Churchill - not his finest hour...

[captain duff]

Ahh, don't you just love someone who comes out with right-wing nonsense (alliance with Nazi Germany, inferiour races etc) but then says no one can judge me. Well I'm afraid they can - if it talks like a fascist it normally is one regardless of the use of big words...

But back to Churchill. Yes, his books are good, well worth a read, his history of WWII in particular - its dated in the sense that there are far more rounded histories out there, but its standard of writing makes it pretty good reading, much like Orwells wartime journalism.

But did he win the war? Well actually 24 million dead Russians might have had rather more to do with it, along with the fact that 80% of German/Axis casualties (along with the overwhelming majority of tank losses) were from fighting the Soviets. So if we really have to have a single person winning the war (although I find the concept rather silly) the only serious candidate for the honour is actually Comrade Stalin...

[celsis]

You definitely have a point. The Great Patrotic War left a lot of single women in the USSR.

[Big_T_UK]

Well the German army tried hard to "satisfy" most of the single Russian women whilst on its extended "tour" of the USSR.

The Russian army returned the "favour" in spades a few years later.

[celsis]

They certainly did. I lived in Germany with a woman and became very friendly with her parents. Her father was a "kriegsgefangener" in Otterburn on the Scottish/English border from 1940 tll the end of the war, but the family originally came from Silesia and at the end of the war, all the females fled west. They had heard the stories of what happened to women once the Russians arrived. If you ever see Traudl Junge on TV, she tells particularly gruesome stories on what happened to women in Berlin.

On the same vein, my grandfather was picked up at St Valery, defending the Dunkirk evacuation (and a brigade of guards!) and spent 5 years in Stalag VIIIb in Silesia. The allied prisoers also streamed west as the Russians arrived because even THEY had heard stories of the antics of the Russian soldiers!

BTW, Churchill had a hand in my grandfather being captured as he ordered the evacuation of the Guards battallion while the 51st Highland Division were left to defend the rearguard. He explained it as saving a propaganda coup as he felt that the propaganda value of capturing a Guards battallion would be too much to stomach. Maybe he didn't see the German propaganda value in Dunkirk?

[Big_T_UK]

I do not think he had a choice to hold Dunkirk, or do I misunderstand.

I have never heard the allied prisoners fleeing the Red army, goodness. It sounds so "wrong" that it must be depressingly true.

The real kicker to all this, and maybe the greatest chink in Churchill's reputation, is what happened at the end of the war. Keeping in mind that we declared war with Germany after they annexed Poland, at the end of the war we handed over control of Poland to the USSR to keep them happy. We bent over and took it up the arse to try to keep Stalin from chucking his toys out the pram. The Polish airmen that we hailed as heroes during the battle of Britain essentially got told to go home, most ending up in Soviet labour camps. Now that was an utter disgrace.

Amongst the list of things we gave the Russians to keep them playing nice was our latest Rolls Royce jet engine. When English and American airmen went up against the Russian Mig-15 a few years later over Korea they turned out to be powered by clones of the very same Rolls Royce engine. Nothing like giving your best advantage in a battle to they enemy, for free, WILLINGLY!

Utter madness.

[Puff Scotty]

Amongst the list of things we gave the Russians to keep them playing nice was our latest Rolls Royce jet engine. When English and American airmen went up against the Russian Mig-15 a few years later over Korea they turned out to be powered by clones of the very same Rolls Royce engine. Nothing like giving your best advantage in a battle to they enemy, for free, WILLINGLY!

Utter madness.

Yep total idiocy, you can thank the "highly acclaimed" Sir Stafford Cripps for that - 10 off RR Nene engines FOC no licences nothing... carry on my old Red mate twat!

[Big_T_UK]

"FOC", okay, so you are ex service or similar.

[celsis]

We did the same with the septics. Jet engines FOC and no royalties......

[Big_T_UK]

You are correct, but I feel a lot warmer to them than the Russians. There is an argument that the most conceptually advanced jet engine during the war was from Lockheed but the US government would not fund it so they had to play catch up later on with the British import, hindsight and all that.

[Puff Scotty]

"FOC", okay, so you are ex service or similar.

Military on Dad's side for generations, I was the last, dm80. On Mums side up until her father, my GF who @ 15 in 1908 was apprenticed @ RR in Derby & was kept out of the army for both conflicts due to 'war work' especially WWII when he was a senior engineer (some good stories).
My aunt because of the war was a turbo vane inspector at RR & in fact, had done the inspection on the engines shipped to the Reds, contrary to some reports, she has told me 10 engines not 25 were shipped for reverse eng.
She that marvellous lady, is still alive & kicking on the outskirts of Derby, unfortunately my Uncle Vincent died in Hong Kong whilst working as RR's far east sales dir.(aero).
So my bumph on this comes "straight from the horses"....

Utrinque Paratus.
Puff.