Now after reading the article I felt I needed to go find out what this Frau Gertrud Scholtz-Klink (perfect woman mind you) looked like.
Here she is.
Ummm! Not so much.
Today’s post is everything on page 10 of the news section.
A constitutional amendment that would require a national referendum to go to war. I never heard of that.
Also, do you have an opinion whether Fall of the Third Reich is a creditible resource? I think I will buy it soon.
Can anyone verify that the naval exercises these reports talk about included a US Navy "attack" on the fleet sleeping at Pearl Harbor?
I know there were several similar exercises, any one of which put the lie to claims that "no one expected" such an attack. In fact, by December 1941, our Navy had been practicing these for many years.
March 1939?
Grumman F3Fs, Douglas TBDs, Curtiss SBCs against Mitsubishi A5Ms, Makajima B5Ns, Aichi D3As
Add combat experience, there's a clear winner here.
ping
I can understand why Leahy and Roosevelt chuckle about their own ship being “sunk” from under them in these exercises, but I would bet that behind the scenes this would be very alarming at least to the admiral. The command ship and the central control point was wiped out at the onset of the attacks thus cutting the head off the operations. Not a good thing and a fine example as too how dangerous air power is to naval fleets when properly employed.
Now after reading the article I felt I needed to go find out what this Frau Gertrud Scholtz-Klink (perfect woman mind you) looked like.
Here she is.
Ummm! Not so much.
Click on pic for past Navair pings.
Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
The only requirement for inclusion in the Navair Pinglist is an interest in Naval Aviation.
This is a medium to low volume pinglist.
A wave of perverse optimism had swept across the British scene during these March days. In spite of the growing stresses in Czechoslovakia under intense German pressure from without and from within, the Ministers and newspapers identified with the Munich Agreement did not lose faith in the policy into which they had drawn the nation. For instance, on March 10 the Home Secretary addressed his constituents about his hopes of a Five Years' Peace Plan which would lead in time to the creation of "a Golden Age". A plan for a commercial treaty with Germany was still being hopefully discussed. The famous periodical Punch produced a cartoon showing John Bull waking with a gasp of relief from a nightmare, while all the evil rumours, fancies, and suspicions of the night were flying away out of the window. On the very day when this appeared Hitler launched his ultimatum to the tottering Czech Government, bereft of their fortified line by the Munich decisions. German troops, marching into Prague, assumed absolute control of the unresisting State. I remember sitting with Mr. Eden in the smoking-room of the House of Commons when the editions of the evening papers recording these events came in. Even those who like us had no illusions and had testified earnestly were surprised at the sudden violence of this outrage. One could hardly believe that with all their secret information His Majesty's Government could be so far adrift.
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
3/10/39: Stalin postulates a "kinship" between Nazism and Communism in his radio speech
http://www.worldwar-2.net/prelude-to-war/prelude-to-war-index.htm
Read all about it tomorrow.
Agricultural secretary killed by his own grain. See, even then the earth was trying to warn us about global warming, or cooling, or something.
In September 1939, Great Britain and the British Empire and the Commonwealth nations declared war on Germany following its invasion of Poland.
In 1940 The United States entered into a Lend-Lease agreement with Great Britain whereby the US transferred 50 desperately needed four stacker destroyers to the Royal Navy (some of which went to the Royal Canadian Navy) in exchange for leases on naval bases and air stations in British possessions spread from Trinidad to Newfoundland.
Newfoundland was not then part of Canada but nonetheless the RCN benefited from the deal. The RCN was then heavily involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, with primary responsibility for convoy protection in the western North Atlantic so it really needed the destroyers.
The US made good use of the bases. Even before the US joined the war it mounted a system of neutrality patrols which, although ostensibly to enforce US sneutrality control over the western Atlantic, actually served as an auxiliary naval patrol force to the advantage of the Empire and Commonwealth and the disadvantage of Germany.