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ORIGINAL: wodin

Little known fact..one of Ambroses distant relatives was actually a British sympathiser who instigated the Boston tea Party. He believed that if the British didn't have their tea they'd spend more time fighting the American rebel movement which was ready to take up arms against British colonial rule.....he though that tea was the greatest weapon the American allies had against the British and her army. So in a very crafty way managed to get the rebels to throw the tea in the river as some sort of protest, where as the wiley old Ambrose now felt he had destroyed the greatest weapon the Americans had with their own hands..for several days he was very happy with what he considered the greatest and most cleverest of all plans ever....he eventually wrote several accounts of how not enough Tea was thrown in the river and so the British lost her greatest colony, brewing up...

FACT

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: parusski

I think u forget that they in fact used the Chewbacca defense. So nothing fortunate about it.
Case closed,
Rasmus

Jeez Walloc, when did you drink our AMBROSE kool-aid??

Warspite1

Simples - Ambrose books sell more in Denmark than any other country in the world - except the west African state of Mali. FACT.

ORIGINAL: warspite1
In that dark hour America saw its chance to challenge British dominance.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1
In that dark hour America saw its chance to challenge British dominance.

Ah yes. It was about carefully staged opportunism. Nothing about state-sponsored piracy de rigour or impressing American sailors, eh?
I think I'll read Ambrose' version. [:'(]
ETA: My bad.

ORIGINAL: wodin

Could you imagine a young wargaming newbie comes along and signs up..reads all these posts from what he considers clever military history bods, then proceeds to cite us and our Ambrose quotes...

ORIGINAL: warspite1
Listen, as I made clear in my earlier post, I know little to nothing

we are a pretty special bunch obviously

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1
Listen, as I made clear in my earlier post, I know everything about everything

OK. I agree. See, dude-we can agree on some things

we are a pretty special bunch obviously

Yes. You British truly are a very special people

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I saw - and had to buy - an excellent book yesterday. The Complete Book of the Olympics 2012 Edition.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I saw - and had to buy - an excellent book yesterday. The Complete Book of the Olympics 2012 Edition.

ETA: Has Great Britain ever medalled in an Olympic event? [X(]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

..continuing with Antony Beevor's The Second World War. Got up to April 1940 and just finished reading the first chapter on the Sino-Japanese war. Having just finished Ostkrieg and Hitler's war of extermination in the east, it seems remarkable that anything else has the power to shock. But reading about the Japanese treatment of the Chinese still has the power to do this whenever I visit this subject....truly barbaric [:(]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Still working through the same book.... The Olympics kind of took up my reading time recently. Anyway, the point of posting was to ask a question.

I have got up to the chapter on Greece / Yugoslavia / Crete. Re the latter, one thing that Beevor makes absolutely crystal clear is that the loss of Crete was the fault of General Freyberg V.C. I read a book on the fall of Crete about 20 years ago, and I do not recall anyone being singled out for blame (although it was a long time ago now). Specifically Beevor says:

- the troop deployments were wrong (particularly given the Allies had the benefit of Ultra)
- Freyburg new the attack date - but did not share with the commanders of the troops guarding the three key landing areas.
- Freyburg ignored opinion that a seaborne landing was impossible and so kept reserves back to counter a "non existent threat"
- he believed the battle won after the first landings were repulsed - despite the fighting at Maleme having not gone well for the small Kiwi unit stationed there.

Does anyone have any info/thoughts on this episode?

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Still working through the same book.... The Olympics kind of took up my reading time recently. Anyway, the point of posting was to ask a question.

I have got up to the chapter on Greece / Yugoslavia / Crete. Re the latter, one thing that Beevor makes absolutely crystal clear is that the loss of Crete was the fault of General Freyberg V.C. I read a book on the fall of Crete about 20 years ago, and I do not recall anyone being singled out for blame (although it was a long time ago now). Specifically Beevor says:

- the troop deployments were wrong (particularly given the Allies had the benefit of Ultra)
- Freyburg new the attack date - but did not share with the commanders of the troops guarding the three key landing areas.
- Freyburg ignored opinion that a seaborne landing was impossible and so kept reserves back to counter a "non existent threat"
- he believed the battle won after the first landings were repulsed - despite the fighting at Maleme having not gone well for the small Kiwi unit stationed there.

Does anyone have any info/thoughts on this episode?

Michael Tamelander writes about this in his book about Malta and the Mediterranean war. His conclusion is that no blame for the loss of Crete falls on General Freyberg V.C.

Specifically about the points you mention he writes:
- Freyberg was not informed about Ultra. He received the information but was told it arrived from an agent in Berlin.
- The information that Freyberg received (from Ultra) told that the Germans would invade from the sea with tanks. He had recieved no informations that the invasion would depend on the success of the air landing. Therefore the sea landing threat was a reality that Freyberg had to consider.
- Finds no real fault with the deployment. It was as good as it could get with the few resources available.

- Freyberg had ordered his units to counter attack if the airfield fell into enemy hands or key positions needed to defend the airfield. Due to lacking communications Freyberg did not have a clear picture of the Maleme situation. The commander of the 5th New Zeeland brigade feared new air landings in his rear and was reluctant to commit his reserve. Therefore he withdraw from several key positions in the belief that he was out numbered.

He also writes:
+ Two days before the invasion the remaining English fighters were ordered to evacuate Crete.
+ Freyberg had been ordered to leave the landing strips at the airfields in good condition. Even though the Germans would attack before any English aircrafts (fighters) were available for Crete.
+ Crete had a severe shortage of communications equipment. For example: Freyberg's own staff and communications equipment had been directed to Alexandria.
+ Severe shortage of machine guns and mortars.

+ Some of the units available to Freyberg could be considered militia units or Ad Hoc units with limited value compared to their size. Some units lost most of their equipment in Greece.
+ The terrain made fast redeployments impossible and that was not helped by the lack of communications. Therefore many positions were in fact isolated.
+ After the battle commenced Freyberg needed supply but few supplies reached Crete. The 23rd he reported to Egypt that the ammunition situation was critical but recived the reply from Wavell that it was impossible to send any transport ships to Crete.

+ The first critical day of the air landings the fault was rather with the local commanders and not with Freyberg.

General E.C. Weston had been examining the possibility to defend Crete. April the 15th he sent his report and his conclussion was that it would be close to impossible to defend Crete without at least some fighter protection. Turns out he was more or less right.

ORIGINAL: LarryP

Shogun by James Clavell.