Most underated?

KC72

Active member
Who do you think are the unsung military figures in history? People who do not get enough credit or people we might not have heard of? For my part i think General Slim.
 
How about Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding who was in charge of the RAF fighter command during the Battle of Britain?

DOWD1.JPG


The other would be General Lee Sun-shin who, with his 12 ships, sank over 100 Japanese ships without firing a single shot. He cleverly used the study of tides and currents to lure the Japanese into a trap. He let mother nature take care of everything else.

YSS_Sitting.jpg
 
the_13th_redneck said:
How about Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding who was in charge of the RAF fighter command during the Battle of Britain?

DOWD1.JPG


The other would be General Lee Sun-shin who, with his 12 ships, sank over 100 Japanese ships without firing a single shot. He cleverly used the study of tides and currents to lure the Japanese into a trap. He let mother nature take care of everything else.

YSS_Sitting.jpg

I've not heard of General Lee Sun-shin (although what he did sounds pretty amazing) but Air Marshall Lord Dowding is a good choice.

When you say overlooked I assume you mean by the general public at large? In that case the following guys are well overlooked:

Subotai
Heinz Guderian
Erich von Manstein
Leonidas
Hans Ulrich Rudel

Apologies if my choices are WW2 loaded but that's the subject I know most about.
 
the strategist from the three kingdoms : ZHuGeLiang

he was a brillant tactician, especially in the use of fire, in which he first suggeste teh use of gunpowder. his plans were brillant and he had a 99% win during his entire life
 
I've actually heard that name... probably because I've read some of that stuff ages ago.
Can't remember much though.
 
let me think

Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding :

This guy was great, they say who has charge of the air has charge of the war.

This guy put all he had into the Battle Of Britian in WW2 and still came out shining when he noticed the gap in whcih he knew we could defeat the Germans.

Hats off to this guy as if it wasn't for him, we'd definantly be speaking german.
 
Re: let me think

Anya1982 said:
Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding :

This guy was great, they say who has charge of the air has charge of the war.

This guy put all he had into the Battle Of Britian in WW2 and still came out shining when he noticed the gap in whcih he knew we could defeat the Germans.

Hats off to this guy as if it wasn't for him, we'd definantly be speaking german.

Hence my nomination ;)
 
take this

Don't bite my head of for this, but the amount of americans I know who would say "if it wasn't for us You'd be speaking german by now".

But in reality we wouldn't, if it was for Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding we'd be speaking german.

This man had to watch fighter pilots fly for days with no rest, sleep deprevation, starvation for some. He had to keep pushing like nothing on earth, the germans were to much for us. But when Hitler ordered them to stop bombing military bases etc and ordered to aim for towns etc in England thats when The Air Chief got his first break and we begun to fight off what was happening.

Thats pure devotion and brains
 
I absolutely agree.
He was also known to be a quiet man... basically you could think of him as a polar opposite to Monty. I am not 100% certain but the Air Marshal Dowding from the movie "Battle of Britain" seemed quite different from the Air Marshal Dowding I've read about in books. To begin with, the physique lol.
Because of Dowding, the German hopes of defeating Britain were squashed and turned their attention to the eastern front. At this point in time, the UK was rather "safe" from an actual German invasion.
What Hitler would have done after beating the Soviets (if it came to that) is anyone's guess, but he probably would have HAD to settle for truce due to losses.
But yeah, the rest of Europe would be speaking German.
Air Marshal Dowding often is overlooked when World War II credit is given to generals.
 
Re: take this

Anya1982 said:
Don't bite my head of for this, but the amount of americans I know who would say "if it wasn't for us You'd be speaking german by now".

But in reality we wouldn't, if it was for Air Chief Marshal Lord Hugh Dowding we'd be speaking german.

This man had to watch fighter pilots fly for days with no rest, sleep deprevation, starvation for some. He had to keep pushing like nothing on earth, the germans were to much for us. But when Hitler ordered them to stop bombing military bases etc and ordered to aim for towns etc in England thats when The Air Chief got his first break and we begun to fight off what was happening.

Thats pure devotion and brains

Lord Dowding deserves to be more widely recognised, but you're over playing his impact somewhat. Even if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain, more likely than not they wouldn't have bothered to invade the UK in 1940. There was still too many other practical challenges to be overcome and the Kriegsmarine wasn't nearly ready. Perhaps if Germany had defeated the USSR we would have seen an invasion attempt.

If you want to give credit to someone who stopped us learning German then he'd have to be a Soviet, or indirectly an American.
 
try this

No the Air Marshall did exactly what I have said. USA helped us offically from 1941 after their inccidents but before that they never really play a part in the war.

More Americans died in the year they came in than brits died through out the whole WW2 I know they helped out a big part and respect them for doing so. They recognised we were in trouble but that was to be expected.

But The germans would of put a claim onto England if they had won battle of britain, hense why their attack.

Like it was stated before by redneck :

Because of Dowding, the German hopes of defeating Britain were squashed and turned their attention to the eastern front. At this point in time, the UK was rather "safe" from an actual German invasion


WW2 was a tricky thing and still is. No one but Hitler knew his full intentions if he was able to take over britian and most of Europe and thank God we will never know.

I'm quiet happy being who and where I am, Just would like a bit hotter weather lol
 
Re: try this

Anya1982 said:
No the Air Marshall did exactly what I have said. USA helped us offically from 1941 after their inccidents but before that they never really play a part in the war.

More Americans died in the year they came in than brits died through out the whole WW2 I know they helped out a big part and respect them for doing so. They recognised we were in trouble but that was to be expected.

But The germans would of put a claim onto England if they had won battle of britain, hense why their attack.

Like it was stated before by redneck :

Because of Dowding, the German hopes of defeating Britain were squashed and turned their attention to the eastern front. At this point in time, the UK was rather "safe" from an actual German invasion


WW2 was a tricky thing and still is. No one but Hitler knew his full intentions if he was able to take over britian and most of Europe and thank God we will never know.

I'm quiet happy being who and where I am, Just would like a bit hotter weather lol

Hi. I don't want to underplay what Lord Dowding did, or how magnificent our pilots and everything connected with them were in the Battle of Britain because they were truly magnificent. The Luftwaffe was a formidable opponent, being bigger and their pilots were very well trained. So what we did was remarkable and although we got lucky when the Germans switched to terror raids, we truly won our possible freedom. Possible, because I don't believe Operation Sealion, the codename for the invasion of the UK, would have gone ahead at that time regardless.

However, if we're being realistic, it was the Red Army that broke the back of Germany and that Red Army could not have done this without Lend-Lease aid from the UK and primarily the USA. Hence the reason why I said the Soviets and the Americans were truly responsible for our liberty.

It also has to be understood that Germany would have attacked the Soviet Union anyway. It was one of Hitler's most fundamental beliefs that the Soviet system was rotten to the core and it's peoples no more than sub-human, and that it should be cleared to provide living space, "lebensruam", for the German peoples.

Yes the weather sucks sometimes but hey with global warming it's getting a lot better!
 
That's actually a pretty fair assesment.
The bulk of the German fighting machine did get ground up in Russia.
But I think what needs to be considered is what sort of resistance the British Army could muster against even a relatively small, but well organized and equipped, invasion backed with total air superiority.
 
JOKING

Get tanked up on booze, blind fold them and chargein with any guns and big things they can get hold of.

Brits will soon come out on top :rambo:
 
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