cool war book

It may have been a "cool" war for the isolated Merkins, but it was a very hot war for much of the world.

Jerk. It was your war, merely your latest of centuries of wars, not ours. We saved your lives and you can't forgive us.

My apologies if pointing out historical facts has discomforted you.

Merkin is a stupid gross insult. Jerk.

We should have stayed out of europe. Let the Germans and Russians carve it up. Let the brits starve and remember the Empire.

So is making statements to the effect that WW2 only started in 1941.

I am confused.

It is true that most Americans (at least, the small percentage that actually knows anything at all about WWII) have a hopelessly inaccurate and biased view of WWII. They think they "saved our asses" - in fact, they only joined the war when they realised they could make more profit selling critical goods at vastly inflated prices to the British than they had been making selling to the Germans. And they knew that if either Germany or Russia took over Europe, they'd lose a big market and their place in the world - possibly ending up Russian or German themselves in the long run. And of course it is easier to think of a war as being "cool" when it is happening somewhere else and it is not /your/ country that is being fought over.

(Equally, the British tend to think WWII started in September 1939 when /they/ joined it - Austria and Czechoslovakia might say it started in

However, the Battle Of the River Plate was from the very early war (December 1939), between Germany and the UK and New Zealand. The US was not involved.

So I really don't see why you are getting at Larkin here in this thread. Is it just a general attack on his renowned lack of historical knowledge? A pre-emptive strike on the assumption that the thread will turn into another display of ignorance? Or is that particular book one of these absurd American fictional re-writes of history, like the U-571 film?

The last paragraph sums it up.

Strictly speaking I'm not making comments about Larkin, merely about the attitudes and ignorance. That distinction is not entirely clear, of course.

"We should have stayed out of Europe. Let the Germans and Russians carve it up. Let the brits starve and remember the Empire" is absolutely standard Larkin rhetoric. He has posted the same isolationist nonsense here repeatedly, and it's just one more episode in his long history of ignorant assertions about WW2.

The book dates from 1974, and the author joined the British Navy in 1941 - when he was sixteen - and got invalided out the following year when his ship was torpedoed. He wrote a series of naval novels set during the Napoleonic wars that were modelled on C.S.Forrestor's "Hornblower" series that I liked rather better than the originals. Pope was a generation younger than Forrestor, and it showed.

If I remember rightly it is a respectable book - the reviews do seem positive. The battle itself was decidedly one-sided - the Graf Spee had much bigger guns that the three cruisers that took it on - and the British saw it as small but heartening victory against the odds.

I know Larkin's history of historical ignorance. It goes along with a whole range of topics of which he is ignorant or completely mistaken, but regularly discusses, and posts he makes that are irrelevant to everyone outside his back yard. (But to be fair on him, he is also one of the most consistent on-topic posters discussing electronics here.)

This group sees an absurd level of repetition. I typically subscribe to the group for a while, then unsubscribe for a long period, and subscribe again. I come back, wondering if there is anything new going on here - and there isn't. Most of the posts are /exactly/ the same shit. There are still the same bigots who think the world is coming to an end because there is someone born with a willie who feels more comfortable in a skirt. There are still the same feeble-minded brats that can't distinguish between a keyboard and toilet paper. There are still the same morons who think the way to stop people getting shot is to give everyone more guns.

How about having a break? Perhaps /not/ forcing everything into the same pointless threads? Let's be clear here - John Larkin did /not/ start another "The US saved Europe" thread. He posted about a book he liked that covers a part of the war that had nothing to do with the USA. It was /Tom/ that pushed his buttons and got the reaction he must have expected. John was right to call him a jerk.

If you really wanted to comment on John's first post in this thread, you could have asked what sort of a narcissist thinks anyone cares what book he has read, and why he felt this was worthy of telling the world.

Tom, you are usually one of the sane, rational and polite people in this group. Your first post in this thread - responding to Larkin's pointless "look what I had for breakfast - I'm such a wonderful person that everyone will want to know" post - was deliberately and unnecessarily provocative and simply goading him into saying something stupid so that you could insult him more. It is one thing to correct him when he says something wrong, but another thing entirely to push him into repeating his ignorance.

The Battle of the River Plate happened in December of 1939. The book says so.

I thought it was a great book about three old outclassed British steam-powered cruisers sinking a new German diesel battleship with some dinky 6-inch guns and a lot of guts and guile. You altered the concept to propose that Brits are now mainly rude assholes who probably don't read.

OK, we get it. Times have changed.

It's certainly true that the US came in late. There was a huge fight in the US, with a large fraction of the population being of the opinion that the US should stay out of WW2, and let Europe consume itself, yet again.

There was also an argument that the US should come in on the Nazi side, as the Brits were clearly on the way to losing WW2.

Churchill was of the opinion that it was essential that the Yanks intervene against Germany, and FDR agreed, but could not do much at the time.

The intervene against Germany side ultimately won, the issue being settled overnight by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Why does this matter? The UK simply did not have the population or economic weight to invade Europe and force the German armies back into Germany, or to overrun and conquer Germany itself. By the time of Normandy, Germany commanded the economic output of the greater part of Europe.

On the eve of WW2 (meaning Pearl Harbor), US steel production exceeded the rest of the world combined. Size matters.

Joe Gwinn

Ignorant illiterate idiot. The author was a British veteran, historian, and novelist. You might have looked that up, but inventing stupid insults is less work.

My renowned lack of historical knowledge can be blamed on my shortage of bookshelf space. I have about 200 books on naval history and the two World Wars and am running out of space for many more. I used to own sailboats and design marine automation and go out on ships so this stuff interests me. I used to like England until I encountered the Brits here.

I have separate shelves for books about radio, radar, sonar, prox fuses, and nuclear weapons.

I keep the Austen, Wodehouse, Sayers, Christie, Doyle, and other brit fiction writers in separate shelves upstairs.

It's a good book. Don't read it.

It may or may not be a good book - I place very little value on your judgement, and even less on your contradictory advice.

That's all true, but there are several other big questions. Would the UK have held out until Germany ran out of fuel? Would the Russians have pushed in more from the East (leaving Europe in a very different state that it is today)?

I think most British - both under the war, and afterwards - agree that the American declaration of war against Germany and its part in the war afterwards were of enormous help to the UK and Europe in defeating Germany and also in limiting the expansion of Russian influence in Europe.

What is much more in doubt, however, is /why/ the Americans joined. There are many possibilities, and I think only one can really be ruled out - it was not for altruism or to "save our asses". Money and power seem much more likely. (Britain finished paying off its war loans to the USA until 2006.)

A, the old trick of ignoring what people write and throwing around silly insults instead? Perhaps you missed the bit where I /asked/ about the book? Yes, of course I could have looked things up, but I was interested in whether the other posters in this thread knew something about it that caused their initial reactions.

That is obvious. Perhaps it /is/ a great book (meaning that this is a majority of opinion amongst those who have read it). For every one great book you, I or anyone else reads, there are a thousand more great books that we have neither the time nor interest to read. So why would you think your personal likes and dislikes are of relevance to me or anyone else?

If you thought it was important enough to tell us about it, perhaps you might have written something more than "I liked it because it was cool and great!".

Do you think you learn by having the books on the shelves? Maybe you read the books, but little seems to stick, and less comes out again.

I am not English. Oh, and there is a word for someone who judges an entire country based on their experience with individuals - "racist". And if you have never considered yourself a racist, then think /very/ hard about what you wrote there.

Amazing.

Hilarious. You wouldn't dare read it now!

The Merlin engines used super-high-octane gasoline that was partly developed in Baton Rouge La and brewed in Texas and not sold to the Germans. The Germans didn't know that such gas was possible, so had to limit compression ratios.