Cryptologists can crack virtually any code. We cracked the Japanese code as well as the German code. In fact, I think it's safe to say that there has never been a significant code that hasn't been broken.
Right, from this it seems the difference in opinion on the Polish contribution is that you don't actually know what it was that they did which was such a massive breakthrough.
As much as I hate to quote from wikipedia:
The exact influence of Ultra on the course of the war is debated; an oft-repeated assessment is that decryption of German ciphers hastened the end of the European war by two years.
And something that is thought to have reduced the length of the European war by two years isn't a decisive contribution to it?
Despite Winston Churchill's hyperbole on the matter, virtually no historian would support his assessment. Not only that, but it's arguable whether the UK won the war at all. It was bankrupted by the war, it lost its empire and faded into the shadow as the junior partner in a strategic alliance with its former colonies (the US). And the UK certainly would have lost the war without the US and USSR. It would have been possible for the UK to lose even without Operation Sea Lion, if Admiral Raeder's suggestions to Hitler had been taken each time they were made.
None of that means the UK didn't win the war - it just means the price of winning it might have outweighed the gains the UK made... but then it wasn't a war about material gains but about a balance of power and thus security. As for the loss of Empire and reduction in status, that was going to happen regardless all the war did is possibly speed up the process. Which means by your line of argument the war at best had a minor impact.
The Polish Enigma codebreakers did not really help the efforts in the convoys, by the way. Naval Enigma used different codes and it wasn't broken until the HMS Bulldog captured U-110. Even then, breaking the Naval Enigma keys was of only marginal assistance. The real help came in the form of radar and the American entry into the Atlantic convoy war prior to our formal declaration of war. When we look at convoys to the Soviets, the Enigma factor is negligible. PQ-17 is sufficient evidence that the Enigma codes did not help much.
Your comment about the use of different codes is again showing you don't know what it was the Poles did.
You also say that Africa shut off Germany from the rest of the world, particularly its oil supply. This is not true, since 80% of Germany's oil came from Romania. It is true that if Africa had fallen to Rommel, the UK would be cut off from most of its oil, certainly.
Germany got 80% of the oil it received through Romania. Not 80% of the oil it needed.
Your last sentence is quite true... and Germany could have taken at least some if not all of that oil to reduce the shortfall it was suffering.
Taking the hyperbole of people who were understandably praising the efforts of codebreakers throughout the war at face value, and then using that to say the Polish contribution to the war was "decisive", is a careless disregard for the actual facts of history and little more than a lot of backslapping to ease the perpetually bruised ego of the Poles.
Hmm. Not really
*MySmiley*
Robert Graves "There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money, either."
Henning Mankell "We must defend the open society, because if we start locking our doors, if we let fear decide, the person who committed the act of terror will win"
Robert Graves "There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money, either."
Henning Mankell "We must defend the open society, because if we start locking our doors, if we let fear decide, the person who committed the act of terror will win"
The myth of Polish cavalry charging tanks
- 06/04/2011 09:31:09 AM
1226 Views
I find this slightly sad.
- 06/04/2011 10:23:08 AM
651 Views
Yeah, I know it's BS, but it's one of my favorrite weapons to use against Poles who harass me
- 06/04/2011 02:04:06 PM
1403 Views
are you often harrassed by Poles? *NM*
- 06/04/2011 02:14:18 PM
261 Views
Many people don't appreciate what Germany has suffered at the hands of Poland. 
- 06/04/2011 03:00:56 PM
587 Views
- 06/04/2011 03:00:56 PM
587 Views
yes but I still wonder about the modering gangs of Poles who are harrassing people 
- 06/04/2011 04:51:58 PM
494 Views
- 06/04/2011 04:51:58 PM
494 Views
I am!
- 06/04/2011 07:19:16 PM
594 Views
There is something scewy going on with my PC and it keeps reloading pages
- 06/04/2011 08:46:08 PM
455 Views
"A decisive role"? What is Ben Macintyre smoking? And there's something wrong with the picture.
- 06/04/2011 03:01:00 PM
697 Views
He makes a fair point
- 06/04/2011 03:46:14 PM
523 Views
In all fairness, no he doesn't.
- 06/04/2011 07:02:56 PM
632 Views
I don't agree - you are relying on speculation
- 06/04/2011 07:19:19 PM
590 Views
No, YOU are relying on speculation
- 06/04/2011 11:13:10 PM
1133 Views
I think you are a bit old to get away with the "No you are" line of argument
- 07/04/2011 11:16:50 AM
529 Views
- 07/04/2011 11:16:50 AM
529 Views
Churchill saying "we won the war" is already a fantasy world.
- 07/04/2011 03:35:14 PM
549 Views
You think the allies lost? Erm... okay....
- 07/04/2011 04:41:49 PM
612 Views
I didn't say the Allies lost. I said the UK didn't really "win".
- 07/04/2011 05:31:10 PM
476 Views
You said Churchill was living in a fantasy land for saying we won, I believe?
- 08/04/2011 10:56:51 AM
605 Views
they still charged on a machine gun wielding infantry battalion ...
- 07/04/2011 02:06:02 AM
525 Views
They may have had better luck against the tanks
- 07/04/2011 03:38:40 AM
483 Views
Actually, no. The PzKpfw I didn't have a cannon, but rather a machine gun on the turret.
- 07/04/2011 04:58:20 AM
461 Views
My 8th grade history teacher was Polish and she embellished the myth.
- 07/04/2011 05:43:10 PM
510 Views