I seek out, combine and present the research of others. These videos are made from episodes of my podcast, the Record of Arms, available on most platforms.
I think there are 2 main reasons for moderates to oppose communist parties: the anti-theist, anti-ecclesial, anti-clerical, anti-democratic factor and the anti-private property/forced resumption of property factor.
Most people dont know this, but when somone is close to a big explosion,it turns your body in jelly,and if you are closer,small pieces are the only thing found.Thank you for another splendid video.
A navy pilot by the last name of best,hit one japanese carrier dead center and flew back to his carrier to be rearmed and refueled.He took off again and hit another japanese carrier dead center,not bad for a days work!
Great in depth analysis of a much maligned aircraft. Keep up the great work mate. I've watched all of your productions and look forward to new episodes. Maybe an in depth analysis of the desert air war featuring all the allied participants. Cheers
Mark, Thank you much for telling the story of the heroic Buffalo pilots over Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and Dutch East Indies. They are deserving of having their stories told and have all but been left out of history because of the losses. It is very interesting that B.O.B. aces got a TERRIBLE surprise from the Japanese and, had they been equipped with Spitfires at Singapore, the outcome would've remained the same. This would be confirmed by the first few battles between the IJNAF Zeroes and Spitfire MK Vs when the "Churchill Wing", commanded by Clive "Killer" Caldwell, took over defense of Northern Australia. Another lost cause. The Zero was the force to be reckoned with early in the war. I spent nearly 20 years writing veterans of the early Pacific war 1941-42. I knew Geoff Fisken, Rex Weber and many other veterans. Like always the Australians are usually blamed by the Brits when things go wrong in war. This is a great mistake. There are so many stories of heroism beyond anything people could imagine in modern times. Rex Weber was a good friend and told of the time he chased Ki-21 bombers out to sea after their raid on Singapore. Running at full throttle it took over 40 minutes to slowly catch them but the rear gunners caught him in a crossfire and his Buffalo was badly shot up. As it was all over the Pacific at that time, they were failed by their leaders and sacrificed by them. Many of the veterans went into captivity and died by the thousands in the various slave labor camps and on the Burma-Siam Death Railway. And on the Hell Ships or Unit 731 horror camps. The movie Bridge Over The River Kwai is a disgrace and dishonors those men. A better film is "Railway Man". The book Series "Bloody Shambles, Vols 1 and 2" is most excellent for those wanting to know more. Fisken loved flying the Buffalo during training days and was thrilled by the way it handled. The lack of armor, low quality machine guns and ammunition, combined with Brewster installing used Wright Cyclone engines bought cheap from the airlines and poor quality workmanship at the Brewster factory contributed to the defeats. Brewster had an evil reputation with a number of Allied governments and their sales people were well-known for being crooks who would promise anything to get the sales. As a former DC-3 mechanic, I can state from experience that the Wright Cyclone is an outstanding and worthy engine, known for its reliability and toughness. The story of the Pacific War 1941-42 overall is huge and will draw you into a rabbit hole where one answer creates 50 more questions and, after awhile, a person realizes the history we were taught in school is a stretch of the truth at best. Governments cover up and white-wash events like we see here to protect the lousy politicians and ignorant, arrogant, egotistical leadership from public outcry and criticism, something that is worse today, although they can't get away with it anymore! Thank you again for your fine tribute to those who lived this part of the story. Heroes one and all.
Great Series! The Finnish experience very similar to the Japanese in the Far East and the Pacific; more experienced pilots (therefore, better) sometimes with a performance advantage, sometimes without racking up kills until overwhelmed by attrition and technological obsolesce.
The allies just had too few buffalos and not very experienced pilots. The Japanese were in no way facing a Battle of Britain like situation over coloanal Asia. But the Allies had their best & brightest commanders in Europe & North Africa not the Far East and it showed badly.
Great series so far but....only folks to call the Brewster F2A a Buffalo was the British. Their version of the export B-339 was officially named Buffalo Mk 1. American's were F2A's, Finns mostly called them "Brewsters" Dutch also used B-339 (and 439).
I need help, a while ago I saw a video showing some German generals (WW2) reviewing an invasion plan (I think of Poland) using a model of the terrain with lights and smoke but I can't find it, in case someone could help me with the search.
I'm really enjoying this series, thanks for producing it! One small point, the name Noel (i.e. Noel Sharp of 488sqn) is pronounced differently in British (and thus Commonwealth) english compared to that of the US, in that it is pronounced 'Nole', rhymes with 'mole'.
While it is true 1 large carrier sunk and 1 damaged sums up to a greater loss then 1 small carrier sunk and 2 large carriers out of action, nonetheless Yorktown was there for Midway while neither of the 2 Japanese carriers were. This boils down to a 3 to 1 advantage for the USN coming out of Coral Sea.
another excellent vid! Worth pointing out Hornet, not involved in the Early Raids performed relatively less efficiently then the air groups of the carriers that were involved with those early raids.
I was a member of a P3B Orion flight crew that flew a Maritime Air Patrol (MAP) flight where we flew to most of the islands in the Carolines looking for signs of habitation on the unpopulated islands. We were able to add Truk to our flight and we got photos of some of the wrecks visible from the air. One of the wrecks is the San Francisco Maru which sank in fairly shallow water because her forward mast is still visible above the water. I wonder who sank her.
Great stuff. The British and Commonwealth response to the Japanese invasion is almost a model of how not to defend territory and as such transcended the undeniable bravery of service personnel on the ground. On a practical note, I was intrigued by the 'clipped' appearance of the Blenheim's left wing tip and the semi-solid appearance of the nose in the shot covering the 15-16 minute mark. Presumably this is the heavy work of an official censor of the day.
Very well done. The Western militaries in the Pacific at the start of the war were in Japan's back yard. Most of the British effort was in Europe and Africa. Force Z was sent to act as a deterrent - not out of any expectation that they could defeat the Japanese if they attacked. Here they were going against Japanese aviation at it's best. One thing about those Ki-43's is that they only at 2 like 7.7mm machine guns in the cowl - so - as mentioned - they had to make several runs. The Western nations were ill prepared and their men given a touch row to hoe. As "The History Guy" likes to say - they deserve to be remembered. Thanks. .
When “IL-2 1946” had a campaign based on this I definitely played it because it is an important part of my country’s History especially with the fall of Singapore in 1942.
I think it worth pointing out the actual theater commander, Air Chief Marshal R. Brooke-Popham, was an RAF officer who had over a year to operationally prepare command before being rapidly replaced in late December 1941 for having what we might call a nervous break down. Popham was obviously ineffective. similarly, one reason Percival was given ground command was because he had done an assessment of the Defense of Malaya in the late '30s, an assessment which apparently failed to resonate with it's author. Also, one reason Churchill personally appointed Adm. Phillips was Churchill believed Phillips was possessed of 'remarkable foresight'. Is there a worse concatenation of flawed commanders in military history?
another episode in the series that can be boiled down to a skilled pilot in a mediocre airplane is more effective then a bad pilot in a good airplane. However, it is more likely pilots will survive to be good in a better airplane.
It's interesting to see what some of these pilots were able to achieve after Malaya back in Europe flying late model Spitfires and Tempest/Typhoons. I'm sure they wished they'd had something like that here, though just in terms of numbers and in the context of the ground campaign they probably couldn't have stopped the attack
Thanks! I feel lucky to live in a time when it's possible to do this and have it reach people who want to see it instead of just existing unseen in a notebook somewhere. I appreciate your watching my stuff brother!
Thanks very much for another great upload. I am amazed by the professionalism of the Commonwealth pilots, who did their best in impossible conditions. A lot of respect must also go to the technical crews, who worked tirelessly to keep planes in a flyable condition. They always seem to be forgotten but as I learn more about these sort of events, I wonder about the lives they led. It must have been hard to send their young pilots off to fight and sometimes never see them again.
You're right, the groundcrew in this campaign were only slightly less exposed to danger than the pilots and were probably working through the night while the pilots had them free to recover somewhat. For everyone involved the 2 weeks of this campaign so far covered must have been a hell of a time
Watched it once yesterday, here we go again. It seems like I'm always listening to Mark Seven while I'm working. You are a legend, dude. I've learned so much about these "obscure" chapters of WW2 thanks to your hard work! Keep doing what you are doing!
Another great one, Mr. 7. History buffs like your viewers are continually open mouthed at the mistakes made by allied commanders in those early days of the Pacific war (who puts an airdrome a short walk away from the invasion beach?) but we are fully in possession of a vast amount of hindsight and must temper out judgements or at least our criticism, accordingly. However, while it is true no capital ship had been sunk while underway and at sea up until Adm. Philips made history that day, Phillips was entirely aware that one fortunate aerial torpedo hit started the chain of events that sent Bismarck to the bottom. Also, Phillips had to be aware that Warspite was so battered by German bombers in action around Crete she was out of the war for 6 months being repaired. While It may have been a defensible opinion capital ships were bomb resistant, Billy Mitchell proved two decades before enough high explosives will sink anything.
You make good points. My personal view is that it seems most likely that Phillips didn't call for air cover because he figured no fighters would be forthcoming. If he really believed aircraft were no threat its unlikely that he would have requested fighters over Singora. Nonetheless, he did proceed knowing that none could be provided. This could reflect an underestimation of the air threat but seems more likely to be an underestimation of the specifically Japanese air threat. Possibly he put too much faith in the widespread belief that this was made up of mediocre pilots in obsolete aircraft.
I think the British in general made a habit of over valuating the German Military and vastly undervaluing Italian and Japanese force of arms.@@MarkSeven
I’d read about 30yrs ago that the Finn’s inverted the oil rings in their buffalo to stop crankcase pressure and hence not have the oilling windshield issue.
Thank you very much for the hard work you have put into this series. The loss of Malaya and Singapore was a shameful episode in the history of the UK but as you know, the British were involved in a life a death struggle of their own and the losses the Royal Navy suffered in the Mediterranean in 1941, were appalling. The 16th century Elizabethan spymaster said that the (price of) “Knowledge is never too dear” and the disaster suffered by the Commonwealth troops was as much an intelligence failure as it was of logistics. What a mess!
Yes, it's my view that the British were basically doomed in the Far East while the war with Germany continued. The only chance I can see for some part of Malaya being held would be in the case of a successful end to any major campaign in the Mediterranean, but even that's doubtful. It may have seemed this way to the personnel in Malaya as well, which might have led to an atmosphere of futility or wishful thinking ("we could never stop the Japanese with what we have and can't expect much reinforcement"/"the Japanese are a second-rate power and no match for us") either of which could lead to negligent preparations
