Subject: WWII-L Digest - 3 Nov 1994 to 4 Nov 1994

From: Automatic digest processor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 00:03:00 -0500

There are 21 messages totalling 651 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. INF: 50 Years Ago - 05-NOV-1944 (2)
  2. [Gen] Copied Aircraft. (3)
  3. Untold Stories f/TLB, Pt. 1
  4. Marder (was Copied Aircraft)
  5. more on alpini (burp) (3)
  6. INF: 50 Year Ago Archives
  7. WEAP  M5A1 Stuart tank
  8. WEAP:Query: Zero name (3)
  9. <No subject given>
 10. WEAP:  P-38 CBI & Alaska
 11. WEAP: Zero Name
 12. WEAP: M5A1 Stewart
 13. HYPO: "The big what-if"
 14. HYPO"The big what"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 04:30:06 -0800
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Years Ago - 05-NOV-1944

On 05-NOV-1944, the following occurred -

World War II - The Battlefronts
-------------------------------
Western Front - The II Corps (Canadian 1st Army) continues to advance
rapidly on Walcheren Island. The 5th Division (XII Corps, British 2nd
Army) clears the south bank of the Maas. In the VIII Corps sector, the 7th
Armoured Division approaches the area of Meijel from the south and the
15th Division from the north. The 3rd Algerian Division continues the
offensive against Gerardmer, taking Rochesson and Menaurupt. The other
Allied armies take up position to begin a new general offensive against
the Rhine.

Philippines (Leyte) - The 96th Division is still attacking the Japanese on
Bloody Ridge.

Luzon - Admiral J.S. McCain who has replaced Admiral Marc Mitscher in
command of TF 38, leads three task groups in attacks on targets on Luzon
and the surrounding waters. Among the carriers involved is the new
Ticonderoga. The Americans lose 25 planes and manage to destroy about 400
Japanese planes. The carrier Lexington is badly damaged by Kamikazes.

The Homefront
-------------
Pro Football - New York 31, Boston 0; Philadelphia 21, Brooklyn 7; Washington
14, Cleveland 10; Chicago Bears 21, Green Bay 0.

=============================================================================

Sources: "2194 Days of War" by Cesare Salmaggi and Alfredo Pallavisimi, "The
World Almanac Book Of WW II" by Peter Young, "Facts On File Yearbook 1944,
Person's Index Of World Events" edited by R.L. Lapica.

Previous articles are archived at ftp.netcom.com in directory /pub/jbd and can
be accessed via the WWW by URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jbd/ww2.html. If you
have difficulty accessing the Netcom FTP server, please keep trying because it
stays very busy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Davis     [email-masked]
Cary, N.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 08:57:30 -0500
From:    Ron Babuka <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [Gen] Copied Aircraft.

>
>Funny thing about that B-29, it had suffered some battle damage and
>was repaired in theatre.  The Soviet copies all had the same repairs
>to the fuselage.  Talk about a family resemblance!!!
>

An intresting side story is that Soviets had a fit with trying to reverse
design the B-29 due to the fuesalge and wing skin.  It seems that their
aviation industries produced a large amount of skin metal in a slightly
thinner and a slightly thicker width.  When the tried using the thinner
width skin, the plan was too stressed for combat duties and when they
designed it with the thicker width the plane was too heavy and the
performance was substandard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Babuka
Cornell University
CIT - Information Resources
Ithaca, New York 14850
(607) 254-6492

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 10:23:40 EST
From:    Doug McCabe <[email-masked]>
Subject: Untold Stories f/TLB, Pt. 1

                   Ohio University Electronic Communication

   Date:  03-Nov-1994 08:44am EST

     To:  Remote Addressee                     ( _MX%"[email-masked]" )

   From:  Doug McCabe                                Dept:  Library
          MCCABE                                   Tel No:  (614) 593-2715

Subject:  Untold Stories f/TLB, Pt. 1

    [Thanks to many of you and your enjoyment of the stories from Cornelius
    Ryan's files for _A Bridge Too Far_.  Since I'm on a roll with this
    stuff, I thought I'd jump ahead of the 50th anniversary of VE-Day and
    post the stories we used last summer from _The Last Battle_.  (Timed to
    go up just before the 50th anniversary of D-Day and running through the
    middle of July, we put up an exhibit here at the Ohio University
    Archives which included untold stories from all three of Ryan's battle
    books.  There were also memorbelia items of his - like a piece of
    Hitler's urinal and Tojo's cigarette case - plus other materials from
    our collections related to WWII.)  There are a lot fewer stories from
    this book since we had a great deal less space to display them.
         For those of you unfamiliar with _TLB_: the book covers the last
    three weeks of the war in the ETO but looks intently at the battle for
    Berlin.  Done in the same fashion as the earlier _The Longest Day_ and
    the later _A Bridge Too Far_, _TLB_ not only relies upon documents and
    published materials but contacts with 690 Americans, British, French,
    Germans, and Russians.  Many of these personal stories did not make it
    into the book and some of them are related here.  Just as in the last
    installments, words in double quotations ("s) are the exact comments of
    the story-teller; words in single quotations ('s) are the exact words
    they are quoting from someone else; and words in brackets ([]s) are
    mine to help clarify.  Titles in all caps are those we used in the
    exhibit to categorize general subjects.
         (Just between you, me, and three or four continents I'm hoping to
    do an untold stories exhibit in say, Berlin, this spring.  Got any
    ideas on how I pull it off?)
         Anyway, here goes with stories from TLB.]

    THE MISERY

         "It is easier to survive a war than 12 years of folly."
                                                 - Jolenta Koch, Berlin

         "Dear Zeno,   How a person like you could belong to this [Nazi]
    party - could approve this regime, that is something I have never been
    able to understand.  How is it that a few people bring such misery upon
    a peoples?  Here there are more dead amony the civilian population than
    amony the soldiers - the soldiers admit this themselves.  If only the
    Russians finally were here so that the artillery shelling would stop.
    It's been going on for days now."
                                                 - Pia van Hoeven, Berlin

         "Smells form a considerable part of the memories of those chaotic
    days: of corpses floating around in the flooded underground train
    system; of seeing women, masked with gauze - exparty members, entrusted
    with the task of digging up the many dead buried all over the place -
    in public gardens, private plots, or just by the road-side.  There were
    many suicides amongst the civilians, and as there was no possibility of
    getting them buried, they were roughly interred in front gardens etc.
    by their relatives."
                                                 - Camilla Thiemann, Berlin

         "...former concentration camp inmates began to knock, asking for
    food and civilian clothes.  The Kerber's were helpful, outfitted only
    one man, though, told the others to try to get things at other homes.
    Frau Kinder next door took in three of the camp inmates because she
    felt they might help her and also protect her from the Russians.  It
    was so that these former political prisoners were in great favor with
    the Russians and were able later on to protect the entire neighborhood
    by their presence."
                                            - Margarete Hofmann, Berlin

         "There is continual fire, now with machine guns, too.  Finally the
    last three [German] men leave with their girl.  We sit in the cellar,
    venture upstairs only long enough to take care of personal needs.
    Meanwhile we dig out the last bottle of champaign and empty it,
    drinking to Germany's end!"
                                                 - Ingeborg Kolb, Berlin

         "At the time the British arrived at Belsen concentration camp
    there were 56,000 prisoners and 10,000 unburied corpses.  The death
    rate at the time of liberation was 500 per day with the highest daily
    total of 548.  By May 15 the death rate had fallen to 88.  The inmates
    had had no food or water for over five days.  At least 25,000 required
    urgent hospital care, 10,000 of these were almost sure to die.  Of the
    first 4,000 we hospitalized, 1,844 died after admission.  The total
    number of bodies buried after our arrival was 23,000."
                        - Brig. Gen. Glyn Hughes, MO, British 2nd Army

    Part two after these words from our sponsors.......

    Doug

Received:  04-Nov-1994 10:23am

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 11:55:53 -0600
From:    Jon Stevens <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Marder (was Copied Aircraft)

On Thu, 3 Nov 1994, Henry Herz wrote:

> The Germans mounted a Czech 76mm tank cannon into their Marder
> (I think) tank destroyer.

Close, but actually the Marder III, had A Russian 76mm anti-tank
gun mounted on the chasis of the (Czech) Pz Kw 38t.

Jon Stevens -- [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 12:54:22 -0400
From:    Mike Yaklich <[email-masked]>
Subject: more on alpini (burp)

        Just a short elaboration on alpini organization and armament.
Enlisted alpini were armed with the 6.5-mm Mannlicher-Carcano M38 short rifle
or M1891 long rifle (the latter, apart from its age, was probably the better
weapon).  Heavy support weapons in the alpini companies were the 8-mm Breda M37
tripod-mounted machinegun and the 45-mm Brixia mortar.  The tripod-mounted
Breda was more robust and reliable than the Fiat-Revelli generally used by the
bersaglieri, in fact the best Italian heavy machinegun of the war, although
hampered by its ridiculous feed system using 20-shot strips.  The 45-mm mortar
was both overly complicated and insufficiently lethal.  BTW, the Italian hand
grenades, known as the "ballila" to the troops and as "red devils" to the
British, also had the problem of poor killing radius-- one had to land it
almost on top of one's adversary to do more than stun the opponent, and
furthermore the impact fuzes often failed to detonate the grenade.  The German
stick type grenades, thousands of which were furnished to the Italians during
the war, were much preferred when available.  The excellent Beretta M38 and
M38/42 submachineguns (which were frequently seen in bersaglieri units, at
least in '42-'43) appear to have been rarely if ever employed by the alpini.
Company-level alpini officers, who should have been the first to receive the
Beretta tommyguns, sometimes carried the Mannlicher-Carcano TS carbine, and
always the 9-mm Beretta M34 pistol.  The latter, incidentally, were actually
used in combat on occasion.  I read (in Cervi) an account, taken from a letter
home, of a successful small-scale assault by alpini of the Tridentina's 5th
Alpini Regt to capture a couple of hills at Guri i Topit.  The writer, a
certain Lt Andolini, relates a close scrape wherein a Greek soldier thrust his
bayonet through the sleeve of Andolini's white camouflage jacket, hitting only
loose cloth, after which the alpino killed him with his pistol at such close
range that the Greek's blood spattered all over Andolini's white jacket.
(Andolini's platoon sergeant also had a close call in the same fight-- a rifle
bullet penetrated the front of his helmet, but only parted his hair before
passing out the back).
        Alpini battalions, being designed to operate independently as needed,
could reach over 1,260 men at full strength, with considerable heavy weapons
support.  Each three-battalion alpini regiment, in addition to over 100
machineguns (including 27 tripod-mounted), had 27 flamethrowers and a dozen
81-mm mortars (and 27 of the 45-mm) in its t/o.  Besides the three rifle
companies many alpini battalions contained a "scout platoon" which acted as a
sort of commando or ranger outfit specializing in the tough hit-and-run or
behind the enemy lines reconnaisance jobs, and these latter were naturally made
up of picked men.
        BTW, the alpini's strategic mission in the 20th Century had always been
first and foremost that of the defense of Italy's mountainous frontiers.  Their
motto translates as "Here they will not pass," and in WWI they performed
admirably their role of holding the mountain areas while most of the serious
fighting on the Italian front was conducted in the more level terrain of the
Carso on Italy's northeast border.  (I did see in the aforementioned TV
documentary an account of what could best be described as a kind of wartime
publicity stunt, wherein at the start of the fighting alpini set some kind of
record for biggest ordinance highest up by laboriously hoisting a 149-mm gun up
to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain overlooking Austrian lines).  Anyway,
you'll note from my previous post on this subject that whenever they were
employed in their main task of defensive fighting the alpini acquitted
themselves quite well in WW2 as well (e.g., the Alpini Corps in Russia, many of
the incidents described in the Greek campaign, and the defense of Plevlja in
Yugoslavia).
        Alas, I thought I was going to get through all this without having to
correct any errors, but again I found two small ones in my last post (hey, I
might shoot from the hip but at least I go back and check the stuff I'm not
sure of).  Both involve the Giulia Division in Russia:
        1. The Giulia Division's commander in the summer of '42 was General
U. Ricagno (I said "Bedogni;" actually, Col. Ugo Bedogni commanded the X
Raggruppamento Semovente in Sicily, another component of the Schreiber Group
mentioned in the bersaglieri post, and also the only unit to employ the very
effective Italian self-propelled 90-mm gun in combat, but that's another
story...)
        2. The Giulia Division departed for Russia in the summer of '42 with
4,000 mules, not 3,200.
        One last note, my figures for alpini organization and weapons come from
A. Mollo's "Armed Forces Of World War II."  Numbers of men and weapons seem to
vary with every t/o I read, even for the same units from the same period, so
people on the list might have read different figures from different sources.
At any rate, from what I've read the ideal t/o hardly ever matched the actual
unit strength in manpower and weaponry in any army of the period, so its kind
of all just a rough guide and/or "wish list" anyway (unless you're a war gamer
and need to standardize these things).
        Sorry if I got carried away and made my first post too long.  If I ever
get long-winded like that again I'll split it up into segments.  Hope I didn't
cause anybody any bandwidth hardship.   Now if anyone out there wants me to
tackle the Italian marines next, just say the word (its a much shorter subject,
there was only one regiment)...otherwise, I'll shut up for awhile until my
hands recover.

Regards

Mike Yaklich

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 10:19:45 -0800
From:    John Davis <[email-masked]>
Subject: INF: 50 Year Ago Archives

I am thrilled to see Doug McCabe start a news series of "Untold Stories".
I wanted to mention to everyone that I am archiving all of his posts in
my "50 Year Ago" archives. I captured the entire ABTF series and will
now capture the new series. So if you want to keep copies of the series,
you can wait to the end and download from my archives one single file
with all the articles. I also have captured Joe's "Regia Marina" series
in its entirety as well as several other interesting postings. I'm not
trying to compete with Byrd with my archives. I could never do this, the
disk space cost would put me in the poor house ;). But I figure if I can
capture interesting articles or series of articles from both the mailing
list and the Usenet newsgroup, I can make them available to both sets of
readers. For those that don't know already the URL is
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jbd/ww2.html.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Davis     [email-masked]
Cary, N.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 14:00:11 EST
From:    Roger Coon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: more on alpini (burp)

Mike,
        I for one would like to hear about the Italian Marines.  I grew
up believing the Italians were lousy fighters with worse equipment.  You
and others on the list, including our listowner, have gone a long way
towards educating me otherwise.  Hey, that'
s (oops) why I'm here, to learn.
Brad Coon

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 10:11:20 PST
From:    "Mark H. Walter" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP  M5A1 Stuart tank

I'm new to this group so I hope this post is in the right category.

I'm building a model of the M5A1 Stuart tank and need some info about the
interior equipment stowage.  For example, where was the thompson sub-
machinegun stowed, and how many rows of 37mm shells were in the sponson racks.
If anyone has the tech manuals or pictures please let me know how I can get
copies.  I will be happy to pay for any costs.

BTW  a earlier posting on captured equipment mentioned the German Marder
tank destroyer.  This was the Marder I.  It was based on a Czech 38t chassis
with a Russian 76.2mm field gun.  This was only a stop gap measure because
the regular German anti-tank guns of the time couldn't deal with the Russian
KV-I and T34 tanks.  The MarderIII also on the Czech 38t chassis mounted a
German 75mm gun.

                             Thanks
                             Mark Walter  [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 14:17:48 EST
From:    Dee Shneiderman <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP:Query: Zero name

Hi, I'm new to this list so this question has probably been asked before, but
who and why was that Mitsubishi airplane called a "Zero?

Dee Shneiderman
Reference/ Bibliographic Instruction Librarian
Pembroke State University
Pembroke NC 28372
[email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 15:20:33 EST
From:    Brian Nicklas <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP:Query: Zero name

Mitsubishi Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter. (Type "Zero")
Allied code name "Zeke."
Source:  Japanese Aircraft Code Names & Designations
by Robert C. Mikesh.  (I believe Bob's Japanese work.)
Hope this helps.

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 15:34:23 -0500
From:    "Steven Pudlo, Dept. Computer Svcs." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: more on alpini (burp)

Mike,

Thank you for your post. Like many in my generation, I had the beleif that
the Italians didn't do much during WWII unless forced to. You have managed
to correct my misbeleif. I'll tell me fatherinlaw about this, He's Italian,
and might appreciate it.

Thanx again.                                                    Steve

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven E. Pudlo  - [email-masked] |"Life may be a drag BUT
STC Programmer/Analyst - (203) 885-2343  |  it sure beats the only
Three Rivers Community-Technical College |           known alternative"
574 New London Turnpike                  |                     (S.E.P.)
Norwich, CT. U.S.A. 06360                |No one gets out of it alive..
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 16:41:07 EST
From:    Mary Hricko <[email-masked]>
Subject: <No subject given>

     Hello everyone!
          I am working on a paper about Andree de Jongh, the Belgian
    woman who organized the "Comet Line," an underground escape route
    which was created to transfer British airmen and Allied POWs across
    France. So far, I have been forced to rely on materials from France
    which has taken a great deal of time to receive and have translated.
    Does anyone know anything about de Jongh or the "Comet Line?" It
    would be wonderful if I could find a firsthand account of someone
    who escaped through the Comet Line, but I realize I may be asking
    for information too difficult to find. I appreciate any comments
    on this topic.

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 22:01:24 GMT+1
From:    SYSTEM 0PERATOR <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP:  P-38 CBI & Alaska

"Steve L. New" <[email-masked]> writes:

> and received some P-38s, using a mixture of Lightnings and Warhawks
> until  reequipped with Mustangs in 1945. The assigned role of
> tactical missions prevented it from rolling up a score of kills.

By the way I am always struck when seeing fighter unit histories that none
ever claims fewer kills than losses. It often seems that all fighter units
had outstanding scores.
Naturally this can't be true, so I am wondering as to the reasons.
Is it because pilots tend to overclaim kills ? Is it pure propaganda ?
Or is it a natural phenomenon, as fighter units shoot bombers and therefore
improve their "ratio" ? Or is there a lousy definition of "kills" ?
Any opinion on this phenomenon ?

Arnaud (doubter forever).

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 22:14:38 GMT+1
From:    SYSTEM 0PERATOR <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [Gen] Copied Aircraft.

"William L. Huber - SAA" <[email-masked]> writes:

> Funny thing about that B-29, it had suffered some battle damage and
> was repaired in theatre.  The Soviet copies all had the same repairs
> to the fuselage.  Talk about a family resemblance!!!

Viktor Suvorov (or whoever he is) corroborates something similar in "The
liberators".

He tells how Stalin ordered the B-29's crew to be interned just in time
for the bomber to be mirror-copied. But the soviet engineers found a little
hole in a wing and not in the other. So all the produced soviet copied
bombers (are they T-4 bombers ?) had a small hole in the wing.
The engineers then wondered if they had to copy the American markings too
and asked Beria. An annoyed Beria came up to Stalin and put it as a joke.
The tale says that from Stalin's laughter Beria understood the answer.

(from memory)
Arnaud.

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 18:36:41 EST
From:    Brian Nicklas <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [Gen] Copied Aircraft.

Soviet copies of B-29s are:
Tu-4  (NATO/OTAN code name "Bull") &
Tu-70 (transport version, Airliner interior, but the resembelance
aside from the stepped canopy rather than "bullet nose" of the B-29
is remarkable, esp the wing)

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 18:56:45 EST
From:    Alan Wild <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: INF: 50 Years Ago - 05-NOV-1944

Why the change in command? Were there any admonishments? How did this
affect the careers of them both? -Al

>Luzon - Admiral J.S. McCain who has replaced Admiral Marc Mitscher in
>command of TF 38, leads three task groups in attacks on targets on Luzon
>and the surrounding waters.

Alan Wild, Sr. Prog/Analyst
ACC - Lippitt - URI
Kingston, RI  02881

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 19:26:09 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: Zero Name

    The Mitsubishi A6M2 was accepted for service in June 1940.  The Type 0
    name was based on the last digit of the year of acceptance.  A practice
    that the Japanese must have been forced to give up quickly, since
    wartime development would certainly have caused multiple aircraft to be
    accepted in the same year.

    Steve New

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 19:36:09 EDT
From:    "Steve L. New" <[email-masked]>
Subject: WEAP: M5A1 Stewart

    One excellent, and relatively inexpensive, source for detail is the
    Squadron/Signal STUART U.S. Light Tanks in Action.

    The Squadron/Signal line is carried in both hobby shops and bookstores,
    and can also be mail ordered from Squadron

    1115 Crowley Drive
    Carrollton, TX 75011-5010
    (214) 242-8663

    Sorry, it doesn't show the tommy gun stowage.

    Steve New

------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 4 Nov 1994 19:53:43 EST
From:    Henry Sirotin <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: WEAP:Query: Zero name

Dear Dee,

Japanese aircraft carried a designator based on the year of entry into
service, using a calendar beginning with the traditional date of the
founding of the Japan Empire by the first emperor, Jimmu (660 BC). Thus,
1940, the year the Zero entered service, was 2600 of the Empire, and
any aircraft that came into squadron service that year would be
the Type 00 fighter, bomber, trainer, etc. This came through in the
west as "the Zero," which replaced, for example, the Type 96 carrier-
based fighter, which was introduced in 2396 (1936 AD).

If I can anticipate the next question, if two planes of the same type
entered service the same year, how did they tell them apart? Both the
Army and the Navy had separate identification systems independent of
the year system. The Army numbered all its aircraft sequentially in
a Ki- series which reached about Ki-102, I believe. All types, regardless
of purpose, were numbered in order. The Navy used a system of type-
sequence within type by manufacturer-manufacturer. This sounds
complicated, but it is the same scheme the US Navy used until the
designations were unified in the 1970s. Here, the Type 00 Carrier-
based Fighter (a formal designation) was the A6M; the sixth navy
fighter design (A) accepted by the Imperial Navy from Mitsubishi (M).
Subtypes would be the A6M-1, -2, etc. Among the codes used here,
in addition to A, were B for torpedo bomber, C for carrier based
scout, D for dive bomber, E for flying boats and float planes,
and G for multiengine bombers. Manufacturers codes are too many to
list, but among the common ones in addition to Mitsubishi/M were
Nakajima/N, Kawanishi/K, and Aichi/A.

The separate army and navy systems were, I believe, unknown to western
intelligence when war broke out, so to prevent the confusion of multiple
"Type OO"s, a code name ID system was set up. Thus the A6M-1 became the
Zeke to Allied intell and pilots, and the Hamp in its clipped wing
A6M-3 version. Colloquially, "Zero" was used interchangeably for the            A6M and for any single seat Japanese monoplane, but at least at
first, I don't think it was officially sanctioned.

This was probably more than you wanted to know, but it's pretty much
the whole story.

Henry Sirotin

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 5 Nov 1994 01:11:00 UTC
From:    "Edward S. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HYPO: "The big what-if"

On 10/26 Henry Sirotin wrote

  > German nuclear development seems to have stalled out at an early stage.
  > If it was because they couldn't do it, I'm not sure their egos would
  > have admitted anyone else could. If it was to keep the Nazis from
  > getting a bomb, as some have suggested (not too convincingly, from the
  > three books I've read on it- haven't seen the Cassidy? Heisenberg bio
  > yet), it raises an entirely different and potentially fascinating
  > scenario: German scientists and German military working to overthrow the
  > Nazis and do a deal with the Americans before the US can use the weapon
  > they now have and Germany doesn't.

Thomas Powers's =Heisenberg's War= is a fascinating read about the German
nuclear program.  The key theme is that Werner Heisenberg miscalculated the
efficiency of neutrons in a fission bomb.  He reckoned that an atomic bomb
would require a very large amount of uranium 235 (40 to 400 kilos, as I
recall) which was far beyond Germany's capability to produce.  Heisenberg
did not grasp the possibilities of plutonium.  His stature was such that his
estimate was not seriously disputed by scientists or the military or Speer.
The author hints that since Heisenberg was not a Nazi he was, at some level
of consciousness, knowingly deflecting the German program, which then became
largely a research study of nuclear reactors for power.  However, I thought
he made an even more plausible case that Heisenberg just goofed on the
calculations. Postwar eavesdropping on the German scientists revealed them
as quite amazed at the American achievement.  As to Heisenberg's motives, we
are left with the ultimate uncertainty principle.
  A re-reading of Richard Rhodes's =The Making of the Atomic Bomb= shows
that American and emigre scientists made some similarly pessimistic
estimates early in the US program.  However, in this country, no scientist
had the dominant stature of Heisenberg.  The correct estimates soon appeared
and the Manhattan project got rolling about the time the Germans gave up.

Ed Miller   [email-masked]

------------------------------

Date:    Sat, 5 Nov 1994 01:10:00 UTC
From:    "Edward S. Miller" <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: HYPO"The big what"

  There is an article by John P. Campbell entitled "A British Plan to Invade
 England, 1941" in the October 1994 issue of =The Journal of Military
History=.  It seems that during 1941 and early 1942 senior British staff
planners created several scenarios of a German invasion.  The planning
hypothesis was that Hitler would make a bold stab at ending the war quickly
and would accept huge casualties.
  The planners assumed that, in comparison to the fairly ad-hoc Sea Lion
plan of 1940, the Germans would be far better prepared.  And because British
troops had been rearmed, the invasion would be mounted by a larger force.
Some versions envisioned a pincer operation, with landings in Kent and East
Anglia converging on London.  Some envisaged ludicrously large landing
forces: 220,000 troops and 750 tanks on D1 (compare D-Day: 156,000 including
3 airborne divisions; and Sea Lion 67,000).
  These scenarios became a bone of contention between military leaders who
 wanted to keep the British Army at home because loss of the British Isles,
 however unlikely, meant losing the war; and those who wanted to send the new
 armored divisions to Egypt.  Churchill sided with the latter group.  He felt
 after the Battle of Britain air victory in 1940 that invasion was not
credible, and that the army had to fight Germans somewhere to keep up its
morale.  Also, intelligence would be sure to spot such a massive buildup
well in advance and Bomber Command would attack it.
  Apparently the planning exercises ended in April 1942.

Edward S. Miller    Stamford, CT   [email-masked]

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End of WWII-L Digest - 3 Nov 1994 to 4 Nov 1994
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