"Blame the stupidity of the officers if you will, but dont blame the British"

Nothing personal mate, but many of the British Officers were mostly pretty hopeless in WWI (Slaves of Ancient Military Ritual, unable to react to changing conditions). Of course, they were behind the times, as indeed many others were too, as Industrialized Warfare had begun to be devastatingly effective. Only a few nations really understood this (in spite of the efforts of many individuals) by WWII too, which is why the medium range 'blitzkreig' style was so effective at first - failing in Russia. Of course even they were hamstrung by their own shortsighted leaders for some technologies, for if the desired numbers of submarines, and the advanced types of submarines had been produced in sufficient numbers when they were first planned, things would have been even nastier.

My dad went on ship to the USA (prior to Dec 1941) across the Pacific, then by the Queen Mary across the Atlantic to England. He never would have made it across the Pacific if enough of the 'super subs' with high underwater speed were around then.

"We hold our commonwealth allies in the highest regard."

Thanks mate, but that was definitely not the opinion of those British Officers of the time that were Slaves of Ancient Military Ritual and Racist Colonial Classism. Even the Yanks wanted our Special Forces guys in Iraq ... :-)

Which reminds me what one of them I was chatting to at a party told me about Iraq, when he was there. They were zooming along in their jeep, and came to a US truck with a flat tyre, and the guys sitting around. "Can we help you change the tyre?" "No thanks, we're waiting for the Specialists to get here." Aussies left at high speed, not wanting to wait around in Sniper Alley....

Of course, this may not have been true, and just have been Aussie Humour ....