Garrison
Donor
But again why? Why jump through these hoops for a tank factory that Britain just doesn't really need? And frankly its academic when the author has made it clear it ain't happening.
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
- Start date
It did from Ireland and could have done so from the Commonwealth. As it did later on with the Windrush generation. (Though shipping space might have been a problem in wartime.)
I suspect what the UK would need from the US would be experts in designing better workflows for production lines rather than even skilled workers.
It makes no sense to build an outsize factory in the UK when there is no spare labour or materials to build it, or to staff it once built.
Any why import labour from america to build a factory, when it can be built more easily there, and import the factory output instead.
Apart from anything else the imports would need to include materials to make the factory, raw materials, machine tools to turn them into tanks., and (not least) food for the work force, which was a bit scarce in UK at the time.
Far easier to use the same workers to build the factory in america, use american resources and machine tools to build tanks, and then send them across the pond.
Any why import labour from america to build a factory, when it can be built more easily there, and import the factory output instead.
Apart from anything else the imports would need to include materials to make the factory, raw materials, machine tools to turn them into tanks., and (not least) food for the work force, which was a bit scarce in UK at the time.
Far easier to use the same workers to build the factory in america, use american resources and machine tools to build tanks, and then send them across the pond.
Large enough remittances could potentially overcome many of those objections.
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I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that you would suggest bribery and corruption amongst Ireland's fine and honest politicians. Such fine people that the dead would rise from their graves to vote for them.
You really don't understand the hatred that the UK was held in Eire, do you? Or the very real differences between the UK and the US as two very different cultures...
marathag
Banned
What were the workers who made over 200 Mulberry Caissons doing in 1940-43?
There wasn't a bad shortage of concrete, and the British had recently gained info from how the Germans were working with prestressed concrete, thanks to their persecutions of Jews who escaped to the UK before the War.
Workers for the new Plant once complete, come from the older, less efficient Railroad factories.
Lend Lease was a great deal, but in this TL the M3 Grant was not the winner it was in OTL, while the British have Vickers that created a winner, but their Factory complex has areas over a hundred years old at this point, not set for mass production, at all.
Look More Closely Later
Gone Fishin'
American construction workers built at least some of the Mulberry sections. And before that they were presumably either doing things in the USA or building bases in the UK for American troops, ships, and aircraft which would be coming to the UK. See this website: https://seabeemuseum.wordpress.com/...ance-of-u-s-navy-bases-to-operation-overlord/
My grandmother was Protestant and born in County Cork, so yea I have an idea....
And regardless of that, money is money...so you sweaten the offer until they're forced to reply with "I still hate you fvcks but tell me about this job."
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If that was the answer the Treaty Ports would have been in operation in OTL, FFS the UK floated the idea of agreeing to support handing over Northern Ireland in 1940 and got nothing from Dev, how do you change that?
Money is often viewed as an insult by many people. As has been pointed out, Eire was offered Northern Ireland as a sweetner for the Treaty Ports which Devlin closed. It was basically everything Eire ever wanted and still they closed the Treaty Ports to the RN.
Northern Ireland was never 'offerred on a plate'. Churchill simply said the Westminster government* after the War would seek to persuade the Northern Irish government to seek reunification. Good luck with that "pig in a poke".
* which he might not be in charge of, and OTL was not.
Britain could do JITL to speed thing up, after German raid become minimal. Although idk if the concept would be ASB.
Never suggested it was "offered on a plate." Just that it was offered, which when you think about it, was typical of Churchill. Easy to give what was never a reality...
Which of course is why De Valera conclude it was a fake deal that he should not accept. Dev is not one of my favourite Irish figures* for imposing his vision of an autarchic Gaelic Catholic Quasi Theocracy but he got this right.**
* anyone done a TL where he dies at Beal na Blath rather than Michael Collins? Maybe one where Collins and his escort surprise the Anti-Treaty forces and capture their leading figures at the pub.
** One of my aunts at her 90th birthday used a substantial part of her thank you speech to excoriate Dev for forcing her to give up teaching when she married (married women had to leave any public body). Unfortunately much of this part was delivered in Gaelic but i gather it was very insulting.
Most of the resources used on the mulberries were being used to build Runways, initially for the RAF then in ever increasing numbers for the USAAF.
While the UK didnt build massive new factories it did undertake a massive construction programme of military bases for the allied cause, which soaked up manpower.
marathag
Banned
Pretty easily.
Just the thing for the UK's Ruston-Bucyrus, a jointly owned US-UK company making drill rigs and Excavators
11 January 1942. Tavoy, Burma.
allanpcameron
Donor
11 January 1942. Tavoy, Burma.
Victoria Point aerodrome, an important stop in the air bridge between India and Malaya, had fallen to a battalion of the Japanese 143 Infantry Regiment in December. The small garrison of Burma Rifles had been withdrawn as resistance would have been futile against such an overwhelming force. Although an alternative route for bombers was possible over Sumatra, the loss of Victoria Point, made shifting fighters much more difficult.
When the men of the Burma Rifles had pulled out of Victoria Point, there were still people able to keep an eye open about Japanese coming and going. The departure of much of the Battalion of Japanese troops that had taken the airfield was noted, and the information eventually reached Tavoy and Rangoon. Brigadier Arthur Bourke, (CO 2nd Burma Brigade) at Tavoy had been visited by Major Michael Calvert with one of his Special Service Detachments.
These ‘Commandoes’ were making their way down the Tenasserim region, Tavoy being the end of the metalled road from Rangoon. Moving south Calvert had orders to gain as much intelligence about the Japanese over the border in Thailand and particularly to find out the situation at Victoria Point. If it was true that the airfield was now thinly guarded, then the possibility of regaining it would be considered.
Bourke’s own intelligence was that they were seeing more of the Thai army on the border than the Japanese army. This confirmed what Calvert had been told by RAF photoreconnaissance. The arrival of 113 Squadron (Blenheims) from the Middle East had given the RAF the ability to reach out to the Japanese airfields that had been used to bomb Rangoon. The surprising thing was that instead of seeing a build up before an invasion of Burma, it seemed that the Japanese were being drawn south into Malaya.
The Indian troops in Malaya had been able to find intelligence that their attackers over the last month had been elements of a number of different Divisions. The Japanese 5th, 18th Infantry Divisions and the Imperial Guards Divisions seemed to have been the first wave of attackers. These all came from the Japanese 25th Army. More recently, elements of 33rd and 55th Infantry Divisions had been identified. The limited British intelligence assets in Thailand had identified these last two Divisions as being likely to be part of an invasion of Burma, as they seemed to belong to a different (15th) Army from the first wave. The fact that they seemed to have gone south to Malaya was of great interest to the British commanders in Burma, General Harold Alexander and Lt-General Bill Slim.
Slim’s fear was that some of the reinforcements he was expecting might be redirected to Malaya if that was where the main battle was taking place. General Auchinleck however, had tried to reassure him that once his forces had been built up, Slim would be leading them, not just in defence of Burma, but taking the war to the Japanese.
Calvert and his commandoes, acting in a similar fashion to the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa, would be doing the reconnaissance on the ground, preparing the way for Slim’s Corps to secure India, the Burma Road, and, hopefully, Malaya.
Victoria Point aerodrome, an important stop in the air bridge between India and Malaya, had fallen to a battalion of the Japanese 143 Infantry Regiment in December. The small garrison of Burma Rifles had been withdrawn as resistance would have been futile against such an overwhelming force. Although an alternative route for bombers was possible over Sumatra, the loss of Victoria Point, made shifting fighters much more difficult.
When the men of the Burma Rifles had pulled out of Victoria Point, there were still people able to keep an eye open about Japanese coming and going. The departure of much of the Battalion of Japanese troops that had taken the airfield was noted, and the information eventually reached Tavoy and Rangoon. Brigadier Arthur Bourke, (CO 2nd Burma Brigade) at Tavoy had been visited by Major Michael Calvert with one of his Special Service Detachments.
These ‘Commandoes’ were making their way down the Tenasserim region, Tavoy being the end of the metalled road from Rangoon. Moving south Calvert had orders to gain as much intelligence about the Japanese over the border in Thailand and particularly to find out the situation at Victoria Point. If it was true that the airfield was now thinly guarded, then the possibility of regaining it would be considered.
Bourke’s own intelligence was that they were seeing more of the Thai army on the border than the Japanese army. This confirmed what Calvert had been told by RAF photoreconnaissance. The arrival of 113 Squadron (Blenheims) from the Middle East had given the RAF the ability to reach out to the Japanese airfields that had been used to bomb Rangoon. The surprising thing was that instead of seeing a build up before an invasion of Burma, it seemed that the Japanese were being drawn south into Malaya.
The Indian troops in Malaya had been able to find intelligence that their attackers over the last month had been elements of a number of different Divisions. The Japanese 5th, 18th Infantry Divisions and the Imperial Guards Divisions seemed to have been the first wave of attackers. These all came from the Japanese 25th Army. More recently, elements of 33rd and 55th Infantry Divisions had been identified. The limited British intelligence assets in Thailand had identified these last two Divisions as being likely to be part of an invasion of Burma, as they seemed to belong to a different (15th) Army from the first wave. The fact that they seemed to have gone south to Malaya was of great interest to the British commanders in Burma, General Harold Alexander and Lt-General Bill Slim.
Slim’s fear was that some of the reinforcements he was expecting might be redirected to Malaya if that was where the main battle was taking place. General Auchinleck however, had tried to reassure him that once his forces had been built up, Slim would be leading them, not just in defence of Burma, but taking the war to the Japanese.
Calvert and his commandoes, acting in a similar fashion to the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa, would be doing the reconnaissance on the ground, preparing the way for Slim’s Corps to secure India, the Burma Road, and, hopefully, Malaya.