lemontree

Are you referring to the Chindit I & II expeditions?

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Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Garry

Hi OE! This is very true to understanding why Hitler went on for Barbarossa !!!

In one book based on the files of German supreme command discussions I read that in August 1940.... Hitler was disappointed by Britain not asking for a peace. He asked his generals how long it would take to get Britain off.... They replied that it would take at least 18 month including 9 month on preparation. Hitler was very furious on this.... Then he asked his intelligence about Soviet Union and got answer - Soviet Army is now activelly re-equipping with new weapons. Hitler replied - "What I get if I spend 18 month on Britain? Nothing.... However Stalin will build significant force there and will attack us..... the peace with communists is not sustainable. There would be only one of us surviving us or communists. We always planned to attack them and they did same. We will attack first now before they get strong and get hold on their huge resources. With such a plenty resources we would have no reason to be afraid of blocked Britain"

In the same bookd in the minutes of the same meeting Gerring promised him - Furer we can skip all those preparations - Luftwaffe is as strong as never.... we will start assualt right away!!! Hence even though Germany started its Sea Lion it actually was preparing for Eastern invasion and had been transfering armies and aircraft to Eastern Boarder. From statistics taken by Red Army in Berlin it was evident that only 1/3 of Luftwaffe was located on air strips close to Brittain while remaining force was attacking from very far or not participating in Battle for Brittain.

And finally. In the following meetings Hilter was getting intilligence data on Soviet Army... its size.... order of battle... and number of resources it had. IT WAS WRONG!!! Hilter had data on Soviet Army which was 3 TIMES LOWER THAN ACTUALY..... Hitler estimated Soviet Army domination in artillery, tanks and aircraft as twice while it was six to ten times in different types of hardware. He underestimated number of soviet divisions THREE TIMES!!!

Hence knowing the information which he had the Barbarossa actually made sence.... he simply did not have information about how big was his enemy. And Stalin was sure that Hitler will not attack him KNOWING WHAT A HUGE ARMY SOVIET UNION HAS..... Both were wrong

sparten

The first one specifically, how many survived again? 10?

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"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

lemontree

out of 3000 odd men some 810 were killed of captured and the rest made it back.
Wingate had little experience and tried what he had learn't in the Ethiopian campaign 2 years earlier. Jungle warfare was different and there was the objective of Chindit I was vague and served mainly as an experiment.
- Wingate ordered all wounded to be left behind in villages.
- Wingate repeatedly changed plans without informing other column commanders.
- His HQ escaped to India much before the other columns and he ordred one column to continue marching eastwards IMO to enable his own escape.

leib10

Yep. The man was an arrogant prick. Same thing happened with Operation Goodwood. Although he is on stronger ground when he says that he won the strategic battle (i.e., tying down German troops while Americans massed for the breakthrough at St. Lo) tactically the offensive was a total disaster.

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"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

RustyBattleship

As far as blunders are concerned, how about ordering major invasions based upon horrible intelligence? The landings of Attu and Kiska Islands come to mind. On Attu the troops sent were trained for North Africa and were poorly equipped to fight in the bitter cold of the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska.

Then the attack on Kiska (by then totally abandoned by the Japanese) was with troops trained in the High Sierras, but at summertime when even the water in the bay was warm enough to swim in.

Didn't anybody ever ask any Alaskan residents (did not have to be Aleuts but would have been logical and even more accurate) what the weather was like up there? Our "intelligence" gathering for those operations was obviously based only upon theory by people who know nothing about world geography or Alaskan weather patterns.

It is no wonder why the words "Army" and "Intelligence" should not be said in the same breath.

DWBSR620

I've always held a firm belief that taking on Russia so quickly by the Germans before finishing off England was one of the greatest blunders of WWII. But also after taking on Russia, Germany proved superior forces over Russia, yet how far could they've chased the Bear would've been the question, could they've really completely conquered The Soviets? Possibly with the help of Japan but we know that Japan made their costly error drawing The United States into war to soon, America had no intentions of getting in the war until Pearl Harbor. Too much, too soon for the Axis may've been the overall greatest cumulative blunder of the war. It's obvious that England alone would've eventually fell if Germany wouldn't have invaded The Soviet Union, and with The United States no where near ready to commit to war with The Axis whatsoever well let's say it all would've turned out very differently that's for certain. Too much, too soon, cost The Axis the war, truly in the case of The Allies never was there a better statement to ascribe to them then, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." The Axis could only blame themselves for putting The Allies together at a time when it was The Axis choosing.


Peace To All.

Wraith601

Germany never had ANY chance at all of conquering the Soviet union, the best they could hope for was to force a favorable peace, but Stalin turned the war into a national war of venagence and when that happened there would be no peace until Germany was crushed.

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"We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France."
-Sir Arthur Wellesley

Dreadnought

Germany made the grim mistake of invading Poland early. During this time Hiltler was building his Navy. Hitler didnt want to go to war with Britian until 1941-1942 when his Navy would be complete with the newest capital ships he planned to build in order to gain naval supremecy over the British Fleet. But England beat him to the punch and declared war in 1939. If Hitler had built what he planned as far as capital ships he possibly could have starved the soviets by completely decimating the convoy systems that kept the soviets supplied with food and munitions. The Soviets no doubt had greater troop numbers then Germany had at this time. But the fact remains that Germany could have possibly starved them into submission had he the Navy that he planned before making the mistake of invading Poland too early.

Also had the Allies not caught Hitler when they did the Soviets and the Allies could have been on the recieving end of the first atomic bomb. They already knew how to create it however they could not test it or assemble it while the Allies were quickly advancing on Germany and they had to cut and run. But as Japan soon found out the U.S. capitalized on the idea of the atomic bomb.

Wraith601

The Germans were never anywhere near building an atomic bomb as they relied on heavy water, which they had precious little, to enrich uranium.

Dreadnought

Wraith, perhaps you may want to read about the sub U-234. Uranium that was on board among other things (jet technology etc were bound for Japan as Berlin was falling to the Allies) were taken by the americans and the speculation is that it was the key ingredients in the first atomic bomb. They have witness accounts that places the Uranium onboard the sub however once captured it lists no destination for that Uranuim.
Leading many to believe including experts thats where our first atomic bomb technologies originated from. I have been reading more about this sub but havent found any hard evidence but what I do find I will post links for.

This link is to a similar story of U-234. http://www.ussvance.com/Vance/nazisub.htm

An Edeict on U-234 from Wilkipedia (Not a great souce but still a source)

Japan disclosed its program to its ally Germany, and requested assistance. It is not known how much material Japan received from Germany, but at least one shipment that was sent to Japan by a German submarine was intercepted.

This submarine, Unterseeboot 234 (U-234) was sent to Japan in 1945 to deliver 560 kg of uranium for the Japanese program, as well as a disassembled Me-262 jet fighter and V-2 rocket parts (which would have been of little use for a primitive nuclear weapon). Two Japanese military officials and a number of German experts were also on board. The nuclear cargo was labeled "U-235," perhaps as a mislabeling of the submarine name, or perhaps in reference to the fissile isotope of uranium, uranium-235. It is extremely unlikely, though, that it was truly 560 kg of uranium-235—this would have been some eight times more of the rare element than was produced by the entire U.S. effort, and enough for Nazi Germany to have built many atomic bombs of their own with great ease. It is more likely that the uranium was un- or partially-enriched uranium oxide (which naturally has over 99% uranium 238). The submarine was ordered to surrender on May 10, 1945, two days after the overall German surrender, by Admiral Dönitz. To avoid capture, the two Japanese officials, Lieutenant Commander Hideo Tomonaga and Lieutenant Commander Genzo Shoji, committed suicide and were buried at sea the next day. The submarine was boarded by US forces on May 14 and the cargo fell into U.S. hands.

Some reports claim that the 560 kg of uranium oxide was enough to build two atomic bombs, but this would mean that it was substantially enriched (and would have also meant that Germany could have developed its own bomb with it, which it did not). That amount of unenriched uranium, if enriched to around the 90% needed for an atomic bomb, would provide around 4 kg of bomb-grade material, far less than needed for an atomic bomb (the "Little Boy" uranium weapon dropped on Hiroshima used over 60 kg of uranium-235). If put into a reactor, however, it could have potentially been used to breed plutonium, perhaps enough to use for a weapon if the program had been larger.

American bombing raids disrupted the development of the genshi bakudan, and both raw material and equipment was destroyed at the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research. To avoid further bombing, the development was relocated to Konan (now called Hungnam, in North Korea) early in 1945. This region was close to the source of ore, in less danger of attack than mainland Japan, and also a major industrial area in Asia. However, the move delayed the development by critical three months. Konan was captured by the Russian army in August 1945, and belongs currently to North Korea. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9 led to the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945.

Another about u-234

Escape Of Martin Bormann
Currently, at the Amazon.com web site, Hydrick's book gets rave reviews. One review, "All History Is Not In The Textbooks," gives Critical Mass five stars and reports that Hydrick "tells us how the Germans developed the atomic bomb." A pre-publication review of Hydrick's then-research ("Hydrick U234 -- Rethinking the Manhattan Project") bases its synopsis on a web site formerly maintained by the author.


The pre-publication review, "Hydrick U234," explains how Martin Bormann, chief of the Nazi Party and Hitler's personal secretary, along with Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller, may have escaped justice in the closing days of World War II. A U-Boat, "U-234," the largest submarine in the German navy, silently patrolled the North Sea in the waning days of the war. Onboard was a special cargo: 1120 pounds of enriched uranium stored in special cylinders lined with gold. The submarine awaited orders from Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of all German U-Boats. Late at night on April 29, 1945, Hanna Reitsch, a famous German aviatrix, flew a small plane carrying General Ritter von Greim, Martin Bormann, and Heinrich Mueller out of Berlin. They landed in Hamburg, where Bormann and Mueller boarded the now-waiting U-234.


A deal had allegedly been struck: in exchange for the badly-needed uranium and secret devices such as infra-red bomb fuses, Bormann and Mueller would be protected by the Allies. Bormann disembarked from the U-234 off the coast of Axis-friendly Spain. Mueller and the U-234's special cargo continued on, until it soon thereafter surrendered to U.S. forces at sea.. "Mueller, Bormann and many other Nazis received American protection for decades, and continue to receive such protection even up to the present day," reports the pre-publication synopsis.

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Patton.html

I can keep posting if you like. There are numerous sources to this information.
http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/u234.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/01_...ve_a-bomb.html

From this page the subs contents http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/goldp9.html

one ton of diplomatic and personal mail
technical drawings and blueprints for advanced combat weaponry
anti-tank weapons
advanced bombsights and fire-control systems
airborne radar
an Me 262 jet fighter
additional jet engines
560 kilograms of uranium oxide76
Additionally the U-234 carried the following top Nazi experts.
Luftwaffe General Ulrich Kessler, on his way to become German air attache in Tokyo
Luftwaffe Lieutenant Colonel Fritz von Sandrart and Lieutenant Erich Menzel, experts in air communications, airborne radar, and AA defenses
Four Kriegsmarine officers, including a naval aviation expert, an AA expert, a naval construction engineer, and a naval judge (whose job would be to finally stamp out the last vestiges of the Sorge spy ring)
August Brinewald and Franz Ruf, experts in the technology and construction of jet aircraft whose mission was to begin production of Me 262 jet fighters in Japan
Dr. Heinz Schlike, a specialist in radar and infrared technologies76

Wraith,
FYI more technologies transfered between the Germans and the Japanese in the closing months of WWII then ever thought possible. There is plenty out there to read about if you wish.

Now that I have posted enough perhaps you may post enough to disavow this post?

Wraith601

Except the Germans never had a nuclear "pile" achieve criticality during the war. The Germans scrapped their entire program when they saw it fruitless.

German A-Bomb

You can post all the rubbish you like but you're still wrong, just having uranium is only a small step on the way to building an atomic bomb.

Dreadnought

Rubbish? Ok whatever. Lost cause.

Wraith601

Glad you acknowledge that you're wrong.

Dreadnought

Maybe you should read more about the technology the Germans and Japanese exchanged before declaring anybody wrong.