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All, Reading John Costello's book 'Days of Infamy' is obviously a good account of what happened (and didn't happen) leading up to 7 December 1941. It 'proves' in many ways that both Kimmel and Short were denied MAGIC and also did not get any real evaluations of attacks. Were they...

All, Apparently, the force of 200 B-17's stationed in the Philippines were supposed to deter a Japanese attack. They represented the biggest concentration of 'heavy-hitters' at that time. If we look at the Japanese war plans, it is obviously correct that Pearl Harbour was of...

This is inspired by the 'Anzio - was it necessary' thread. Rommel did not want to see a drawn-out campaign in Italy, but rather a retreat to the Alps. Kesselring opposed this, claiming that he could stall Allied forces for months on end and zap them of their strength which otherwise...

We have probably been there before, but let us see if we can have a different perspective? If the objective of Anzio was to draw German forces away from Cassino front, it did not achieve its objective. Could Anzio have been cancelled shortly before it went in? as in 20 January? When...

All, I am getting a bit obsessed with the Med in the 1939-42 time frame - I know, sorry. This is something I am not sure about, can't find anything really. What If the Maltese have enough of the bombings and the killings of their civilians? What If they decide it is not their...

All, No doubt that the Greek campaign had it all. There are of course a lot of What If's in this. 1) Italian forces just doing a little bit better 2) No diversion of forces to Greece 3) Italian navy just doing something The Greek adventure was a tactical blunder (according...

All, If we look at the historical settings between the two operations, I think we might find some interesting points and pointers to where things could have been different. The following statements might be too generic, but let us look at their impact. Eagle Claw - US forces...

All, The disaster at Singapore was evidently started a bit earlier than 1942. Bad leadership, bad ideas, bad .. nearly everything, but what was the alternative? We probably need to go back to the early 30's (?). UK to admit it cannot afford to be a super power - Give...

This is really springing from the United India thread. China is of course immense in many ways, but the things which might be of interest here could be (OTL stuff): 1) Quality manufacture (getting there) In many ways China can be compared to Japan in the earlier stages. 'Made in Japan'...

This is smoke and mirror. The basis is that both Hollis and Mitchell were spies. Not proved, but still doubts. A reasonable time frame would be 1964/5. Some time after Philby to let the dust settle a little bit. US was not impressed with SIS or MI5. Insofar as Hollis had been...

This is a follow-on from the Shoe story with Bush Jr. Does anybody know of any accidents happening to heads of state? Not assassinations, but genuine accidents. Banana peel, etc etc. Ivan

Inspired by the Alaska/Japan thread. June 1941: Launch of the German-Finnish offensive in the Arctic. Murmansk was to be the goal and in effect the Kola peninsula and White Sea. This is before the Arctic convoys and before Lend-Lease, so the immense importance of Murmansk might not...

Depending on the timeframe, could the 'Eagle' have landed in Moscow or DC? Stalin did not have a huge set of bodyguards if Montefiore is to be trusted. DC? No clue at all. Moscow, November 1941. I believe there could have been routes into Moscow to be used by Brandenburgers or...

All, I stumbled across a sentence from Wiki on the Siege of Tsingtao: """ The German troops were interned in Japan until the formal signature of the Versailles peace treaty in 1919, but due to technical questions the troops were not repatriated before 1920. 170 prisoners chose to remain in...

This is a little gem I have not been familiar with at all. According to Liddel Hart, General French felt a bit abused by Lanzerac and then he found out that the French had retired and left him in the lurch. Apparently Gen French thought of just leaving them all alone and retire to Havre...

I don't know if we have been 'bashing' this one as of lately. Based on Scott Anderson's book 'Lawrence in Arabia' It is clear that the Arab revolt against the ottoman empire was also one of self-determination. The French were not welcome at all and the Sykes-Picot was not applauded...

All, Stalin was a bit on-off in terms of Jews. In February 1944, Stalin received a letter from Mikhoels and Fefer calling for a Jewish homeland. It had the backing of Redens and even Molotov was in favour. Beria might also have been in favour, but it is not clear from Montefiore...

All, When looking at Turkey's influence on an Entente strategy, I get this feeling that the importance of Turkey is somewhat over-estimated. The Ottoman empire had by and large lost all its European possessions and the Arabic areas were ripe for independence (in one way or the other)...

Reading Montefiore's Book "Stalin: The court of the red Tsar" makes one wonder. What was the rationale behind the purges really? 1) To gear up for war with Germany which would be coming 2) To get rid of 'enemies' i.e. Stalin's opponents 3) To get rid of enemies as there really was a...

Apparently, it would have been a safe bet to say that Trotsky would have succeeded Lenin in 1924. The famous letter counted against Stalin. Maybe more importantly, Trotsky's insistence of 'global revolution' may have been seen as unrealistic by many, whereas Stalin's "Socialism in one...