quote:

---

> Spam Scone wrote:
>
> Is there any evidence that Vera Menchik Stevenson would
> have had to commute between London and Kent 'every day'?
>
>
> The armed forces, not civilians, had priority in the
> allocations of transport and petrol.
>
>
> Phil Innes doth protest too much, methinks.
>
> By 1944 (when Vera Menchik died), it seems far from true that
> the British 'railyards (were still) bombed beyond recognition'.
> The Allies enjoyed air supremacy over the skies of England.
> All that the Luftwaffe bombers could do were some nuisance
> raids at night against 'area targets' (such as entire cities,
> not specific 'railyards').
>
> *If* it had been true (as Phil Innes has claimed) that the
> British 'railyards (were still) bombed beyond recognition',
> then how could the vast build-up of resources to support
> the Allied landings in France on 6 June 1944 ('D-Day')
> have been achieved in time?
>
>
> I suppose that Phil Innes meant to write that 'the situation
> (was) still relatively' *tense*, not 'terse', as he wrote.
> But Phil Innes's English prose seems full of such surprises.
>
>
> Neil, you should know better than to agree immediately with
> *every part*, apparently, of such an assertion by Phil Innes. :-)
>
> --Nick