Steve Shaw - 03 Jul 17 - 05:59 AM

"Jaysus, Teribus. You'll listen to the Spitfire pilots for their accounts but you won't listen to the tommies in the trenches. Well, I suppose it is cherry season."

Rather pleased you brought that up Shaw - YOU should really watch the programme if you want to learn something (But if I am honest with myself you do not wish to learn anything, particularly if it contradicts any dearly held myth believed by either yourself or any of your pals)

In the WWI threads you are referring to with your crack about "tommies" IIRC I mentioned that the view and perspective of "the War" obtained from the trenches would be tiny postage stamp views, that are susceptible to misconception. I gave two examples of this view from other conflicts:

A) Waterloo 1815: Three eye-witness accounts
- That of the Duke of Wellington - Commander of the Allied Army;
- That of Captain William Kincaid 95th Rifles
- That of Rifleman Edward Costello 95th Rifles

Whose account would give you the most complete and accurate description of the Battle?

B) Dunkirk 1940:
The perception of the bulk of those evacuated from the beaches and of the naval personnel evacuating the troops was that the RAF went missing and played no part in the evacuation. This view was held to be true and factual by all those "eye-witnesses" because they didn't see any evidence of the RAF effort. We now know after 70 years that all of those eye-witnesses were wrong. We now know that the effort put in by RAF Fighter Command was a major contributing factor in the success of the evacuation (Best estimate for the numbers that would get back were 45,000 - In FACT over 340,000 troops, British and French made it back to England). In the 46 days it took for the Germans to ramp through France and the Low Countries in 1940 the RAF lost something like 980 aircraft, the Luftwaffe lost about 1,400. The RAF in support of Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, over the nine days of Operation Dynamo, the RAF flew 171 reconnaissance, 651 bombing and 2,739 fighter sorties. Fighter Command claimed 262 enemy aircraft, losing 106 of their own, losses worse than they would experience in the upcoming Battle of Britain. Invaluable battle experience gained and the aircraft that really did the damage was the up to then untried and unproven Spitfire.

Jaysus indeed Shaw - just when the fuck are you going to start arguing from anything other than a base of ignorance fuelled by your a bankrupt ideology?