Talk:The Blitz

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  British English 

message: This article is about interaction between Germany and United Kingdom and consequently contains a number of German words. These have, correctly, been tagged using . (Rendered as .) 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  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)
thread_title:  German Language 

message: 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)
thread_title:  What's "Harrison 1998" 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Fraserburgh 

message: WHY WW2 veteran hi (talk) 04:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The edit translated 'Blitz' as 'Lightning War'. Whilst the initial German land campaign was indeed a 'Blitzkrieg' the bombing campaign was named 'The Blitz' by British people. It is difficult to find anything that is less like a Blitzkrieg than a long slow drawn out bombing campaign targetting the same place time and again. The Blitz is never called a 'Lightning War' by British people. Of course, if you think you know differently then provide evidence. OrewaTel (talk) 02:46, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why you unedit 

message: Why wasn't Italy involved? Was Mussolini not asked to send forces? Aardi18 (talk) 19:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Italy's involvement was through the Corpo Aereo Italiano, Italian Air Force expeditionary force rather than the main Regia Aeronautica, Italian Royal Air Force. CAI participated in 102 bombing sorties against coastal targets. There were no sorties against RAF Airfields or London. OrewaTel (talk) 10:05, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: How come Italy is not listed as a combatant? (Aardi18 (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Germany launched 50,000 sorties. Italy launched just 102 and they were largely against Harwich. There were no Italian raids against London or any other inland cities. That makes it easy to forget their involvement. Nevertheless, Corpo Aereo Italiano was involved and this should be mentioned. I intend to edit this article unless someone else gets there first. OrewaTel (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You should, as it is misleading not to mention the Italian involvement. (Aardi18 (talk) 16:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added a section Italian Air Corps that summarises the Italian involvement. The facts have been thoroughly checked but this section needs citations. These will be added in the next few days. OrewaTel (talk) 07:04, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italy 

message: An editor complained that the text of the articlew as being squeezed between too many photographs. This editor then embarked on an heroic series of edits to prune the pictures. This [] was the article before pruning. My personal opinion is that the article was better with the pictures. However rather an embark on a series of reverts to put them back, I thought I would seek consensus. OrewaTel (talk) 02:37, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many photos? 

message: A sentence in the lead states, "Hitler ordered reprisals for what was a token air raid on Berlin on 25 August 1940." The cited article says, "The attacks were authorized by Germany’s chancellor, Adolf Hitler, after the British carried out a nighttime air raid on Berlin." Nowhere is it suggested that the raid on Berlin was a token raid. Further, the attacks were authorised after the Berlin raid. The cited article does not say, because of the raid. A more likely explanation is that raids on London were already planned and Hitler needed an excuse that would look good in Washington. (Please note that the last sentence is original research and cannot be copied into the article without citation.) OrewaTel (talk) 13:25, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Token and reprisals 

message: I found a few articles stating that the blitz spirit was made up, perhaps to keep morale up or as just misinterpreted activity from civilians, but in this wikipedia article, nothing is mentioned about how it was propaganda, I think the blitz spirit section should be rewritten to show the truth.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/19/myth-blitz-spirit-model-coronavirus
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Blitz-Spirit/
https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/year-10/blitz-spirit/ SandHanitizr (talk) 18:49, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: It is touched on in the "Legacy, propaganda and memory" section. Which is probably enough for the scope of this article. (Hohum @) 19:43, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blitz spirit being British propaganda