• The first stage of the forum upgrades has now been completed but they remain in a degraded state and are still being worked on. Normal posting/reading should now be possible.
    Please read this thread for more details.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

Dunkirk

Status
Not open for further replies.

People weren't so fussed about equality when it involved millions of white men throwing themselves in front of bullets.
Too true. Mind there was also a noticeable absence of American forces too. But then there would be. They were hiding in their barracks at that time. Took them ages to summon up the courage to join in.

Its probably the best bit of programming produced in this countrys history.
There was another amazing series called War in the Air. Broadcast when I was a kid. I wish I could track it down.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One of the things they had to endure was coming home and seeing the next generation who had no personal experience of war nevertheless calling Dunkirk a fuck up. How galling must that have been.
It's a bit of a funny one though, because even to today, we still refer to the "Dunkirk Spirit" as a positive attribute, and a trait of Britishness, digging in when the chips are down and the odds stacked against you.
 
To be fair to them, when found ourselves in fight, the Empire and Commonwealth were happy to come along and throw themselves in front of bullets on our behalf.

The comment from USA Today is daft, but we shouldn't forget the part that other nations played in fighting for us.
Some later than others. .. like the Americans.
 
A much bigger fuck up than Dunkirk.

After a series of fuck ups (including installing all the big guns so they could only face out to sea as "no-one would attack through a jungle") the UK, Australian and Indian regiments asked the Japanese for talks. The Japanese were actually relieved - then rather surprised when the allied troops offered an unconditional surrender. The Japs were surprised as they had ran out of ammo and couldn't continue the fight.....
Read this.


Just cor the record the French where in charge of the campaign.
We only evacuated when the outcome was inevitable.


Plenty of those "toffee nosed" people died on them there beaches bonny lad.
Thousands of French soldiers died in the rearguard action to buy time for the evacuation.
 
Too true. Mind there was also a noticeable absence of American forces too. But then there would be. They were hiding in their barracks at that time. Took them ages to summon up the courage to join in.


There was another amazing series called War in the Air. Broadcast when I was a kid. I wish I could track it down.

This one? Link for playlist of 15 episodes in code box
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhYC4wWGNo&list=PL31iajWKyI8473S-jKZ0Pge9lYi-ZxnqI

You must be logged on to see media items

Anyone seen the clarkson documentary on 'The raid on St Nazaire'. Think its called that. Anyway its on youtube, definitely worth a watch. An amazing story of one of the first SOS missions
You must be logged on to see media items
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I knew the Commando bit but not the SOS bit. They became the SBS tho yeah, and then the SAS out of that?
Something like that, I'm not sure if it was the SOS or the SOE, they were both military codenames that were used around ww2. Quite alot of it was coveres up but I definitely remenber watching a documentary once on the formation of MI5 and 6, I'm sure the route to them was through one and the othet was basically the modern day SAS
 
Something like that, I'm not sure if it was the SOS or the SOE, they were both military codenames that were used around ww2. Quite alot of it was coveres up but I definitely remenber watching a documentary once on the formation of MI5 and 6, I'm sure the route to them was through one and the othet was basically the modern day SAS

SOE turned into MI6. I don't think there was such thing as the SOS in the British military. I could be wrong though. You might be thinking of the SIS (which is another name for MI6)
 
My grandad landed on D Day after surviving Dunkirk. Promised my mam and Nana he'd never touch the sea again. Dying of terminal cancer in September 1980 while my mam was pregnant with me, he told her he'd do anything she wanted. She asked him to paddle in the sea. My mam, my Nana and me Grandad went to benidorm the next January and he swam in the med, initially frightened, by the end of the week they couldn't get him out of the water. He told my mam "tell him it's the little things. Tell him to have no fear. Tell him to get back on the horse. Tell him I love him."

My mam never told me that until she saw Saving Private Ryan around 2005. It fucked me up. But ever since then I've followed that speech.

I know that sounds bullshit, but who am I to question me ma? Never got to meet the bloke, but heard he was f***ing rock, and obviously lived through Dunkirk, D Day, and all of WW2, so I'll never question it.

Henry McCowliff was his name if anyone is wanting to look it up.

Makes our generation look like the cowards we are.
And mine .
 
Read this.



Thousands of French soldiers died in the rearguard action to buy time for the evacuation.
Oh absolutely MB mate but I was merely pointing out that the majority of actions conducted by the British forces in that campaign where undermined by French high command incompetence. Absolutely not commenting on the bravery of the French rank and file.
 
708 black soldiers were killed in World War 2. Which is upsetting for the SMB liberal elite obviously.
And around 100,000 brown ones died fighting for the British alone.

Oh absolutely MB mate but I was merely pointing out that the majority of actions conducted by the British forces in that campaign where undermined by French high command incompetence. Absolutely not commenting on the bravery of the French rank and file.
Aye, true. They were still fighting WW1.
 
Really looking forward to this one.

I know my Grandad was there, but it was the one part of the war he wouldn't talk about, even all those years later you could see his eyes glazing over at it's very mention. I can only imagine the horrors it took to spook a man like him. He was a giant hero of a man, to see him affected like that was incredibly humbling.
 
When the Americans finally cast off their cowardice and ventured over the Atlantic to join in the war on Dec 7 1941 (long wait eh?), the VERY few blacks they brought with them were 100% racially segregated.


firstly - how are they cowards for not venturing over the atlantic in a war that they were'nt an official part of

secondly - have you never heard of the undeclared war, neutrality patrols, lend-lease or destroyers for bases

thirdly - as Germany did'nt declare war on the US til 11th december why would they venture over the atlantic before then??

fourthly - by very few blacks do you mean the less than 4000 in service in 1941 or the 1.2M by 1945

even your 100% segregated line is false as well

all in all, you have done really well there

;-)
 
This one? Link for playlist of 15 episodes in code box
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhYC4wWGNo&list=PL31iajWKyI8473S-jKZ0Pge9lYi-ZxnqI

You must be logged on to see media items


You must be logged on to see media items
Thanks for the heads up. Watching War in the air on kodi youtube. Spot on picture.
Watched part one then typed in war in the air 2of 15 and the whole series came up.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
firstly - how are they cowards for not venturing over the atlantic in a war that they were'nt an official part of

secondly - have you never heard of the undeclared war, neutrality patrols, lend-lease or destroyers for bases

thirdly - as Germany did'nt declare war on the US til 11th december why would they venture over the atlantic before then??

fourthly - by very few blacks do you mean the less than 4000 in service in 1941 or the 1.2M by 1945

even your 100% segregated line is false as well

all in all, you have done really well there

;)

Firstly decent nations realised early on that the Nazies planned on world domination, racial brutality and those nations acted as their humanity demanded. The brutality demonstrated in Europe by the Nazies in their initial domination and invasions, together with their appalling behavior in Checoslovakia, the Sudetenland, Poland, Belgium, France and Spain, Guernica for example, made their intentions and brutality perfectly obvious to the world. The Americans did nothing, except for money.

Secondly, the "undeclared war"? You no doubt refer to the admirable but unrepresentative effort by a tiny minority of decent people. Their neutrality patrols were most largely for their own protection and their own economy. As for lease lend? First World War destroyers, corvette and even one "monitor" under a different name. We actually finished paying them back at the beginning of this century. No discounts there.

Thirdly, you make my point for me. Even the vile activities of the Nazies failed to stir their consciences. It took a German declaration of war to make them "venture over the Atlantic". So no danger of them following the example of us and our allies in going to the aid of countries in lead. Which we did without "lease lend".

Fourthly, my point was that that they really should have thought about the disgusting way they treated their own non-Non-Caucasians at that time and for decades afterwards before criticising a film maker for not popping a few darker skins into a film. Your comment about segregation is incorrect as well, at the time I described. As it happens I have very considerable respect for the coloured Americans who answered the call of a nation who enslaved and then brutalised them right up to the end of the 1960-70s because the bigger cause was just, or because they were called up.

All in all you could learn more about the decades just before and during which I was born into and lived through before making comments like those.

This one? Link for playlist of 15 episodes in code box
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhYC4wWGNo&list=PL31iajWKyI8473S-jKZ0Pge9lYi-ZxnqI

You must be logged on to see media items


You must be logged on to see media items
Oh boy. Thank you very, very much for the War in the Air link. I was born in '44 and my brother was eight tears older than me. He carved in Balsa wood really good models of about 40 or 50 British, German, American, Russian and Japanese fighters and Bombers. I grabbed them when he married and kept them for years until my lads came along when they got the survivors. They still have a few.

I cannot thank you enough.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One of the things they had to endure was coming home and seeing the next generation who had no personal experience of war nevertheless calling Dunkirk a fuck up. How galling must that have been.

Not sure it was galling at all, I think many who were there also believed it was a fuck up.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top