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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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They Said It Couldn't Be Done (no 772)
Strawberry jam in squeezy bottles.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Disaster has struck! An Unreliable History of the Second World War is now set in type and cannot be changed. President Trump, by meeting Kim Jong-un, has upset my applecart by following my advice but it will now look for all the world as if I am taking my cue from him! The relevant section of the book (written before Trump-as-president was even thought of) reads as follows
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In June 1940, after the defeat of France, Hitler had the perfect opportunity to ‘do the right thing’. If Britain would not make peace with Germany, Germany would make peace with Britain! In international relations it does not always take two to tango. Being a wallflower can be good strategy too.
This does not come naturally to Great Powers for whom meddling is a way of life but there is a current example of the potential benefits of such a policy. The USA should make unilateral peace with Kim Jong-un, even grant North Korea most-favoured-nation status. They would be surprised how little he could do with no-one to fight. He might invade the south though his family have taken care not to for sixty-seven years and besides that is the situation now. He might develop nuclear weapons and a delivery system to go with it, except he has already done that. He might rattle around doing all kinds of mischief but, honestly, his scope is strictly limited, or at least as limited as it is now, unless you insist on constantly giving him fresh opportunities to ruffle your hair. You can always take away his most-favoured-nation status.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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What are the odds?
Oliver Cromwell was born on September 3rd, died on September 3rd, and fought his two greatest battles on September 3rd.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Not very great unfortunately. I have deliberately not looked it up but I am prepared to wager these two battles are 'selected'. As of course is Cromwell himself. It's all pure Bayes Theorem. Don't forget the bloodiest war in human history began on 3rd September (though other dates are negotiable).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Speaking of the Second World War this example of British naval incompetence (one of the themes of my book due out on May 8th) came too late for inclusion. The critical factor in naval warfare at the time was the quality of one’s carrier aircraft. The British were handicapped because they thought biplanes were all that were practical though perhaps they might have tried a little harder with slightly more modern airplanes
| The Hurricanes had been flown off from land bases to keep them from being destroyed in the evacuation after the pilots discovered that a 7-kilogram (15 lb) sandbag carried in the rear of the Hurricane allowed full brakes to be applied immediately on landing. This was the first time that high-performance monoplanes without tailhooks had been landed on an aircraft carrier |
For want of a sandbag, the war was lost. We might get rid of the captain too
| The commanding officer of Glorious, Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes, was granted permission to proceed independently to Scapa Flow in the early hours of 8 June to hold a court-martial of his Commander (Air), J. B. Heath, who had refused an order to carry out an attack on shore targets on the grounds that the targets were at best ill-defined and his aircraft were unsuited to the task, and who had been left behind in Scapa to await trial. On the way through the Norwegian Sea the funnel smoke from Glorious and her two escorting destroyers, Acasta and Ardent, was spotted by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau The British spotted the German ships shortly after 16:00 and Ardent was dispatched to investigate. |
But Cap'n Doyly-Carte was thinking more about the court-martial.
| Glorious did not alter course or increase speed. Five Swordfish were ordered to the flight deck and Action Stations were ordered at 16:20. No combat air patrol was being flown, no aircraft were ready on the deck for quick take-off and there was no lookout in Glorious's crow's nest. |
Sunk at 18:10. But it was all so predictable that about 900 sailors were able to abandon ship in good order.They needn’t have bothered. It turned out two and a bit hours was not nearly enough time to get off a message from a British capital ship in the North Sea.
| The Royal Navy knew nothing of the sinking until it was announced on German radio. There was confusion over the use of wireless telegraphy frequencies on board Glorious which could have contributed to the failure of any other ship or shore-station to receive a sighting report. |
Forty survivors out of 1500.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | The British were handicapped because they thought biplanes were all that were practical though perhaps they might have tried a little harder with slightly more modern airplanes. |
It took a while, but they did (eventually). Even with heavy twin-engine Mosquitos.
I refer my honourable colleagues to part of the biography of Britain's Greatest Test Pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Hjne0OA4w
Declaration of interest: I'm not often awestruck, but when you see the documentary of his life... Jeeez!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEe5ul37Q7g
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A great man indeed. The one bit nobody ever pays attention to is his testimony about Hitler's behaviour re Jesse Owens and the Berlin Olympics. A most topical subject. I will leave you to give the details.
PS Why did the Nazis let him leave in 1939 when everyone else was being interned? There's a real conspiracy theory for you.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | PS Why did the Nazis let him leave in 1939 when everyone else was being interned? |
Maybe he had the luck of having the very best of German connections. Hadn't he been the guest of the sentimental Generalluftzeugmeister Ernst Odet?
Ernst might have put in a good word for him.
Er ist ein guter Junge, lass ihn nach Hause gehen.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Congratulations on, if anything, increasing the mystery. What a great pity P G Wodehouse did not have admirers in the Nazi hierarchy. Udet, by the way.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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Eric Brown wasn't in Germany in 1939. He went with his father to the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936, still a schoolboy, when there was no question of interning English visitors.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You may not be familiar with Holland's War in the West, p 102.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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✈ ✈ ✈ ✈ ✈ ✈ ✈ ✈
Transcript from the documentary:
Ernst Udet asked him to do two things. "Learn to speak German and then learn to fly".
On his return home, Eric attended Edinburgh University. By 1938 he could both fly and speak German. So he wrote to Udet who said he'd show Eric a bit of Berlin.
"I was, in my teens, politically naive, I was just having a wonderful experience. It seemed a very vibrant country, lots of uniforms to be seen around. The Hitler Youth seemed to offer slightly more than the Boy Scouts, if you like to put it that way.
In 1939, with Europe in turmoil, Eric returned to Germany at the request of the British Government. "A little group from the Foreign Office asked me if I was interested in joining the diplomatic copr, and I said I was, and they said right, we will send you to Germany for six months.
In early September, I decided to go up to Munich for a weekend, and I'd drive up in my car. On the 3rd Sept, at about six in the morning, there was a thunderous knock on my door; two SS officers said I have to tell you are under arrest because our two countries are at war. Now technically this was untrue because 11 o'clock was the time, but I wasn't in a strong position to argue.
They took all the clothes, books I had etc and off we went. I was in a little SS jail, I wasn't at all ill-treated. On the third day, a young SS lieutenant came to me and said we're taking you down to the Swiss frontier. When we arrived the lieutenant said you are free to go and you can take your car. So I said you have taken all my clothes, my books, my money; why are you giving me my car? And he said in German : because we have no spares. Very teutonic attitude. |
Mystery solved : they let him go because he had diplomatic cover.
I was taken to Bern and the ambassador said I've been told to return you as soon as possible because you've been called-up. I was keen to get back at the Germans, I was a bit piqued about being locked up. I was young, raring to go. Suddenly on the notice board there was a notice saying the navy had lost a lot of pilots, there was a shortage, and if uou are interested in moving over to the Fleet Air Arm, append your name to the board. So I did that very thing.
Eric became a trained fighter pilot on HMS Audacity, protecting the Atlantic Convoys from bomber attack. |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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On the third day, a young SS lieutenant came to me and said we're taking you down to the Swiss frontier.
Mystery solved : they let him go because he had diplomatic cover. |
Really, Borry, your skills as a conspiracy theory theorist are sadly lacking. 'Diplomatic cover' is very precisely defined. Most MI6 'spies' had 'diplomatic cover' by serving as Passport Control Officers in the various European embassies. Such people (along with normal embassy staff) were repatriated by Germany but only after laborious negotiations and via (I think) Sweden. So
1) Brown, though clearly a British spy, had no diplomatic cover
2) 'Three days' is not, on the face of things, sufficient to organise some other, less formal, arrangement -- never mind why the Germans would wish to do so. They knew at the very least he was an expert military pilot.
3) The SS, at this stage of the war, had no jurisdiction in these matters. Possibly Brown was mistaken but the operation would be in the hands of any one of the following: the Abwehr (German Secret Service), the Gestapo (secret state police). the Sicherheitspolizei (security police), the Geheime Feldpolizei (Wehrmacht field security police) or the Forschungsamt (Luftwaffe intelligence). Even the ordinary police -- since he is presenting it as somewhat routine in the circumstances -- but not the SS.
4) All British citizens were rounded up on the outbreak of war (as of course were German citizens in Britain). Many of them were later repatriated but very, very much later and only if they were not of military age.
So the mystery continues to deepen. It should be remembered that many people in German high places (including within the Abwehr and not excluding Goering) were trying to stitch up last minute peace deals with Britain even after the formal declaration of war. Brown would certainly seem rather young and junior for any such role but he was certainly most extraordinarily well-connected on both sides. He would not necessarily be entirely witting in all this.
But whatever was going on (including nothing very much at all) Borry -- though himself young and junior but at least now properly briefed -- will be able to find out for us.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The SS connection may be the school, Schule Schloss Salem, which Eric Brown was attending. The school's headmaster, Kurt Hahn, was Jewish and in 1933 had left Germany for England. (He founded other elite boarding schools including Gordonstoun, in Scotland, which our future king had to endure).
Hahn had studied at Oxford and in the First World War worked for the Foreign Office's German department which may explain why, when he was (briefly) arrested for criticising the Nazi regime, the then British prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, intervened. Echoes of Eric Brown's own experience perhaps.
The Schule was eventually taken over by the SS
https://www.schule-schloss-salem.de/en/about-us/history/history-of-schule-schloss-salem/
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Interesting but far-fetched. However it is interesting that such a pro-Nazi figure (as Brown admits to being in the thirties) was at such an ostensibly anti-Nazi school. It should never be forgotten that most of upper-class Britain was (however vaguely) pro-Nazi in the thirties.
Since the ‘smoking gun’ is the Germans letting him go (and/or with such speed) this is the part to concentrate on. The obvious first question is what on earth was Brown doing in Munich on 3rd September 1939? Everybody treats this as a simple case of ‘wrong time, wrong place’, but this is really quite unlikely. Remember, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact occurred on the 24th August and was treated by all sides as an immediate adjunct to war. Both British and German fleets, for instance, were mobilised in various ways. The war actually started on 1st September. Now Brown-the-curious-tourist may have been caught out but Brown-the-Foreign-Office-traveller could not possibly have been. So he was there for some reason. Yes, it could be incompetence on his/the FO’s part, but it should not be assumed. So much for ‘wrong time’ but what about ‘wrong place’?
More later.
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