just saw fascinating documentary about wwII

[Crayzee]

on public tv
about how brit navy attacked french navy because stupid french captains would not give up their ships to keep the nazis from getting them
us was not ready to help brits yet and nazis had just taken over france
brits felt if nazis got the french ships brits would be doomed for sure
churchill gave french admiral ultimatum to either
scuttle ships
sail them to england and join in fighting nazis
or sail them to usa
when french didnt comply by deadline brits bombarded them in port in africa and killed over 1000 french sailors
i knew alot about wwII but never heard this before
very sad

[THE PROFIT]

French are hardheaded fuks & hate the English with a passion. Trust me, Churchill was not saddened at all to have to kill those French fuks!

[stealthyburrito]

was that entirely necessary? why not just seize them, brits had soldiers fighting in Africa. what a waste of people and ships.

[THE PROFIT]

They were french, fuk 'em. They wanna argue about everything when there's no time to argue.

[Snowball]

during the years of Vichy France.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

[Justin7]

What about the Vichy France, a provisional government that was helping Germany?

What about the Japanese submarine carriers? What about the Nazi atomic program that was actually abandoned in 1941 or 1942 (fear of this program, in part, is what drove the allies to pursue nukes so hard). There is all kinds of crazy stuff about WWII.

[THE PROFIT]

you're right, Justin. Stuff that we will never even know about.

[Brock Landers]

French military was the biggest joke of WWII, The Maginot Line was one of the most idiotic moves ever.

[Crayzee]

the french admiral in the port in north africa was insulted because the brits sent a captain to bring him the ultimatum
the brit captain spoke fluent french and had been delegate to france before the war so thats why they sent him
roosevelt had been refusing to send ships to brits because he feaared brits would lose them to the nazis
churchill wanted to prove to roosevelt he wasnt fvking around
there was some evidence roosevelt knew what was going down and even gave his approval

[lakerboy]

france sat out ww2 and let others do the dirty work. smart move by them- no loss and got back everything that belonged to them. pierre laval was the biggest french criminal off all time along with marshal petain

[Justin7]

France fought WWII using WWI strategy. They were routed.

Roosevelt knew in 1940 that the US would be in this war, but he had to win public support. He played a very delicate game trying to time the US entry into the war with when our military capabilities were ready. He probably would have wanted to wait another 3-6 months, but Pearl Harbor, and the immediate German declaration of war thereafter moved the time table up.

[Law-Byrnes]

They used Northern Africa for the best access to Italy.