Hitler's mistake
Sir: Milton Shulman's article (Teaching the truth about the war', 27 September) contains some highly speculative assertions about the reasons for Hitler's defeat. He makes the assumption that a successful invasion of Britain could have taken place. Britain's army may have been weak but, as Mr Shulman correctly points out, the Luft- waffe failed to gain air superiority. More importantly, Germany lacked naval superi- ority. The bulk of her surface fleet was sunk or in dry dock after the Norwegian cam- paign, while Britain still had the most pow- erful navy in the world. Hitler's mistake didn't lie in encouraging the Japanese to attack the United States, but in declaring war on the United States in support. With- out this declaration, Roosevelt might have had problems in getting Congress to declare war on Germany and he would cer- tainly have had problems in getting Congress to give any priority to the war in Europe.
Andrew Hudson
108 Grove Road, London E17
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