Talk:British anti-invasion preparations of World War II

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[edit] Bison improvised armoured vehicle

does the Thornycroft Bison fit within the scope of this article? GraemeLeggett 09:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely - I was trying to find out more about this mobile pillbox. but I had not turned up much hard data. I suspect a mention would properly belong in a sub-section on airfield defence. Gaius Cornelius 00:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

theres one at Bovington if memory serves me right - the story of my camera being with the pram and not in my hands while I was there is not worth repeating. GraemeLeggett 10:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

confirmation here with pics [1] GraemeLeggett 10:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Great, would you like to write the section? Gaius Cornelius 21:40, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ruck Machine Gun Post

This item is giving me some difficulty. There is a picture in Beaches, fields, streets and hills which William Foot identifies as a Ruck Machine Gun Post (figure 74 on page 154), this has embrasures pointing straight up. However, the Defence of Britain database identifies only three Rucks and this is not one of them. The DoBDB examples are:

William Foot identifies the example at Reighton as a Stanton shelter -- I dare-say that is correct because it does not appear to have any embrasures, but does have a large window at one end -- on the other had it is in a poor state. I have been to visit the one at Sandiacre for myself and will post some pictures soon, it looks just like the Reighton example but with a row of small windows which might be interpreted as embrasures.

Can anybody shed some light on this? Gaius Cornelius 01:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Have looked in William Foots book, the example at Reighton is not constructed from Stanton shelter sections. In the Mike Osbourne book `20th Century Defences in Britain, The East Midlands` on page 67 he shows the Ruck Pillbox at Sandiacre. (Palmiped 09:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Image caption

"Image:British_Home_Guard_Improvised_Weapons.JPG", can we identify some of what these were meant to do. I see a simple projector, an improvised petrol bomb using celluloid film as the wick etc. GraemeLeggett 11:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The image is from the Imperial War Museum in London. While I see what you see, the legend at the museum did not go into details. Gaius Cornelius 21:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Have looked in book `Secret Agent`s Handbook of Special Devices` published by the Public Records Office ISBN 1903365007 but none of the items shown are listed. (Palmiped 18:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC))

[edit] carriers

Added to the list of ships the Royal Navy would lay on the 13 [I think] aircraft carriers, some admittedly obsolete, that were knocking around with the home fleet in 1939-1940.

Wouldn't aircraft carriers have been counted as 'capital ships'. Thirteen seems like a lot. This was just the home fleet, the rest of the Navy had duties elsewhere. I guess that "I think" means "I don't have a cite". Unless it can be confirmed, I think it best to take it out. Gaius Cornelius 17:22, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cost

What was the cost of these defences I have seen a figure of over £21 million quoted for all commands? Palmiped 16:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Ref- PRO: WO 199/48, 6a Palmiped 16:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] British Veterans of the Spanish Civil War

I notice that these guys are not mentioned in this article, i know they gave grenade throwing classes in hyde park before being coopted into the offical projects (Mi5 did not like them the pinko's). If i find anything i'll add it but its not area of knowledge. Great article people, keeping such information alive is EXACTLY the point of wikipedia, thanks for all the work.Hypnosadist 12:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Presumably you are refering to the likes of Hugh Slater and Tom Wintringham who returned to England after serving in the International Brigades of the Spanish civil war. While I am not sure that this is indeed exactly what wikipedia is about, I dare say they do deserve a mention somewhere. However, the right place is probably not in this article which deals with the broad sweep of events in Britain in 1940. Gaius Cornelius 18:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Home Guard seems like the place for them. There's a link somewhere on the Radio 4 History section to a programme on Winterton, Osterley Park and the Home Guard. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Type 22 Pillbox at Gotham

Damage to the roof of the Gotham pillbox SK 523302 has exposed scrap metal including a bed frame, used as roof reinforcement- Photos of Gotham pillbox

Thanks, I have added a reference into the article. Gaius Cornelius 15:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Article Length

Great article on an interesting topic but too long at present; at times it feels more like a list. Could you move some of the detail eg the types of pill box into a separate article? Nickhk 13:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. I was already considering lifting out the details of hardened field defences into a separate article, but I am still working on the article and I intend to the decision off for now. Other opinions welcome in the meantime. Is it acceptable to use show/hide in an article as in the example below - I know it is not generally done in articles? Gaius Cornelius 18:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Typres of Hardened Field Defences. Select show to expand.

[edit] Invasion scares

I have modified the introduction because it is easy to discount invasion scares when the feared invasion did not happen. The fear and the threat may have been no less real for that. Indeed, it is not unknown for even successful invasions such as the French-sponsored one by Henry Tudor on 1485 to be 'air-brushed' out of history by the winners who wish to appear legitimate.

If there had not been serious threats of invasion, there would have been fewer forts round Portsmouth, Martello towers, underground galleries at Dover, Tudor artillery forts, between Falmouth and Berwick; coastal castles at Dover, Carisbrooke and so on. This says nothing about the vast amount spent over the centuries on the Navy as a first line of defence. The threats were real; the fear was real otherwise they would not have spent so much money on averting them. The fact that the expenditure had the desired effect should not be taken to mean that it was always unnecessary. (RJP 20:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC))

Thanks for your contribution. You are basically quite right of course. What I was thinking of at the time of writing was the last serious threat of invasion by Napoleon and all the expensive fortifications etc that I think it would be fair to say were in case of a pretty much better safe than sorry investment. Of course, in WWII, the time of Napoleon was only 150 years hence, not centuries. Only one quibble, it is wrong to suggest that only British personnel were evacuated by Operation Dynamo. Gaius Cornelius 22:34, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Salve! In retrospect, what you say of invasion threats is true but the British government saw the threat from Napoleon III in the 1860s as serious. That is why it spent so much money on the defence of Portsmouth. Building a navy and fortresses requires time so that there is a large element of strategic deterrence involved. Given that, when no invasion happens, it can be hard to say how far the investment was effective and how far unnecessary.
I would have been wrong to say that only British troops were lifted off from Dunkirk. This will have been why I didn't think of saying it. I inserted 'British' into 'Most of the personnel were brought back to Britain' in order to make it clear that reference was not being made to all the Belgian and French troops who were left in the Dunkirk pocket. Without trying to go into reasons, the proportions of the members of those armies who were in the pocket and brought to Britain were much smaller. (RJP 23:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Population moves

I was eight years old when WWII began, living in Hastings. A few years back I came across the copy of an instruction (in a book?) telling the civilian population that it was necessary to move as many people as possible away from the South Coast towns to lessen the casulaty rates in case of invasion. Our family moved away from the coast in May 1940, possibly in response to that injunction. There was, I believe, a cash payment to cope with the costs of that move. I wonder if there might be a way to include that. Peter Shearan 07:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Strictly speaking, Wikipedia is not the place for personal anacdotes; in theory at least it should be possible to provide a reference for everything. If you wish to record your memories for posterity — and I very much hope that you will — may I suggest the BBC website h2g2. If there is something to refer to, it might then be possible to include a note in wikipedia. Gaius Cornelius 11:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Royal Navy

Without British air superiority, the navy would not have been of much use in the event of an invasion. Enemy air superiority even local and temporary, is death to ships. Consider HMS Prince of Wales (1939) and HMS Repulse (1916). Consider also The Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, or the key role of aviation in sinking the Bismark. These aircraft were working well off the home shore. In most of these cases the air forces were rather weak and scanty and way out at sea. What would have happened in the narrow seas on the doorstep of the multitude of Luftwaffe stations in Belgium and northern France had the RAF been effectively confined to north of the Thames Valley.?

The commanding officer at the Nore, Admiral Drax, was none too worried if his comments in the introduction to Grinnell-Milne's The Silent Victory are to be believed. Given the Luftwaffe's record off Norway and Dunkirk, I don't think there was any reason for the admirals to be unduly concerned. Analogies are fine, but there isn't an appropriate one. There would have been thousands of ships in the Channel, making finding a target easy, but finding the right one enormously difficult. The Luftwaffe's record on target recognition wasn't (as the survivors of Z1 and Z3 could testify) so very impressive. Not that the FAA or RAF were much better. Remarkably few warships were sunk by aircraft in the Channel, excepting only Dunkirk and the period around D-Day. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, serendipity:

No doubt more if you care to look. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The article that started this storm in a tea-cup was printed in History Today, September 2006. Naturally I rushed out to buy a copy. This popular, but normally sober, journal does seem to have gone in for headline grabbing with a deliberately controversial article. Essentially it says that even if the RAF had beaten the Germans then the Navy would have been instrumental in doing so: this is pretty much what the Wikipedia article currently says and there is a note to the same effect in the Sealion article. Why this should in any way detract from the achievment of the RAF is as lost on me as it is on most other people. History Today cites as one example of Britain's sea superiority that the Germans had four minelayers to Britains 52 mine sweepers and 16 minesweeping trawlers! As for the danger of aircraft to ships, the German and Japanesse air forces were quite different. The Japanesse had planned and trained for naval warfare, but the Germans had no air launched torpedoes and no armour piercing bombs - conventional bombs would have litterally bounce off British capital ships and the smaller faster and more agile vessels would be difficult for straight-line bombers to hit. The ships that were hit at Dunkirk were essentially stationary. History Today is quite right in saying that most scholars consider that an undefeated Royal Navy made a German invasion folly — but we at Wikipedia already knew that! Gaius Cornelius 19:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and thought-provoking response. In Norway, the Luftwaffe was a long way from home; advancing and fighting at the same time. It had not had time to establish flying stations close to the scene of action. The case was rather similar though at a less extended range, in the southern North Sea in mid 1940. It was not so, in late 1940 when the time needed for the assembly of an invasion force and to suppress the RAF gave time to man the already-existing airfields and time for planning.

The point about the Luftwaffe's equipment is more telling. Though their range was short, its JU57s were tactical bombers suited to attacking small, un-armoured targets. That is what destroyers moving south from Harwich would have been. By late 1940, the Luftwaffe had had some practice in attacking ships and the time to reconsider tactics. Smaller vessels such as minesweepers would have been no match for the Bf 110s.

The capital ships were another matter. The lack of air-launched torpedoes, so far as it existed, precluded an attack such as that against the Repulse and Prince of Wales. However, the Luftwaffe found a way of air-launching V1s and torpedoes from the He 111. Given the incentive, it was capable of finding a way of doing the same with torpedoes, though would have been hard-pressed to do it in time for Seelöwe. The Kriegsmarine had a few submarine torpedo launchers of its own. It would not have been difficult to co-ordinate them with aerial recognisance to place them in a suitable position for causing damage, particularly with the battle fleet's destroyer screen disrupted by aerial attack.

Göring's limited view of the use of air power did get him into trouble. One fault was the lack of heavy bombers which was not relevant here. He had not thought through to the need for maritime use of the Luftwaffe so was rather surprised when the need presented itself but a few feints to bring the RN out or even attacks in harbour, would have greatly depleted its capacity to defend convoys so that Britain would have been brought down for lack of materiel

Yes, the invasion fleet was fragile but there was no need to expose it to an extent greater than that needed to bring out the British fleet. At this stage, Germany had no other enemy. It need not have set Barbarossa in motion and the USSR would not have interfered. It need not have declared war on the USA and that country would not have interfered beyond selling a few arms which would probably have been sunk in transit. That would have left the countries of the British Empire with no means of interfering owing to a lack of sea power and shipping. (RJP 10:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC))

[edit] British Army status

Could we please get some more detail of the Br Army preparations, the status of divisions manning, training, equipment, amount of armour, VII Corps etc etc? Buckshot06 07:54, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map

I was looking for information on the remaining three red link stoplines and came across this. Does this qualify as fair use? Thanks, RHB 18:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That map is not strictly a map of the stop lines - it shows the known locations of hardened field fortifications. Many of these fortifications do lie on the stop lines so that one can pick the lines out if you know what you are looking for. I cannot think why the map would qualify as fair use. Gaius Cornelius 14:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Nom

Should it be passed through this seeing as its certified as A-class? RHB 13:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me! Gaius Cornelius 19:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Result

There are 7 things that must pass before an article reaches GA status. I have reviewed it and the result is as follows:

  1. Well-written: Pass
  2. Factually accurate: Pass
  3. Broad: Pass
  4. Neutrally written: Pass
  5. Stable: Pass
  6. Well-referenced: Pass
  7. Images: Pass

Well done, the GA has passed successfully.

Reviewer's notes:

Well done to all involved - this is a really excellent article. My only suggestion for improvement might be that the opening and background section could have a few more references, but as these are probably given in the linked articles and are not the main content of the article, this is not a problem. Bob talk 13:41, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

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