Foreword
Well, here we are on 6 June 2019. Peterborough by-election day, but also the 75th commemoration of the Normandy Landings, aka D-Day. There has been wall-to-wall coverage on BBC News, ITV News and Sky News.
Preamble
This is not the place in which to discuss whether the Second World War could have been avoided (on the Western Front, in Western Europe generally; I think that it could have been). This is not the place in which to discuss whether the British Empire and the German Reich could have concluded an honourable armistice after the Fall of France (I think that they might have done; Germany made about ten separate offers).
It is important to note that these anniversaries are made use of by the Jewish Zionist element. Which is partly why they are pushed so hard on TV. Another chance to remind the masses about “the Nazis”, about how bad they supposedly were, and about how “necessary” it was to declare war on Germany, and eventually to defeat “the Nazis” (and so, Germany).
My own father was too young to be in the armed forces for much of WW2, though he was, near the end of the war, recruited by lot as a “Bevin Boy” (he was born and brought up in County Durham), and worked both in coal mining and later a shipyard (after the war, he became a professional footballer). Ironically, that service, far from the front lines of the war, killed him about 70 years later (via exposure to asbestos in a shipyard).
My maternal grandfather served as a soldier throughout WW2 and was both at Dunkirk and, rather later, in Burma.
Overview of my outlook re. the Second World War
My view of the war, even leaving aside my general sympathy with National Socialism in terms of ideology and aspiration, is that, on the Western Front, it need not have happened and should not have happened. I believe the same about the First World War, incidentally.
More
Born in 1956, I was brought up, as people were then, with “the War” as a constant backdrop. My grandfather talked scarcely at all about his war service with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939-40, or with the Army in Burma for much of the rest of the war, though it affected his health. He did give the odd bit of advice when I, aged maybe 7 or 8, was laying out my little Airfix plastic soldiers (various armies, but including, I think, German, British Eighth Army, Japanese and US Marines). I remember a couple of his comments, such as that patrolling soldiers should always be following one another in a line if in jungle, never abreast.
Had my grandfather not already been in uniform by reason of having been in the Territorial Army in 1939, he might never have served actively in the war at all, being at the time 38 or 39 years old (the usual cut-off age was 41). That’s Fate…
As mentioned above, people of my age who were brought up in the 1950s and 1960s always had “the War” there, around, like the woodsmoke and burning leaf smell of autumn in those days. The Germans were regarded by children of my age as honourable enemies (unlike the Japanese) and not some force of malign and almost cosmic evil, as the Jews try to make out now.
The Jewish “holocaust” propaganda and historical distortion that is now pervasive had not then really started in a big way. Also, the unspoken narrative was that Britain had suffered and struggled and “won the war”. The —in fact, overwhelming— input of the USA and the Soviet Union was popularly regarded (not only by children) as being at best no more (even taken together!) than that of the UK.
Churchill (as myth) hung over the scene like a Mount Rushmore presidential sculpture or —with apology to Jane Russell— like a thundercloud, only equalled by the leader of the “German hordes”, Hitler.
In the early 1960s, my grandparents never missed All Our Yesterdays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Our_Yesterdays_(TV_series) and I usually watched it with them.
The UK at that time (1960s) was still basically homogenous racially, certainly outside London or some port cities. In places like Reading, where I was born, and on the edge of which I lived until age 10 (my family was then in Sydney for 3 years), there were few blacks and browns (in fact, barring a family of Anglo-Indians whom we knew, there were almost none). The only black I recall seeing in England in the early/mid 1960s was the NHS consultant at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading who treated me for hearing impairment at age 7 or 8. He was from somewhere in the Caribbean. The country was then still a nation. The various war anniversaries were just part of the landscape, along with Trooping of the Colour, the Royal Tournament (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Tournament), the University Boat Race, Ascot, the Queen etc.
Today
Today, the UK is split and fissured racially, ethnically, economically, ideologically. It is scarcely a nation at all.
Today, with the “D-Day” ceremonies, the old Establishment or old Britain had its day in the sun: the unthinking royalists, the BBC and other msm, the remnants of the British armed forces (both of WW2 vintage and from today’s depleted armed services).
Though today’s ceremonies were in similar format to those of the past, there was, despite the wall-to-wall BBC/ITV/Sky news coverage, an end of the season feel. I wondered how many millions were really watching the seemingly endless TV.
I very much doubt that any but a tiny percentage of the ethnic minorities watched the shows today. Fewer will have understood the background even in the cartoon form presented by the TV people (Good v. Evil etc).
I would be prepared to bet that less than 1% of the population under 25 years of age watched more than a minute or two of the news coverage about the ceremonies in England and France. Same applies to most persons of non-European origin.
What we see here are two UKs: there is
- the official, Establishment UK, together with the msm and the Jewish Zionist element (who latch onto anything “Second World War” as an opportunity to re-demonize National Socialist Germany); and the few now very elderly people who were at least in their teens in 1944; and there is also
- the real UK, which is vastly more numerous and mostly has no interest in what happened in 1944.
In fact, it occurs to me that that division (between those who regard today’s ceremonies as hugely important, and those who regard them as of no interest or importance) reflects the change in UK society, and also that in UK politics. There is a chasm between what, say, the BBC or Sky think important, and what the bulk of the public think. A difference of orientation, of what is in the emotional life and which will eventually change political life.
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevin_Boys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Expeditionary_Force_(World_War_II)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Beach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/31/secondworldwar.nationalarchives
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1940_War_Cabinet_Crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill,_Hitler_and_the_Unnecessary_War
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1940/07/19/Hitler-offers-Britain-peace-or-destruction/6824181303557/
Update and further thoughts, 8 June 2019
As I write, Trooping of the Colour, held today, is not trending on Twitter (not that Twitter is the world) anything like as much as the Michael Gove cocaine scandal. Point made, I think. These events (Trooping of the Colour, WW2/WW1 anniversaries etc) have some significance for the elderly, perhaps to some extent for those who (like me, aged 62) prefer not to think of themselves as elderly quite yet; for some (a minority) of white (i.e. real) British/English people, but not at all for the “broad masses” and certainly not, speaking in group terms, for the ethnic minorities.
Yet the System is still trying to interest the people in such things. Look at this tweet by Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun “newspaper” [below]: May Bank Holiday changed date next year.
The fact is, that moving a one-day holiday to a different date is not going to have much if any impact on the public, whatever amount of “news coverage” (propaganda) is pumped out. It just does not now have much emotional impact on most people in the UK, not even those of (real) British origin (and let’s not pretend that the Africans, West Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese etc in the UK are somehow at one with the descendants of the Huguenots or those of long-ago Viking/Norman origin etc…).
As the Second World War recedes in memory and time, these commemorations become ever less relevant. The Jewish Zionist element has latched onto them in a parasitic way, as a method of pursuing its anti-Third Reich, anti-anti-Semitism message, along with pushing the “holocaust” fable and industry. It has less resonance with every year that passes, though.
It is the measure of the national self delusion still abroad that the question as to whether “D-Day” could be mounted today, in 2019 [see tweet below], could ever be asked!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9232117/tobias-ellwood-calls-for-defence-budget-increase/
“Struggle” to mount D-Day again?! Ha ha!
Tobias Ellwood MP [Con, Bournemouth East] may have reached the exalted rank of Army captain (Royal Greenjackets), but either is ignorant of history, strategy and geopolitics, or (far more likely) is talking in this manner in order to boost the MOD budget. He cannot seriously imagine that Britain could ever mount another Normandy Landings operation! In fairness to Ellwood, he does write:
“But we must not kid ourselves. Pressures on the defence budget since the end of the Cold War have left us with one deployable division of 35,000 personnel who could not fight a sustained campaign without allied support.” [The Sun]
In fact, Britain on its own would have been unable to do “D-Day” even in 1944 without huge American, Canadian (etc) assistance. The very first day, ie “D-Day” itself, airborne soldiers (mainly British, American, and Canadian) numbering 24,000 were dropped into battle. Behind them, the rest of the 150,000-strong assault force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings
That of course was not the entirety of Allied forces, which numbered in the millions across the world. The total of engaged participants on all sides has been estimated at 100 millions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II
Britain now (as Ellwood writes) has 1 deployable brigade of 35,000. That, leaving aside rear echelon and headquarters contingents of every kind, is pretty much the usable British Army now, though official figures state 81,500 regulars and 27,000 reserves (former TA):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army#Modern_army
Compare the figures: in 1945, over 3 million (in the Army alone, not including other arms); in 1980, just before the Falklands campaign, 222,000 (mostly regulars, at that); even in 2010, 155,000. Now the Army (regular and reserves) numbers about 108,000 officially and probably greatly fewer in reality. The Army, Navy, Air Force are losing 2,000 men and women a year.
Then there is the lift capacity, by air and sea. Hugely depleted.
The fact is that the UK could not even repeat the Falklands re-invasion today, the British Task Force fleet then consisting of 127 ships, including 43 Royal Navy vessels (the last figure not being the whole of the Royal Navy by any means). Today, the Navy only claims about 74 ships worldwide, and only 31 of those are large combat vessels and submarines (the rest are small vessels such as minesweepers, patrol launches etc).
In 1939, the Navy had over 1,400 ships. That figure did not include supply ships. “By the end of the [Second World] war the Royal Navy comprised over 4,800 ships, and was the second largest fleet in the world” [Wikipedia].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy#1939%E2%80%931945
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#British_Task_Force
I get the impression that there is a sizeable and entirely ignorant part of the British public (and it seems to include Gavin Williamson MP, until recently Defence Secretary!)…
…which actually believes that the UK could “take on” Russia, or China, or both! I see tweets urging British intervention in Syria, for example. Even in the (madly stupid) British bombing of Libya some years ago, the UK was dependent on French and Italian help.
These delusions have political consequences.
Update, 11 June 2019
Point proven? [see tweet below]. Note how this Bengali woman, Ash Sarkar, persists in saying “we” and “us” and “our” [British], just because she was born in the UK (assuming that she was)… talk about “cultural appropriation”!
and see: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/disordered-and-infantile-people/
Update, 21 July 2019
Well, the Iranians have seized British-registered ships in the Gulf of Hormuz. Bad boys. Oh, wait…turns out that not one of the officers and crew are British, and anyway this is tit-for-tat because the British seized an Iranian ship at Gibraltar “on suspicion” that it might be breaking the sanctions regime imposed basically by the USA. In fact, this whole incident was caused at root by that idiot Trump having torn up the agreement with the Iranians re. uranium enrichment. Looks like “perfidious Albion” has been superseded by “unreliable Yankee-Doodle”…
The relevant point here is that the UK Foreign Secretary (Jeremy Hunt) is talking about “consequences” for Iran, but in reality all that the UK can do is rattle sabres a little and freeze funds in the City of London. Britain cannot do much in terms of gunboat diplomacy for a very cogent reason— Britain has few gunboats.
Ian Robert Millard 