Slashdot Mirror

Here is the text of the speach that Winston Churchill gave at Fultun. The phrases you show as being attrributed to Churchill don't appear there, nor do they appear to be Churchill's words, nor do they fit with history. That doesn't seem to be a genuine quote.

The second attribution also seems highly unlikely.

A final note: the annual production capacity of the Oak Ridge uranium bomb works was between 2 and 4 U-235 bombs. Thus, another Little Boy would not have been ready until November or December of 1945, assuming sufficient stocks of uranium were available from which U-235---highly enriched, bomb grade uranium---could be manufactured. (I have seen some authors dispute exactly how much uranium the US actually had at war's end; it may be that this is the source of the oft-repeated and totally mistaken idea that there were only 2 US bombs in all.) However, the Hanford plutonium works was capable of much greater production. According to a memo written by Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer to General George Marshall, by the time Operation OLYMPIC, the US invasion of Japan, was due to commence in November, 1945, there would have been as many as twelve (12) P-239 Fat Man bombs available for use. Marshall wanted to use 9 of them as tactical nukes against the landing areas of Kyushu, the southernmost Japanese Home Island which was the target of the US invasion.

And for more clarification if any is needed, the oil refinery attack bombing of the Nippon Oil Refinery at Tsuchizaki near Akita, 300 miles north of Tokyo, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, was part of a maximum conventional bombing effort that was ordered when Japan still did not surrender in the days immediately following the second atomic mission. While the parts for a third atomic bomb were already being assembled and were in fact in the pipeline for delivery on target, a third atomic mission never took place. The last aerial bombardments of the war were conventional, not nuclear, attacks.

I will clarify the following remark:

On one hand your "open secret" is absolute baloney, i.e. nonsense.

It is directed at your proposition that NATO's intent would be to "backstab" Finland and the implied hostility toward Finland as opposed to defeating Soviet military units operating in Finland. Clearly NATO had no meaningful dispute with Finland during the Cold War, but would not ignore Soviet forces operating from conquered Finnish territory to attack NATO and allied countries. If the Finnish military lost control of a major facility or area to Soviet forces, there would be little chance they would get it back. The best they would be likely to manage would be sabotage operations which would be unlikely to seriously impede Soviet operations.

It is well known that NATO was willing to use nuclear weapons on its own territory to defeat Warsaw Pact forces if necessary, and any NATO nuclear munitions detonated inside of Finland would have been for the same purpose: to defeat Warsaw Pact (most likely Soviet) forces, not to "backstab" Finland. Thankfully that was an issue that never had to be faced. I notice you had nothing to say about Soviet nuclear weapons, or the prospect of indefinite occupation of Finland by the Soviets without NATO assistance in defeating them. (It's not 1939 any more.)

Food for thought:

Sweden Secretly Assisted Nato's Cold War Defense

Finnish-US military co-operation during cold war

The all-volunteer Estnische SS-Legion was created in 1942. The unit, ultimately called 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian), finished its way in May 1945 in Czechoslovakia. The division's soldiers carried stripes with the Estonian national colors and images of three lions[1].

Millions of Russian (and other post-USSR countries) veterans would disagree.

They should leave the momument where it is or at least build a resonable memorial and instead push for Russia to admit the crimes committed during the occupation and maybe a memorial to that.

Japanese in the WW-II tried to use bats to carry bombs . Another great idea they had was to release hot air balloons filled with incindiary devices and release them into the jet stream. Two or three such bombs actually reached US mainland, and the fact was classified to prevent panic in USA. Finally when they carried tiny airplanes with bombs in their submarines to attack US mainland, they tried to bomb the forests. The Japanese military high command had such exaggerated reports of US and its forests, they believed that if these forests were set afire, it will burn the whole damned continent! So I am not surprised the Chinese are innovating trying to use piegons.

1. I'm sure you're speaking figuratively, but for those who don't know, the Polish Cavalry didn't declare war, they were defending their country against invasion. "Going up against" might have been a better phrase.

2. Cavalry wasn't in fact obsolete in 1939 as is often made out. In fact, if you watch the newsreels of German troops entering Czechoslovakia in 1938 many are on horseback, with horse-drawn carts. The Polish cavalry of the time was similar, the units fought as dragoons, using the horses for transport (which was actually advantageous, as many of the roads in all of Eastern Europe were just unsurfaced mud tracks at the time, and vehicles would often get bogged down) and dismounting for battle. They used rifles, machine-guns and horse-drawn artillery. In fact the Polish cavalry had a particularly effective anti-tank gun.

3. The Panzers actually suffered considerable losses in the '39 campaign, the tanks were not the Tigers or Panthers of later years, but light tanks, and in the woods and fields of Poland often suffered at the hands of infantry and cavalry antitank weapons.

You might like to have a look at (for example, just a quick trawl through Google) this page or this one or this one or this one.

Why does he mention that "the Left was unable to notice the urgency of the situation" (or some other crap like that) Why single out the left, and not the right? Is he suggesting that nazis were right-wing? Hell, Nazis were more left-wing that right-wing! The name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutche Arbeitspartei for crying out loud!

Just take a look at their program! It has numerous leftist points in it (among others, nationalization of companies, profit-sharing, communal control of department-stores etc.). I really fail to see why Nazis are considered to be right-wing.