BRITISH BATTLESHIP AND CRUISER SUNK BY PLANES OFF NAMSOS, GERMANS SAY (5/5/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 5/5/40 | Hanson W. Baldwin, Vladamar Semitjow, Harold Callender, Raymond Daniell

[ohioman]

I can agree with that. He ranks right up there with Reagan for me. We are certainly lacking leadership today.

[Billthedrill]

Ridiculous story anyway. Airplanes can't sink battleships.

Hold on a sec. There's some pest named Billy Mitchell on line 1...

;-)

[CougarGA7]

Getting caught up.

Submarine HMS Seal successfully lays mines in the southern Kattegat on the 4th before being damaged by a German mine herself. Trying to make for neutral Sweden on the surface, she is attacked and captured off the Skaw by German air and sea patrols. Lt Gunther Mehrens, piloting an Ar 196A-3 from Ku.Fl.Gr.706, spotted HMS Seal. Mehrens attacked with his cannon and bombs, forcing the suubmarine’s surrender. Mehrens then alighted, picked up the commander Lieut-Cdr R. Lonsdale and flew him to Aalborg, the Seal being towed into Frederikshavn. There are no casualties, the entire crew being made PoWs. Two escape during captivity and reach Switzerland. HMS SEAL is recommissioned as U-B and put into service for the Kriegsmarine. (Alex Gordon)(108)

Some interesting details on the incident involving the HMS Seal.

First of all, he Captain, Lt. Cmdr R. Lonsdale will be courtmarshalled for "needlessly surrendering his boat". But more importantly is this bit from The Atlantic Campaign on what the Germans discovered as a result of this capture.

German intelligence experts swarmed over his 1,520-ton boat [HMS Seal]. It became clear to them from the radio log and messages that the British were locating German submarines by radio direction-finding. Dönitz's War Diary records that a comparison between actual positions and those reported to the Seal revealed that the 'fixes' thus obtained by the enemy at this stage were poorer the further they lay from the British coasts. The unparalleled opportunity to seach through the boat's signals and ocmmunications material was of great interest and value to the B-dienst. - The Atlantic Campaign, Dan Van der Vat, p.172.

[BroJoeK]

ohioman: "As an American, I still consider Churchill a better leader than Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a socialist who cozied up too close to Uncle Joe. Churchill recognized the evil regime of both Hitler and Stalin before many would listen."

I totally agree about FDR.
He was at least as radical for his time as the Big Zero is for ours, and his super-majorities in Congress lasted much longer than (hopefully!) O's will.
Remember, back in those dark days there was ONLY the "mainstream media," no Free Republic (!), no Tea Parties, nothing to counterbalance FDR's socialist programs.

All that said, it's also important to remember that for every American who died in WWII, at least 100 Soviets died, and for every German soldier Americans killed, Stalin's boys killed at least 10.

And, imho, it was a simple trade-off: if the Ruskies kill fewer Germans, that means Americans and Brits have to kill more.
And, overall Germans were the best soldiers of the war -- they did not die cheaply.

So, if Franklin Roosevelt had to kiss Stalin's *ss to keep Russians in the war, then so be it.
On several occasions Stalin attempted to make a separate peace with Hitler.
Then where would our dads and granddads have been?

How many of us would even be here today? ;-)

[ohioman]

Good point. If Stalin had made peace with Hitler, it would have been very difficult for us to defeat the Third Reich. I think the Russians lost @20M fighting the Germans.

It was toward the end of the War that FRD irked me, when it was already apparent that Hitler would lose the war. That was when FDR got closer with Stalin and both of them shunned Churchill. FRD either was a closet commie or he was totally blind. Churchill could see that Eastern Europe was trading one tyrant for another and FDR would not listen.

[BroJoeK]

"FRD either was a closet commie or he was totally blind. Churchill could see that Eastern Europe was trading one tyrant for another and FDR would not listen."

Roosevelt was a product of the First World War, as President Wilson's Under Secretary of the Navy.
His responsibilities included naval intelligence, counter-espionage and counter-sabatogue.

Literally, Roosevelt hated Nazi Germans -- in the same sense that others were anti-Semitic or racist, FDR was anti-German.
During the war he believed they needed to be bombed back into the stone-age -- with the A-bomb if necessary, remember that was its original purpose.

Domestically, FDR kept a very close watch on Nazi related groups, their activities and spies.

By stark contrast, FDR had no fear of the Russians, Soviets or International Communists.
He considered them our friends, and did little or nothing to protect us against them.

This turned out to be the right strategy for defeating Hitler at minimum cost to the US, but with tragic, tragic postwar results especially in Eastern Europe.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I’d liked to have seen the full article on isolation of the U-235 isotope.

I loaded "U-235" into my internal word-finder unit. Whenever it rolls past my optical units while I am scrolling fiche my digital unit will automatically press "Print."

Good catch, henkster. This article goes deeper than I would have guessed from the fuzzy page 1 headline at the top of the thread.

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[henkster]

Homer

Thanks for posting the full article. It was very informative, and much more comprehensive than I thought it was. As I’d mentioned earlier, the astute reader of the New York Times science beat could have discerned that construction of a bomb from U235 was theoretically possible. So the average crewman on the Enola Gay could deduce they were “splitting atoms today.” I did notice that they downplayed the destructive force liberated from an “atomic explosion.” But all of that was not well understood at this time. Two things the article does not mention:

1. The scale of industrial plant and complexity of engineering processes necessary to isolate a sufficient quantity of U235, and

2. Just what becomes of that new “new” Uranium isotope “239.”

One thing the article got wrong; ordinary water will not act as a “moderator” for the neutrons in their “reactor.” Something “heavier” is needed. Maybe graphite, maybe a different “type” of water?

This article was a very good catch. Now keep your eyes open about December of this year, and let’s see if there is any news out of the University of Chicago...

[CougarGA7]

This is an excellent article indeed. Good eye henkster and analysis.

I would also keep an eye out on anything on the Uranium Committee or the National Defense Research Council next month. I would think it wouldn’t have made the press, but on June 12th The NDRC got the OK from FDR to really start pursuing this line of research. Their first move was to absorb the Uranium Committee into their organization. On July 1st they asked for their first chunk of money; $140,000. This was quite a bit more than the 6 grand Teller asked for to buy graphite back in October of last year.