Talk:The Blitz
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British English
This article is written in British English. This has more implications than spelling. In particular, in Britain the passive voice is not deprecated and closely related sentences are often connected by a semicolon rather than being separated by a period. The reason for this post is that an editor has made a heroic edit correcting grammar. Many of these 'corrections' were simply substituting US conventions in place of British grammar. Since this was a good faith edit and it didn't actually do any harm, I haven't reverted it. Nevertheless it was just fiddling around the edges. OrewaTel (talk) 23:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
- That being so, can anyone explain why tonnages of bombs dropped are given first in 'short tons' (ie American 2000lb tons) rather than 'British' (long 2240lb) tons? Was this the practice at the time, or is it now normal among military historians and so in the sources? John O'London (talk) 10:14, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
- It was not and never has been normal practice. Short tons, like short pints and short gallons, are purely American units that are used nowhere else. Britain uses real tons and everyone else uses tonnes. (1 tonne is just 35lb 6½ oz less than 1 ton so 1 ton is only 1.6% greater than 1 tonne.) I don't see why short tonnes are even mentioned in this article but Wikipedia seems addicted to using little units. Perhaps we should simply put the units in the correct order. British first (it is a British article), Global second and local American units third. Alternatively we could put the weights in Global, British, American order. OrewaTel (talk) 22:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
- A major edit has changed all Short Tons to normal Tons and Tonnes. It may be useful to audit these changes to make sure that I've got the lot. Also there were some suspiciously round short-ton figures in sections that had references written by British authors. Since no British author would use short tons, it is possible (likely) that these figures were actually long tons and the article contains figures that are about 10% low. It is necessary to audit the figures and I invite anyone who has some source books to so do. OrewaTel (talk) 02:37, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
- It was not and never has been normal practice. Short tons, like short pints and short gallons, are purely American units that are used nowhere else. Britain uses real tons and everyone else uses tonnes. (1 tonne is just 35lb 6½ oz less than 1 ton so 1 ton is only 1.6% greater than 1 tonne.) I don't see why short tonnes are even mentioned in this article but Wikipedia seems addicted to using little units. Perhaps we should simply put the units in the correct order. British first (it is a British article), Global second and local American units third. Alternatively we could put the weights in Global, British, American order. OrewaTel (talk) 22:28, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
German Language
This article is about interaction between Germany and United Kingdom and consequently contains a number of German words. These have, correctly, been tagged using {{lang|de|Wörter}}. (Rendered as Wörter.) But there are some Germanic words that are either proper nouns or English words. A good example is Luftwaffe. Whilst this is German for 'Air weapon', here it is simply the name of the German Air Force and is not a translatable German word. Similarly 'Blitz' is German for lightning but here is an English word to denote this bombing campaign. That it was derived from a German word 'Blitzkrieg' is irrelevant. (That a long drawn out bombing campaign is about as far from Blitzkrieg as you can get is equally irrelevant.)
I am effecting an audit of words tagged as German with a view to removing the tag from proper names and English words. I shall tag any untagged German words if I find any. OrewaTel (talk) 00:56, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
24~25 AUG events omitted, causing biased article
The direct cause of The Blitz were a series of events on 24~25 August 1940. Prior to this there was a "gentleman's rule" between the RAF and Luftwaffe to not strike civilian targets. On the night of 24 August, Luftwaffe bombers striking military targets on the outskirts of London drifted off course and mistakenly bombed a suburb of London. The German pilots were reprimanded by their command, but Churchill took this as a deliberate attack on civilians and retaliated by bombing Berlin on 25 August, which resulted in little damage or death, but enraged the Germans and the whole "gentleman's rule" went sideways, triggering The Blitz, and starting the domino effect that would later lead to horrors like Dresden. With these facts omitted from the article it whitewashes the Allies. 113.41.178.130 (talk) 01:54, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
- Whilst the events of 24 August 1940 are notable they were not that important and their importance did not relate to any non-existent 'gentleman's rule'. At the same time as the Luftwaffe were accidentality bombing London they were deliberately bombing Portsmouth killing 100 people. The Germans thought that Berlin was too far away to be a target. The retaliation raid on Berlin was not to provoke the Blitz; it was to demonstrate that nowhere in Germany was safe. That the raid coincided with a speech declaring that it was technically impossible for RAF bombers to reach that far was a bonus.
- The Nazis had already declared their intention of bombing any resisting country into submission and their efforts in the Spanish Civil War demonstrated that they did not consider civilians off limits. It would be naïve to think that the entire Luftwaffe strategy was determined by a moment of pique. (Although one or two retaliatory raids on London may well have been.) As regards the horrific raids on Hamburg and Dresden, they need (and have) complete articles to discuss the causes and effects. You cannot blame a handful of Wellingtons. OrewaTel (talk) 04:15, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
What's "Harrison 1998"
I cannot find "Harrison 1990" defined. As of 2022-10-23 I saw ""Harrison 1998, p. 112" cited as a second source for, "a November 1940 census of London, found that about 4% of residents used the Tube and other large shelters, 9% in public surface shelters and 27% in private home shelters, implying that the remaining 60% of the city stayed at home."
I've found that "Harrisson 1976, p. 112" gives those numbers. I am changing "Harrison 1990" to "Harrisson 1976" and adding that reference. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:16, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Fraserburgh
Fraserburgh raided 23 times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/second-world-war-records-reveal-hidden-scale-of-fraserburgh-blitz-lhf92t9w3 192.131.137.150 (talk) 21:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)