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08-06-2007, 04:52 AM
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#166 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,785
| Good to hear from you again Plan_D, and I'm happy to hear about your good grades in aerodynamics, the most interesting subject IMO  Keep up the good work ! 
__________________  We have built a total of about 1250 of this aircraft (Me-262), but only fifty were allowed to be used as fighters - as interceptors. And out of this fifty, there were never more than 25 operational. So we had only a very, very few.
- Adolf Galland | 
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08-06-2007, 08:49 AM
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#167 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brisbane Queensland
Posts: 1,568
Country:  | You had not added the Malayan and Singapore defeat from December 1941 to February 1942 suffered by the Commonwealth and England. The Fall of Malaya and Singapore. In my mind is the greatest Military defeat in WW2 | |
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08-06-2007, 09:11 AM
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#168 | | IP/Mech THE GREAT GAZOO
Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Colorado, USA
Posts: 13,249
Country:  | Quote:
Originally Posted by Emac44  You had not added the Malayan and Singapore defeat from December 1941 to February 1942 suffered by the Commonwealth and England. The Fall of Malaya and Singapore. In my mind is the greatest Military defeat in WW2 | I just completed "Bloody Shambles Vol. I" and I have to agree....
__________________ "IF ITS RED OR DUSTY, DON'T TOUCH IT"  | |
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08-06-2007, 09:56 AM
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#169 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: UK
Posts: 3,548
Country:  | I said the same EM at the beginning of this thread I totally agree. A total mess. The storys of commanders drinking tea while the causeway was under attack is one I have heard from a few time serving lads who spent the rest of the war suffering in POW camps under the honorable sons of nippons boots ::The fall of Singapore::
Last edited by trackend : 08-06-2007 at 10:00 AM.
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08-06-2007, 10:12 AM
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#170 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 8,320
| I would also include the fall of the Philipines as part of the blunders in Malaya and Singapore.
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"Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" | |
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08-06-2007, 10:34 AM
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#171 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: UK
Posts: 3,548
Country: | I don't think it came on the scale of Singapore conversely the dead opposite can be said about the defense put up at Wake Island one of the great heroic actions of WW2 they could have done with some of those leaders at Singapore. | |
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08-06-2007, 11:02 AM
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#172 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Phila, Pa
Posts: 2,522
Country: | Flyboy J, if you got to the back of the "Bloody Shambles" book (not sure which of the three it is in, maybe the second), there is a report written by a relatively junior officer (I believe he was a Wing Commander) in the RAAF that is absolutely scathing in it's analysis of the high command in Far East. Very informative.
As for Singapore, definitely a blunder but, oddly enough, not with enormous long term significance. It seems everyone (except Winston) thought Singapore would fall. At least the better officers back in England. From what I've read of the Bloody Shambles series, it was something of a dumping ground for second rate or underperforming officers. And nobody was interested in working hard. Work day was from 7:30 am to noon. Rest of the day was off. Even with the Japanese on the horizon, nothing changed.
The Phillipines was a different matter. Doug was caught flatfooted. He had changed the strategy around from a long defense in Bataan to forward defense on the beaches. In the end, neither strategy worked (although he did keep Bataan defenses active until April and Corregidor until May) as he was in the middle of the move when the attack happened. Also, the Japanese were on a war footing right away, it took a while for the US forces to get it together. The Japanese had more trouble with the Phillipines than they expected. They thought it would fall faster.
Last edited by timshatz : 08-06-2007 at 11:05 AM.
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08-06-2007, 11:37 AM
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#173 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: UK
Posts: 3,548
Country: | You're probably right TS however I think the loss of nearly 100,000 men did have long term effects as they all had to be replaced. | |
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08-06-2007, 12:27 PM
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#174 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Phila, Pa
Posts: 2,522
Country: | Quote:
Originally Posted by trackend You're probably right TS however I think the loss of nearly 100,000 men did have long term effects as they all had to be replaced. | Good point. If there is anything that bothers me about Singapore (once I get past the losers who were in command), it's the Australians who got there just in time to surrender.
It was a monumental failure of command. I think of it less as a blunder than as incompetence in the extreme. Read the "Bloody Shambles" series. Someone recommended it to me on this board and they were right. Great series. | |
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08-06-2007, 12:31 PM
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#175 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 8,320
| What was even worse was the waste of men and material in defense of the Dutch East Indies!
BTW, I was the one who first recommended everyone to that book series.
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"Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" | |
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08-06-2007, 01:17 PM
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#176 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Dordrecht
Posts: 2,386
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Originally Posted by syscom3 What was even worse was the waste of men and material in defense of the Dutch East Indies! | On that I totally agree. At least from a militairy point of view. They should have withdrawn. The battle of the Java sea was total a waste of men and material. But it's comprehensible considering the position the dutch were in. It was the last of the free dutch soil (colonies of course but considered at the time). They had nowhere to run to, so they tried to make a stand. The dutch owe a lot to those US and Commonwealth soldiers who tried to help them, although it hardly made any difference.
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"I'm no hero. Soldiers on the ground, they are heroes. In an aircraft you can always evade the bullets."
-Jan Linzel, Dutch fighter pilot | |
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08-06-2007, 03:20 PM
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#177 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Phila, Pa
Posts: 2,522
Country: | Quote:
Originally Posted by syscom3 BTW, I was the one who first recommended everyone to that book series. | Then let me be one of the first to say, "Good call". | |
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08-06-2007, 03:25 PM
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#178 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Phila, Pa
Posts: 2,522
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Originally Posted by Marcel On that I totally agree. At least from a militairy point of view. They should have withdrawn. The battle of the Java sea was total a waste of men and material. But it's comprehensible considering the position the dutch were in. It was the last of the free dutch soil (colonies of course but considered at the time). They had nowhere to run to, so they tried to make a stand. The dutch owe a lot to those US and Commonwealth soldiers who tried to help them, although it hardly made any difference. | Sad chapter in the history of WW2 but once the Japanese took over French IndoChina (without any fighting), the writing was on the wall for the rest of the European colonies out there. At least for anyone who studied the Japanese and their actions from the start of the century. They were going after the Malay Penisula as well as Borneo and other islands of Indonesia. The Dutch really had nowhere to go. They had no industrial base, no real income, next to nothing. They did the best they could with what they had, and continued to fight the Japanese throughout the war in the Pacific. But they were up against the wall from the start.
I've read that Roosevelt would've let them invade and take those possessions without a fight if they did not attack the US or US Possessions (ie, the Phillipines). In 1941, the US was playing for time. Needed all we could get. Turns out, we didn't get enough.
While Roosevelt would've let the Japanese attack past the Phillipines, I doubt the Japanese had any serious considerations of doing so. With the PI directly astride their lines of communications (and held by the largest power in the Pacific), it was one of the first places that had to be attacked. | |
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08-06-2007, 03:51 PM
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#179 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Canada
Posts: 113
Country:  | Not sure this could be considered a milatary blunder but Hitler taking over operations all by his lonesome has got to be a huge mistake. | |
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08-06-2007, 04:12 PM
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#180 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: South Jersey, United States
Posts: 6,780
Country: | Thats a good one. Missed it. definately a major blunder.
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