Since this Forum is read by a lot of "smart-arses" ( please take this as a compliment ),let me run this scenario by you for your responses. At a certain stage in WW2 a certain navy was losing a lot of ships to airborne torpedo anti shipping strikes. They therefore took a ship and crammed it full of every conceivable type of tried and experimental anti aircraft weapon ( rockets/ balloons/parachute cables etc.etc.etc ) and having fitted it out, despatched the vessel towards a gunnery range for trials. Within only a few minutes of setting out the ship was attacked by the aircraft of a crack anti-shipping unit and a terrific battle ensued within sight of thousands of people lining the nearby clifftops. The ship and all of the aircraft were destroyed but the surviving air and ships crews continued their battle with personal weapons from their respective rubber dinghies and lifeboats. One old salt slid into the sea with a navy cutlass betwen his teeth and swimming over to an enemy dinghy, cut it's occupants to pieces before being bludgeoned to death with an empty pistol and drowning.. This is a true incident. Anyone like to offer any supporting fact or details about it ? Marlin.
B--l s--t ? I think not ! My, my, what a spendidly perspicacious chap you are, ME 262, since it IS a movie script (well screenplay, anyway !, or will be when I finish it ). But I can assure you that it is ALL true, but what astonishes me (hence my promulgating it in the Forum), is that very, very few people have ever heard of it ! The good thing about it is, that unlike most other spiffingly good war time battles won by the British ( oh dear, I have given a big clue away ! ), it won't be portrayed as being fought and won by our dear Colonial cousins, since I, a true blue Englishman, am writing it. You Americans have won enough of your own battles, why steal ours ! Beershark
marlin wrote: What other British victories have been portrayed as US victories? Not that I would put anything past the movie industry but I can't think of any offhand.
Well, U571 is the classic example. On the whole, most US WW2 films tend to be about US battles, although any mention of British involvement (in the specific battle or the conflict as a whole) is often left out. But one can also say the same thing while reversing the countries.
Unless of course there is a plothole which can be filled up with a stiff lean guy with a moustache insisting on stopping for tea, in which case the British contribution to the war would be inserted in detail. I think this engagement took place between a German ship and British planes off the coast of Norway, but it could be just the other way around.
Aircraft versus ship battle Thank you , Guys, for your response so far, which if nothing else, confirms my suspicions that this battle, remarkable though it was,is astonishingly little known. Nothing submitted thus far has been correct,and I am reluctant to give away any more details other than to say the ship (albeit rusting away on the sea bed ) continues to yield a great crop of fat lobsters and fine brass porthole scuttles to a pal of mine who regularly dives upon it. Of the numerous aircraft that are scattered around it, no traces remain. Marlin
ricky wrote: Maybe. 1. The story in the movie is fictional. 2. US forces did capture a U-boat with enigma material aboard(U-505) 3. The britsh capture of U-570 didn't result in capture of enigma material 4. The British capture of U-110 did recover an enigma machine. It seems that the (rather bad) movie was a compilation of a number of real life events. A rather mediocre director like Mostow with previous films like Beverly Hills Bodysnatchers and Flight of the Black Angel to his dubious credit might attempt to do whatever is necessary to have a box office success including using American characters as the protagonists in order to garner broad appeal in the largest market and boost the box office. All that being said it seems some Brits were really ticked off about this film and took it personally (as with Braveheart, The Patriot , We Were Soldiers etc though for different reasons.) so if we concede this is example number one are there any others?
C'mon! Everyone knows that the only reason the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain is because of the Eagle Squadron! You blokes just didn't know how to properly fight an air war! note: my tongue is firmly in cheek on this one...
A good thing that it is, too, since we all know that the Eagle Squadrons were not formed until after the end of the Battle of Britain. Several Americans did fightin the BoB, of course, but only a small number, due to the interference of the then-US ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who threatened to revoke the US citizenship of any American who fought for the British.
Largely because thefilm presented it as 'this was the breakthrough that broke Enigma - the first capture of an enigma coding machine'. Which is utter tosh.
