World War II and Cold War by Mark Felton Productions

    I hadn't realised the RLA only came into being as an actual force that late, i.e. Dec 44 and in such a small force, 1 division. 

  From what I've read before Vlasov was an active supporter of the regime until the army he was in charge of was isolated and captured in the disastrous spring 42 offensives ordered by Stalin which once again resulted in huge losses for the Red Army, especially since once again Stalin refused to allow any retreats when units faced dangerous counter-attacks.  This seems to have spurred his decision to defect and try and find an alternative to the communists for Russia, although the appalling abuse and neglect that Soviet POWs faced was possibly already a factor.

  Its probably one of the biggest errors Hitler made on the eastern front, rejected virtually all the potential support he could have gathered from the peoples who had plenty of reasons to detest Stalin and his regime.

  Yes, even if he intended to betray them later.  Not to mention what he could have got from Russia itself.  Fortunately for most of the world he was so blinded by his bigotry he opposed such ideas.

  I like the fact that the RLA started with a lie by Goebbels, claiming that such an organisation existed.

  Knew about Kennedy junior's death but didn't realise how total a failure the programme was.  Why didn't they simply borrow some Lancs? 

   lordroel ,

   I'm guessing that the USAAF just wanted to show they could develop a similar capacity to the RAF and hence why they didn't borrow Lancs and bombs from the UK.  IIRC the Lancs prepared for using the atomic bomb in case the B-29 was unavailable were still RAF operated and controlled.  Think there was a video about it, possibly by Mark.

  Steve

  PS  Took some digging but it was one of Mark's video's last August, see The British Atomic Squadron.