers on the ground could see what was the truth of the matter but none of it filtered to the top with sufficient strength to correct the picture in the minds of their leaders.

Halberstam’s book moves effortlessly between the freezing fox-holes of the Chosin Reservoir to the air-conditioned offices in the White House and the Congress.  He makes clear that all the leaders involved made major miscalculations.  Stalin let Kim mount his attack confident that America would not intervene.  MacArthur advanced to the Yalu River equally convinced that China would not intervene.  Mao ordered his armies across absolutely confident that with their communist faith to inspire them they would overcome advanced technology and sweep the soft Americans into the sea.  MacArthur was insistent that the Chinese would never attack an American army and when they did exactly that, he and his cohorts, steeped as they were in their racist estimation of the “laundrymen” they were fighting, boasted that they would not only defeat them in Korea but given the chance, they and Chiang’s forces in Taiwan would invade and conquer China itself.

It is a fascinating if appalling story, well told, and, above all, invaluable as a guide to how the American system works, or, as in this case, failed to work.

 

America, oh, America!

Sometimes my ignorance appalls me.  I don't expect to know everything about everything, nor even a little about everything, but occasionally (well, quite often, actually) I stumble into the wide open space of total ignorance on a subject about which I really ought to know something.  This confessional has been prompted by an excellent book to which I referred in an earlier post, David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.  For an amateur, general interest 'student' I have a fairly good knowledge of WWII but it all ends at 1945.  There-after, up until, say, the last 25 years, I know nothing.  Not that I 'know' that much of these recent years either because until the history books are written none of us do but I actually lived through the late '40s to the early '60s and it is all a blank.  However, Mr. Halberstam's book is putting that right but only at teh cost to me of a series of constant shocks.  I am only halfway through and already I am sitting in my armchair, shaking my head, unsure whether to laugh or cry, and instead plaintively wailing "America, oh, America!"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".  America had won a world war defeating, with a little help from her friends, two powerful enemies on opposite sides of the globe.  The decidely dodgy Roosevelt was dead and to everyone's surprise a farmer turned (failed) haberdasher with no college degree became president.  Harry Truman belied his background because he was both shrewd and tough.  He was also, by Washingtonian standards, dead straight.  He ordered that the priority for the nation was to ensure the future prosperity and safety of war-shattered Europe.  This displeased many parts of the Republican party and the American public who were under two baleful influences.  First, the Anglophobia of middle-America which was determined to return to the isolationism they preferred before those wily Brits tricked them, for a second time, into a war they didn't want.  Secondly, and even more malignantly, the China lobby, led by the smooth, corrupt and corrupting Chinese ambassador, Wellington Koo, and a bevy of Chiang Kai-shek's American-based relatives, plus the almost mad, fanatical campaigns of Henry Luce, the publisher of the then influential Time and Life magazines.  Truman and Acheson, his Secretary of State, plus a coterie of smart young men in the State Department known as the 'China Gang', knew that all was lost in China and that it was only a matter of time before the communists took over ... and yet ... and yet ... under the pressure of constant and virulent attacks led by Luce the administration was forced to keep supporting the insupportable Chiang and his rotten-to-the-core regime.

That America did this once is, I suppose, forgivable but to do it twice, as they did later in Vietnam, is not!  As I write those words, believe me, I am all too aware of the fact that we Brits are now fighting the Third Afghan War which is proving as unwinnable as the previous two - is that stupid or what?   Anyway, in the late '40s, with Chiang (and his gold) now esconced in Formosa (Taiwan) the stage was set in 1950 for the two madmen in North and South Korea to wage war with each other.  Here, entering stage right with his villainous demeanor, comes General Douglas MacArthur, a man verging on clinical insanity.  I intend to write more on him later.  In the meantime, again, I can only mutter with genuine emotion, "America, oh, America!"

 

Consider Korea!

Go on, just for a few minutes, I have!  Well, I have had to because I am in the process of reading David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.  I am only partly in to it but already I can recommend it highly not just as an excellent introduction to a forgotten war but also for they way it sets both the war and its principle actors in a historical setting.  I confess now that I know virtually nothing of this war despite having lived through it as a child.  The only totally useless piece of knowledge I have is that Michael Caine served up the very sharp end of it as a private in the Royal Fusiliers which has always served to make me view him with some respect.  However, back to Korea ...

One might say, 'alas, poor Korea, the Belgium of south east Asia'.  It has, just like Belgium, been seen as strategically important by various great powers in the near vicinity - China, Japan and - I needed nudging to remember of this - Russia with whom it shares a common frontier!  Hence it has been constantly marched through and conquered by whomsoever was strongest at any particular time.  The Japanese quite literally colonised the place from around the beginning of the 20th century until they lost the war in 1945.  Any of those Left-wing dafties who constantly inveigh against British colonisation should read up on how it was done Japanese-style.  Horrific does not do it justice!  There was resistance of sorts and two men became leaders in exile.  One was Kim Il Sung who was pushed out northwards into the waiting arms of Stalin's politbureau.  Not that he needed pushing because he was a fanatical Communist and nationalist whose only aim in life was to re-unite his country which had been divided by Russia and America along the 38th parallel.  In the south, Syngman Rhee, another fanatical nationalist ended up in the USA where he devoted himself to ingrationating himself into American political circles before his return to South Korea where his aim, like his North Korean counterpart, was to unite the country.  Both these men achieved their political positions in 1945 at the end of WWII.

Hovering  over this potential powder-keg with a slow-burning fuse was Gen. McArthur, the 'Grand Panjandrum' of Japan who, with rather surprising intelligence, was guiding that country from the Deity-worshiping traditions of its former era into a modern democracy.  His knowledge of, and/or interest in, the two Koreas and the highly dangerous and mounting pressures there was virtually nil.  Even more disgraceful was his nonchalent disregard of the blindingly obvious run-down condition of his own American troops who had long since lost their equipment and war-ready status of 1945.  In this book, Halberstam devotes some time filling in a portrait of McArthur, his loathsome, stupid father and, even worse, his ghastly mother.  It is both fascinating and repellant.

All of this is doubly interesting given that our TV screens have been filled recently with images of what can only be described as the Orwellian society that has developed in North Korea.  Have you ever, even compared to the old Soviet thugs, seen such a collection of hideously ugly, dessicated. old mass-murderers as those North Korean generals and apparatchiks lined up during the recent funeral of their 'Dear Leader'?  I do just hope that the American leadership is more engaged with the dreadful possibilites in Korea than they were back in 1950.

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam

 

What goes around, comes around!

Snarky, I know, but sometimes, m'Lud, I just can't help myself! 

A German soldier stands in the tower of the cathedral, gazing down upon the captured French city of Strasbourg on July 15, 1940. Adolf Hitler visited the city in June of 1940, declaring plans for the Strasbourg Cathedral, stating that it should become a "national sanctuary of the German people." (AP Photo)

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/07/world-war-ii-axis-invasions-and-the-fall-of-france/100098/

So, not too much change there, then!

 

Miracle at Midway

At the moment I'm up to my armpits in the mid-Pacific as I begin work on my new 'bore-a-thon' entitled How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months.  Reading about the battle I find myself with a stiff neck from the constant shaking of my head in disbelief.  I have studied a fair number of battles in my time but Midway is far and away the most extraordinary.  'Never in the field of human conflict' have so many flukes, chances, coincidences and mistakes occurred in the course of just a few hours.  Several massive naval task forces blundered about mostly completely unaware of the others. If there is a God he was at Midway on 4th June 1942.

Perhaps the most famous evidence of divine providence was the fact that one of the Japanese recce 'planes due to be launched before dawn had an engine problem which delayed it by 30 minutes.  If it had taken off on time it would have flown right over the American carriers lurking to the north east of the Islands, in which case, Adm. Nagumo, commander of the Japanese carrier fleet, containing four big Japanese carriers, would have disposed of his attack and defence aircraft very differently.  If he had, then given the disparity in comabt experience between both sets of aircrews, plus the qualitative superiority of Japanese aircraft, it is almost certain that the three American carriers would have been sunk.  In that event, Midway would have been taken and opened up a corridor pointing directly towards Hawaii, or, the Japanese could have moved south east to take the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia and thus cut Australia off from all American aid.

As it was, Nagumo had despatched half of his 'planes to attack Midway prior to the planned invasion.  He kept the other half back, loaded with anti-maritime ordnance in case the American carriers were spotted.  (He was being ultra-cautious because very poor Japanese intelligence had assured him that they were almost certainly still in Hawaii, or down in the south east following the inconclusive battle of the Coral Sea.)  His Midway attack squadrons reported that a second attack was needed to completely finish off the Island's defences and so Nagumo ordered his reserve formation to change from anti-ship to ground attack ordnance.  This was about half complete when the first very garbled reports came in from his air recce 'planes indicating that in fact the American carriers were on his flank.  To add to his troubles the Midway attack force was streaming in and needing to land.  So far his carriers had suffered several attacks from American Midway-based 'planes but had swatted them all away like irritating flies without sustaining any hits.

Nagumo ordered that the reserve air force be re-armed yet again, this time from land attack ordnance to anti-ship ordance so that they could attack the American carriers which by now had been definitely identified.  One can imagine the language amongst the carrier ground crews as they struggled with order and counter-order and counter-counter-order!  Unfortunately, in their haste they had no time to store the loose armaments safely and simply left them at the sides of the hangers.  The Midway attack force had landed and was being re-armed and re-fueled and it was at that moment that the American carrier 'planes attacked.  The first in were the torpedo aircraft who, given the nature of their weapon system had to come in at low level and fly straight and true at their target.  The Japanese Zeros flying high above as a defensive air patrol came screaming in like hawks hitting a flock of sparrows.  Many of the American torpedo 'planes were shot down and those that escaped the Zeros were take out by massive and deadly accurate anti-aircraft fire.  In one of the most tremendous examples of human courage under fire, none of the American flinched from their duty.  One by one they flew in, slow and steady, and one by one they were destroyed.  To add bitter salt to the wound, none of their torpedoes had any effect.

At this point the Japanese were celebrating.  They were unharmed and were well on their way to re-arming their 'planes which, within a very short time, would be off to take out the entire American carrier force.  And at that point retribution hit them.  A final attack force from the American carriers had found them and this time they were dive bombers not torpedo 'planes.  Also, the Zeros who should have been cruising on high as a defence patrol, were either down at sea level where they had been chasing the torpedo attackers, or they were on deck being re-armed and re-fueled.  Thus, the gallant torpedo 'plane crews, whilst they scored no hits, did actually bring about the circumstances that would allow victory to come.  The American dive bombers had a clear run and the phrase 'shooting fish in a barrel' comes to mind.  Three of the Japanese carriers were hit by bombs, usually no more than two or three but all the fuel and ordnance lying around was enough to set off huge explosions and conflagrations.  The fourth carrier was caught later in the day and it, too, was sunk.   The Japanese did manage to send an attack force to hit the American carriers and the Yorktown was eventually sunk but that was all they had by way of consolation.

To use the current argot, this was a 'tipping point', although neither side really appreciated it at the time.  By sinking four carriers the Americans had ripped the claws out of the Japanese dragon.  Even worse though, was the loss of hundreds of experienced aircrews who the Japanese simply could not be replaced fast enough.  Also, from this point on, both sides realised that the other 'tipping point' was that big battleships with big guns were no longer the Queen on the naval chessboard and from now on the aircraft carrier had taken over.  Adm. Yamamoto, the prime mover behind the Midway attack, was dimly aware of this before the battle but it must have been a bitter truth to learn in such a hard way as he sailed for home in the Yamato, the biggest battleship in the world!

 

In a palace of tits, he is one of the biggest!

I would always hesitate before picking a fight with an ex-SAS man but Andrew Robathan MP is an exception.  This particular tit also happens to be a Tory defence minister and given his military background he should at least have had the wit and intelligence to bow his head in respect to the memory of men who, arguably, fought in one of the most ferocious campaigns of the entire war - the arctic convoys to Russia.

 

But according to the report in The Daily Mail, this Tory tit replied to a question from a fellow Tory asking for urgent action to be taken to mint a medal for the last few survivors of the Arctic Convoy Campaign by insisting this country did not "'throw around' honours like the Libyan tyrant and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein".  Someone should remind this arrogant prick that even the bloody Russians gave our chaps medals for their service, and quite right, too, considering:

More than 3,000 UK sailors, who faced treacherous seas where temperatures plunged as low as -60c, died to keep the Soviet Union supplied and fighting on the Eastern Front.

I believe your survival chance was about a minute if you found yourself in the water, and 85 merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy ships went down during the campaign.  There are only about 200 living veterans left, and this prize tit, no doubt reading a brief provided for him by some ignoramus in the Civil Service with a Third Class degree in Flower Arranging went on to say:

The intention post-war was not to cover everybody in medals. Medals in the UK mean something.  ‘Authoritarian regimes and dictators often throw around a lot of medals.  One can look, for instance, at North Korean generals who are covered in medal ribbon, or Gaddafi, or Saddam Hussein.  We have taken the view in this country, traditionally, that medals will only be awarded for campaigns that show risk and rigour.

"Campaigns that show risk and rigour"!  You unbelievable, pig-ignorant, sanctimonious prat, there was never a campaign in WWII that showed more "risk and rigour" than running convoys into Archangel.  No wonder the Tories are known as the 'Stupid Party'!

 

Courage of a different order

I am grateful to my e-pal, JK, for pointing me to this site which adds to my knowledge of the events leading up to Pearl Harbour and highlights the moral courage of a truly remarkable officer in the USN:

Admiral J. O. Richardson was placed in command of the Pacific fleet in late 1939 on the personal diktat of Roosevelt, himself.  However, Richardson was obviously a man remarkable not only for his shrewd judgment in naval matters but also for his absolute honesty and his sense of duty in reporting his doubts and concerns to the highest in the land.

It is important to understand that prior to 1941 the entire American leadership knew, but refused to face up to the knowledge, that the Philippines were a lost cause.  The Pacific fleet was so run down that it was incapable of mounting any sort of major initiative across to the western Pacific.  And yet, the plan was that when war broke out the fleet would immediately sail west into battle against the Japanese fleet which, it was assumed, would be leading and protecting its invasion forces.  No-one dared "speak truth to power", except Adm. Richardson:

Almost from the start, Richardson clashed with his superiors over their plans for the Pacific Fleet. In January 1940, Admiral Richardson advised the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold Stark, that existing plans for war with Japan were unrealistic [...]

Richardson personally informed the then Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) that, in effect, the entire American strategy was moonshine.  Later, the CNO recalled the conversation:

"Pointing out the lack of advanced bases, the the slow pace of updating the fleet's offensive and defensive characteristics, the fact there were fatal shortages in ammunition replacements and backup stocks of fuel, spare parts and essential supplies and the tenders and logistical ships needed to support an advanced-positioned fleet--he was saying, in plain and understandable language, that the Navy wasn't ready for war. Step by step, he dismantled my confident belief that the U.S. Navy could win a quick decision. Instead, proceeding from our deficiencies, he foresaw the United States hanging on for a couple of years while the country and the service built the strength necessary for an offensive campaign, then a hard fight of a year or two before victory could be won."

 

 Unfortunately for him, and American servicemen, particularly those tasked to defend the indefensible Philippines under the blustering leadership of the appalling Gen. MacArthur, Richardson kept repeating his doubts whilst at the same time:



[M]embers of Roosevelt's inner circle (including Navy Secretary Frank Knox) were asserting that the U.S. fleet could finish off the Japanese in only three months.



Suddenly he was out of favour with the president and his cronies and his tenure as CINCPAC was abruptly ended after little more than a year.  Let these words be a suitable testament to an officer who put duty above career and reputation:





Sadly, only World War II buffs and naval historians are familiar with the courageous stand of J.O. Richardson. At the cost of his own career, Admiral Richardson stood on principle, trying to avert a military disaster that he believed could be averted, by returning the fleet to San Diego and engaging in the preparations needed to ready the Navy for war.

 

Richardson's integrity and candor offer an important lesson for military leaders--or anyone in a position to advise decision-makers. Even in that rarefied air, it is essential to tell "the boss" what they need to hear--not what they want to hear. Admirlal Richardson did just that, realizing his advice might fall on deaf ears and result in his dismissal. It's regrettable that so many of his peers failed to follow his shining example in the days before Pearl Harbor.

 

I'll drink to that!

 

 

"A date which will live in infamy"

At 07.02 this morning (but 70 years ago!) a young American trainee-operator using adapted British radar equipment spotted some unidentified planes approaching from a distance of 137 miles.  In fact he should have switched his machine off at 07.00 hours because there was a considerable infighting between the Signal Corps who were responsible for introducing this new equipment and the Army Air Corps who were to operate it.  It had been agreed that the machine would only be switched on between 04.00 and 07.00.  The young operator immediately telephoned his Duty Officer to report the sighting. Lt. Tyler was alone with only a telephone switchboard operator for company.  He told the radar-man not worry because they were expecting a flight of B-17s due in this morning.  Lt. Tyler was blameless,not least because there were no liaison officers present from the navy, the Marines or the Army Bomber Command.  Lt. Tyler was himself a fighter pilot with absolutely no experience of handling a control room.

It was Sunday on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and despite the fact that the news for the last few months had been concentrated on the mounting tension between Japan and the USA, both the Navy C-in-C and the Army C-in-C on the Island had stood everybody down for the weekend.  No special measures had been taken to defend the fleet or the massed aircaft.

In fact a second alarm had been raised at 06.53 via the navy, but since none of the services spoke to each other, the warning failed to spread.  Navy Lt. Kaminski was the Duty Officer at the Harbour Control Post when he received a report from the destroyer, USS Ward, which had attacked what it thought was an an unknown submarine close by the entrance to Pearl Harbour.  Kaminski, like his Air Corps comrade, Tyler, was alone with just one telephone operator.  However, he had a checklist of over half a dozen senior officers to contact should any alarm be raised.  At 07.00 he began calling.  He reached various senior officers but they all decided to wait until USS Ward reported again and definitely confirmed the details.  Everything then settled back down to just another peaceful Sunday in Hawaii.

At 07.53, Commander Fuchida, the Japanese officer in command of the entire attack force radioed from his aircraft as he approached Oahu the message the Japanese naval command had waited to hear: "Tora! Tora! Tora!"  Arguably the greatest surprise attack in the history of the world had been launched - and caught their enemy completely unawares.  More than that, however, the American forces actually made the job even easier by laying out their ships and aircraft as though for sacrifice.  As Fuchida reported later, "I had seen all German warships assembled in Kiel Harbour, I have also seen the French battleships in Brest.  And finally, I have seen our own warships assembled for review before the Emperor, but I have never seen ships, even in the deepest peace, anchored at a distance less than 500 to a 1,000 yards from each other . . ."  Not only that but no anti-torpedo nets had been deployed round the ships, and the aircraft were lined up in neat rows to make strafing and bombing them all the easier.

Incredibly during the middle of this first wave attack the B-17s made their  scheduled appearance, short of fuel and attacked by the Japanese - and their own nervous AA gunners - nevertheless they made it down safely.  There was a short respite at 08.30 as the first wave departed but at 09.00 the second wave appeared.  This was met with a much more spirited defence as the Americans gathered their wits and fought back with whatever they had - which was not much!  By 10.00 the skies cleared and the stunned Americans were left alone to look at the damage.  Six battleships sunk or sinking; two other battleships, three cruisers and three destroyers damaged.  Almost 3,600 men either killed or wounded.  On the airfields all was death and destruction. One hundred and eighty planes had been destroyed and 128 others damaged.  At the Marine air base and also at the Navy air base there was not a single plane able to fly.

At noon on the following day, President Roosevelt broadcast to his nation, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of Japan".  Within the hour the Congress, with one dissenting vote, approved the declaration of war against Japan.  It is worth remembering the owner of that one dissenting vote because she stands as a practical example, as well as a shining beacon, for the very essence of democracy and liberty.

 

She was Miss Jeannette Pickering Rankin, a Republican but a lifetime pacifist.  Needless to say, her Republican party leaders put her under tremendous pressure to change her vote but she stood her ground.  A foolish woman, obviously, but I raise a glass to her memory!

(My post is based heavily on Ronald H. Spector's book Eagle Against the Sun)

I'm trapped in this horror story!

I have what looks like a cracking good thriller next to my armchair, written by Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian writer but, for a change, this is not one of his police procedurals.  I have just started it and it looks as though it's going to be a corker, and I really do want to finish it, but . . . but . . .

Although it's hard work, although I keep erupting in either fury or anguish, although it's bloody heavy to hold, although it runs to nearly a thousand dense pages, I just cannot tear myself away from Allies of a Kind by Christopher Thorne.  It tells the history of the war with Japan.  I'm only on the first few chapters which describe the run up to war and I don't know whether to burst into tears or hurl the book out of the window!  Here is crass stupidity piled upon blind folly with more than enough to go round all the nations involved and their principal actors.  Roosevelt, and some of the crafty dunderheads around him, come out as small-town politicians, not fit for purpose.  To be fair to the president, he never lost sight of the fact that the American public were acting as one almighty sheet-anchor against anything he might try but his lack of clarity and purpose was almost criminal.  Equally, Churchill comes out of it as an antidiluvian, romantic imperialist stuck somewhere in the early Kiplingesque era of the 19th century.  Most of those who surrounded him, at home, or even worse, out in Singapore, were brain-dead from the arse both ways!

And so, slowly but inexorably the great wheel turns, the ratchets meet the cogs, and war looms and no-one is prepared, no one has a plan, all is left to chance.  "Oh the horror, the horror!"

 

Oh God, I wish I'd never begun . . .

I'm really depressed and it's all my own fault!  I have decided to design another of my military history PowerPoint talks.  It is some time since I created the last one and I have forgotten most of the ins and outs of PowerPoint - but that's not the reason for my depression.  Before I can begin to lay down the outlines of the talk I have to re-read the history, and when I tell you that the title is How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months some of you will guess from whence my misery springs.

My first source is Ronald H. Spector's book Eagle Against the Sun.  For those Brits, and there are many of them, already wired for maximum, lip-curling disdain for American stupidity, Spector provides plenty of it.  Indeed, it is precisely his ice-cold gaze at the follies of his own country's military and political leadership prior to Pearl Harbour which makes me trust him as a historian.  However, no sooner has he finished with the self-flagellation than he turns his whips onto the Japanese leadership and its very own, not very inscrutable, blind ambition, arrogance and stupidity worthy of comparison to pre-1914 Prussia-Germany.

Happily, in the early chapters at least, we Brits, not being the main subject of the book, are allowed to escape.  But then I had to turn to Christopher Thorne's  book Allies of a Kind which takes a much wider but also deeper look at the whole period leading up to the war with Japan, at which point, British idiocy of the very worst kind is all too toe-curlingly apparent.  Perhaps summed up by Churchill's romantic but delusional decision to send HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse out to Singapore to stem the probable Japanese attack.  Suffice to say, that on one grim day whilst serving myself in Singapore, I flew over the hulks lying on the sea-bed but plainly visible from the air.  I think they come under the heading of a 'gallant but futile gesture', the sort of thing we Brits do so awfully well!

I will almost certainly return to this subject because apart from its inherent historical interest, it also produces contemporary vibrations in a world with an apparently weakened America and a rising power in the east - this time China.  Here are three quotations chosen by Thorne to open his book:

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT:  I do not want to be unkind or rude to the British, but in 1841, when you aquired Hong Kong, you did not aquire it by purchase.

OLIVER STANLEY (Colonial Sec.):  Let me see, Mr. President, that was about the time of the Mexican War, wasn't it?

...........................................................................................................................

WINSTON CHURCHILL:  Why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority [to other races].   We are superior.

............................................................................................................................

Each of our friends has his defects so markedly that to continue to love him we are obliged to seek consolation for those defects - in the thought of his talent, his goodness, his affection for ourself - or rather to leave them out of account, and for that we need to display all out goodwill.  Unfortunately our obliging honesty in refusing to see the defect in our friend is surpassed by the obstinacy with which he persists in that defect ...

Marcel Proust: A la recherche du Temps Perdu

.............................................................................................................................

I had no idea that Proust was such a witty fellow, he almost cheered me up!

 

The 'Hoover Dam' gives way!

Honestly my headline 'jokes' are getting worse!  I had better explain this one away before my American readers take to their rafts.  Tom Bethell in The American Spectator has brought to our attention a book that has quite literally been hidden from sight for 50-odd years written by a man who himself is what we might call today 'a blast from the past' - Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the USA from 1929 to 1933.  The fact that he was a one-term president is a confirmation, of sorts, of the generally held opinion that his was a failed presidency.  Personally, I know very little of the man, not least because he was over-shadowed by the 'giant' who replaced him, Franklin Roosevelt.

Be that as it may, I had no idea that he went on to live into his 90s and died as late as 1964.  Also, I had no idea that later in life he had written a book, which he constantly revised, on what he considered to be the colossal strategic errors of both Roosevelt and Chamberlain, amongst others, in the lead up to, and the waging of, WWII.  For reasons not explained, his heirs did not publish the book until now*.

Perhaps his most intriguing charge is against the Anglo/French decision to issue a guarantee to Poland, thus making WWII inevitable.  This is a tricky one and I would need to read his arguments carefully, not least, to ensure that he was not writing with the benefit of hindsight not given to the actors at the time.  He also attacks Roosevelt for offering, in 1933, diplomatic recognition to the communist government in the USSR.  In Hoover's view, apparently, both America and Britain should have stayed well clear and allowed the two monstrous regimes of Germany and Russia to destroy each other as they were bound to do.  Similarly, he is highly critical of Roosevelt's handling of the Japanese problem and his "contemptuous refusal" to consider the peace proposals of the Japanese prime minister which made war inevitable.

Tom Bethel's review is well worth reading and I think perhaps I must drop a few hints concerning the book as Xmas approaches!

* Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath
Edited by George H. Nash
(Hoover Institution Press, 920 pages, $49.95)

'We are the very models of modern Major-Generals' - all 48 of us!

As I have paraphrased W. S. Gilbert's famous song quite disgracefully here is his first verse in full - altogether now:

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news---
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

However, returning to my title, I am grateful to John Redwood and his diary for unearthing a few facts on the major-generals and their ilk.  In this era of so-called cuts he was curious to know how the armed services were coping as the Treasury sword carved its way through their massed ranks.  Well, if you are actually 'in the ranks' it's pretty uncomfortable with thousands of redundancies and the army now reduced to under 100,000.  But what about the officers' mess, he wondered, with my added emphasis throughout:

I asked how many Majors were needed to command the units of such an army, expecting to hear it was around 800, with each Major commanding about 120 people. I was told the army currently has  4700 Majors, or  six times what you might expect.

A Lieutenant Colonel typically commands a battalion of 650 people.  You would expect 150 of them in our slimmed down forces. Instead I was told we currently employ  1780, or 12 times the number you might expect. Indeed, you could form three battalions just of Lieutenant Colonels.

An army does need some senior staff officers. You might have thought we needed around 15, given the number of brigades. Instead, I discover we employ 580 Colonels, or 38  times what one might expect.

Still, I expect at the higher level there has been some really hard pruning - wrong!

We are a bit shorter of Generals. There are 6 full General officers, 9 Lieutenant Generals , 43 Major Generals and 170 Brigadiers. If a brigade is around 200o people, you might expect 50 Brigadiers. There is one senior officer for each battle tank, and around 8  Lieutenant Colonels for each tank.

I don't object to the Help for Heroes campaign but keeping superannuated Top Brass in the style to which they have grown accustomed is not something I wish to support.  And anyway, in recent years it's not as though they have proved themselves to be particularly good at what they are supposed to do.

This is written through gritted teeth!

I am quick enough to quote Kevin Myers when, in his usual attack-dog style, he writes something which comfirms my prejudices so, although I had to sleep on it before I decided, I am duty-bound to reprint this from his column in the Irish Indpendent despite my loyalty:

FIRST things first: 40 years ago, the Parachute Regiment had become state-authorised killers in Northern Ireland. According to David McKittrick’s indispensable volume ‘Lost Lives’, the Paras killed 39 people between 1971 and 1976. Only seven of these were paramilitaries: but one of those, Joe McCann, the Official IRA leader, was gunned down, unarmed, on a May Saturday afternoon.

The death toll of 33 unarmed victims killed by the three battalions of the Parachute Regiment is more than that for hundreds of battalions of the rest of the British army and Royal Marines combined.

That’s the bloodied tip of the iceberg; what these figures don’t show were the Paras’ regimes of terror and brutality within the areas they governed.

Young men were routinely beaten by Para patrols. Hundreds of working-class houses were wrecked in random retaliatory raids.

They were a disgrace to the British army and a joy and a delight to the Provisional IRA, for which they were a major recruiting sergeant.

I didn't serve in Northern Ireland (thank God!) and I simply do not have the facts to dispute Myers's (and McKittrick's) assertions and before doing so I would need to read all the details of each and every event.  However, from my general knowledge, and it galls me to write this, I would not be surprised if much of what he says is true.  I remember trying to explain to my son at the time of the notorious 'Bloody Sunday' incident that the Paras should never have been deployed in that situation.  Urban peace-keeping is simply not something that is suited to their ethos and their training.  They should have been deployed out in the countryside in what would have been more of a soldiering activity rather than acting as 'peace-keepers'.  Indeed, the very use of a such a word applied to them is an oxymoron!  It is at places like Goose Green that you need their particular 'qualities', not in the centre of a highly sensitive civilian/military hot-spot requiring tact and discretion.  Neither of those words figure highly amongst Paras, certainly not amongst the 'Toms' and not even amongst the officers who are, if anything, more gung-ho than anyone.

However, whilst there is undoubtedly some truth in what Myers writes you will find a visit to this particular site will set the balance more evenly, particularly the very first entry describing the selfless bravery of Sgt. Michael Willets, 3 Para, who was awarded a posthumous George Cross for saving civilians from death and injury:

 http://www.palacebarracksmemorialgarden.org/Northern%20Ireland.htm

 ADDITIONAL:  Don't miss Lawrence's 'swing the lamp' tale in the comments below!

 

Tommy Atkins R.I.P.

As regular readers know, I am not above a bit of larceny from OPBs (Other People's Blogs) when they write something witty or intelligent or moving, although I do try always to acknowledge the source.  However, on this, the most solemn of days, I will forego my petty thievery and instead urge you all to pay a quick visit, it should take no longer than two minutes which is entirely appropriate on this day, to Anna Raccoon's site and read her musings on The Unknown Warrior.  It is superb.

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/requiem-for-tommy/

Bugger the Balkans!

To be fair (well, sometimes I try), I know very little of Sir Douglas Hurd but I do remember that he came in for a considerable amount of criticism for his real-politik approach to the recent Balkan imbroglio during which he stoutly refused to allow Britain to become implicated.  He took the view, apparently, that all Balkan problems are intractable and that outsiders should remain exactly that - outside!  I can remember sympathising with that view at the time even though it was causing problems with Bill Clinton who, between blow jobs, was all gung-ho for bombing the Serbs.  Anyway, there is a depressing but, I suspect, accurate report in The American Spectator by Doug Bandow confirming, in effect, the wisdom of Bismarck's famous saying that 'the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier':

Yet a dozen years ago Washington bombed Serbia, which had neither attacked nor threatened any NATO member. Western nations which over many centuries fought bitter conflicts against the hint of secession went to war to support independence for the territory of Kosovo. 

The status of Kosovo, historically Serbian but with a majority ethnic-Albanian population, remains unsettled. Belgrade refuses to accept the amputation of 15 percent of its territory, Russia has blocked Kosovo's entry into the United Nations, and a majority of countries, including five of the European Union's 27 members, refuses to recognize Kosovo. Violence recently erupted in Kosovo's north, where the ethnic Serb majority remains loyal to Belgrade.

The ethnic Serbs 'trapped in northern Kosovo are defying their 'Albanian' government and demanding the right to be re-united with Serbia:

Although a U.S. diplomat called the Kosovo Liberation Army -- since charged with selling the organs of Serb prisoners -- "terrorists," the allies suppressed any squeamishness and lent the rebels their air force, bombing for 78 days and killing hundreds or thousands Serb civilians, possibly as many as the number of Kosovars who died in two years of guerrilla war before NATO's intervention. The Albanian majority then mirrored earlier Serb brutality by kicking out around a quarter of a million ethic Serbs, Roma, and non-Albanian Muslims. Earlier this year the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe admitted that the allied intervention had "led to numerous human rights violations and [had] not produced lasting solutions for the underlying problems." (My emphasis)

In other words, one bunch of unshaven, moustachioed rascals are as bad as another and anyone who interferes in their internecine - and interminable - disputes is simply wasting blood and treasure.  Mr. Bandow's excellent report leaves you shaking your head with wonderment at the folly and puffed-up pride of so-called statesmen both 'over here' and 'over there'.  Still, at least Lord Hurd comes out of it fairly well.

 

Hmmn - tricky one, this!

I give you:  Admiral of the Fleet. Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS; or, Lord Louis to his friends; or, sir, to the likes of you and me!

His remarkable life was somewhat overshadowed by his hideous death in which he, and his 14-year old grandson, along with another young lad plus an octagenarian old lady, were all blown to bits by that fine body of mouth-droolers, the IRA, in 1979.  His daughter, son-in-law and other grandson survived but were badly injured.  I bring all this to your attention because my favourite Irish commentator, Kevin Myers, set off a fairly hefty bomb of his own under the admittedly ambiguous reputation of Mountbatten in a recent article.  The headline gives a clue:

Mountbatten -- a vile psycho killed by thugs

Blimey!  I claim absolutely no expertise in the life and character of Lord Mountbatten, however, my general reading of WWII history leaves me with the impression that whilst he cut a handsome and dashing figure on the wartime stage, he was not perhaps the brightest of the bright.  For example, you would have to travel the length and breadth of Canada and then you would almost certainly fail to find a single Canuck who has a good word to say for Mountbatten following the debacle at Dieppe in which thousands of Canadians died more or less uselessly.

However, Myers has obviously dug wider and deeper and his summary of Mounbatten is viciously destructive:

Firstly, the IRA gave Mountbatten the almost perfect death -- instant and without any pain, doing what he loved most of all; messing around in boats. What this vile man really deserved was to die in his own filth, which fate, of course, the IRA spared him. And secondly, his death ensured that he would remain an icon of imperturbable British heroism, instead of finally getting the reputation that he deserved; of being a vain, egotistical, inept, brutal and deceitful psychopath.

But Myers is not the only one.  In his Wiki entry, Mountbatten's biographer, Philip Ziegler, wrote this:

His vanity, though child-like, was monstrous, his ambition unbridled. The truth, in his hands, was swiftly converted from what it was, to what it should have been. He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements.

I really must try and read some more on this monster, if that he be.

 

 

Iranian irregularities

It's always an amusing spectacle when thieves fall out which is, apparently, happening right now in Iran.  According to Farnaz Fassihi in The WSJ, the Economy Minister is being accused by his political opponents of being involved in a $2.6 billion bank swindle.  The president, that little unshaven goat, Ahmadinejad, has leapt to his defence in parliament.  As always in matters Iranian, everyone looks for guidance orders from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (so why have a president, I wonder?)  He appears to be dithering by allowing the motion of censure to go before parliament but bringing pressure to bear to ensure that it does not pass.  The word is that Ahmadinejad is no longer in favour with the Ayatollah but so far the Supreme Leader has not turned his thumb completely downwards!

He should hurry to make his mind up because according several reports he might not have too much time left.  Apparently Washington really does have its knickers in a twist over the imminent liklehood that Israel will launch a unilateral attack on the Iranian nuclear sites.  The decision is likely to be taken after the publication of an expected report from the UN nuclear watchdogs warning that Iranian nuclear advances are even further ahead than previously thought.  Of course, 'Obama the Wise One' made a point of snubbing and insulting the Israeli prime minister and so the old, friendly relationship between the two countries is in the deep-freeze and liaison is at a minimum.  With one hand the US is now desperately looking to increase its military establishment in the area, whilst with the other it has virtually withdrawn all its forces from Iraq!  Golly-gosh, we're lucky to have such an intellectual in the White House, it really makes me sleep better at night.

 

Genius or madman?

The other night I gave my talk on How Germany Lost WWI in the First Six Weeks to a Round Table group.  They came out of it looking shell-shocked!  Well, think about it, you only have to read me as and when you feel masochistic and you can always quickly flick over to something more interesting.  These poor chaps had to sit and take it, nearly an hour of heavy, non-stop, incoming yadda-yadda.  Anyway, they were a stout-hearted lot and they took it well.

However, once again it brought back to my mind the truly incredible plan dreamed up by the equally extraordinary chief of the German General Staff at the beginning of the 2oth century, Alfred Graf von Schlieffen.

Just imagine, if you will, the problem he faced in 1906.  Germany squatted like a giant cuckoo in the European nest.  To the West it had an implacable enemy in France which was thirsting for revenge of the 1870/1 debacle and the return of the 'stolen' provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.  To the east was mighty Russia, increasingly at odds with both Germany and its principle ally Austro-Hungary.  Schlieffen had 71 divisions in his army and the question was where to deploy them?  There were three options open to him:

1:    Keep them in Germany and by using the highly efficient railway system, shift formations from east to west or back again, in order to fight a defensive war.  Alas, a defensive campaign went against the deepest ethos of the Prussian way of war which had evolved from bitter experience over the millennia.  As Scharnhorst had put it at the beginning of the 19th c.:

“Prussia should never conduct a defensive war, her geographical position and her lack of natural and artificial means of defence do not allow that option”

2:    Mass most of the army in the east and attack Russia.  Well, a hundred years earlier one of the greatest Captains of History had tried that and it had virtually finished him.  Not a good omen!

3:    Mass in the west and attack France before the traditionally slow-moving Russians reached the eastern borders.

That, of course, was the option he chose, but consider the manner of it.  As I wrote above, he had an army of 71 divisions.  With incredible, almost unbelievable daring, Schlieffen committed 61 of them to the west and only 10 to the east.  Just 10 divisions to face the oncoming millions of Russians!

In the west, 61 divisions were deployed ready to attack the French but here again Schlieffen, with nerves of (Krupp?) steel placed only 8 of them at the common border between Germany and France to face what he knew would be the mass of the French army poised to smash into Alsace Lorraine.  But in the north, against the neutral borders of Belgium and Holland he placed 53 divisions, ready to deliver a great swinging right hook which would sweep past Paris and come up behind the French army before they had time to recover at which point it would be annihilated.

What a plan!  What a man!  What a soldier!  How in hell did he sleep at night?  But was he mad, or was he a genius?

 

1939: War is declared - British style

The Atlantic site has gathered together a terrific collection of photos from WWII and arranged them year by year.  I urge you to take a look and bookmark the site.  I shall dive in from time to time and provide you with just some of the pictures.

Here we have:

Acting Town Crier and Saltbearer of the City of London, W.T. Boston, reads the war proclamation from the steps of the Royal Exchange, in London, on September 4, 1939. (AP Photo/Putnam)

 

Only in England, well, the England of 70-odd years ago.  Not quite up to Sky News standards for keeping the public informed!

Then there is the Polish cavalry, "mad, bad and dangerous to know" but hopeless and helpless against tanks and machine guns.  According to the blurb under the photo, the Polish cavalry were sometimes successful against infantry units - but not too often I suspect!

 

 

Meanwhile 'the crafty politicians' do their dirty work:

'Good ol' Uncle Joe' stands next to the ex-champagne salesman, Ribbentrop, whilst Molotov signs the non-aggression pact without a hint of an ironic smile!

There is more, much more, on this superb site.  However, I will bring you some 1940 photos next time.

 

"Just crack on", Says Lt. Gen. Crackpot!

"Truth will out" said the clown, Launcelot Gobbo, in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, a role I once played to universal acclaim, well, the 'Memsahib' said I wasn't too bad, really, and 'SoD' shrugged and said I was alright - well, he was a teenager and lacked vocabulary!  Anyway, the truth of Shakespeare's warning is becoming apparent as the war in Afghanistan winds down to a bloody end, or at least, an end as far as the British army is concerned.  Over the last couple of years more and more reports are being published whose constant theme is the almost total uselessness of the army's high command.  Perhaps the most lethal is that of Frank Ledwidge, a barrister by profession but also a reservist with a very distinguished history of attachments to various forces in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.  As a reservist, of course, he is somewhat detached from the 'clubbable' atmosphere of the army command structure.

He has a book(1) coming out and in last Saturday's Daily Mail he has written a devastating condemnation of British operational procedures in Afghanistan.  I should add, hurriedly, that he has nothing but admiration for the Toms', their NCOs and the junior officers involved 'up the sharp end'.  It is at the High Command level and the Ministry of Defence that most of his missiles are aimed.  He is not the first.  Back in 2009, Stephen Grey wrote a corruscating piece in Prospect entitled Cracking on in Afghanistan.  A week later it was followed by a similar piece in Prospect written by Anthony King entitled Why we're getting it wrong in Afghanistan with an understrap saying The British army's determination to "crack on" in Helmand may be brave, but foolish.

The injunction "Crack on!" appears to have reached the level of Holy writ within army circles.  It is used by junior commanders in the field to maintain the sort of positive and aggressive attitude any army requires at the front line.  However, it seems to have been absorbed by senior commanders on their way up the promotional ladder who have failed to appreciate that high command requires a totally different level of sophistication than just "Crack on!"

It seems to me that from the very beginning the top brass of the army, imbued with this "Crack on!" spirit learned at regimental level and seemingly never knocked out of them at Staff College level, always lacked the guts to tell the politicians to get stuffed!  In other words, to have the courage, of the sort demonstrated daily by their 'Toms', to face up to Blair and then Brown and tell them that if operational needs were not satisfied then the operations would not take place - and if that costs me my place in the Lords, so be it!  Thus it was, in the beginning, that a mere 3,000-odd men were sent to control a province, Helmand, the size of Wales.  Later, the politicians now seeing the disasters building and feeling the heat from the voters, they relented and men and machines, of a sort, were deployed, but it is at that point that the Brass cannot shuck off their responsibilities on to the politicians.  As Ledwidge points out in The Mail:

In Basra, at least 14 Brigadier and 14 Major-Generals served in command roles, again weakening the focus of responsibility.

Many more worked as staff officers. The same is true of Helmand, which has involved ten Brigadiers and at the very least four Major-Generals. What was particularly striking for me was how, in both theatres, a vast bureaucracy accompanied each British force, making a mockery of all the complaints about resources.

At Basra, the headquarters near the airport was a massive air-conditioned complex, full of offices, computers, administrators, managers, liaison personnel, communications staff, cookhouses, media operations, planners, and even a logistical office which effectively amounted to a travel agency.

The support operation was so big that the front-line was almost an irrelevance. Astonishingly, out of almost 8,000 troops, only 200 would be available for patrol on any given day. (My emphasis)

In the same article Ledwidge is vitriolic on the subject of the senior command structure:

Today, there are more generals in the Army than helicopters or operational tanks, while the Royal Navy has more admirals than ships and the RAF has three times as many senior officers as there are flying squadrons.

There are three times more senior officers than Apache attack helicopters which have played a vital role in Afghanistan. In the Army, we have only 10 deployable brigades, yet there are at least 170 brigadiers, 20 more than in 1997.

Similarly, we have just two armoured fighting divisions that could be put into the field (albeit with a great deal of notice,) yet the Army feels it necessary to employ no fewer than 37 major-generals. We have just a single army corps, yet enough lieutenant-generals to command 17 of them.

The absurdity of structure is made even more clear when it is compared to other armed forces. In America, for instance, the mighty U.S. Army has 302 generals compared to the British Army’s 255.

Furthermore the 210,000-strong U.S. Marine Corps, larger than all our three services combined, has just 84 general officers, eight times less than the number of generals in Britain.

As for the MoD, it appears to me that the best action we could take today is to 'nuke' it!  Although the generals heaped the blame on Brown for lack of resources it was their own greed and stupidity in running the procurement programmes that had much to do with the lack of proper kit.  Ledwidge again:

Moreover, though Dannatt and his colleagues are fond of blaming ministers, those really responsible for procurement in the Ministry of Defence are senior officers themselves, who are supposed to have a unique insight into the needs of the military.

Yet procurement in their hands has been an absolute scandal, with tens of billions wasted on flawed projects. Eager to boost its own sense of self-importance, the top brass prefer big, high-tech, advanced new pieces of equipment rather than just the basics.

The price of five Eurofighter Typhoons, retailing at about £120m each (we have 56 with another 160 on order,) dedicated to the care of veterans would ensure that no wounded soldier would have to fight for proper life-long care again.

This cocktail of egotism and misuse of resources can be found on an even bigger scale in the bloated, top-heavy structure of our three armed services. The scale of senior hierarchy graphically exposes the fallacy, so sedulously cultivated by the generals themselves, that our military is underfunded. The statistics of this bureaucracy are truly astounding.

Given the current headlines concerning our so-called Minister of Defence, Liam Fox, it appears that he has barely a thimble-full of judgment and I suspect the generals and their civil servants in the MoD, let alone the smoothies from the defence industries, will run rings around him - and he was supposed to be on the ball because he had spent years as the shadow Defence minister.  Well, now the hard, brutal, financial fact is that we can no longer afford these absurd Generals, Air Marshalls and Admirals and it is time to rid the country of them, along with the pipe dreams of our equally deluded politicians.

(1) Losing Small Wars: British Military Failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, by Frank Ledwidge, published by Yale University Press.  Tel orders @ £17, p&p free, on 0843 382 0000

So, just how good are the Israelis?

I am of an older generation that saw and admired the operational efficiency of the Israeli army and airforce when it went through sundry Arab countries like a hot knife through butter.  But, as always and with its usual inexorability, "That old, common arbitrater, Time" keeps movin' on, and along with time, of course, comes its Siamese twin, entropy.  So I wonder if the Israeli forces have kept their operational doctrines right up to date, ready to deal with new situations not faced by their predecessors?  We may find out sooner than we think as Israel finds itself outflanked to the south, by Egypt whose citizens have taken advantage of their new-found liberty to ransack the Israeli embassy; and to the north by Turkey, under a new prime minister determined, it appears to break with the past and assert his nation's power into the middle-east.  It is, perhaps, too trite to suggest that part of the Turkish imperative  to involve itself in Arab affairs springs from the continued resistance of the EU to accepting Turkey as a full member.  Whatever, 'the times they are a changin'' and I can only hope that the Israeli military establishment is up to the job despite certain indications in recent years that they, and their mainly civilian army, have become a tad easy going.  My query is, I suspect, likely to be answered rather sooner than later!

 

9/11: A Disasterous Failure

He's dead now, praise be to Allah and the SEALs, but was there ever a more disasterously incompetent and useless 'general' than Osama bin Laden?  Exactly like the Japanese before him he didn't so much poke the snoozing giant in the eye with a sharp stick as ram it in!  With the sort of inevitability which a child of three might have foreseen, the giant duly arose and gave him and his ragbag organisation a right good smack!  Forced to flee from Afghanistan they then realised, to their mounting consternation and fear, that Pakistan was no refuge.  One by one their leadership has been tracked in the mountains and destroyed by pinpoint missiles which arrive without warning.  I gather that the last 2nd in command of AQ lasted precisely 12 weeks!  Now they are forced to scavange around in places like Somalia and the Yemen to find some sort of base.  Already the American carriers are moving appropriately.

Perhaps, for his own sake, it is just as well that bin Laden is dead because he is not around to see one of the unexpected results of his stupidity - the so-called 'Arab Spring'.  Wiser and more knowledgeable observers than me will point out that in the end the likely outcome of this 'democratic' uprising will be yet more of the 'same old same old'.  They are probably correct because the Islamists are usually more focused and organised than the somewhat inchoate yearnings of those young Arabs who seek some sort of democracy.  But even so, those feelings exist and will not easily be banished.  Any new dictators will have wary eyes on the fate of their predecessors, gangsters like Mubarrak in Egypt.  It took us centuries to establish a parliamentary democracy but these things move so much faster these days aided as they are by modern interpersonal communications.

Perhaps, just perhaps, bin Laden actually, and by accident, did his people a favour by provoking the urge for change.  If he did, so be it, but if his aim was to wound the American Republic he failed miserably, they are doing that quite well, without him, by wounding themselves!  Still, with a bit of luck they will seize the chance next year to put a stop to all that and return to a strong, individualistic Republic.

 

14 months of increasing danger for 'plucky little Israel'!

The British MSM are, yet again, getting their knickers in a twist over 'The Great Shlock-Horror Murdoch Saga', a matter of such infantile peurility whose only merit is that it offers a reason why fewer and fewer people bother to buy newspapers.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, I would suggest, hesitantly, that Israel is rapidly approaching a point of maximum danger.  A few years back I suggested that in the dying days of the Bush administration the Israeli government might well launch an attack against Iran's nuclear centres whilst a studiously uninvolved United States stared fixedly in the opposite direction.  I was wrong and eventually the history books will tell us why, which is just as well because the MSM cannot and/or will not. 

Today that situation is reversed.  According to Rick Moran of The American Thinker, a senior general in the Israeli Defence Force IDF) has warned that the likelihood of an all-out war between Israel and its neighbours is now higher than it has been for some time:

"Iran has not abandoned its nuclear program. The opposite it true; it continues full steam ahead," [the General] said. "In Egypt, the army is collapsing under the burden of regular security operations, and this is reflected in the loss of control in the Sinai and the turning of the border with Israel into a terror border, with the possibility that Sinai will fall under the control of an Islamic entity."

On top of that there is the deteriorating situation in Syria in which no-one has a clear idea who will take over if and when Assad departs.  Apparently it is widely known that Syria is sitting on a stockpile of exceedingly nasty chemical weapons which might now find their way into malicious hands.  To add to Israeli woes and worries, the Turkish PM has upset years of a pragamatic relationship with the Israelis by downgrading diplomatic ties, severing all defence trade and warning that he intends to place Turkish warships in the eastern Med.

One last thought occurs.  The Iranians are, so to speak, in a similar but opposite situation from the Israelis of four years ago as Bush approached his end of term.  Today the Iranians know that they have around 14 months to go with a president who, in the event that they launch a war against Israel, would indulge in some ponderous, turgid and utterly feeble speeches delivered monotonously and mechanically to his two faithful followers, his left and right teleprompter devices!  After November next year a very much meaner 'S0B' (or even a 'DoB'!) is likely to be receiving the late night emergency 'phone call in the White House and his (or her) re-action is likely to be a great deal fiercer.

So, as I write, some intense debates are likely to be taking place in Tehran - and some sleepless nights in Jerusalem!

 

'This was their tightest hour'!

There is a play coming out in the next few days called Three Days in May by a new playwright to me called Ben Brown.  I hope and pray that it will do justice to its subject which is concerned with perhaps the most momentous decision ever taken inside No. 10 Downing Street.  On May 7th 1940, the House of Commons began a 2-day debate on a vote of censure tabled by the opposition Labour party against the government led by Neville Chamberlain.  He was already 'walking wounded' because of the self-inflicted damage caused by what his critics saw as his years of feeble appeasement in the face of Hitler's aggression.  Interestingly, given the leech-like characteristics of today's politicians who cling to office on the slenderest of majorities, Chamberlain won with a majority of 81 votes, although a united Tory party would have given him 213 vote majority.  Churchill, despite his pre-war years of lonely and vociferously critical opposition to Chamberlain, had been invited into the new war cabinet as First Lord and he now found himself in the exceedingly delicate position of defending a prime minister whom he had attacked non-stop in the last few years.  He did so with enormous vigor and whilst his detractors might point to what they see as his slippery past behavior - which Churchill, himself, described as 'ratting not once but twice' when alluding to his two previous changes of political party allegiance - they cannot fault him on this occasion when his loyalty to Chamberlain was punctilious.  However, the damage was done and Chamberlain, despite the majority, knew he had to go and on May 9th he invited Churchill and Lord Halifax to Downing Street and the stage was set for what I believe was the most critically important decision ever taken inside that historic building since it was first used as the prime minister's residence and place of business.

The situation was perilous with British troops engaged in a futile operation in Norway and ominous indications that Germany was poised to deliver the long awaited blow in the west against France and Britain.  Churchill, whose prognostications over previous years had been proven all too accurate, was an obvious successor, but there was another man with a well-founded claim to the leadership of Britain at this dangerous moment - Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary.  It is all too easy to paint him as yet another appeaser, and indeed, he was at first very supportive of Chamberlain's efforts to placate Hitler.  But, after he succeeded Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary, when Eden resigned in disgust at Chamberlain's policies, Halifax soon toughened his stance.  He it was who offered Poland a guarantee which, in the circumstances, was tantamount to a declaration of war with Germany.  Even so, his perceived links with the shameful Munich agreement - of which at the time most of the British people approved! - plus the lack of support for him in large parts of the Tory party made the possibility of his premiership very difficult.

During the meeting between Chamberlain, Churchill and Halifax, the prime minister admitted that he no longer enjoyed sufficient support to lead the country.  He then asked the other two, in general terms, "whom he should advise the King to send for after his own resignation had been accepted?"  At that point an extraordinary occurrence took place - Churchill, perhaps the most loquacious and certainly the most eloquent man in British politics, stood silent and uttered not a single word.  The silence lengthened and lengthened until the tension must have been unbearable.  Finally, it was Halifax who spoke and admitted that his position as a member of the House of Lords would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to lead the country at this moment of great peril.  And so Churchill it was!

However, the appeasement streak in Halifax remained and resurfaced later in the month when the disaster in France was becoming all too apparent.  He suggested, and was supported by Chamberlain, that an approach should be made to Hitler via Mussolini to explore ways and means of reaching a peace agreement.  And it is at that precise point that one of the very greatest 'what ifs' of history arises.  Regular readers of this blog will know of my adherence to a strict policy of real-politik.  In May 1940, the reality for Britain was the imminence of an unmitigated military defeat.  France was visibly crumbling and our own army was racing to the beaches in hope of rescue.  Italy was poised to join in on the Axis side in order, hyena-like, to pick up the scraps and their entry to the war would make our position in the Mediterranean, the fast route to the east, extremely difficult.  Meanwhile Japan remained inscrutable but ominous!  By any measure of real-politik, Halifax was surely correct in his analysis.  Cut a deal with Hitler and hope that his obvious antipathy to the communist Soviets would lead him into eastern adventures - as indeed it did - whilst we continued with our re-armament as fast as possible.  I am ashamed to say that had I been somewhat older than my one year at the time, I suspect I might have been very sympathetic to the Halifax policy.  But, as we now know, at the time we were led by one of the greatest romantics of our history.  Winston Churchill forever allowed his heart to rule his head, or to be more exact, he followed his well-tuned instincts and relied on his deep knowledge of history to guide our affairs.  Above all, he had an extraordinary belief in us, the British people.  We didn't deserve it!  Our support for appeasement before the war and our extreme reluctance to re-arm in face of an obvious threat was simply an early example of the sort of pusillanimity which has now become commonplace in our feeble national character.

The bitter truth is, we did not deserve Winston Churchill!