Talk:Neutrality Patrol

Neutrality Patrol Missions Against the Luftwaffe
My Grandpa was a U.S. Marine Non Com who served on the USS Philadelphia (CL-41) before the War. He said that while officially they were on "Neutrality Patrol" they were in the English Channel shooting down Luftwaffe bombers. This would have made a certain sense since the Philadelphia's 5x3 six inch primary and 4x2 five inch secondary armaments could all super-elevate, and made her an excellent anti-aircraft platform.

It's already been mentioned that U.S. forces on Neutrality Patrol didn't shy away from engagement of German submarine forces in the Atlantic. And I don't know, I suppose maybe they had standing orders only to make the Channel run with american merchant ships. (Although it would be real easy to cheat there. Do you make sure that they're all-American convoys?  And if not, would that mean that as long as there's at least one american merchant ship that's making the channel run the Philadelphia could protect a whole convoy.  For that matter, if the Philadelphia just happened to be steaming through the channel alongside a civilian convoy, wouldn't they be reasonably expected to defend themselves if attacked?)

As I understood it this was a False Flag operation that has yet to be declassified. (Of course all this is under the assumption that if they were flying the Stars & Stripes we would have heard something of this already. I suppose it is possible the Philadelphia was flying the Stars & Stripes -or maybe no flag at all!-, and the surviving German air crews failed to either note the flag or identify the Philadelphia; and that since then we have not seen fit to inform them of their oversight.)

Issues here would be that potentially we fired the first shots in the war against Germany, before war was declared. (Actually I think the official story may be that we did anyways. Germany declared war against us after Pearl Harbor, so if we fired shots in anger first after that it was still a war they started.)  One might point out these bombers being on an attack run may not necessarily be considered a provocation to return fire. (Like hey maybe that dive bomber was diving on you because he wanted to get a closer look at you really quickly.) After that bombs dropped would have simply been a response to our aggression.

There's also the martial legal issue. According to the laws of naval warfare flying a false flag is perfectly legal, on the condition that you not attack someone under such false pretenses. (The intention of the law is of course to allow weaker vessels to pass other vessels unmolested. Though you can switch colors at the very last minute before an attack.)  I'm assuming the Philadelphia was flying and continued to fly the Union Jack while it was under attack by German aircraft.

This might not necessarily be considered a violation of the laws of war on this. One could argue that law doesn't apply to aircraft. (Though why wouldn't it?) But more than that given the intent of the law, if German air-crews engaged a ship they believed to belong to their enemy, then what's the harm? It's not like it was a surprise attack under false pretenses. (Well it was since German intelligence should have indicated the British had no Light Cruisers capable of super-elevating their primary armament, meaning what they would have thought was easy meat and what would be a blow to british naval strength would have turned out to have been anything but.) As long as it was understood to be a hostile act between hostile forces, the Germans should have been prepared to take or give lives.

Is there any way we can corroborate this whole story? 76.111.80.228 (talk) 16:14, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * DANFS information indicates Philadelphia was in the Pacific from before British declaration of war until June 1941; with neutrality patrol duty from June through November 1941. Eight months later Philadelphia escorted two troop convoys to the British Isles between July and September 1942. How old was your grandfather when he told this story? Might he have been confused recalling two events less than a year apart? Thewellman (talk) 13:17, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Non-neutrality
A number of editors have deleted information related to the functional military aid to Britain effected by actions of the Roosevelt administration prior to declaration of war by the United States. Such deletions appear to reflect unsourced opinion. I have restored information supported by a United States Naval Academy scholar. Thewellman (talk) 12:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ♠This doesn't limit itself to American aid. If anything, it focuses on British basing options & British operations to an unwarranted degree. Calling the deletion "unsourced" is nonsensical, since I'm not the one trying to add anything, & deletion doesn't require sourcing. (Why would it?)
 * ♠If you wanted to limit to saying, "The Neutrality Patrol greatly favored the British. Many German ships could not understand the plain English transmissions of the neutrality patrol, while Royal Navy units could immediately translate and promptly respond to sighting reports. For each incident of the neutrality patrol reporting a British ship in the Gulf of Mexico, several German ships were intercepted by Royal Navy units responding to American reports. I would have no objection.
 * ♠I'm unclear, "Fifty-three of the eighty-five German ships in the western hemisphere were intercepted by Allied {British?] forces, while only twenty-six of the 126 German ships in other parts of the world were unable to return to Germany." has merit, since German shipping not in the Atlantic wasn't subject to the Neutrality Patrol. Indeed, I'm not clear how German shipping has anything to do with the subject, since the Patrol was intended to defend shipping from hostile action, not aid RN in capturing German merchantmen. (Which makes the entire post on sighting & reporting off-topic.)
 * ♠This section heading, implying I have a POV, is also not appreciated.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  16:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Neutrality is an important part of the title of this article, and the heading Non-neutrality was a reference to that title and the focus of disagreement, rather than toward any editor. Application of the adjective Neutrality to actions of United States Navy forces patrolling international waters during this period implies those actions would bring no military advantage to either belligerent. Why is the adjective applied only to this period of patrolling in this location? Cressman's description of Roosevelt's revised reporting doctrine suggests intentional political misdirection. The cited source specifically addresses the unequal consequences of these actions during the period the adjective was used. The cited author's inclusion of comparative losses in the eastern hemisphere illustrates the fractional survival difference attributable to English language transmission of ship locations in the western hemisphere. The stated reason for deleting this information was the opinion of an editor. That opinion seems different than the conclusions of the cited author. Opinion regarding intent of the patrol may be based on older published sources before release of information classified for the duration of hostilities, and possibly longer to protect career opportunities of individuals establishing patrol doctrine. Thewellman (talk) 18:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ♠FDR's claims of neutrality in establishing the Patrol, or in any other part of his actions in this period, are pure fiction, & anybody who knows anything about the period is fully aware of that. Your attitude suggests you weren't. Your implication I was (am) ignorant of FDR's objectives isn't appreciated, either.
 * ♠Adding information questioning the notional neutrality of the effort is POV, unless you have a source calling in question what FDR was doing as not the act of a neutral nation. It wasn't; it was the act of a de facto belligerent...but you need a source saying so to add it to the page.
 * ♠My "opinion" in deleting the info was based on it being off-point to the page's objective, which is to describe the actions of the Neutrality Patrol (hence the page title); the apparent objective of the add was to describe Royal Navy actions (or options), which are OT. That my opinion of the information differs from the opinion of the cited source makes no damn difference, unless you can demonstrate a connection between what you want to add & the subject of the page. (BTW, as you'll notice, my opinion on the notional neutrality doesn't differ.)
 * ♠"inclusion of comparative losses in the eastern hemisphere illustrates the fractional survival difference attributable to English language transmission of ship locations" No, it doesn't. It indicates the tightness of the British blockade in the North Sea, which isn't in question. More than that, you seem to think German shipping should be treated the same as American shipping, which the Patrol was (notionally) protecting; given Germany was a belligerent, not a neutral, that wasn't going to happen, especially not when FDR wanted to aid the British while maintaining the fiction of neutrality.
 * ♠If you mean to suggest the Neutrality Patrol, of itself, was reporting the position of German merchantmen to RN as a means of aiding RN blockade efforts, you need the source to say so. In any case, the inclusion of RN & KM basing options is off-point to the subject of the page, & I'd delete that again regardless. Do you object to that, too?  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  19:54, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I hope this discussion may focus on creating a useful stand-alone article rather than what individual editors might know. I see no reason to assume readers of this article would have knowledge of the differences between FDR's early war speeches and actions, or that they would understand why actions taken by the neutrality patrol might not be as neutral as the title suggests. I am bewildered by the implication that points considered significant by a US Navy author evaluating this US Navy operation would be considered off-point or OT in this article. Since the fundamental justification for military forces is interaction with other military forces, I cannot comprehend how the neutrality patrol can be explained unless readers are offered opportunity to compare and understand contemporary interactions with other military forces. I can understand why variations in tightness of the British North Sea blockade might influence transit success of ships arriving at different times; but, if tightness of the blockade was the controlling factor, the comparative survival of ships sailing from western hemisphere ports in comparison to other locations strongly suggests the blockade was statistically tighter when ships sailing from the western hemisphere arrived than during arrival of ships sailing from other parts of the world. Thewellman (talk) 23:04, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 * "I am bewildered by the implication that points considered significant by a US Navy author evaluating this US Navy operation would be considered off-point" You haven't demonstrated the connection between his assertions & the content of the page. More to the point, you haven't made any effort to demonstrate the connection between the British basing options & the Neutrality Patrol, without which they are clearly off-topic. Nor do I see any explanation of how the statistics you've quoted demonstrate much of anything with regard to the Patrol, since it seems to me 26:126 is a worse record than 53:85. I'll acknowledge I haven't read Hussey, & maybe he makes the connection; if he does, put it in. And you haven't actually addressed any of my suggestion for what might be kept. "the comparative survival of ships sailing from western hemisphere ports in comparison to other locations strongly suggests the blockade was statistically tighter when ships sailing from the western hemisphere arrived than during arrival of ships sailing from other parts of the world." You'll forgive me if I don't see how hemisphere of departure & the Neutrality Patrol influence the effectiveness of a North Sea blockade; you'll also forgive me if I don't understand how you've demonstrated the Patrol's impact if, as you've said, shipping from other than the Western Hemisphere (most likely to encounter the Patrol) was more likely to fail to arrive.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  10:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

British blockade in the North Sea
If there is agreement about the non-neutrality of the Neutrality Patrol, perhaps we might refocus this deletion discussion on the blockade. I didn't find any mention of a blockade in recently deleted text; but intent is somewhat difficult to discern when extensive deletions of sourced material are made with a cleaver rather than a scalpel. Would I be correct assuming the allegedly off-topic blockade would be the Blockade of Germany (1939–45)? Thewellman (talk) 21:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ♠If I was putting it somewhere, that's where I'd put it. You'd be on all fours, there. And, as noted repeatedly above, if you can source a connection to the Neutrality Patrol (you haven't yet), it would be both of interest there & worth adding here. No source I've seen has connected the two; if there is a connection, I'm sure a lot of readers would find it interesting.
 * ♠As to deletes with a cleaver, that's what you get when you put in material with no demonstrable tie to the subject of the page. Refusing to discuss sourcing that does show a connection sounds less like "refocusing" & more like "avoiding the issue".  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  22:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * TIME - The first and second phases of the blockade coincide with Samuel Eliot Morison's interpretation of the duration of the Neutrality Patrol.
 * LOCATION OF DATA COLLECTION - The "Buildup to World War II" subsection of the "Historical background" portion of the blockade article indicates early awareness of the fundamental importance of defense of trade in the Atlantic and of the value of opportunities to obtain advanced knowledge of ships carrying cargo from New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires long before those ships reached port.
 * LOCATION OF GERMAN SHIPS - The 1st phase section of the blockade article describes the large portion of the German merchant fleet at sea when war was declared sheltering in neutral harbors of the United States, Mexico, and South America to avoid capture or sinking by Allied warships; and the 60 ships remaining in South American ports at the beginning of 1940 were ordered to return to Germany.
 * LINER COLUMBUS - Loss of the liner Columbus is specifically described among the ships sunk.
 * The blockade article connects the time and place of the Neutrality Patrol with a data collection effort about ships reported by the Neutrality Patrol and intercepted by the Royal Navy. Thewellman (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Coincidence is not evidence. This is synthesis on your part. As I have repeatedly said, show me the source that states the connection. You don't have one. Your efforts to make one are unconvincing, because they involve British efforts against Germany, not American efforts.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  00:14, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hebrews 13:8 (KJV) When the deleted text makes no mention of a blockade, it seems a fools' errand to find a sourced connection to some amorphous, allegedly off-topic blockade concept synthesized only within the mind of a single editor. Thewellman (talk) 17:00, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The Bible isn't a reliable source on any sujbect, let alone this one. And since you are the one wanting to demonstrate a connection between the Neutrality Patrol & the British blockade effort, it is incumbent on you to show a sourced connection between them. If you consider finding an actual source that actually says the two are connected a fool's errand, it has no business being added to either page.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  18:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)