Controversial as it may, if you're goal is to find the truth of the topics shown here, then I suggest you watch these and other videos. These crimes on the people should be unmasked, and these will continue until the American people wake up and put a stop to the evil perpetrators. The first step is to understand and have an open mind, unbelievable and ugly as it may, that this could really be happening...AMOR PATRIAE
Controversial as it may, if you're goal is to find the truth of the topics shown here, then I suggest you watch these and other videos. These crimes on the people should be unmasked, and these will continue until the American people wake up and put a stop to the evil perpetrators. The first step is to understand and have an open mind, unbelievable and ugly as it may, that this could really be happening...AMOR PATRIAE
Friday, January 19, 2018
Nazi Germany Could have Overwhelmed Britain with a Massive Air Invasion After Dunkirk
Reeling under combined assault from German land and air forces, in late May and early June 1940 the British Army evacuated France. As many as 338,000 British and allied troops got off the beach at Dunkirk.
But they left behind 2,300 artillery pieces, 500 anti-tank guns, 600 tanks and 64,000 other vehicles — around half of the British Army’s entire inventory of heavy weaponry.For the next year, the army was all but powerless to defend the British Isles. At least that’s what Adolf Hitler and the rest of the German high command believed as they promptly laid plans to invade. They called the operation Unternehmen Seeloewe. Operation Sealion.
Images show a flotilla of British ships making their way across the Channel as part of the rescue attempt
Another picture sees a group of soldiers wading through the sea as they make their way towards a boat
Royston Leonard restored original black and white photographs of Operation Dynamo into colour versions
Evacuation of soldiers from Dunkirk in 1940 was one of the Second World War's largest military operations
An astonishing series of colour photographs showing the dramatic evacuation of Dunkirk from Hitler's troops during the Second World War emerged today as the new blockbuster movie was released.
Images show a flotilla of British ships making their way across the Channel as part of the rescue attempt in 1940, while another sees a group of soldiers wading through the sea as they make their way towards a boat.
Royston Leonard, the man who restored the original black and white photographs into colour versions, said: 'I see a beaten army but not a defeated one. We went to war still stuck with ideas from World War One.
'We weren't ready for a modern fast-moving war like World War Two. At that time, we were not ready for modern war. But this just shows how by working together even defeat can become a victory.'
The evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk was one of the largest military operations of the war, with approximately 338,000 men rescued from the beaches during Operation Dynamo.
The operation came after hundreds of thousands of British, French, Belgian and other Allied forces were trapped by the German army on the beaches of Dunkirk following a failed attempt to set up a base on mainland Europe.
The failed attempt saw the Allied armies abandon huge amounts of equipment when they left the beach, including 2,472 guns, 63,879 vehicles, 20,548 motorcycles, 76,097 tons of ammunition and 416,940 tons of stores.
Most were recycled by the German army, who captured 40,000 French troops when Dunkirk eventually fell. And the historic events have recently been turned into a blockbuster film, which opens in cinemas across the UK today.
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Smiling troops make their way back to Britain following the dramatic evacuation of Dunkirk during the Second World War
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Troops involved in the evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk, which was one of the largest military operations of the war
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Troops wade through the sea toward a rescue boat as 338,000 men were rescued from the beaches in Operation Dynamo
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Troops help an injured soldier during the evacuation which followed a failed attempt to set up a base on mainland Europe
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The operation was scheduled after hundreds of thousands of British, French, Belgian and other Allied forces became trapped
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Troops wait in the rubble for a rescue. Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed the rescue attempt as a 'miracle of deliverance'
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Smiling soldiers smoke while others fill up their canteens on board a train during the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940
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British troops in Dunkirk. The failed attempt to set up a base saw the Allied armies abandon huge amounts of equipment
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A group of soldiers look out at a burning ship .The historic events in 1940 have recently been turned into a blockbuster film
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A staggering 933 ships took place in the operation, from navy ships to fishing ships, with only 697 returning to Britain
Evacuation of Dunkirk: How 338,000 Allied troops were saved in 'miracle of deliverance'
The evacuation from Dunkirk was one of the biggest operations of the Second World War and was one of the major factors in enabling the Allies to continue fighting.
It was the largest military evacuation in history, taking place between May 27 and June 4, 1940. The evacuation, known as Operation Dynamo, saw an estimated 338,000 Allied troops rescued from northern France. But 11,000 Britons were killed during the operation - and another 40,000 were captured and imprisoned.
Described as a 'miracle of deliverance' by wartime prime minister Winston Churchill, it is seen as one of several events in 1940 that determined the eventual outcome of the war.
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British soldiers fight a rearguard action during the evacuation at Dunkirk, shooting rifles at attacking aircraft in 1940
The Second World War began after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, but for a number of months there was little further action on land. But in early 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway and then launched an offensive against Belgium and France in western Europe.
Hitler's troops advanced rapidly, taking Paris - which they never achieved in the First World War - and moved towards the Channel.
They reached the coast towards the end of May 1940, pinning back the Allied forces, including several hundred thousand troops of the British Expeditionary Force. Military leaders quickly realised there was no way they would be able to stay on mainland Europe.
Operational command fell to Bertram Ramsay, a retired vice-admiral who was recalled to service in 1939. From a room deep in the cliffs at Dover, Ramsay and his staff pieced together Operation Dynamo, a daring rescue mission by the Royal Navy to get troops off the beaches around Dunkirk and back to Britain.
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A British soldier helps a wounded man drink while waiting to be evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940
On May 14, 1940 the call went out. The BBC made the announcement: 'The Admiralty have made an order requesting all owners of self-propelled pleasure craft between 30ft and 100ft in length to send all particulars to the Admiralty within 14 days from today if they have not already been offered or requisitioned.'
Boats of all sorts were requisitioned - from those for hire on the Thames to pleasure yachts - and manned by naval personnel, though in some cases boats were taken over to Dunkirk by the owners themselves.
They sailed from Dover, the closest point, to allow them the shortest crossing. On May 29, Operation Dynamo was put into action.
When they got to Dunkirk they faced chaos. Soldiers were hiding in sand dunes from aerial attack, much of the town of Dunkirk had been reduced to ruins by the bombardment and the German forces were closing in.
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A ship laden with troops sets off for home as Dunkirk burns in the background
Above them, RAF Spitfire and Hurricane fighters were headed inland to attack the German fighter planes to head them off and protect the men on the beaches.
As the little ships arrived they were directed to different sectors. Many did not have radios, so the only methods of communication were by shouting to those on the beaches or by semaphore.
Space was so tight, with decks crammed full, that soldiers could only carry their rifles. A huge amount of equipment, including aircraft, tanks and heavy guns, had to be left behind.
The little ships were meant to bring soldiers to the larger ships, but some ended up ferrying people all the way back to England. The evacuation lasted for several days.
Men wait in an orderly fashion for their turn to be rescued during Operation Dynamo in 1940
Prime Minister Churchill and his advisers had expected that it would be possible to rescue only 20,000 to 30,00 men, but by June 4 more than 300,000 had been saved.
The exact number was impossible to gauge - though 338,000 is an accepted estimate - but it is thought that over the week up to 400,000 British, French and Belgian troops were rescued - men who would return to fight in Europe and eventually help win the war.
But there were also heavy losses, with around 90,000 dead, wounded or taken prisoner. A number of ships were also lost, through enemy action, running aground and breaking down. Despite this, Dunkirk was regarded as a success and a great boost for morale.
In a famous speech to the House of Commons, Churchill praised the 'miracle of Dunkirk' and resolved that Britain would fight on: '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!'
But brave Royal Air Force pilots exacted such a toll on German planes during the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940 — destroying some 2,000 Luftwaffe aircraft and killing 2,600 aircrew against the loss of 1,600 British planes and roughly the same number of aircrew — that Hitler cancelled the invasion.
That’s the popular conception. Problem is, it — along with many other entrenched notions about Operation Sealion — is wrong, according to Robert Forczyk’s new book We March Against England. In truth, the Germans could have put boots on the ground in England by the end of 1940, RAF be damned.
For starters, the RAF’s defense of British air space in mid-1940, while admirable, wasn’t decisive in forestalling the invasion … because the invasion didn’t depend on the Luftwaffe gaining local air superiority. Germany’s improvised nighttime invasion fleet of destroyers, barges and fishing boats could expect to sail right under the RAF’s nose.
“Once the enemy was at sea,” Forczyk writes, “Bomber Command’s level-bombers would have been of negligible value and the anti-invasion effort would have rested squarely upon the obsolescent Fairey Battles of №1 Group (six squadrons with about 90 Battles) and the Blenheim light bombers of Air Vice-Marshal Sir James Robb’s №2 Group (11 squadrons with about 160 Blenheims). Both aircraft had already proven highly vulnerable to enemy fighter interception.”
Nor was the Royal Navy necessarily a powerful invasion-deterrent. “Of all the misconceptions about Seeloewe, the ability and willingness of the Royal Navy to defeat an invasion attempt are often the most egregious,” according to Forczyk.
As the Germans’ self-imposed late-September 1940 invasion deadline loomed, just five of the British fleet’s 14 capital ships were in home waters. “Furthermore, Adm. Sir Charles Forbes, commander of the Home Fleet, was very wary of risking his capital ships in the English Channel where they could be bombed by the Luftwaffe and was content to rely primarily on destroyers and light craft, supported by a few cruisers, to oppose any invasion.”
“Forbes said that as long as the RAF was undefeated, the primary defense against invasion should be left to them and the army.”
London ultimately compelled Forbes to add a single old battleship to the anti-invasion fleet, but the big ship would need hours to reach the fighting. The Royal Navy’s plan, in the event the German troop barges set sail, was to send 40 destroyers and four cruisers — split into two groups — to hit the barges from east and west.
But the British ships would have to endure air attacks and survive minefields before finally making contact — at night — with the four dispersed and heavily-armed invasion flotillas the Germans had planned. While the Royal Navy’s submarines might fare better, the surface fleet’s chances of defeating an invasion on its own were tenuous.
“The navy can lose us the war,” Forczyk quotes British prime minister Winston Churchill as saying.
Nor, of course, was the army ready to resist a German landing in the half-year after Dunkirk. “Unfortunately, the British Army in September 1940 was little more than a ‘cardboard force’ that was not capable of sustained ground combat against a veteran and well-trained opponent.”
Lacking in heavy weaponry and motor transport, the British Army was also stuck with an outdated operational concept that was like something straight out of World War I. It still practiced trench warfare.
Worse, the doomed intervention in France had gotten so many junior officers killed that, in late 1940, many small units lacked appropriate leaders. As a consequence, they weren’t likely to improvise new tactics as the Germans stormed the beaches.
So if the RAF’s fighting prowess didn’t matter, the Royal Navy’s own anti-invasion plans were too timid and the British Army was too shell-shocked to resist, exactly what — in Forczyk’s estimation — prevented the Nazis from conquering the British Isles?
The simple answer is the Soviet Union. Hitler indefinitely postponed Operation Sealion in order to devote more resources to his crazy, lifelong ambition to invade the USSR. The Eastern Front would eventually consume millions of German lives and ultimately prove to be Hitler’s downfall.
The more complex answer, according to Forczyk, is that Hitler put the invasion on hold because, organizationally speaking, postponement was easier for him than forcing the bickering chiefs of the German army, navy and air force to work together on a single operation as complex as an amphibious landing.
“By tolerating these personal agendas, Hitler threw away any hope of achieving decisive results in regard to England.”
It is one crazy flying machine, looking like something more out of a cartoon than something that can actually fly. Part of its strange, bulbous shape comes from its roots as a Me 321 military glider, an aircraft that was key to Hitler’s plan to invade England. From this genesis came the largest land based operational transport of World War II: the Messerschmitt 323 Giant.
The problem was straight forward: How could the Nazis be able to airlift heavy equipment and vehicles across the English Channel as part of an initial invasion of England? The answer came from a demand sent down from Luftwaffe High Command in October of 1940 to Junkers and Messerschmitt. They had to submit proposals for a large heavy transport glider, and they only had 14 days to do it.
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This “super-glider” had to be able to carry either a 88mm gun and its half-track surrogate or a Panzer IV tank. Initially, Junkers blended wing-body-like Ju322 was chosen, but because Junkers elected to use a high-grade lumber in its design, it was reasoned that it would be very hard to produce in large numbers and quickly. Additionally, the lack of a fuselage made the aircraft somewhat unstable during the type’s only test flight, and the reality of a deep redesign was more than commanders wanted wait through.
With the Ju322’s failure, the Luftwaffe went back to Messerschmitt for a usable design. After bounding around between hybrid’s of existing projects, the Me321 was proposed and eventually accepted into service, although this was after Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of England, was cancelled. Instead the Me321 was used fairly extensively on the Eastern Front in the bloody fight against Communist Russia.
After being successfully used in Russia, and after receiving good reports from pilots who flew Me321s in the field, the decision was made to produce a powered variant for heavy point to point transport duties. Design began in earnest by early Spring of 1941. The Me323 “Giant” would feature four French Gnome et Rhone GR14N radial engines capable of a maximum output of 1,164 horsepower each. The idea was that the Me323 didn’t have to get anywhere that fast and using French engines would not put any extra stress on Germany’s struggling wartime industrial production.
After tests with four engines, a remodeled fuselage and a highly strengthened wing, it was clear that the Me323 was not going to be able to carry much without getting assistance from a powerful tow aircraft, a formation of three Bf110 heavy fighters, which was seen as very dangerous, or by attaching rocket assisted takeoff units to the outboard sections of the wings. Even with five engines there would not be enough power to have the aircraft takeoff by itself with a large load.
As such, the Me323V2 was built with six engines. This gave the “Giant” a truly intimidating appearance and would allow the aircraft to takeoff, cruise and land without assistance while carry a full load. This configuration was later known as the Me323D.
The final production configuration of the Me323 had a high wing made of wood and fabric that was braced near the center of the wing and fuselage. The fuselage was built out of a tubular metal skeleton with wooden cross-beams and fabric covering. The cockpit sat high atop the aircraft’s bulbous nose, which was a clam-shell door design, allowing it to open wide for outsized cargo to be loaded and unloaded. The cargo hold was cavernous for the time, measuring 36 feet long, 10 feet wide and 11 feet high, which is very roughly the size of a first generation C-130’s cargo hold. All said, the Me323 could carry a wide variety of items. For example, it could haul a pair of four ton trucks or 52 drums of fuel or 130 fully outfitted combat troops.
Just because it could lift a lot didn’t mean it could do so quickly. The Giant’s maximum speed was a paltry 135mph at sea level, and that figure got only worse as it climbed. This was helped somewhat by replacing wooden propellers on early models with metal variable pitch propellers on later ones. A crew of five was used on most missions, which included two pilots, two engineers and a radioman. During flights through areas that were of high risk, the radioman and the engineers could man three of the aircraft’s five MG 131 machine guns, although dedicated gunners were often carried for these higher-risk missions, allowing the crew to concentrate on flying and navigating, while still employing all five guns against Allied fighters. The Giant’s five .51 inch machine guns were located on the aircraft’s upper wings and in the nose and tail.
The metrics related to the Me323 are telling for its time. It had a wingspan of 181 feet, a length of 92 and a half feet, a max takeoff weight of 95,000 pounds, a ceiling of 13,000 feet, and a range of about 675 miles. It was a big, inefficient beast, but it wasn’t very complex and it was sturdy enough for operating out of austere locations while also making as small of a dent in Germany’s over-stressed aeronautics industry.
The timing of the Me323’s introduction into service was good for the Nazis, as shipping into Northern Africa was under incredible pressure by Allied forces. As such, a massive airlift was organized to provide Rommel’s Afrika Korps with the constant stream of supplies needed for the doomed Tunisian Campaign.
During its constant Mediterranean crossings, the Me323s were like sitting ducks. They were just about the easiest thing to spot in the air, they could not maneuver, they had pretty light armament and were cruising at what is a modern jet airliner’s stall speed. As such, they got pummeled by Allied fighter patrols, but because they were so big and basic, many kept flying riddled with holes and pieces of their wings and fuselage missing.
On the 22nd of April, 1943, 27 Giants were crossing the Sicilian Straits with Bf109 escorts when they were pounced on by Allied Spitfires and P-40 Warhaws. All but six of the Me323s were lost. Since the formation of Me323 were carrying fuel and oil, many of those that went down did so in huge fireballs. It was a horrific day for the Giant force to say the least.
The 22nd of April “turkey shoot” was an extreme case, but the fact that losses were heavy among Me323 was not necessarily due to the aircraft itself, but more so due to the scenarios they were thrust into. Any heavy transport would have been vulnerable to similar attacks, and if those transports were more complex, they may not have fared as well as the wood, metal and fabric Me323s.
To their credit, the Giants were hard enough to kill that special training literature was given to allied pilots, showing the vulnerable areas of the Me323 including its fuel tanks. This was so pilots would know where to shoot in order to not waste their ammunition just punching holes in the aircraft’s wood and fabric hide.
The simplicity of its design, and the fact that they were being shot down regularly by Allied fighters sometimes in spectacular fashion due to their combustible cargo, resulted in the aircraft acquiring less than loving nicknames given by German soldiers. “Elephant Bomber” and “Adhesive Tape Bomber” were common terms used when referring to the Me323 in the field.
In the end, about 213 Giants were built, with many slightly different variations mixed in that total. Two exotic outgrowths of the type are worth mentioning, the first being the Me323Z “Zwilling.” This monster consisted of two Me323 fuselages that worked as booms, connecting a single wing and tail section. It was equipped with no less than nine BMW engines. A single massive prototype was built, with the aircraft breaking up during its initial test flight. The breakup was the result of a strafing run by allied fighters that occurred just hours before its first flight. Repairs were made, but the structural damage was more invasive than what engineers through at the time.
Before the aircraft broke up, it had dropped a 35,000 pound bomb that was being tested by Nazi scientists. The aircraft would have been the delivery system for this massive weapon, along with being an ultra long-range bomber and missile carrier if it had entered production.
The other unique Me323 was the the “E-2” model, dubbed “Rhino.” The idea was fairly simple, turn a Me323 into a giant flying gunship that could protect other standard Me323s from marauding fighters. The Rhino had armor plating added to critical areas, a solid nose that sprouted a 20mm cannon, and about a dozen extra guns scattered all around the aircraft. 21 crew were carried to operate all the armament. Two of the gunships were built and tested. The conclusion was that fighters were much better escorts than an up-armored and up-gunned Me323. As such the project was cancelled.
Although it was extremely unglamorous, severely ugly and technologically simple, the Me323s served an indispensable role for the Nazis during World War II, and their crews had to be some of the bravest around. The Me323 also saw limited service on the Eastern Front, but their contribution was nowhere as large as the air bridge they provided the Nazis in Northern Africa.
By the summer of 1944, no Giants were left in flyable condition, a testament to just how much punishment they suffered during their brief yet violent time in service.
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