Churchill...

I just finished reading a book on Winston Churchill. What a man! Why he didn't get man of the century I will never know. He reminds me of Ben Franklin with his expertise in prose and wisdom. The world's fate was thrown on that man's shoulders. It owes him a debt of gratitude. Churchill kept the alliance between the Brits and the US from going sour. With two strong nations like that, especially one having to come and fight in the other’s back yard, keeping the peace was paramount and perhaps in that sense there was never a better diplomat than Churchill.

I know you Brits are famous for “keeping a stiff upper lip”, but why his knees didn’t buckle and him cave in when France fell, especially how easily they fell even with British help, is simply remarkable. With the vital shipping being torpedoed out the ying-yang and the fact that Britain had to leave its weapons including small arms on the Continent during the BEF evacuation, one would have expected that Britain would have hit a knee and try to negotiate with Hitler.

I know Roosevelt in his admiration and friendship with Churchill helped significantly even though the US stayed “neutral”, and since a US president can’t declare war, Roosevelt had to help “under the table”. But, still, the audacity that Churchill and the Brits had to flip Hitler “the bird” knowing that they had to go it alone. Churchill's "We will fight them on the beaches" speech will be a classic throughout time. Britain had a really big set of balls. If Hitler had had a lick of sense, he would have had Sir Winston taken out. I don't think Halifax could have done the job near as well.

Monty and Eisenhower were always trying to keep Churchill from being present in the middle of big battles, like the invasion. I remember reading the incident where Churchill demanded he be present at the crossing of the Rhine much to Monty’s chagrin. During this attack to breach the Rhine, he compromised and agreed to stand off on a hill back behind the front where he could see the battle from a safe distance. When the bombers came over to start the operation, Churchill became overwhelmed with excitement and he ran down the hill yelling “here they come, here they come” with German artillery being fired in the vicinity on the British side of the Rhine. The British soldiers went bonkers when they saw him. Imagine the charge you, as a doughboy, would get out of seeing the PM come running down like an excited kid, into a battle, just to encourage you. God, how we need men like that today.

[Kiwiwriter]

Jim, welcome to the boards, thank you for your warm words about Winsston Churchill -- a truly great man -- and do tell us about yourself!

Thanks Kiwiwriter.

I am an engineer and live in Tennessee in the states. I am not exactly an expert on WWII, but enjoy the subject very much.

[spidge]

Welcome Jim from the Aussie camp.

Hope you enjoy it here.

Thanks. I’ve been reading about the Aussie contributions in WWII. One thing that is really moving is how they declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. I know other countries did too, but they were right in the meat grinder of the Japanese empire. I think most countries in that position would have kept a much lower profile at least until the situation was a bit more under control. They paid dearly for doing that drawing the wrath of Japan.

Another thing I found interesting is that the Aussies discovered the processes for large-scale production of penicillin and therefore were able to supply not only themselves but also the US and other Grand Alliance nations. Why this is so remarkable is that I read in a book on the eastern front by a German soldier, how so many German soldiers either died or had to amputate limbs from even simple infections so common in battles. The soldier was lamenting that they didn't have access to penicillin so even minor infections could be and often were, life-threatening and a major infection was usually a death sentence. Wonder how many lives were saved by that?

[spidge]

Originally posted by jimbotosome@Aug 27 2005, 08:18 PM
Thanks. I’ve been reading about the Aussie contributions in WWII. One thing that is really moving is how they declared war on Japan the day after Pearl Harbor. I know other countries did too, but they were right in the meat grinder of the Japanese empire. I think most countries in that position would have kept a much lower profile at least until the situation was a bit more under control. They paid dearly for doing that drawing the wrath of Japan.

Another thing I found interesting is that the Aussies discovered the processes for large-scale production of penicillin and therefore were able to supply not only themselves but also the US and other Grand Alliance nations. Why this is so remarkable is that I read in a book on the eastern front by a German soldier, how so many German soldiers either died or had to amputate limbs from even simple infections so common in battles. The soldier was lamenting that they didn't have access to penicillin so even minor infections could be and often were, life-threatening and a major infection was usually a death sentence. Wonder how many lives were saved by that?

Quoted post

A few facts from a previous discussion I started on this forum on the subject of Penicillin.

Sir Howard Florey flew to the United States and convinced private and government laboratories to take on commercial production of penicillin to help wounded soldiers.

Some of the facts that came out were that 95% of all wounded soldiers treated with the new wonder drug survived
Also, there was enough Penicillin manufactured to treat every participant in the D-Day landings.
I know that Australia was the first country to manufacture enough to supply all Military personal and private citizens aross the country.

Compliments of Kiwiwriter:

Penicillin was the wonder drug -- infections were cut down to small fractions. While hospital admissions remained huge, deaths were way down from WW1 numbers. The US 3rd Army admitted 255,959 men to hospital from August 1944 (activation) to May 1945 (V-E Day). 117,407 were fore disease, 106,611 for injury, 31,941 as battle casualties. Only 5,120 died. (Imperial War Museum figure)

spidge,

Being that the average age of a soldier is around 18, the threat of sexually transmitted disease is very significant. It controlled the spread of STDs from becoming epidemic.

From the numbers you quoted of the 250,000 Americans treated, if you say that 80% were saved by the fact they had penicillian compared to a similar number of German and Japanese injured or diseased, then you would have a net savings of 200,000 men many of which returned to battle. That's significant when you consider the fact that the Americans only lost 400,000 through the whole war. Combine this with Brits, New Zealanders, Aussies, Canadians, Polish, Greek and French and you have one of the most significant contributions coming from one of the "least sung" nations.

Britain and the US have always "hogged" all the glory from WWII. It will probably always be that way. Things like the Aussies and New Zealanders forcing Hitler to abandon the idea of using deadly paratroops in the future because of the Battle of Crete slaughter, or events like the Canadians assault on Antwerp that opended up the vital supply lines in the fall of 44, I guess will always be back page news other than on forums like these. Sometimes your bigger splashes come from the smaller rocks. If I were going to face a contingency of say 10,000 men, all things being equal, I would far rather face men that didn't feel like they had something to prove rather than those that felt those that felt that they did. There is probably nothing more demoralizing that coming up against a group you think is going to be a cake walk and finding out you walked into a hornets nest.

In the Eigth Air Force in the ETO, some of the deadliest aces were Polish. We have a popular saying here in the states that goes "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog".

[spidge]

With respect to Churchill who I greatly admired, he had a bad knack of throwing "Colonial" troops into bad situations.

Without our Prime Minister of the day, John Curtin fighting to bring our soldiers home to defend Australia and fight the Japanese in New Guinea, Churchill would have put them in harms way in another theatre he thought more important.

John Curtin, (like Roosevelt) would not see the surrender of Japan. He died in office 6 weeks before.

His speech to Australians:

'I ask every Australian, man and woman, to go about their allotted task with full vigour and courage...We shall hold this country and keep it as a citadel for the Britishspeaking race and as a place where civilization will persist'.

spidge,

That's a tough call. Do you risk your home to fight on a more critical front? It's not a black and white question. On one hand, winning in the ETO was more important, but at what cost? The Japanese weren't willing to wait until we finished in Europe before they pressed the issue in the Pacific.

At what point do you shift out of the "doing the best for the entire cause" to the "must protect my own people mode". Let’s say that the Aussies soldiers would have in a “net sense” accelerated the end of the ETO and Pacific campaigns if they fought only in Europe until the end of the European operations, but would lose their homeland and have to come back and liberate it. The atrocities would have been terrible knowing the ruthlessness of the Japanese in WWII.

You could definitely say Churchill had a myopia concerning the defeat of Germany, but knowing what he went through, it’s hard to blame him. I guess in that situation, it would be up the Aussie PM to make that call and bring sufficient troops back. But, what a terrible situation the Aussies were placed in. That’s why I say their declaration of war on Japan on Dec 8 was so brash.

I didn’t know that Curtin died before the end of the war. I looked it up. He died only six weeks from the end of the war he helped win. I guess nobody ever said life was fair, especially in times of war. At least he got to see the surrender of Germany.