Ken Beaton
Calling all World War II history buffs, why didn’t Hitler invade England after his five-week victoriously campaign conquering France, Belgium and Holland?
A total of 338,000 Brits, French, Poles and Belgians were miraculously rescued from Dunkirk, France by 39 Royal Navy destroyers, 2 Royal Navy Hospital ships, 3 French Navy destroyers and 800 volunteer fishing trawlers, yachts, and anything with a motor making multiple trips across the English Channel.
Everyone was filled with joy because 338,000 Allied troops had been rescued. Prime Minister Winston Churchill reminded everyone, “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are NOT won by evacuation.” All the Allies tanks, trucks, artillery, and equipment was left behind in Dunkirk with the German Army. This was the perfect time to thrust the Nazi dagger into the heart of the Brits!
Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote, rewrote, and practiced his speech before a large mirror.
On June 4, 1940, he spoke for 20 minutes in parliament and concluded with, “We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
Why didn’t Hitler order the might of the victorious German Army across 20 miles of the English channel to invade and conquer the United Kingdom? Because Germany was not the United States. The United States had the capacity and produced 22,000 LCVPs. Each LCVP had a crew of three and delivered 30 troops on enemy beaches to establish a beachhead. Sixteen million men and women left their jobs. Many enlisted and others were drafted into the Army, Army Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Merchant Marines. Those sixteen million Americans were replaced by eighteen million women who quickly became skilled at their job even though they didn’t make the same money as a man. One male foreman remarked, “These women produce more than the men under me because the women aren’t always taking a cigarette break.”
In a “fireside chat” with the American people, President Roosevelt stressed that it was the American people who had the power to turn the tide of the war. It was here that he first used the phrase “arsenal of democracy.”
“We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.” Finally, he reassured the American people: “I believe that the Axis powers are not going to win this war.”
Not only did the United States produced fighters, bombers, tanks, trucks, and jeeps for our armed forces, but we supplied our allies with fighters, bombers, tanks, trucks, jeeps and etc. We sent 6,000 Studebaker deuce and a half trucks in Liberty ships to the Russian port of Murmansk. The trucks were vital in moving the needed war materials from one place to where they were needed the most to crush the Nazis in critical battles, sticking it to the Nazi in their gut! You can always tell a battle was fiercely fought when two dead opposing soldiers appear to be hugging when they actually stab each other at the same time!
The Germans designed the V-1 and V-2 rockets along with Panzer tanks and U-Boats, but Germany did not have the quality and quantity of naval architects and sailors to man the ships needed to defeat the Allies. Both the United States and the United Kingdom with their large navies knew that “Victory at Sea,” controls the seas to defeat the enemy. Goods, soldiers, and war materials have to move from point A to point B to win a war.
Hitler’s plan to invade the United Kingdom was called “Operation Sea Lion.” He didn’t have ships designed to carry troops. He planned to use river barges for a sea invasion. River barges would easily sink in an English Channel storm.
The RAFs radar utilized the spitfires and hurricanes to attack German bombers causing the Luftwaffe’s heavy losses which couldn’t support an invasion. FYI, there were at least a couple of American Eagle squadrons in the RAF, American pilots who traveled to the United Kingdom and enlisted in the RAF.
Hitler’s second goal was to weaken the British economy. His submarines operated in “wolf packs” in the “dead zone,” the waters unprotected from Canadian flights and flights from the United Kingdom flights in the North Atlantic. When long-range B-24s began patrolling the entire North Atlantic, eliminating the dead zone. 80 percent of the U-boats ended WWII in “Davie Jones’ locker.”
By July 4, 1940, Hitler’s attention turned to planning an invasion of Russia. He assigned General Eric Marchs to begin the plans for Operation Barbossa, the invasion of Russia. More than 3 million German troops invaded Russia on June 22, 1941. Hitler didn’t read about Napoleon Bonaparte’s failed invasion of Russia in the early 19th century. It’s easier to learn from someone else’s mistakes.
I wrote this commentary while listening to KUNR reporting on the carnage in Garza and Israel with identifying bodies. No matter the parents’ spoken language, their worst nightmare is having to identify the body of one or more of their children! Will stupidity ever end?
Ken Beaton is a frequent contributor to the Nevada Appeal.