Saw this on a Facebook page dedicated to Uber-Panzers. This is not that uncommon a view from this type of person. This is not to start a debate where his calumny is challenged but to give some insight into how low is the level of understanding of your average Facebook expert. This cretin actually has standing and is considered one of the more knowledgeable of the breed and not a single member of the group challenged his version of history. not that hard to stall a British offensive.... Using a Tiger was probably overkill.....................A German letter captured in August of 1944 states unequivocally that, “Tommy is no soldier.” The official British Army history of the Normandy Campaign does not analyze the morale of the British troops who served in Normandy. Most of the leading unofficial accounts of the campaign manage to imply, without ever stating explicitly, that morale was at best mediocre and in some units downright poor and suggest that the British Army only won because it was able to employ overwhelming material superiority against the Germans. The British Army had several operations stall before minimal resistance over the course of the war. Poor leadership and an aversion to taking casualties seem to be the root causes. The aversion to taking casualties stemmed from senior British commanders experiences in World War I where most of them served on the front lines and experienced the horrific casualties of that war. They were also acutely aware that such losses again would be unacceptable to a war-weary British population. Several British Army operations in Normandy were stalled when faced by minimal resistance: Operation Perch (Villers-Bocage): 7 June 1944 (Wittmann w/6 Tigers, 2.Kp, SS Tiger Bn 101 engaged A Sqdn 4th CLY) Authie & Putot-en-Bessin: 7 June 1944 Bretteville l'Orgueilleuse: 8 June 1944 Le Mesnil-Patry: 11 June 1944 Operation Epsom: 24 June 1944 Operations Martlet & Dauntless: 25 June 1944 Operation Windsor (Carpiquet Airfield): 4 July 1944 Operation Charnwood: 8 July 1944 Operation Jupiter (Hill 112): 10 July 1944 Operation Stack: 10 July 1944 Operation Goodwood (Bourguébus Ridge): 18 July 1944 And there were many more as the war progressed, in my humble opinion, due more to British commanders’ desire to avoid casualties than anything else.
And are you taking your crusade to these people, MK? Surely even you have limits that are just too tiring after all these years... Fear not. The tide turns in the more civilised corners of the web. Softening 70-odd years of panzer worship is always going to be a slow business.
You are wrong. Facebook (and ilk) have re-set everything to Year Zero. Dozens of Groups set up by by morons and moderated by idiots are each churning out 4 new pages of rubbish a day. The one good thing is no one ever searches through the back-pages of all the shyte. This is the dummy who wrote the garbage in my opening post.
Re. A "Tommy is no soldier" quote: It seems to be ref'd a bit here: Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-1945 By David French Raising Churchill's Army I do wonder when people praise the Nazi war machine in which part of it they see themselves. Presumably they'd be expecting to be in some kind of a leading roll? And themselves always victorious. Rather than being a cog in such a "machine".
Sad gimp Sad gimps inhabit the internet Weak individuals Oh and tell him the panzers could not have been that good because the hun lost What a lump of lard You could squeeze him into a tank but imagine trying to get him out
This was written after about a month in Normandy: Sgt B Symes 24th Lancers B.W.E.F 5-7-44 Dearest Phyl + Rob, Many thanks for yours of the 29th, it arrived today. I’ll go through it and answer yours? We aren’t so tired now, we get more rest as more troops come over. Let me see if I can give you a better picture of events as you all seem very blurred, such as the chance to visit relations etc. When I saw Jake we were at Milford-on-Sea and could get out about one day per week. Suddenly we were taken to a camp and gated. There were guards everywhere and we got the “Griff” (were told everything). We studied maps, photographs, in fact we did everything except talk of what we had to do. Then we went to the pool, guarded every inch of the way and were not allowed to speak to anyone, not even the blondes! We then took the stuff on board and before you could say knife the land had slipped away and we were at sea for nearly a week. On the way over it was rough and we had to shackle at night, there were many grey faces, as it meants bending down and when we got up everything else tried to get up too! Well we got there, there was some scrapping going on and we got ashore in about five feet of water, we were deeper than that at Brid. We then went inland and got rid of some junk and sallied forth. I had a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler, we parked up and decided to have a drink, I poured out enough for five and was just taking a sip when some ass started firing somewhere loudly so I had to drink all of the whiskey myself or it would have spilled perhaps. The boys said it was a lousy trick. There were some snipers in a village and some of the boys went after them. When they came back we all moved back and went to sleep. From then on we have been busy. We got time to rest and do some work, that’s very necessary I may tell you we are resting now, as we are, when you receive this we may have an assignment. It’s just how things are. By Lillian and Bert do you mean Marvis’s nepthews? My, my how you do take on, surely if you had a kick in the pants, as you say, you can take it, anyway it’s nice to have a sister to defend one from one’s wife!!!! Yesterday there were two German boys walking down the… …road, there’s plenty of those about but these two were young and we had arguments since about their age, the lowest guess was twelve, the highest sixteen so I leave you to think it out. Don’t be sorry for them only for the system under which they were brought up, given a chance they’d be far worse than older men. War isn’t nice at best, but where you start a young mind on that track its likely to turn them into little beasts. So you see from what I told you that the folks in our coast towns are security minded. They saw all and said nowt, they didn’t even waive as we went by, that we on the first lot over were honour bound not to say anything to anyone, and you can imagine how I felt when I know there was no hope of even one day’s leave. They’ve wanted a Second Front and now they have it. There were some astonishing things done by the boys before the newspapers blokes even set sail, Jerry won’t push this army into the sea. Everyone has looked after the other, if the Infantry can make… …tea they bring some along if we are supporting them, they give us Rum, and we do all we can for them, even to staying with them till one of us had legs like balloons from standing and everyone’s eyes were aching. Even so, the spirit is good and we got plenty of laughs. Politics! A chair and a mantelpiece to put their feel on, about sums it up and as one chap said “Let any B--- try to move me” Food! All are fed well. There are days when to cook even water for tea is not… …possible, these aren’t many thank to goodness, even then we eat our chocolate and some lovely boiled sweets and smoke and smoke and smoke. As for spending money, at the moment the position is stupid. Prices for anything at all, even tooth paste etc. is far too much for us so we rely on NAAFI packs sent out for which we don’t pay. At least we paid 8/6 each when we left and we’ve drawn that about four times over, we have plenty of soap and that’s a lot better than Francs when we want eggs and butter. We… …don’t “give” as we used to, we barter, these French aren’t as poor as all that and they are wily birds. We found some new spuds spoiling today, we don’t rook* them unless it’s going to wash, this lot was, they were alright too. There you have it. We hope it will soon be finished, nobody likes it, not even the Boche, and some of them think we shall win soon, but of that we must wait and see or pray that the day isn’t far distant… ….when we can start again and try to build a better world based on a new sense of values. The boys are just ticking because they were jammed trying to get the 6.O.C. news. How are you Rob? Can you tell the time alright now? What class are you in at school and how are you feeling these days. All my love to you both. From your loving husband Ben xxxxxxxx. rooks may be noted for pulling up grain seedlings and young potato plants for example.
I remember reading this, quite a few years ago ;-) : Fattypuffs and Thinifers - Wikipedia Reception "To the Times Literary Supplement on 27 December 1941, 'This most amusing fantasy' won pride of place in a review of many juveniles, but purely as comedy..."[1]"From France comes this hilariously nonsensical account of an underground land divided into two countries... The story offers endless possibilities for discussion in the classroom around the subject of politics and international conflicts, but most of all it will be enjoyed for its ingenious plot and zany characterisation. Fritz Wegner's line illustrations play an indispensable part in bringing this story alive."[2] The Irish Independent chose Fattypuffs and Thinifers as one of the top 50 books for children,[3] while Anthea Bell chose it as one of "her top 10 favourite books in translation that she would recommend for children."[4] George Millar wrote: "Technically, Maurois' book belong to the subgenre of Hollow Earth fantasies, imagining vast countries stretching in enormous caverns right there under our feet, like Journey to the Center of the Earth penned by Maurois' illustrious countryman. However, the underground location need not be taken too seriously. Maurois was writing a political fantasy and parable, not a physical one.(...) The code in not really difficult to unravel. Two countries who are hereditary enemies, with divergent cultures and ways of life—one endlessly, pedantically precise and methodical, the other addicted to gourmet food and the good things of life - who can they be but Germans and French.(...) On this basis Maurois can be credited with predicting that there would be a new war and that France would be occupied by Germany; he can also be credited with predicting that there would be ultimately a reconciliation and an end to the prolonged enmity between these two countries - even if the actual EU falls a bit short of the complete unification in the story's happy ending..."
The first paragraph paraphrases and misrepresents the introduction to David French’s article Tommy is no soldier (1996) which continued: This essay will investigate the morale of the British formations allotted to 2nd Army between June and August 1944. It will explore the limitations of the evidence which some historians have used as a surrogate for an analysis of British morale during the campaign, and it will present fresh evidence, which, although it is incomplete and in many respects imperfect, provides a fuller picture of the many variations in British morale during the course of the fighting in the bridgehead. In chapter 4 of French’s book (2000), identified by Ramiles [#6], he wrote: Few of the conscripts enlisted after 1939 had much relish for soldiering or fighting, and few were motivated by a highly developed ideological commitment to the political cause of eradicating Nazism. But lack of enthusiasm should not be confused with poor morale. The great majority of soldiers regarded the war as an unpleasant but necessary job that had to be completed so that they could then return to their everyday civilian lives.