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Nazi "Doodlebug" campaign against London versus Hezb-ALLAH Katyusha barrage on Israel

By Tom Carew, Dublin, Ireland, September 1, 2006.

The Nazi "Doodlebug" campaign against London and Antwerp was not at all as intensive as what Northern Israel suffered in the Hezb-ALLAH 34-day aggression from 12 July to 14 Aug, 2006, or what Kiryat Shmona alone has suffered from 31 Dec, 1968.

Northern Israel saw 3,970 rockets fired against her Jewish and Arab civilian population by Hezb-ALLAH, which averages 117 daily, but Hitler hit Antwerp with only 1,610 weapons, and another 1,358 V-2 against London, preceded by 2,419 V-1 on the UK capital.

That combined London figure is thus 3,777, which is not only smaller than the barrage on Israel, but was also spread over a 9-month period from 12 June, 1944 to 27 March, 1945, and so averaged 13.35 daily over those 283 days, while Hezb-ALLAH averaged 117 daily over 34 days, or 8.76 times worse.

Kiryat Shmona had seen 4,321 rockets fired at it since Hezb-ALLAH first began these attacks on 31 Dec, 1968, with 1,012 in the recent latest phase of the unending Hezb-ALLAH war on the people of Israel. This small area in Israel, with 24,000 people, has suffered much more than London in 1944-45. The 4 worst-hit London districts, Croydon with 145, Wandsworth with 128, Lewisham with 126 hits, and Woolwich with 110, suffered a total of 509 attacks, which is only half of what Kiryat Shmona suffered recently.

An estimated 1.5m to 2m Londoners were forced to flee during this Nazi onslaught, which also resembles the many Israelis forced to seek safety in the South from Hezb-ALLAH rockets.

The UK estimated that the total cost to them of the Nazi V-1 and V-2 bombardment was 3.8 times the cost to the Nazi regime of the production and launch of these weapons of mass terror. Since Israel estimates the Hezb-ALLAH War costs as $5.2bn, the ratio of economic loss must be similar, or probably much greater. It has thus been possible for Iran, in supplying these weapons to its South Lebanese proxy, to cause massive loss and terror in Israel at very little cost, in either human or financial terms, to their own resources or population.

It seems impossible to envisage any reasons why Iran would abandon such a cheap and effective terror strategy - unless and until compelled to do so, such as by experiencing, or at least facing the certainty of, similar or greater negative costs itself.

The Allies in WW II were able to halt this Nazi onslaught on 4 occasions.

Firstly, they delayed its start by heavy Royal Air Force bombing of the Peenemunds site in Aug, 1943, long before a single weapon had been fired against any Allied city.

Secondly, their RAF 617 Squadron attacked stores in France on 4 July, 1944, which again interrupted the attacks.

Thirdly, the very costly airborne operations at Arnhem from 17-26 Sept, 1944 also disrupted the attacks. These operations, the largest airborne ones in history, involved 34,876 Allied airborne forces, along with 3 British Divisions on the ground in XXX Corps, who had 5,534 killed, and also cost the 10,600-strong UK 1 Airborne Div 1,130 dead, along with 3,542 US 82nd and 101st Airborne dead, and 102 Ist Polish Ind Para Bde dead. A further 851 British were missing, and 6,450 captured. The heavy Allied casualty rate was partly due to failing to deploy RAF/US Close Air Support against the Nazi forces.

Fourthly, the [Nazi missile] attacks finally ended when the Allied Land Forces had overrun the remaining Nazi launch-sites. The last victim was Mrs. Ivy Millichamp, 34, in Orpington, on 27 March, 1945.

You do not need to be an advanced graduate of any military Command and Staff College to infer certain rather obvious lessons.