If it was 1914...

[CousinTony]

I stopped reading about halfway through the thread... There's a lot of debate going on here but everyone is getting their info from written 'history' which is probably far from the truth. I would encourage you guys to watch a documentary done by 'Vice' called 'This is what winning looks like' ... You can find it on YouTube... It may give you some insight into the whole war/propaganda/history issue. I doubt if things are much different now than they were back then.

Edit... The doc is about the Afghanistan war

 

[tommyinbc]

@ TOMMYINBC:

I don't think I would suggest that, even in my most paranoid moments. That would be Treason as well as conspiracy to commit mass murder.

On the other hand, there was a DEFINITE attitude on the part of the British bureaucracy that "the COLONIALS had better do as they are bloody TOLD". This coupled with a superior attitude of "Mother knows best".


As to the setting-up of Lithgow, Pratt and Whitney certainly knew what they were doing. They had already supplied toolroom and production-shop machinery which appeared on the floor in weapons factories all over the world. Their quality was well known, including by people in Quebec, Birmingham and Enfield Lock. They were the LOGICAL source of much of the tooling.

But there was SOME tooling which was distinctly British. The Enfield Cutter-box was one piece. There were lots of PICTURES of it around, but the actual toolroom specifications had not been published...... and Lithgow needed these to work with their P&W rifling machines.

What had changed very much was the British ATTITUDE, and there was no ugly obstructionism when the Aussies set up production of the distinctly-BRITISH Short rifle. Instead there was CO-OPERATION to an extent which amounted to a complete reversal of the attitudes and practices of 5 years earlier.

I agree with your comments smellie..For me it just seems to raise more questions..agghh

 

[Kirk1701]

I stopped reading about halfway through the thread... There's a lot of debate going on here but everyone is getting their info from written 'history' which is probably far from the truth. I would encourage you guys to watch a documentary done by 'Vice' called 'This is what winning looks like' ... You can find it on YouTube... It may give you some insight into the whole war/propaganda/history issue. I doubt if things are much different now than they were back then.

Edit... The doc is about the Afghanistan war

Had you kept reading, you would've found that we made our way round to some first-hand accounts that counter the official record. Indeed the last 3 pages are about how political spin in the Empire hindered the CEF's participation at many turns.

 

[tommyinbc]

Had you kept reading, you would've found that we made our way round to some first-hand accounts that counter the official record. Indeed the last 3 pages are about how political spin in the Empire hindered the CEF's participation at many turns.

I'm with you on that..Kirk1701....Politics of the day not only hindered the CEF, but all fighting men (on all sides) along the Western Front and in other theatres of war...After all, the various heads of state and politicians had failed in any attempt to avoid the forthcoming slaughter...We should not ignore the works of historians such as Granatstein, Morton & Godefroy for reference...After 90 plus years since WW1 there's not many stones left unturned (or perhaps there are !)

 

[shredder]

]

And in WW1 25 Canadians were executed and 254 British....No Austrailans in the total of 306...and 'Breaker Morant' was born in somerset, England..

The reason for this is that, unlike Canada, Australia and New Zealand never put thier troops under the British system of military justice. They tried their own service members accused of military offences, they didn't hand them over to the British Army.

 

[Kirk1701]

The reason for this is that, unlike Canada, Australia and New Zealand never put thier troops under the British system of military justice. They tried their own service members accused of military offences, they didn't hand them over to the British Army.

I think military justice should be saved for another thread, though it is worth a discussion. Plenty of men were shot for not going over the top.

 

[Kirk1701]

In the interests of resurrecting this thread, I might ask the question, what was the individual Tommy Canuck's opinion of the British Imperial attitude? Did the relationships improve over the course of the War? Today, I often feel like Canada is treated like the UK's deep freeze or root cellar.

 

[purple]

In the interests of resurrecting this thread, I might ask the question, what was the individual Tommy Canuck's opinion of the British Imperial attitude? Did the relationships improve over the course of the War? Today, I often feel like Canada is treated like the UK's deep freeze or root cellar.

I'd suggest that they found the Brits, at least the officers, to be somewhat pompous and condescending, an attitude that carried over to WW2, and even to the present day in my experience. The human quality of the Canadian troops in both wars was excellent. Unlike the Brits or Americans, they were volunteers to a man. In WW1 the Canadian Corps gained a reputation as shock troops among the enemy which is quite telling.

We have moved beyond whatever opinion of us might exist in the UK or elsewhere. Over the course of my service I always found our soldiers to be proud of themselves, their unit and their country and ever-willing to prove themselves as just a notch up on our allies.

One of my favourite Brit/Cdn stories from WW2 came from my uncle who served in Europe from Normandy through to VE Day. He used to enjoy telling me about one of the rare Luftwaffe excursions in Normandy where a FW 190 strafed their location. There was a Brit LAA unit nearby which did not engage the aircraft with their 40mm Bofors guns although they were deployed to do so. Our guys were highly PO'd about this and went over to find out why the Brits had done nothing. The story was that they had just cleaned their guns and were reluctant to dirty them again on a target which they felt unlikely to hit. Feelings ran high, so the end result was fisticuffs.

 

[Kirk1701]

I'd suggest that they found the Brits, at least the officers, to be somewhat pompous and condescending, an attitude that carried over to WW2, and even to the present day in my experience. The human quality of the Canadian troops in both wars was excellent. Unlike the Brits or Americans, they were volunteers to a man. In WW1 the Canadian Corps gained a reputation as shock troops among the enemy which is quite telling.

We have moved beyond whatever opinion of us might exist in the UK or elsewhere. Over the course of my service I always found our soldiers to be proud of themselves, their unit and their country and ever-willing to prove themselves as just a notch up on our allies.

One of my favourite Brit/Cdn stories from WW2 came from my uncle who served in Europe from Normandy through to VE Day. He used to enjoy telling me about one of the rare Luftwaffe excursions in Normandy where a FW 190 strafed their location. There was a Brit LAA unit nearby which did not engage the aircraft with their 40mm Bofors guns although they were deployed to do so. Our guys were highly PO'd about this and went over to find out why the Brits had done nothing. The story was that they had just cleaned their guns and were reluctant to dirty them again on a target which they felt unlikely to hit. Feelings ran high, so the end result was fisticuffs.

HAH! I enjoyed that story.

I do know there was stories of Canadian Tommies addressing officers by their Christian names. They were also known as heavy drinkers and staunch supporters of the local pleasure palaces (I wish I could think of a funnier euphemism for brothel). I was hoping to tease some of these stories out.

 

[purple]

HAH! I enjoyed that story.

I do know there was stories of Canadian Tommies addressing officers by their Christian names. They were also known as heavy drinkers and staunch supporters of the local pleasure palaces (I wish I could think of a funnier euphemism for brothel). I was hoping to tease some of these stories out.

My same uncle used to talk about the "publicans" calling the Cdn troops who couldn't handle their beer, "dirty Canadian swine". Fair turnaround, as my granddad's family had owned and run a pub called '"The Dunn Cow Inn" before they sold out and came to Canada in the early 1900s. Two of my sisters visited the UK a few years ago and went looking for the family pub. Sadly it had been demolished a few years prior to their visit.

A lot of the "close encounters" between Cdn troops and the "ladies of the evening" didn't happen in a brothel. Many "knee tremblers" and other delights happened in the doorways and alleyways during the nightly blackouts of wartime England, courtesy of the so-called "Picadilly Commandos". The more upscale encounters would happen in the "hostess's" flat with breakfast included for a bit extra.

 

[Kirk1701]

My same uncle used to talk about the "publicans" calling the Cdn troops who couldn't handle their beer, "dirty Canadian swine". Fair turnaround, as my granddad's family had owned and run a pub called '"The Dunn Cow Inn" before they sold out and came to Canada in the early 1900s. Two of my sisters visited the UK a few years ago and went looking for the family pub. Sadly it had been demolished a few years prior to their visit.

A lot of the "close encounters" between Cdn troops and the "ladies of the evening" didn't happen in a brothel. Many "knee tremblers" and other delights happened in the doorways and alleyways during the nightly blackouts of wartime England, courtesy of the so-called "Picadilly Commandos". The more upscale encounters would happen in the "hostess's" flat with breakfast included for a bit extra.

Are you referring to WWI or WWII?

These details are often left out of official accounts of wars as seedy. My own maternal grandmother was a war bride, but none of us like to think about our grandparents as young, ###ual people. And every one of the fighting men thought each encounter could be his last. These are important details for subsequent governments who feel war is not a last course of action.

This extends to accurate descriptions of trench raids and CQ fighting in forward trenches. Most of what we see as the years pass is beautiful monuments. I'm sure that's what the vets wanted to take away from the fighting and they're entitled to it.

Accurate details of what is involved in meeting an enemy nose-to-nose is an important deterrent to those who wish to stir up conflict in following years.

We are in danger of losing the perspective of the individual, which is why I started this thread. I wanted to discuss individual perspective.

 

[purple]

Are you referring to WWI or WWII?

WWII. I got a pretty good insight into this from the tales of old soldiers who I served with as well as from family and friends who were WWII vets. We had a pretty good population of WWII vets in uniform up to the early 1970s, then they really started disappearing after reaching compulsory retirement age. They were a great education and a real help, and many served to a pretty ripe old age while remaining as Ptes/Cpls. We only got into the age 40/up or out promotion/terms of service system in the late 1970s. I am always grateful for the help and informal education that I got from these "old sweats".

 

[tommyinbc]

I'd suggest that they found the Brits, at least the officers, to be somewhat pompous and condescending, an attitude that carried over to WW2, and even to the present day in my experience. The human quality of the Canadian troops in both wars was excellent. Unlike the Brits or Americans, they were volunteers to a man. In WW1 the Canadian Corps gained a reputation as shock troops among the enemy which is quite telling.

We have moved beyond whatever opinion of us might exist in the UK or elsewhere. Over the course of my service I always found our soldiers to be proud of themselves, their unit and their country and ever-willing to prove themselves as just a notch up on our allies.

One of my favourite Brit/Cdn stories from WW2 came from my uncle who served in Europe from Normandy through to VE Day. He used to enjoy telling me about one of the rare Luftwaffe excursions in Normandy where a FW 190 strafed their location. There was a Brit LAA unit nearby which did not engage the aircraft with their 40mm Bofors guns although they were deployed to do so. Our guys were highly PO'd about this and went over to find out why the Brits had done nothing. The story was that they had just cleaned their guns and were reluctant to dirty them again on a target which they felt unlikely to hit. Feelings ran high, so the end result was fisticuffs.

And I thought you were going to say they didn't fire because they'd just brewed up a cuppa..

 

[tommyinbc]

In the interests of resurrecting this thread, I might ask the question, what was the individual Tommy Canuck's opinion of the British Imperial attitude? Did the relationships improve over the course of the War? Today, I often feel like Canada is treated like the UK's deep freeze or root cellar.

To answer the question (IMHO)...I would guess Tommy Canuck had a fair indication of what British Imperialism was like..They were brought up with it all around them and many still held ties to the 'mother country'. The view you hold that Canada is treated like the UK's deep freeze or root cellar is perhaps a valid viewpoint, but one that is (in my view) doesn't stack up. The Brits have always been appreciative of the help Canada and other countries have provided over times of struggle. They know that without that help the UK would not have survived.
The Battle of Britain during 1940 was a classic case. Without the help of Canadian, Polish, Czech (and a number of other nations) pilots, the battle would have been lost. The German invasion of England would have been carried out (whether successfull or not is another matter)
Canadian troops during WW1 were in many cases in better physical shape. Tactics were eventually better and more based around the squad. German forces would often reinforce the line if they knew Canadian troops were opposite.
Victories at Passchendaele, Vimy etc. (where other nations attempts to gain the ground had failed) are and indication of the organisational skill, superior tactics & fighting spirit of the Canadian troops and 'everyone' knew it...
My perspective (having lived in England, Australia and Canada) is that WE don't fly the flag enough, be proud of our military and its passed achievements (unless its the 11th November)
You visit a pub in the UK or perhaps Holland and they find out your Canadian..Your gonna be looked after..There's a respect and admiration for Canadians in many countries and much of that stems from WW1 and WW2.

 

[Kirk1701]

To answer the question (IMHO)...I would guess Tommy Canuck had a fair indication of what British Imperialism was like..They were brought up with it all around them and many still held ties to the 'mother country'. The view you hold that Canada is treated like the UK's deep freeze or root cellar is perhaps a valid viewpoint, but one that is (in my view) doesn't stack up. The Brits have always been appreciative of the help Canada and other countries have provided over times of struggle. They know that without that help the UK would not have survived.
The Battle of Britain during 1940 was a classic case. Without the help of Canadian, Polish, Czech (and a number of other nations) pilots, the battle would have been lost. The German invasion of England would have been carried out (whether successfull or not is another matter)
Canadian troops during WW1 were in many cases in better physical shape. Tactics were eventually better and more based around the squad. German forces would often reinforce the line if they knew Canadian troops were opposite.
Victories at Passchendaele, Vimy etc. (where other nations attempts to gain the ground had failed) are and indication of the organisational skill, superior tactics & fighting spirit of the Canadian troops and 'everyone' knew it...
My perspective (having lived in England, Australia and Canada) is that WE don't fly the flag enough, be proud of our military and its passed achievements (unless its the 11th November)
You visit a pub in the UK or perhaps Holland and they find out your Canadian..Your gonna be looked after..There's a respect and admiration for Canadians in many countries and much of that stems from WW1 and WW2.

That's interesting. I suppose I'm getting most of my information from UK and US media. It's difficult to know who precisely they mean when they say "British." That could mean anyone from Queensland to the Yukon. Norm Christie's documentaries have been very helpful in this regard. No one recounts those stories.

 

[purple]

Are you referring to WWI or WWII?

These details are often left out of official accounts of wars as seedy. My own maternal grandmother was a war bride, but none of us like to think about our grandparents as young, ###ual people. And every one of the fighting men thought each encounter could be his last. These are important details for subsequent governments who feel war is not a last course of action.

This extends to accurate descriptions of trench raids and CQ fighting in forward trenches. Most of what we see as the years pass is beautiful monuments. I'm sure that's what the vets wanted to take away from the fighting and they're entitled to it.

Accurate details of what is involved in meeting an enemy nose-to-nose is an important deterrent to those who wish to stir up conflict in following years.

We are in danger of losing the perspective of the individual, which is why I started this thread. I wanted to discuss individual perspective.

Its hard to find truly graphic first hand accounts of actual combat. There are books with fairly vivid descriptions though. I've known many vets from WW1, WW2, and Korean fighting and most of them were/are very reticent about describing the experiences of actual combat, even though they went through it. A number of people that I knew were in the thick of it and all were universally grateful that they survived. It is a very traumatizing and private experience which was super-imposed on the physical conditions under which they lived and survived. Soldiers in the front line were constantly stressed from sleep deprivation, irregular and poor food, cold/hot, rain/snow/mud, physical fatigue, inadequate and dirty clothing, seeing friends killed/wounded, alternating boredom and terror, to say nothing of constant fear and anxiety and the sights and sounds of actual fighting. Perhaps the most vivid first-hand accounts I've heard were from a Korean vet who shot a Chinese soldier in the face and from another guy who was bayoneted in the groin. A WW2 tank crewman I knew had been blown out of several Shermans and somehow kept going back. No medals for him, but a hell of a lot of courage and devotion to admire. Same thing when talking to bomber crewmen who managed to survive their 30 missions over Germany. They had a pretty clean war with lots of leave, good food, and fairly acceptable accommodations, but a lot of stress and anxiety... right up until the time that they saw a friend's aircraft, and everybody in it, vaporized by a burst of flak.

I think most combat vets tried very hard to get it behind them and carry on with life as best they could. Many suffered their own recurring experiences with flashbacks and nightmares. Some took to the bottle to ease the pain, others turned out to be wife/child beaters, and some just couldn't participate in having a normal life and job. A lot of the guys would focus on distractions like leaves, ladies, and humorous tales about army life and various personalities and places they encountered. The other dimension is that the experience of combat is intensely personal and too distressing for many to recall and share, so they choose to repress it. Also, a lot of people just are not sufficiently articulate to explain it to others. Time tends to heal things and folks tend to forget the bad and emphasise the brighter things. One thing they all came away with was an aversion to war and counsel to avoid it.

In spite of all of the personal experiences about the horrors of war, each generation seems doomed to experience and learn about it for themselves. Maybe a lot of it is about the wisdom and insights which only come from ones actual life experiences, rather than learning from others. Unfortunately we seemed doomed to repeat the lessons of history. Technology may change, but human nature and human frailties do not. Political and religious leaders who want to loose the dogs of war really don't dwell too much on the impact that it will have on their people. A war needs "selling", and we hear euphemisms like surgical strikes, high-tech, short-term, precision weapons, casualty avoidance and, of course, demonization of the opposition, which somehow makes it all easier to swallow. Perhaps one of the good things about today's world is that images and communications are so rapid and available that this tends to be something of a deterrent to war, at least within the popularly elected democracies. Yet we still see the sorrowful events unfold in the former Yugoslavia, various African countries, and the middle east.

 

[screwtape]

Are you referring to WWI or WWII?

These details are often left out of official accounts of wars as seedy. My own maternal grandmother was a war bride, but none of us like to think about our grandparents as young, ###ual people. And every one of the fighting men thought each encounter could be his last. These are important details for subsequent governments who feel war is not a last course of action.

This extends to accurate descriptions of trench raids and CQ fighting in forward trenches. Most of what we see as the years pass is beautiful monuments. I'm sure that's what the vets wanted to take away from the fighting and they're entitled to it.

Accurate details of what is involved in meeting an enemy nose-to-nose is an important deterrent to those who wish to stir up conflict in following years.

We are in danger of losing the perspective of the individual, which is why I started this thread. I wanted to discuss individual perspective.

If you want to find those sort of details, read the diaries. Not the official reports, and not the collections of letters home (which were generally written to reassure family back home that things weren't so bad even if that required flat-out lying) but the diaries the men wrote for themselves and often used as a way to quiet their demons. There are a lot of them around now from WW1. Many of them have been published in the last 30 years as old soldiers died and their relatives found their journals in their effects and decided they deserved a wider audience.

One of the best, if you can find it, is Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan. The diary gives one of the best snapshots of "combat numbness" in progress - and maybe military black humour - that I have read. First published in 1981, it is Vaughan's daily diary of the first 8 months of his service in WW1. He starts the diary on January 4, 1917, as a 19-year-old wet-behnd-the-ears officer joining his regiment in the trenches with a copy of Palgrave's "Golden Treasury" in his pack and a belief in the playing fields of Eton in his heart (well, actually, he was fresh from a Jesuit prep school, but same difference). When he gives up on the diary on August 28, 1917, after 75 of his 90-man company have been killed at Passchendaele, he sounds 119-years-old with not much belief in anything.

Two sentences in the diary still stick with me 30 years after I first read them:

January 4 : When we had swept round the bend, away from the crowded platform, ringing with farewell cheers, I sank back into the cushions, and tried to realize that, at last, I was actually on my way to France, to war and excitement -- to death or glory, or both.

April 24 : I had a look at one old shelter behind Desiree and saw that the one from which Dunham had got ice for our tea, was full of green water in which lay a rotting Frenchman -- yet our tea had tasted quite good.

In civilian life, people sue restaurants and manufacturers for huge amounts because some random foreign object accidentally ended up in their food or drink, and the "mental shock and trauma" from finding it apparently scarred them for life. And here, after 4 months of combat operations, Vaughan finds the discovery that he has been drinking liquified Frenchman worth noting only because liquified Frenchman apparently does not ruin the taste of British tea. Now that's combat numbness.

 

[Kirk1701]

This is great info. I'd certainly appreciate a list of titles of war diaries.

I don't begrudge any veteran his silence. He's earned it. But it is a catch-22. Those who seek to start wars, have never fought one and therefore have no concept of what the individual experience actually is.

It didn't truly hit home for me till I saw Paul Gross's "Passchendaele." As problematic as that film is, the battle scenes are very visceral. The chest-deep water, the dreadful hand-to-hand fighting, the constant shelling, all are shocking and nowhere anyone would wish to be.

 

[kennymo]

This is great info. I'd certainly appreciate a list of titles of war diaries.

I don't begrudge any veteran his silence. He's earned it. But it is a catch-22. Those who seek to start wars, have never fought one and therefore have no concept of what the individual experience actually is.

It didn't truly hit home for me till I saw Paul Gross's "Passchendaele." As problematic as that film is, the battle scenes are very visceral. The chest-deep water, the dreadful hand-to-hand fighting, the constant shelling, all are shocking and nowhere anyone would wish to be.

I only wish my great grandfather's war diary hadn't been lost in a fire. All that remains are a few handwritten letters to his brother from France and England. One of my great aunts who is still with us has his wool tunic and helmet, which I recently found out he wore through Paschendale among other battles. The backs of both sleeves are stained from lying facedown in the mud and water for long periods of time and the helmet is covered in dings and nicks. If only they could talk.

 

[purple]

This is great info. I'd certainly appreciate a list of titles of war diaries.

I don't begrudge any veteran his silence. He's earned it. But it is a catch-22. Those who seek to start wars, have never fought one and therefore have no concept of what the individual experience actually is.

Here's the point; those who start wars don't much care what the toll is in terms of human suffering, nor are they inclined to find out and take this into their decision making. Ironically, Hitler was a veteran of the trenches in WW1 and this didn't seem to color his thinking one bit in 1939. Recent bad guys, like Slobodan Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia and Saddam Hussein, weren't moved to conduct any inquiries into the predicable human toll of things either.

Consider the road to war in Iraq in 2003 as well, and remember the selling job that the Bush gang, including Cheney, "Rummie", "Wolfie", and sadly even Colin Powell, did on this one. Truth is always the first casualty of war. We had all the usual deception/misinformation, demonization of the opposition and the big sell about WMD followed by the assurances of a quick "shock and awe" campaign with few casualties, no collateral damage, lots of "gee-whiz" high tech stuff, assurances of a happy reception by the population, a regime change to democratic government.... and then what. It turned out to be almost a 10 year grind with a huge toll in lives and treasure and a bitter guerilla war which left a broken and devastated country in it's aftermath, and it had exactly diddley squat to do with 9-11. Lately we have seen some of "the old gang" of neo-conservatives who engineered this one, most notably Wolfowitz, popping up on TV totally unrepentant and even offering good ideas about how to proceed in Syria. Talk about a failure to learn.