How A&A corresponds to WWII history

A news story about some of the secret behind-the-scenes work (signals intelligence and radio navigation) done by the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (the Wrens) during WWII.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/d-day-code-breakers-women-1.5159789

The Shetland Bus was the nickname of a clandestine special operations group that made a permanent link between Shetland, Scotland, and German-occupied Norway from 1941 until the German occupation ended on 8 May 1945. From mid-1942 the official name of the group was “Norwegian Naval Independent Unit” (NNIU). In October 1943 it became an official part of the Royal Norwegian Navy, and was renamed the “Royal Norwegian Naval Special Unit” (RNNSU).

The unit was operated initially by a large number of small fishing boats, and later augmented by three fast and well-armed submarine chasers – Vigra, Hessa and Hitra.

Crossings were mostly made during the winter under the cover of darkness. This meant that the crews and passengers had to endure very heavy North Sea conditions, with no lights, and constant risk of discovery by German aircraft or patrol boats. There was also the possibility of being captured whilst carrying out the mission on the Norwegian coast. However, early on it was decided that camouflage was the best defence and the boats were disguised as working fishing boats, with the crew as fishermen. The fishing boats were armed with light machine guns concealed inside oil drums placed on deck. The operation was under constant threat from German forces, and several missions went awry, of which the Telavåg tragedy is a prime example. Several fishing boats were lost during the initial operations, but after receiving the three submarine chasers there were no more losses.

Leif Andreas Larsen (popularly known as Shetland Larsen) was perhaps the most famous of the Shetland Bus men. In all he made 52 trips to Norway, and became the most highly decorated Allied naval officer of the Second World War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_bus

The Shetland Bus is a little known story of WWII.  What do you guys think?

The Siege of Tobruk lasted for 241 days in 1941, after Axis forces advanced through Cyrenaica from El Agheila in Operation Sonnenblume against the British Western Desert Force (WDF) in Libya, during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. In late 1940, the British had defeated the Italian 10th Army during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) and trapped the remnants at Beda Fomm. German troops and Italian reinforcements reached Libya, while much of the WDF was sent to Greece and replaced by a skeleton force, short of equipment and supplies.

Operation Sonnenblume (6 February – 25 May 1941), forced the British into a retreat to the Egyptian border. A garrison was left behind at Tobruk, to deny the port to the Axis, while the WDF reorganised and prepared a counter-offensive. The Axis siege of Tobruk began on 10 April, when the port was attacked by a force under Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel and continued during three relief attempts, Operation Brevity (15–16 May), Operation Battleaxe (15–17 June) and Operation Crusader (18 November – 30 December). The occupation of Tobruk deprived the Axis of a supply port closer to the Egypt-Libya border than Benghazi, 900 miles (1,400 km) west of the Egyptian frontier, which was within the range of RAF bombers; Tripoli was 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) to the west in Tripolitania.

The siege diverted Axis troops from the frontier and the Tobruk garrison repulsed several attacks. The port was frequently bombarded by artillery, dive-bombers and medium bombers, as the RAF flew defensive sorties from airfields far away in Egypt. British Mediterranean Fleet and Inshore Squadron ships ran the blockade, to carry reinforcements and supplies in and wounded and prisoners out. On 27 November, Tobruk was relieved by the 8th Army (the name of British, Commonwealth, Imperial and Allied forces in the Western Desert since September 1941), during Operation Crusader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tobruk

I have decided to no longer post polls, but instead post questions for discussion instead.
Might make your answers to my questions easier to give an opinion on.

The Siege of Tobruk began in April 75 years ago.
Rommel was tenacious, and the British certainly did not want to give up this important port to the Axis powers.
History says that this was one of Rommel’s greatest victories when Tobruk finally fell.
History also says that this one of Britain’s finest hours, holding out as long as they did.
Tell me your impressions as we now enter the heart of the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa.

The Allies didn’t have “a” plan to wage the Battle of the Atlantic, and neither did the Germans.  The Battle of the Atlantic was a complex battle of attrition on a gigantic scale which lasted all the way from September 1939 to May 1945, and it was characterized by constant changes of plans and tactics and weaponry on both sides as it progressed, with each side trying to overcome every new enemy development with a suitable counter-development.  The campaign see-sawed several times, with one side or the other gaining the advantage at various points; some methods of waging the campaign became ineffectual as time progressed, but were highly effective in earlier stages and therefore were entirely correct to use at those points.

Wow, miss a few days drinking and dancing…well watching others dance anyways…but I digress.  We no longer have an expert on the WWII food thingee/justification whatchermacallit?

Then there is the other side of the war, the Pacific theater.  I don’t think any events in Europe regarding Hitler (or even Churchill) would have affected the decision by Japan to annex Manchuria in 1931, China proper (at least as much as they could get) in 1937, and then to attempt the quick strike at Pearl along with the dash to the oil-rich Dutch East Indies in 1941.

WWII, at least in the Pacific, was pretty much going to happen regardless of events in Europe.  Considering the culture of the Japanese (essentially controlled by the military leaders) at the time, I don’t think the change of any single person in Japan (even the emperor considering the Japanese military could and did replace emperors when convenient for them) could have altered this course.

Italian troops were greatly important in policing the Balkans. Italy had around 200,000 troops in the Balkan States. After 1943 Germany did not have the man power for the occupational duties the Balkans required.

The recent Lybian Civil War has been one of the more interresting post WWII conflicts.