The Second World War

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BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

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Dudley Branch Library

65 Warren Street Roxbury, MA 02119-3206

Designer:

Malcolm Smythe

First published in the

Editor: Catherine Bradley

United States

Art Director: Charles Matheson

Franklin Watts

Researcher: Cecilia

Weston-Baker

in

387 Park Avenue South

New York NY Illustrated by

1987 by

10016

Ron Hayward

Associates and Stefan Chabluk

All rights reserved

©Aladdin Books Ltd 1986

ISBN 0-531-10321-8

Designed and produced by

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W1V5PA

Printed in Belgium

CONFLICT IN THE 20th CENTURY rin

THE

SECOND

WORLD CHARLES MESSENGER Edited by I)r John Piinlotf

FRANKLIN WATTS New York

•

Toronto London Sydney 1987 •

•

•

INTKOMJf !W

War

The Second World war." Although

began

it

EDITORIAL PANEL

often described as a "total

is

as a relatively restricted conflict

between the Anglo-French

and Germany over

allies

September 1939,

the political future of Poland in early it

Series Editor:

Dr John of War

Pimlott, Senior Lecturer in the Department

and

Studies

Sandhurst,

International

Affairs,

RMA

UK

gradually spread, drawing in country after country. In

Denmark and Norway were invaded by

the

Editorial Advisory Panel:

month later it was the turn of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France. Italy joined in

Brigadier General James

April 1940,

Germans;

a

on Germany's side forces

in

June and,

US Army

Chief of Military History 1970-82

.Avis forces

the

General Sir John Hackett, former Commander-in-

1941,

Chief of the British Army of the Rhine and Principal of

in

imasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. In July Russia became involved as

Collins Jr,

after attacking British

Egypt and East Africa, took part

in

L

- including units

King's College, London,

UK

from Rumania and Hungary - poured across her borders

Japan

Operation Barbarossa. Five months

in

(at

war with China since 1937) attacked Amer-

ican, British

produce

and Dutch possessions

a truly global war.

been fought Pacific

later,

and

in the

Far East

in climates as diverse as those

British

Army, and editor of Jane's

Artillery",

Infantry Weapons

to

By 1945, campaigns had and the

in areas as far apart as the Atlantic

Ian Hogg, retired Master Gunner of the

of North

John Keegan, former Senior Lecturer ment of War Studies and Sandhurst,

in the

Depart-

International Affairs,

now Defense correspondent, Daily

RMA

Telegraph

Africa and Southeast Asia. Totality also involved the political aims of the rival

camps and

made by them to achieve those - Allied and .Axis - fought to maintain

the sacrifices

aims. Both sides

Professor Laurence Martin, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,

their existing political structures while destroying those

The Author:

of their enemies and,

Charles Messenger

resources,

human

complete

victory.

in the process,

diverted huge

as well as material, to the pursuit of

At

same

the

enormous armed forces on

they

time,

land, at sea

and

fielded

in the air,

developed a whole generation of new, more devastating

weapons and indulged distinction

between

Far more than

in the First

1939 and 1945 affected

By September

strategies

in

civilian

aspects of

when

to

become

a

retired

Tank Regiment. He

number of books and

in

writer after 21

full-time military

years' service in the Royal

written a

from the British Army

articles

has

on defense and

historical affairs.

which drew no

military

World War,

all

1945,

and

1980

UK

populations.

conflict

human

between

society.

the Japanese

finally

accepted surrender, an estimated 50 million people had died and, with the atomic dust barely settled over

Hiroshima

and

Nagasaki,

a

new,

infinitely

more

dangerous era of history had dawned. In order

to

understand how the modern world has developed, the events of the six years of "total war" must be examined.

That

is

the purpose of this volume.

Dr John Pimlott

Series Editor

German

troops shelter behind a

Panzer

III,

Russia, 1941.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

A European Conflict,

Chapter 2

Global War, 1941-43

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

1939-41

Appendices The Key Commanders

48

14

Warfare Developments

50 52

30

Land Weapons Naval Weapons Air Weapons Chronology

58

6

Victory Road, 1944-45

The Impact of War

44

60

Acknowledgments

62

H* -

i

m .

'

'/;/:(

% -

56

Index

? WL

~---.-

54

,

......:

f*s

Axis and Axis-controlled territory

Axis

allies

Vichy governmentcontrolled territory

Great Britain and possessions

SAUDI ARABIA

CHAPTER 1 A IMU)P1 \ CONFLICT

During the night of August in Polish station,

31, 1939,

attacked a

craft

men

dressed

German

radio

customs post and forestry station close

the Polish border. Within a few hours

were bombing Polish

airfields,

to

German airand German

tanks and infantry were thrusting across the border.

1939-1941

Army uniforms

The Second World War had begun.

Because Britain and France had publicly expressed Early on September

/,

1939, the Germans invaded

Poland. Britain and France declared

many, but could not t

rn part

I

war un Ger-

real support to their ally,

nion took advantage of this

ofPoland. In spring rrunning

then France

and

the

1

to seize the

940 Hitler turned

German

should attack her, the realized that he as

by Poland

would not be able

if

Germany

leader Adolf Hitler to

annex her

as easily

he had Austria and Czechoslovakia. In the face of

fierce competition

from Britain and France, Hitler had

Norway and Denmark and

managed

Low

Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, on August 23, ensuring

Countries. Britain,

her with her empire, fought on alone winning the n the J

their determination to stand

summer of 1940. Fhen,

4LIIiih

Britain was no longer on h

to negotiate a

nonaggression pact with the

Soviet cooperation in the invasion of Poland. All that

was now required was

a pretext to invade.

The

inci-

dents on the Polish border were staged by Heinrich

Himmler's Schutz

camp

Stajfeln

(SS), using concentration

prisoners to play the part of the Polish soldiers.

A KLROPEAN CONFLICT,

The

British

and French response

patrols into the Saarland, but that

no

In spite of great gallantry, the Polish forces proved

match

for

.

the

Germans.

Using tanks

bombers, the Germans were fighting

form of warfare,

and

dive-

new mobile

a

Blitzkrieg or "lightning war."

This was

designed to paralyze the enemy through the sheer

that Britain

and France could

on them by attacking Germany

The French,

at least,

relieve the pressure

in the

hoped

that

across to France, placing

of their

it

under the

At sea there was fleets; Hitler

to

for the

U-boat (submarine) campaign

Instead, he launched a

war could

be

first

Benito

SSAthenia, sunk by a U-boat

in the belief that

still

victim was the liner

declared war.

fatalism during 1939, Parliament forced

Prime Minis-

an ultimatum to

his forces

from Poland.

Since there was no reply, Britain declared war

on September

3

and France quickly followed

the time being, Italy did not

United States,

still

become

at

1

The

affairs for the past

twenty years, declared her neutrality on September Polish hopes of positive action by the

were quickly dashed. The French

Polish light tanks stand

=»»•

For

suit.

involved.

little

Western

tentatively sent

chance against the

5.

Allies

some

German

The

convoy system together

in

British

which

protected

a

after Britain

answer was

group of merchant ships

by warships.

This

In the

air,

system

the prewar belief that a major

Europe would be marked by immediate bomber

sail

had

war

in

attacks

on population centers did not materialize. The bomber fleets

of both sides were under

attack civilian targets. military targets to

German

leaflet raids

strict instructions

French

might cause

not to

fears that attacks

civilian casualties

on

and lead

reprisals, restricted Allied air operations to

and attacks on German seaports.

Blitzkrieg.

-* --*•-«»

- ,~

had

to institute the

^ • ti

she was

proved very effective during the First World War.

lam

adopting the policy of isolation

which had kept her out of European

Royal Navy.

against British trade, and the

been viewed with increasing

must withdraw

command

be no mighty clash of battle

had too much respect

an armed merchant ship, only hours

Hitler that he

overall

ally.

the inevitability' of war had

to deliver

British, as

they had done in 1914, sent a small expeditionary' force

Mussolini, to convene a conference. In Britain, where

Chamberlain

They had no

Maginot Line

West.

averted and tried to get the Italian leader,

ter Neville

all.

by advancing into Germany. Meanwhile, the

speed of the operations. All the Poles could hope for

was

was

intention of sacrificing the security of the

1939-41

.

The

fall

Warsaw, but the treated

it

However,

of Poland

September

By

16, city

Germans had surrounded refused to surrender. They now

the

as a military target, subjecting

it

to savage air

and land bombardment. Next day, the Soviets attacked Poland from b\

(

)ctober 6

The ly

the East.

USSR

all

Ten

Warsaw

fell

and

Bug

River, with Soviet Russia

occupying the independent Baltic states of Estonia,

to the

Some

Poles

West, and a government

General Wladyslaw Sikorski that Britain

managed

in exile

in Paris.

was

to set

escape

up by

Hider declared

and France should accept the new situation

Eastern Europe and make peace. Both scornfully

digest

to

the

much

they saw as a

harder task than Poland had been.

There was therefore the

Phony War or

a lull,

to

be known as

British

and French

which came

Sitzkrieg.

The

took the opportunity to continue preparations for the

forestall the

German wheel

The snag was

that

before

it

entered France.

Belgium was neutral and refused

to

allow Allied soldiers into the country

Elsewhere, there was more

activity.

German U-boats

scored successes against the Royal Navy, sinking an aircraft carrier in the fleet

Merchant

and the battleship Royal Oak, the

anchorage

at

Scapa Flow

in the

latter

Shedands.

ship sinkings rose dramatically, and the only-

December when three British ships German pocket battleship GrafSpee in the

bright spot was in

rejected this.

cornered the

The Phony War On October 9, Hitler

wanted time

onslaught. Their plan involved moving into Belgium to

and Germany partitioned Poland rough-

Latvia and Lithuania.

in

later,

been crushed.

resistance had

along the line of the

also

days

generals

his

lessons of Poland and reorganize their forces for what

Plate River in

issued orders to his generals to

carry out an attack in the

West

as

soon as possible.

He

the

air,

to

the picture was equally bleak for

Bad weather hampered operations, and bomber attacks by day on German naval bases

Allies.

envisaged a repeat of 1914, with a massive wheel - a

British

seeping

met with heaw

attack through Belgium, but including Holland.

South America, forcing her crew

scutde her. In the

losses.

Adolf Hitler, surrounded by his generals, watches the attack on Warsaw on September 22, 1939.

~

A EUROPEAN CONFLICT,

1939-41

The Russo-Finnish War At the end of November 1939, Allied attention turned

The

Scandinavia.

to

Soviets

30-year leases on Finnish the Soviet

Union

had been demanding

which would give

territory,

ports in northern waters.

vital

When

the Finns refused to agree to this, the Soviets invaded.

To

the surprise of the West, the Finns stubbornly

resisted,

and revealed grave shortcomings

military

machine, resulting largely from the effects

of Stalin's

purges of his

in the Soviet

commanders

top

few

a

years earlier. However, the French and British failed

any material support

to give

embattled Finns

to the

because of the refusal of neutral Norway and Sweden allow the passage of troops and supplies across

to

their territory. Eventually Soviet

the Finns were forced in

might triumphed and

March 1940

to accept their

enemy's terms.

The Germans invade Norway By

time the Allies had become alarmed

this

Germans

prospect of the

seizing Norway's valuable

mine the Norwegian

iron ore deposits and planned to coast.

The Germans

April,

overrunning

got wind of this and struck in early

Denmark

landing troops from

at the

air

and sea

one day and then

in in

and British quickly sent troops

Norway. The French Norway, but they

to

were too ill-equipped and badly organized

to

do more

than merely delay the inevitable. Nevertheless not until early June that the finally

it

was

troops were

last Allied

evacuated.

The symbol y/Blitzkrieg: a Ju 87B Stuka dive bomber. Blitzkrieg 1940

On May

10, 1940, the long-awaited

West Germans had

in the

finally

German

offensive

opened. During the winter the

refined their plans. Instead of the classic

wheel, they decided to concentrate their main effort on the Allied center, just to the north of the

Maginot Line, by the French This was the region,

hilly

which the

frontier with

end of the

Luxemburg.

and heavily wooded Ardennes

Allies believed

was unsuitable

for

major armored operations.

Preceded by

air

back

in

Meuse

River. This forced the Allies to pull

Belgium,

aggravated

when

the

and

situation

their

Germans

was further

in the center

now

raced

across northern France to the Channel, aiming to split the Allied armies and cut off the British.

After just over two weeks' fighting, the British

it

became

commander, Lord John Gort,

clear to

that his

army

faced annihilation. Evacuation was the only answer.

attacks

parachute operations, the

Stuka dive bombers, broke out of the Ardennes and across the

on Allied

airfields

German Panzer

and

(armored)

Accordingly, on

May

27,

a

launched by the Royal Navy

massive operation was to bring the troops

back

columns dashed through Luxemburg, eastern Belgium

across the Channel. Next day, the Belgians surren-

and Holland. The French and British troops

dered and the

North moved Dyle River

in

as

in the

planned to take up positions on the

Belgium, but

this did

Germans from overrunning Holland Worse, the Allied center began

not prevent the

in a to

way

French troops, were

largely

confined to a small area around the port of Dunkirk.

During the next week,

in

what has been

called the

Miracle of Dunkirk, over 300,000 British, French and

few days. give

British, with

as

German armored columns, supported by Junkers Ju 87

Belgian troops were taken off the beaches, although they had to leave almost

all

their

equipment.

The French Lett

to

defeat

on

fight

own,

their

increasingly disorganized. The 10,

when

blow came on June

war and invaded the French

Itah declared

On June

Riviera.

became

French

the

final

French asked

17. the

which was signed on June 22

an armistice,

for

same railway

in the very

had been used

to sign the Compiegne armistice of November 1918. It was not German superiority in numbers of men and weapons which

coach

that

at

caused the French defeat. The French had neglected their defenses after the First

World War and

also did

not ha\e the will to fight another costly war.

now master of northern Europe. Nazi

Hitler was rulers

were

installed in

all

the occupied countries, with

only the southern half of France being allowed a very

form

limited

French hero of the

First

aged

the

World War, Marshal Philippe

was appointed prime minister. This part of the

Petain,

became known

country in

Here,

of self-government.

as

Vichy France, after the town

which Petain's government took up residence.

Some Frenchmen, determined

to carry

on the

fight,

joined the Free French banner of General Charles de

Gaulle

London, while others

in

movements

inside France.

set

St Paul's Cathedral survives the London

to fear for

extended the campaign for

Royal Navy bombarded them

people, however, were con-

ing

tent to

and

try

live as

best they could under the Nazis.

for all the

It

occupied countries.

much

Mers-el-Kebir, caus-

at

among the French

loss of life

Vichy France firmly against Britain, fied

by the

failure

now

Britain

stood

become prime

bracing

alone,

herself for

of Winston Churchill,

who had

minister on the day that France was

to

will.

To

obtain the

continue the struggle, Churchill

turned to the United States for help.

Although

the

majority

prepared to take part

in

Americans

of

bases

in

scheme

in

the

exchange

for the lease

Caribbean.

In

were

as a for

September 1940, the United States gave destroyers

not

European In

Britain.

Britain

fifty

of British naval

March 1941, under

a

Lend-Lease, the United States began

called

supplying war materials to Britain and other

allies.

Another immediate concern was the French

fleet,

which had escaped the surrender and sailed

to

North

If the fleet

should

Africa, fall

which had declared

into

German hands

it

for Vichy

.

French

would be disastrous

for Britain's fortunes at sea, but the

The

a feeling intensi-

in

French West

French admirals

Battle of Britain

Hitler issued his orders for Operation

Sea Lion, the

invasion of Britain, on July 16. For his troops to be able to get across the

have the

what they saw

was much sympathy

there

conflict,

set

the

certain to happen. Inspired by

invaded, the people set to with a

weapons needed

This

Africa in September.

seemed

the bulldog tenacity

sailors.

of a British and Free French

amphibious operation against Dakar Britain seeks help

invasion which

1941.

refused to surrender their ships to Britain. In July, the

Most

was the same

May

up resistance

Jews soon began

their safety, as the Nazis

their extermination.

Blitz,

command

Channel and

of the

air.

land,

it

was

essential to

The Germans had

to destroy

Royal Air Force. For the next two months a

desperate battle was waged in the skies above Britain as the

RAF's

fighters,

Supermarine

mainly Hawker Hurricanes and

Spitfires, fought to turn

back the waves of

German bombers and fighters. By mid-September, German air force or Luftwaffe had had enough and

RAF

threat of invasion receded. Speaking of the

who

the the

pilots

fought in the Battle of Britain, Churchill said:

"Never has so much been owed by so many Hitler

now decided

to

bomb

to so few."

the British people into

submission and throughout the winter of 1940-41 his

bombers pounded

British cities

people called the Blitz.

Command

tried

to

by night

In retaliation

do the same

to

in

what the

RAF Bomber German

cities.

A EUROPEAN CONFLK

The Royal Navy had hoped

draw the

to

1

,1939-41

Italian fleet

into battle, but without success. Nevertheless, there

was

a very successful operation

on November

11, 1940, in

on shipping

Taranto

which carrier-based

sank one and crippled two of

aircraft

Italy's six battleships.

invades Greece

Italy

Mussolini was having problems elsewhere.

mans had occupied

Rumanian

the

he believed they restore

lay in the Italian

he

prestige,

Italian

The Ger-

oilfields at the

October 1940. Mussolini was angered by

To

in

this,

end of

because

sphere of influence.

decided

to

attack

Greece. His troops crossed the border from Albania on

October 28, but

after initial progress the

on the invaders and drove them back Hitler

now

realized that his ally

and launched another 1941,

Greece.

The

number of

's

underground stations were used as air raid shelters.

to

and

Yugoslavia

then

Royal Navy was able to evacuate a

the British, Australian and

troops sent to assist the Greeks, and

London

into Albania.

needed material help

Blitzkrieg offensive in early April

overrunning

quickly

Greeks turned

the island of Crete. This was

New

Zealand

many were taken

Hitler's next target,

designed to give the Axis powers mastery of the eastern

Meanwhile

at sea the situation

remained grave, espe-

U-boats had the advantage of operating

cially since the

from the French Atlantic

ports.

Such was

against merchant shipping that the

their success

German U-boat

crews called the period of July-October 1940 their

first

Mediterranean, and the Germans mounted an audacious airborne operation on

latter part

Mediterranean.

North Africa

meantime,

of 1940, British attention turned Italy's

entry into the

war created

Egypt and East Africa from the large

garrisons

in

Libya and Ethiopia.

September, the

Italians

Indeed,

advanced some 95

miles) into Egypt before halting

and setting up

Italian

mid-

in

km

(60

fortified

camps, while troops from Ethiopia quickly overran British Somaliland

and probed cautiously into Kenya

and the Sudan. General Archibald Wavell, commanding the British and

Middle

East,

Commonwealth

December

called the Eighth

his

Western Desert Force

Army) launched

By

early

a

them

was indeed

the

end of the

driven the British back into

(later

major raid against reeling back into

February 1941, Wavell's forces had

captured the whole of Cyrenaica, but

a

gloomy time

East

and

Africa

German

under General Erwin Rommel were now sent

troops

in.

light.

for the British, but there

By May 1941,

Ethiopia

had

been

the Italians in

defeated.

A

pro-Fascist revolt in Iraq was put down, and in June

1941, in response to a threat that Vichy French Syria

was about

Germans use of facilities

to allow the

there,

Wavell invaded, quickly forcing the surrender of the

French forces his attention until

in Syria.

Wavell could now concentrate

on Egypt and driving Rommel back. Not

November 1941

did this happen, under Wavell's

successor Claude Auchinleck.

Tobruk was

relieved

and Cyrenaica recaptured. Also crucial to British strategy was the island of Malta. As

it

was, Axis air superiority denied the eastern

Mediterranean

troops.

the Italians in Egypt and sent

Libya.

troops in the

was undeterred, however, by the over-

whelming numbers of enemy In early

Rommel had

were glimmers of

a threat not just to naval domination of the area, but also to

By

month the island was in their hands, with the Royal Navy having to carry out yet another evacuation. In the

It

Italian intervention in

to the

20.

Egypt, with only the fortress of Tobruk holding out.

"happy time."

During the

May

had

to British

merchant convoys and they

to use the longer route around South Africa to

bring supplies to the Middle East. If Malta

Royal Navy would not be able to operate Mediterranean. Hitler and Mussolini realized

launched a prolonged

fell,

the

in

the

this

and

air offensive against the island in

January 1941. For the next 18 months Malta held out.

Operation Barbarossa

The

greatest boost to British confidence came,

ever,

on June

Union.

22, 1941,

ot the Soviet

under

Union and

his rule, the

had

stood

all it

moment had reports

intelligence

preparations.

pact.

aim had always been the destruction

and Western Europe, apart from had

how-

Hitler invaded the Soviet

1939 nonaggression

of the

spite

In

Hitler's ultimate

when

Thej warned

trustful of Hitler,

he took

The Cierman

for.

With Northern

Britain,

arrived.

The

firmly British

knew of

and

Stalin, but,

little

now

these

although dis-

notice.

code-named Barbarossa,

invasion,

therefore took the Russians largely by surprise. Worse, thej

were

in the

middle of

major reorganization and

a

the fact that their troops were concentrated on the frontier, rather than

deployed

hands of the German

in depth,

played into

the^j

Blitzkrieg tactics.

As part of a trade agreement, the Russians had been exporting grain to Germany, and after the last grain train

Brest-Litovsk that the fifteen

minutes

later

it

was only shortly

had crossed the Bug River

at

German guns opened fire. Some German troops moved into

Russian-occupied Poland. Hitler deployed three million

men

for

Barbarossa,

including

Finns seeking

revenge for their defeat of fifteen months before. Gentian troops

A

German PzKpfw

III,

supported by infantry, Rostov, 1941.

in Russia,

summer 1941.

Q£ERV#ON BARBAROSSA, TO DECEMBER 1941 O

A EUROPEAN CONFLICT,

1939-41

Lake Ladoga

was renewed once more,

In October the offensive

but then came the autumn rains, which quickly turned the ground into

mud. Snow followed, and

the

German

armies found themselves in the grip of the Russian winter, but without winter clothing.

the

German advance had ground

reached

just

km

29

early

having

was under

siege

(18 miles) short of

Although the Russians had managed

German

December

to a halt,

furthest extent. Leningrad

its

and the Germans were Moscow.

MOSCOW

By

to

halt the

onslaught, at least temporarily, they were

still

hard pressed and looked to Britain for support. At the

end of September, Britain started sending convoys of

weapons around northern Norway

to the Soviet port of

Murmansk. Otherwise

little

there was

direct support

bom-

that Britain could give, although the continuing

Germany was beginning

ber offensive on indirectly

by preventing more

the Eastern Front, but

One

it

aircraft

tuted themselves, was to

German

move much of it

partisans operating behind the

peasants

welcomed

They were organized

into three

army groups, North,

Center and South. Army Group North was the

Baltic

states

Leningrad, while ultimate objective at

and

to

overrun

up with the Finns

the

in

the

Soviet

insti-

their industry

was out of range of

Also there were a growing

aircraft.

help

was not enough.

important strategy, which the Russians

back behind the Urals, where

many

to

being deployed to

German

number of

lines.

Union had

Germans, believing

While initially

that they

would

restore free enterprise, they were quickly disillusioned

by the

activities

of the

SS

following up the advancing

at

armies. Their systematic brutalities against the civilian

Army Group Center had as its Moscow. Army Group South aimed

population were in line with Hitler's views that the

link

Russians were a subhuman race.

Kiev and the rich farmlands of the Ukraine. few weeks, the Germans had scored some

The

the Soviet positions and surrounded them, creating

Atlantic Charter As 1941 wore on, there were encouraging signs of more active American support for the British cause. At the end of December 1940, US President Franklin D

enormous pockets of troops who were then forced

Roosevelt had publicly declared that the United States

Within

a

spectacular successes. Advancing often as

km

much

80

as

(50 miles) a day, the Panzer columns cut through

to

surrender to the slower moving bulk of the army, the infantry

on

prisoners.

their feet.

The

There were enormous hauls of

Bialystok pocket produced 290,000,

Smolensk 350,000 and Kiev

As spectacular

a massive

as these successes

450,000 men.

were, not every-

thing was going according to plan. Hider began to interfere

increasingly in the

operations. Objectives were

from one army group

momentum was

day-to-day conduct of

changed and troops shifted

to another.

By September

the

beginning to slow down, especially in

front of Leningrad,

where Army Group North found

the lakes and forests hard going. In the center, the

Germans were

halted by Russian counterattacks.

must make herself "the great arsenal of democracy." Then,

in

August 1941 came the

historic

meeting

between Churchill, and Roosevelt on board a warship off

Newfoundland. Here they signed the Atiantic

Charter, which stated that once the Nazi tyranny of

Europe had been overthrown

all states,

both great and

small, would be allowed to choose their

government and

that their integrity

The Charter was also

later signed

would be respected.

by the Soviet Union, and

by the various governments in

United States was

still

exile.

Yet the

not at war, even though signing

the charter prepared the way. Roosevelt that

own form of

still

believed

he could not carry the American people with him.

CONFLICT

IN

11 IK

20 II

I

CENTURY

Throughout the late 1930s Japan had continued to wage war in China against the forces of Chiang

CHAPTER 2

Kai-shek, the Chinese leader. In order to achieve

GLOBAL MAR

her ambition of an empire, however, she looked the wealth-producing col-

increasingly toward

1941-1943

onies of the Western Powers: French Indochina

The surprise Japanese attack on the naval base

at

Pearl Harborfinally brought the United States into the war, but this did not

mean an immediate

(now Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea) with its vast rice fields; Burma and Malaya, under British rule, with their tin, oil and rubber; and the Dutch East Indies with their oilfields. It was her plan to

latter

create a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere,

remained under intense German pressure. The British

taking in a crescent running from the Japanese

improvement

in British or Soviet fortunes.

were almost driven back

to the gates

Germans, and the Japanese swept

The

all before

them

round through the Pacific islands and Dutch East Indies to the Burma-India border.

islands

of Cairo by the in the

Pacific and Southeast Asia. Gradually, however, the situation began to change.

halted; the

The Japanese advance was

Germans were stopped and then driven out

ofLily a and

into Tunisia.

German army

in

Stalingrad and the final

offensive in Russia in July

and

then Italy were invaded

Allies.

The Russians trapped a

in

and the Italians joined the

the Pacific.

Germany and

Italy in

September

940, and a neutrality agreement with the Soviet Union 1941.

April

On

1941, Japanese troops

July 24,

peacefully occupied a defenseless French Indochina.

Sicily

The Americans began their "island-hopping"

Tripartite Pact with 1

German

1943 petered out.

In order to enlist allies in Europe, Japan signed a

in

At the same time, she had been mounting

campaign should

to

have

a

free

hand

Roosevelt would not allow Philippines,

a

diplomatic

persuade the United States that she in this.

Southeast It

Asia,

was clear

but

that the

under the rule of the United States since

1898, came under

the Japanese scheme.

GLOBAL WAR,

in the

form

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor At 7 A.M. on Sunday, December

of arms and equipment being supplied to him.

Two

Pearl

There was also American sympathy Kai-shek, which was now being expressed

for

Chiang

7,

1941,

1941-43

US radars at

number of North. They were

Harbor picked up echoes of from the

a large

days after the Japanese takeover of French Indochina,

aircraft

the United States and Britain froze Japanese assets,

thought to be American planes so the alarm was not

thereby ending the export of all raw materials to Japan.

sounded.

Relations between Japan

worsened,

and

this

and the Western Powers aggravated

when

American codebreakers became aware, war

if

as

November

that the Japanese could not suc-

ceed as long as they faced the at its

Pearl

Harbor

in

US

Pacific Fleet, based

Hawaii, Tojo planned to destroy

all,

the

first

Japanese

350 Japanese

aircraft

same number of

US

aircraft,

mostly on the ground,

some

3,700

it

in

sailors,

Marines and

civilians.

This was not, however, the only Japanese operation that day. Simultaneously,

Midway, an

island northwest

of Pearl Harbor, was bombarded by warships. Island, 1,600

km

Wake

(1,000 miles) southwest of Midway,

was attacked from the

air,

as

was Guam, 2,400

km

The

(1,500 miles) west of Wake. Japanese troops crossed

codebreakers were able to deduce, from Japanese

the border with China to invade the British colony

port. Accordingly, his aircraft carriers set sail.

US

were overhead. In

later,

attacked over the course of two hours, destroying the

go

to

the United States did not agree to their

demands. Realizing

aircraft

Some 30 minutes

sinking or damaging 18 warships and killing

Tojo, came to power in October 1941.

1941 wore on, that the Japanese were preparing to

very

a

government, led by General Hide-

militaristic Japanese ki

was

approaching

signals to their ships, that an invasion of Southeast Asia

was about carriers

to

take

place.

However,

the Japanese

maintained radio silence, so there was no

of

Hong Kong.

Singapore and Malayan

subjected to air attack, as was the

US

air

airfields

base

at

were Clark

Field in the Philippines. Japanese troops also landed in

southern Thailand (Siam) and the north of Malaya.

indication of their destination.

US destroyers

I

lie in

ruins following Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor.

JW9C

'+r

'0* 'jfr

-rl

,i*i

*v 'm

C

.(

MMFLICT IN II II 20TI CENTURY I

The United

States enters the

were greeted with

In the United States these attacks

and dismay

outrage

achieved such set in, since

was the belief that the Japanese were incapable of

war

On

have

could

the Japanese

that

total surprise.

West Coast panic

the

people believed that they would be the next

Japanese

target.

ordering

the

US

The

government responded by imprisonment

wholesale

of Japanese

Americans.

The British had also rounded up people of

German and

Italian origin in 1939.

On

formally declared war on Japan, but the Soviet

Union

did not and indeed maintained her neutrality" almost to the end of the war. Italy

On December

declared war on the United

Germany and

11,

mistake on Hitler's part, since, although inevitable that the United States

drawn

European war,

into the

give active support to Britain

it

a

was probably

would be eventually

meant

it

This was

States.

that she

from the

had

to

outset, rather

As

was, faced with a two-ocean war, the United

it

where her

priorities lay.

this,

Roosevelt and Churchill, with their military

met

for

conference

a

in

To do staffs,

Washington (code named

Arcadia) just two weeks after the attack on Pearl

Harbor. In spite of opposition from the decided

that

Germany,

must

priority

the policy of

lie

with

"Germany

US the

first."

Navy, they defeat

States

would send troops and equipment

view to preparing an invasion of Europe. At the

same

inferior

10 Japanese aircraft sank the Royal

Navy's two capital ships which had been sent to the

and Repulse.

area, the Prince of Wales

though

for the

land, even

most part equipped with only bicycles

Japanese

transport,

On

troops

maneuvered

easily

and Commonwealth troops out of

tions for the simple reason that they

which the defenders did

not.

On

as

the

their posi-

used the jungle,

February 15, 1942

Singapore surrendered, to the shock of the British people,

who had

Within

a

believed

it

would never

fall.

few days the Dutch East Indies were also in

Japanese hands. British out of

The Japanese were

Burma. Rangoon had

also driving the

fallen

on March

7;

by the end of April, with the capture of Lashio and

Mandalay, Burma was entirely

in

Japanese hands and

his forces in

On

China were cut

February

Australian

Darwin;

in

people

19,

the

off.

war was brought

when Japanese

early April a

the

bombed

Japanese naval task force

bombed Ceylon (now

Sri

merchant ships

Bay of Bengal.

in the

aircraft

to

Lanka) and sank

a

number of

A British soldier surrenders, Malaya,

1941.

to Britain

they re-endorsed the Atlantic Charter,

time,

which was

had

this was.

of

The United

with

a

On December

all

overland communications with Chiang Kai-shek and

than devoting her attention solely to Japan.

States had to decide

and

warfare

weapons. Malaya proved how wrong

British

and Britain

the political front, the United States

modern

understanding

become

to

the

foundation stone of the

United Nations.

The

Fall of

Singapore

In the

meantime, the situation went from bad

in the

Far East and Southeast Asia.

Wake

quickly

to the Japanese.

fell

1941, the British garrison on surrender, and on

Hong Kong was

December 10

on Luzon

in the Philippines. In

sweeping

all

before

to

worse

Guam and then On Christmas Day forced to

the Japanese landed

Malaya, too, they were

themMt was

here that prewar

misconceptions, on the British side, led to defeat. Singapore,

at

the

southern end of the Malayan

peninsula, had always been regarded as Britain's major naval base in the Far East, and that,

should war break out,

it

it

was

originally believed

could be defended by the

Royal Navy. In 1939, however, there were not the ships to spare, so the

RAF

believing that air

took over the major responsibility,

power would be enough

an) invasion of Singapore and Malaya.

to turn

Coupled

back

to this 1

life.

u TO

*

rfe

vJ!

/

/

i

***sn$^. ^

•

-

^1^

A Japanese artillery unit on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, The Japanese This the

American and

to the

The war

invasion of the Philippines

the Philippines, where by early January 1942

left

Filipino troops

had been forced back

Bataan Peninsula on the west side of Manila Bay.

In February-, Roosevelt ordered the

US commander

the Philippines, General Douglas MacArthur, to tralia to take

He was who was

command

in

Aus-

of the remaining Allied troops.

succeeded by General Jonathan Wainwright,

forced on April 9 to surrender Bataan because

of starvation.

The

1942.

treatment of the survivors, especially

If the it

war

at sea for the Allies

was going badly

in the

Far East,

was no better elsewhere. German U-boats had

discovered rich pickings off the eastern seaboard of the

United States. Unlike the slow to

introduce

Americans were

British, the

convoys

especially

for

maritime

shipping between the Gulf of Mexico and Canada, and their

antisubmarine naval forces were sparse.

U-boats took

full

The

advantage of this in their second "happy

time" and during the

first six

months of 1942 no

less

during the Bataan Death March, on their way to prison

than 500 ships were sunk in the area. For a while even

camp was inhuman. Indeed, Allied prisoners of war (POWs) quickly discovered that their Japanese captors

the advantages of the convoy system

The convoys from

German

viewed surrender in battle as dishonorable, so the

suffered at the hands of

POWs

Norway. One convoy, known

lost all status

as soldiers.

Some managed

escape to the island of Corregidor, which

fell

on

May 6.

At Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had missed the

which had been out

aircraft carriers

May, two of these

carriers

were able

attempt to land on the island of

Moresby. Japanese

US

carrier,

damaged, and as

it

was

carrier

aircraft

but the

later sank.

called,

was

US

New

Japanese

Guinea

at

Port

damaged one

carrier Lexington

The

US

at sea. In early

to foil a

badly

to

was

also

Battle of the Coral Sea,

significant in that for the first time

the Japanese had been checked.

Archangel

at the

seemed minor.

Britain to the Soviet

as

Union

aircraft

PQJ7, which

end of June 1942,

lost

no

also

based

in

sailed for less

than

twenty-four of its thirty-five merchant ships.

A

further setback had occurred in February, when,

in order to

Hitler's

escape bombing by the

RAF,

three of

most important warships, Schamhorst, Gneise-

nau and Prinz Eugen, managed to port of Brest and

out of the French

broad daylight up the English Germany. This was called the

sail in

Channel and home

to

Channel Dash and was seen naval power.

slip

as a great insult to British

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

The Eastern Front

On

Eastern

the

cross over onto the

Front

the

were

Russians

under

Kuban

Peninsula and support the

main attack on the Caucasus, coming from the north.

renewed pressure with the coming of spring. Hitler

The Crimea was

decreed that the Caucasus, with

Sevastopol, which held out until the beginning of July.

was

to

its

extensive oilfields,

be the major objective, while

in the

center and

Bv

this time, the

quickly overrun, except for the port of

main

attack

German Panzer columns

had been launched. The advanced east

to the

North the Germans were to maintain a policy of active defense. However Leningrad, whose inhabitants had stubbornly resisted the Germans during the winter of

unable to capture the large numbers of prisoners of

1941-42, was

1941 because the Russians withdrew.

to

be taken.

The Russians managed Marshal Semyon Timoshenko 12,

to strike first

offensive to recapture Kharkov.

when, on

May an

launched

Initially

went well

it

Don

first

River and then wheeled south, but they were

The

rapid

of advance

rate

also

caused

supply

problems, and the tanks were often forced to halt

because of lack of fuel.

The

farther south the

Germans

and the Germans were driven back, but then he was

went, the more serious the supply problem became.

refused

Their forces were also being dispersed because Hider

counterattacked

in

both

Timoshenko permission his forces

to

flanks.

Stalin

withdraw and the bulk of

were surrounded; over 250,000 prisoners

German hands. The first phase of the German

fell

the

May

Crimea,

with attacks aimed part

of which

offensive

had begun

at seizing the rest

troops follow a

had been

to

city

of Stalingrad.

capture

had been overrun

Panzer PzKpfrr IV tank during

the left flank of the offensive.

surrender the

The

Stalingrad,

an

The

prepared

in

and more troops from the main

to

got to Stalingrad, the

the advance into the Caucasus,

city,

more

Russians were not

and Hider drew off more

of

September 1941. From the Crimea the Germans could

German

original

plan

important communications center, in order to secure

into

in early

was becoming obsessed by the

attack.

The

closer they

intense the resistance grew.

summer 1942.

GLOBAL WAR, mid -September, the main

Eventually, by

had petered out Mountains.

The

1941-43

the

in

Caucasus

of the

foothills

Russians were

offensive

under tremendous

still

pressure. Admittedly, their factories beyond the Urals

had stepped up production, especially of tanks and but the need for supplies of equipment from

aircraft,

the

Western

While the

Allies remained.

British Arctic

convoys continued, the Americans opened up another supply route through Persia (now Iran).

Allied strategy

While these supplies helped the Russians, they did not the

relieve

German

wanted was

really

Europe

pressure

for the

What

directly.

Western

Stalin

Allies to invade

soon as possible, and as 1942 wore on he

as

increased

his

calls

"Second Front"

the

for

be

to

opened. This provoked arguments between the American and British planners.

While both sides agreed

that

Europe could not be achieved without an

victory in

invasion of the Continent, the British wanted to clear

Axis

the Soviet troops, led by a Commissar, surrender.

forces

Americans

from North Africa

regarded

but the

first,

theater

this

merely

as

a

"sideshow" and agitated for the invasion of France by the

end of 1942.

The

British thought this

was overly

optimistic, arguing

that if the troops failed to get ashore

themselves

would be

it

and establish and might,

a grave setback

prolong the war for years. Furthermore, a very large

number of landing craft would be needed and became clear that these were going to take longer produce than was 1

originally forecast.

it

to

At the end of July

942, however, President Roosevelt backed up the British,

when

announced

he

support

his

an

for

American invasion of French North

Anglo-

Africa.

This

operation would take the Axis forces in Libya in the rear,

and

it

was agreed

that

it

should be mounted by the

end of October 1942. Appointed

was General Dwight

On

August

D

in overall

command

Eisenhower.

19, 1942, a

Canadian division mounted a

major cross-Channel raid on the French port of Dieppe.

It

was

a disaster, with

get off the beach and

Much

few troops managing

many being

to

killed or captured.

controversy has surrounded this operation ever

since, but

what

it

did demonstrate was that there was a

long way to go before an invasion attempt could be

mounted with any confidence and

that

it

should not be

directed against a port. Nevertheless, Stalin was very

when Churchill Moscow in August 1942 that

displeased

front that year.

told

there

him

in

person in

would be no second

(.<)\I

The

LICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Alamein

Battle of El

In Libya, at the

end ofJanuary 1942, Rommel attacked

the British Eighth

Arm\ once more and drove

western Cyrenaica. There was

now

it

out of

a pause, while

both

sides prepared for a fresh offensive. \s

it

happened,

the end of

it

was

Rommel who

May, driving the

laid-out Cia/ala Line. After

British

some

struck

from

first at

their poorly

fierce tank battles,

the British were forced to evacuate Libya again

Tobruk, whose defenses had been allowed rate, fell quickly.

and

to deterio-

By the end of June, the Eighth Army

was back on the El Alamein Line, the last defendable position before Cairo - and Rommel was stopped. At the end of August offensive but

mander of

Rommel launched

another

was quickly repulsed by the new com-

the Eighth

Army, General Bernard Mont-

gomery. During the next two months Montgomery built

up

a massive superiority in

then struck the

.Axis

defenses

men and weapons and at

El Alamein on the

night of October 23. After a week's fierce fighting,

Rommel had had enough and withdrew from this

time forever, and a few days later

came

Egypt,

the Allied

invasion of French North Africa, Operation Torch.

Erwifi

Rommel:

"

the "Desert Fox.

NORTH AFRICA CAMPAIGNS, JANUARY 1942-MAY 1943 *

K

Axis advances, January 1942

is

Axis advances up to

y February

Miles

^^^ June 1942 I

gsaa^

Allied counteroffensive,

October Allied

23,

1942 - January 1943

advances

into Tunisia

N.

Torch landings and advances, December 1942

K

Axis counterattacks,

I

I

ALAMEI

GLOBAL WAR, The Torch landings Torch marked the Europe and North

The next step for the Allies was to advance into Tunisia,

US

Army's debut

The

Africa.

would be

would

entirely

in Algeria.

American

war

in the

in

plan was for three

Morocco

landings to be made, around Casablanca in

and Oran and Algiers

The

affairs,

also involve British forces.

first

two landings

while that at Algiers

The

troops taking

part in the Casablanca landings were to

come

from the United

would come

States, while the others

from the Clyde River

react.

The United

to establish that the

States

surrender. British

To

troops

French forces a

token

ensure that

this

landings took place in the early In spite of

how

the

had not broken

in

was able

North Africa

resistance

and

then

would happen, the

US

The hours of November 8.

taking part wore

helmets.

some resistance and casualties to both sides, went relatively smoothly, and it was two

the landings

days before the

French sought an armistice. The

Germans retaliated by occupying Vichy France on November 11. Allies advance on

German

and

a small

Anglo-American task force

Algiers in order to seize

defenses during the decisive battle

The Germans

(500 miles) away.

Italy,

set out

from

Tunis and Bizerte some 800

the threat and started to

fly in

km

quickly responded to

troops from Sicily and

eventually outnumbering their opponents by eight

to one.

The

result

was

a series of

engagements

as the

opposing forces ran into one another, but the Axis forces

had two

distinct advantages.

The road and

off diplomatic relations with Vichy France and

would put up only

direct

in Scotland.

Crucial to the success of the landings was

French would

1941-43

rail

communications running into

Tunisia from Algiers were sparse, which meant that

was very

difficult

to

keep Allied troops

in

it

Tunisia

supplied. Also, Allied aircraft were operating off grass fields,

which quickly turned

rains, while the Axis

soon able

to

mud

in the

autumn

had concrete runways and were

to gain air superiority.

Nevertheless, Allied troops did get to within 24

km

By

the

(15 miles) of Tunis before being driven back.

end of the stalemate.

year,

however, there was an apparent

Meanwhile Montgomery pursued Rommel

through Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, but might, he was never able to trap

try

Rommel and

his forces completely.

of El Alamein, October-November 1942.

as

he

destroy

E3

(

(

)\ii.k:t IN

THE 20TH century

The

Battle of Midway

The

latter half of"

The Solomons and New Guinea Campaigns

1942 saw the

tide gradually begin to

turn in favor of the Allies in the Pacific.

end of May, the

IS

km

the

codebreakers established that the

next Japanese objective was the island of

1,760

Toward

Midway,

lying

(1,100 miles) northwest of Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Chester Ximit/ sent three carriers to intercept the Japanese

fleet,

which had four

engaged

in attacking

aircraft struck.

By

aircraft

were

US

shore targets on Midway, the

the end of the day,

June

4, all

four

Japanese carriers had been destroyed, with the Americans

only

Yofktoum.

It

losing

was

the Japanese

the

veteran

of the

a clearcut victory,

but

it

Coral

Sea,

did not deter

from pressing on with their plans

to

Islands.

The

Allies

decided that the Japanese must be

1942 the

7,

many amphibious when US Marines

of

first

landed on Guadalcanal, one of the southernmost of the

Solomon

Islands.

The Japanese Navy

quickly retaliated

by driving the supporting shipping away from Guadalcanal, thus leaving the

Marines with no

support

air

by August 17, built their own

airfield

on

the island. Nevertheless the Japanese, landing rein-

forcements from their base in Rabaul, efforts to repulse the

began

to drive

made repeated

Americans. These attacks con-

tinued until the end of the year,

when

them back. By now,

the Americans

the Americans had

learned that the Japanese would always die rather than

surrender and the fighting was brutal.

complete the capture of New Guinea and the Solomon

driven out of both areas.

August

landings in the Pacific took place,

until they had,

carriers.

While Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's

On

In the

Papua Peninsula of New Guinea, the Japanese

managed

to establish

themselves

at

Buna, opposite Port

Moresby. They advanced over the

Owen

Stanley

Range toward Port Moresby. By September, the Australians and Americans had stopped their advance

and slowly began to push the Japanese back which they besieged from November.

to

Buna,

Burma Burma, the picture was

With land communications with Chiang Kai-shek now cut, the United In

bleak.

States could only maintain a supply of

equipment Himalayas.

to

him by

Known

air,

weapons and

from Assam over the eastern

by the

pilots as the

Hump,

it

was

the toughest air route in the world, but the supplies

were flown

in.

General "Vinegar Joe"

Chiang Kai-shek.

advise

Wavell,

now

was appointed

Stilwell

He and

to

General Archibald

the British commander-in-chief in India,

agreed that northern and central

Burma must be

recaptured as soon as possible so that land communications with

Trying

to

China could be restored.

save the

Yorktown

at

Midway, June

4,

—m

1942.

"

GLOBAL WAR, It

would take many months

1941-43

reequip and train the

to

Chinese, British and Indian forces to do

This was

this.

aggravated by widespread internal unrest in India.

Mahatma Gandhi had

started a "quit India"

against British rule. This to

be diverted

always,

that

many

campaign

troops had

to internal security duties.

meantime Churchill, impatient

In the

western

meant

wanted Wavell

Burma and

to

for action as

advance into the Arakan

in

recapture Rangoon. Wavell saw

he was short of

this as too ambitious, especially since

landing craft as well as trained and equipped troops.

Most of the landing

were

craft in the theater

up

tied

in

the operations on Madagascar, which the British had

invaded in using

it

May

1942

as a base,

order to prevent the Japanese

in

and Vichy French resistance there

did not end until early

November

1942.

Wavell, therefore, decided to invade the Arakan with a single division in order to recapture

Akyab (now

Sittwe),

which the Japanese were using

an

base to

as

aircraft

dominate the Bay of Bengal. Launched this

operation

.

Sov.et^held territory up to November 18

became bogged down by the end of the year,

with an inadequate supply system and

much

sickness

from malaria severely denting the morale of the troops.

^ ^

- /-'

^..

November,

in

Soviet offensives up to (

<> November

-

December

^

)

German relief attacks November 23 . December 23 Trapped Axis armies

Soviet gains

The Battle of Stalingrad The Germans on the Eastern

Front

in

autumn 1942

were now facing the prospect of another Russian winter. Although they

were better prepared

for

it

than

they had been the previous year, they found that the climate

was often more

bitter

than the fighting.

They

Allied planning for 1943

On January their

meeting of the war,

third

Morocco. The main object was

had not yet captured Leningrad and the Soviets

after

continued to deny them Stalingrad.

the overall strategy for

The German

Sixth

Army under General

Paulus, trying to capture Stalingrad, had

Friedrich its

flanks

identified

Rumanian formations. The Soviets them as weak and on November 19, 1942,

launched

a

protected

by

sudden counterattack on both

flanks.

Within a few days Paulus was cut off with 220,000 troops. Efforts to supply the

followed by an attempt in

surrounded troops by

mid-December

air,

to relieve

Paulus, both failed, and Hitler refused to allow

him

to

break out of the trap in which he found himself.

As the German the

Russians

Germans

relief operation

launched

back

toward

threatened the rear of the

Don and

in the

fresh

the

ground

attacks,

Donetz

German

Caucasus, and

The Russian

while tightened.

grip

"Germany

first"

beginning of to

around Stalingrad mean-

to decide

what

do

also to confirm

victor}-.

A number

For

start,

a

to

in

the

of major policy

of

was reaffirmed.

demanded and obtained agreement for the unconditional surrender of both Germany and Japan. At the end of the First World War the German armies in the

field

meant Hider and soldiers

were not

actually defeated.

who

This

his followers could claim that the

had been "stabbed

politicians,

in

the

back"

by the

agreed to the armistice. In order that

myth could not be repeated, Roosevelt argued

military

the

made.

Casablanca

Roosevelt also

driving

January 1943 Hitler was forced to order them withdraw.

were

the .Allied aim

armies on the lower at the

decisions

this

This

at

North Africa had been cleared and

to a halt, so

River.

and Churchill began

14, 1943, Roosevelt

must be

to

power once and

crush for

all.

There would be no

question of the limited occupation of 1918. Both

that

German and Japanese Germany

as in

Germany and Japan must be overrun and

occupied as a whole. In hindsight,

it

is

possible that this decision pro-

longed the war in that the

had everything

to lose

German and Japanese people

whether they surrendered or

not.

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY There was nothing especially

weapons could help turn

As

far as the

US

by not earning on fighting,

leaders

their

as

if,

to gain

miracle

them,

told

certain defeat into victory.

planners were concerned, the next

was the invasion of France. Churchill and his commanders argued, however, that it would be

objective military

better

first to

enemy

the

knock out

alliance.

which was an

the weakest

Italy,

The

next target should be

ideal launching

the Italian mainland,

member

pad

of

Sicily,

for the invasion of

which Churchill called "the

soft

underbelly of Europe."

Once British

again, Roosevelt, perhaps conscious that the

still

actually

held the upper hand

in

contact

military advisers less,

US

with

the

when

it

enemy,

came

to forces

overrode

his

and agreed with Churchill. Neverthe-

troops would continue to be sent to Britain in

preparation for the invasion of France, and serious

planning for

Two

this

would begin

in April

1943.

other important decisions taken were that the

transatlantic sea routes

must be freed from the danger

of the U-boats and that an Anglo-American bombing

Germany be mounted. The

offensive against

leaders

Allies

men

and,

important, war materials was stepped up, the

would not have the resources

to

-

earn out their

plans. Indeed, Roosevelt had been as good as his word in

July 10 British Eighth

making the United States "the great arsenal of

democracy." The switch of American industry from

petered out. Kasserine had, however, given the icans a nasty shock and learn.

Eisenhower got

showed

rid of the

Patton,

Rommel now

turned on Montgomery', was repulsed

Medenine and

for good. Gradually the Allies pressed the

weapons and equipment.

.Axis forces It

German North

defeat in North Africa Africa,

on January 23, 1943, Montgomery

supply line was not to

become

vital

overstretched.

decided to cross into Tunisia to join the

attacks in

Yon Arnim made

Rommel

.Axis troops,

a series of

probing

on the French, British and American positions

western Tunisia

at

the

end of January. This was

a pre-

much more serious offensive launched by von Arnim and Rommel in mid-February. On February 14, while \ on Arnim attacked in the North, Rommel launched liminary to a

his desert veterans against the

Americans

the line. They were taken by surprise

in the center

of

and the important

British

army commander

some

Italian

in

Tunisia

remaining

bitter fighting.

and German forces

surrendered, 200,000 prisoners falling into

.Allied

hands.

The

invasion of Italy

Planning for the invasion of Sicily had begun in April, while the campaign in Tunisia was essence, Patton's

West of

US

Seventh

the island, while

tackled the East.

The

still

being fought. In

Army would

Montgomery's Eighth Army

on the northeast corner, which was only 8 from the

Italian

sent

reinforcements to plug the gaps and Rommel's assault

clear the

ultimate objective was Messina

mainland. Hopes

km

(5 miles)

that the island

would

be quickly overrun were soon dashed.

Although the troops got ashore with the mountainous country, the

August 17

that

the defenders

little difficulty,

summer

determined German defense meant that

Kasserine Pass was captured.

The

back, but not without

if his

under General Dietloff Jiirgen von Arnim, who were already there.

North Africa

shortly afterward left

was only in mid-May that the

finally

captured the port of Tripoli, which was

who

could be guaranteed to stiffen the resolve of the troops.

a

of organization. All the Allied forces were relying to an

US

to

American commander

and replaced him with General George S

at

increasing extent on

Amer-

had much

that they

peacetime to wartime footing had been a masterpiece

In

Army

recognized the importance of winning the

Battle of the Adantic. Unless the flow of

more

July 10

US Seventh

.Allied

heat and the it

was not

until

Messina was reached and, even then,

managed

to

escape to the mainland.

GLOBAL WAR, Three weeks

the

later,

Allies

landed

in

Montgomery crossed the Strait of Messina and began to work his way up the "toe" of Italy, while on the same day General Mark Clark's US Fifth Army landed at

wage war was

Salerno, south of Naples.

was

Following the invasion of

Sicily, the Italians

German

morale of the

Italy.

sought

"fatally

1941-43

people so that their

ability to

weakened." Specific targets were

agreed upon, including attacks on shipyards building

U-boats

to help in the Battle

of the Atlantic, but there

a difference of opinion

between the British and

American

air

commanders

as

how

to

to

carry out

and were granted an armistice. The feeling had been

Pointblank, as this offensive was to be called.

growing among the

Americans believed

to

Italian

people that

continue the war in the face of so

was pointless

it

many

On

reverses.

Italy,

could attack targets accurately by day without losing too

had

mere figurehead, appointed Marshal Pietro

Harris, on the other hand, had long given up daylight

Victor a

The

armed bombers

German fighters. RAF Bomber Command, led by Arthur ("Bomber")

July 25, Mussolini was overthrown and the king of

been

that their heavily

Emmanuel

III,

who up

until that time

many

aircraft to

Badoglio as prime minister with orders to make peace

raids

with the Allies.

offensive lay in the night-time

Mussolini was arrested and thrown into prison, although he was later rescued by the daring airborne operation.

It

Germans

in a

took time, however, for

the negotiations to be concluded with the Allies and the

surrender

was only announced

September

on

8.

Although taken by surprise, the Germans reacted quickly, rushing troops across the Brenner Pass from Germany.

few weeks

later, Italy

much their

and believed that the key

to kill the

people

houses and

who

to

a

successful air

bombing of cities, not

lived there but to destroy

factories. In the end, the

complemented one another,

so

in that the

two views

RAF

attacked in

what

this

took

by night, while the Americans did so by day,

was called "round the clock" bombing, but time to materialize.

A

formally joined the Allies, declaring

The bombing of the Ruhr The most

war on Germany.

bombing raid of the time was RAF's 617 Squadron on the night of May 16. Two dams were

spectacular

that carried out by the

The bombing offensive against Germany The agreement to launch a combined bombing offensive on Germany was controversial. The overall aim was to destroy and disrupt the German military, industrial

and economic system and

TheMohne Dam

after the

RAF attack on

to

Ruhr dams on destroyed

May

the a

third

damaged, but eight of the

nineteen aircraft involved were

lost.

on German war industry was not

lower the

the night of

and

Although

provided an enormous boost to morale.

16, 1 943.

its

effect

decisive, the raid

CONFLICT

THE 20

IN

This was part of the

which

1 1 1

CENTURY of three major offensives

first

RAF Bomber Command

against the towns and cities

major industrial region.

March

until the

force (US \A1

)

It

launched

lasted

from the beginning of

beginning of July. also

began

1943

in

of the Ruhr, Germany's

The US Army

Air

damaged.

On

October 14 another

on Schweinfurt

raid

produced similar losses and the daylight bombing

campaign was protection;

it

The bombers needed

halted.

would not be

fighter

until the following year,

however, that the P-51 Mustang would be available.

to enter the fray, escalating

damage and gradually extending deeper into Germany. the

its

daylight targets

The

Battle of the Atlantic

The

spring of 1943 saw another of the aims of the

Casablanca Conference achieved, that of winning the

The bombing of Hamburg and Schweinfurt

war against the U-boats

At the end of July, "Bomber" Harris launched four

there

major night raids on the

USAAF

city

making two daylight

was greater than anything so

bombing war and such was that there

winds,

in

was

a firestorm

of Hamburg, with the devastation

experienced

in the

the intense heat generated

accompanied by

fierce hot

which 400,000 people died.

Intelligence reports

showed

that the

building rockets to use in a

new

RAF Bomber Command

raided

station

The

raids. far

at

Peenemiinde on the

attack

had been

merchant ships

a

lost.

in the Atlantic. In

sudden

rise

Bad weather

the

in

March 1943 number of

in April

prevented

the U-boats from increasing their success, but

May saw

the climax of the long battle. Hitler's naval

commander. Admiral Karl Doenitz,

had more U-boats deployed

in the Atlantic than at

other time in the war. Yet,

it

Germans were

managed

on Britain and

intelligence, sea

to coordinate their

and

air.

was now

any

that the Allies

antisubmarine

activities

-

In just over 20 days no less

the

experimental

than 31 U-boats were sunk and Doenitz ordered his

Baltic

coast during

U-boats

USAAF

June

August 17-18, 1943. Earlier that day, the

had

to

withdraw temporarily from the Atlantic. In

1943,

for

the

first

time,

the

of

rate

.Allied

suffered a severe setback when, in an attack on the

merchant ship building was greater than

ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt, 60 out of 376

remainder of the war the

bombers were shot down and manv others badlv

guard up, but the threat of the U-boat diminished.

.Allies still

losses.

had

to

For the

keep their

ALLIED AND NEUTRAL MERCHANT SHIPPING LOSSES TO SUBMARINES, 1939-1945

2 illion

3 million

million

million^ ( million

September-December 103$ 463,272 tons

'A

January-December 1940 2,394,769 tons

<

January-December 1941 2,388,929 tons

January-December 1942

1

6.892.837 tons

January-December 1943 2,845,596 tons

January-December 1944 50,660 tons

January-August 1945 309^888 tons

Allied sailors capture U-507, a valuable prize,

1944.

June

7,

GLOBAL WAR,

From Stalingrad to Kursk On the Eastern Front, the Germans remorselessly

General

pounded by

Vassili

Chuikov.

SO at

Stalingrad were

NO Advances

Soviet armies under

the

November ^^ German

Marshal Hermann

Field

N,

but

air,

this

proved an

and only

idle boast

a fraction

^> July

I

of the supplies needed were received. Apart from the

,0

under the

of landing on icebound fire

of Soviet guns, the

not have enough transport for this

Russians then

split

the

May

L_.

1944

944 1,00

1 1

160

did

•

had suffered

\

1941.

German

1

1

of the reasons

losses they

during the capture of Crete in

The

One

August

Km

often

Germans simply

aircraft.

was the enormous

airstrips,

-

Miles

|_

difficulties

on

attack

ESKp August 1943 -June

assured Hitler that he could keep Paulus supplied from the

-

~~V Kursk, July 1943

had

Luftwaffe's commander-in-chief,

1942

July 1943

i

Goering, the

1941-43

MOSCOW

SOVIET UNION

MQLENSK

forces in two, and )

on January 31, 1943, until the end,

had been

whom It

in spite

of Hitier's pleas to hold out

Paulus surrendered.

killed at Stalingrad

Some 70,000 Germans

and 91,000 surrendered, of

only 6,000 would eventually return to Germany.

marked the turning point on

the Eastern Front,

showing that the German Army could be defeated. By the beginning of March 1943, the Soviets had driven the Germans back to the line of the Donetz River. Attention now switched farther north, to a large salient or bulge

which the Soviets had carved out

themselves, with Kursk at

Captured Soviet T-34

its

for

center.

tanks, stuck in

a marsh near Tolochin.

^.f 'KURSK) •

KIEV

\S (4 NGRAD

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY In mid-April, to

J

litler

gave orders that this salient was

attacks

was only

from

and

it

and Army Group South from the south. The

was

finally

be removed. Army Group Center was

the north

Papua Peninsula of

were

originally

planned for

to attack

May

as

1,

the ground had dried out after the spring thaw, but Hitler then decided that they

must be delayed

until

new

heavy tanks could be sent to Russia. In the meantime, the Soviets

became

They organized

well aware of the

The

soon as

German

plans.

Consequently, when the Germans

finally

attacked on

the

facing

task

September 1943

that

it

Allies

the

in

Pacific,

clear the Japanese from the remaining

however, was to

They adopted

Islands.

technique

the

of

"island -hopping," securing one island at a time and

bypassing major Japanese bases, such as Rabaul.

On

their defenses accordingly, construct-

ing a network of antitank strongpoints and minefields.

the end of

at

resistance continued,

secured.

next

Solomon

New Guinea

April

carrying

1943,

18,

the

Americans achieved

down Japanese commander in

remarkable coup the

when

they shot

a

the aircraft the

Pacific,

July 5, 1943, they found the Russian resistance very

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the attack

much tougher

than they expected. Progress was slow.

on Pearl Harbor. Gradually the United States pro-

Then, on July

12, the Russians

counterattacked to the

now

took place the largest

north of Kursk, and there

tank battle of the war. During the Kursk operations

some 3,000 tanks were destroyed, but the Soviets, with their factories producing more and more weapons, could afford these losses, while the Germans could not. Hitler halted the offensive, and from then

on the German

gressed up the Solomon Islands, with

being secured

in

taking place on

By

this time, the

1,

1943.

Americans had more than replaced

Harbor and could afford

their attention elsewhere in the Pacific.

New

The

Japanese defenses and removing the threat

Island-hopping in the Pacific

attack

However, what was needed was

in favor of the Allies.

Buna

(

at the

S Marines

had

definitely turned

The Japanese had

evacuated

end of January 1943, but elsewhere on the

under fire during the assault on Tarawa,

to turn

operations

Guinea and the Solomons were denting the

armies in the East would be on the defensive.

In the Pacific, the tide of fortune

Georgia

August, and landings on Bougainville

November

their losses at Pearl

in

New

on Japan

itself.

As

a

more

to Australia.

direct line of

early as April 1942, in an

audacious raid mounted from an aircraft carrier, a

squadron of B-25 Mitchells under Lieutenant Colonel

James

Doolittle

in the Gilbert Islands,

had bombed Japan.

Xovember 1943.

'

.

i

-

/V

GLOBAL WAR, This was the only attack on the Japanese mainland be mounted

more than

when

more than two

in

years.

It

served as

morale booster for the Allies

a

was

the situation in the Pacific

US

any event,

still

at a

The Western

to

Allies did not raise

1941-43

any objections to

little

these proposals. However, the British realized that the

time

Polish government in exile in

very grave.

London would

not accept

domination by the Soviet Union, any more than by

like

Germany. Matters had been aggravated by the German

direct invasion.

discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of some

Consequently another island-hopping campaign was

4,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in Russia.

planned

The Germans

In

thought Japan,

planners

Germany, could only be defeated by with

ultimate

its

the

objective

Japanese

mainland. The first target was the Gilbert Islands. In November 1943, Makin and Tarawa were assaulted, the

former

captured

falling

at a

Marines and

The

but the

easily,

sailors

were

only being

latter

Some

high cost in casualties.

1,000

US

the

that

Russians had been

blamed the Germans. The

responsible, but the latter

evidence, however, pointed to the Russians, and the Polish government in exile

demanded an

investigation

by the International Red Cross.

and 2,000 wounded.

killed

campaign now had two axes of advance.

Pacific

stated

At

this

London

point Stalin broke off relations with the

Poles.

For the sake of Allied

unit}-

neither

Churchill nor Roosevelt dared to support the Polish

Burma The

case.

third Allied pressure point

During the

on Japan was

in

Burma.

few months of 1943, the Japanese

first

counterattacked in the Arakan, driving the British and Indian troops there back to Chittagong in India.

needed

Mies

be done before the

to

campaign

could launch a

There was, however, one small success during lines.

February

In

that

1943

Brigadier

Orde

Wingate took a brigade of what he called Chindits, after the mythical

the

Japanese

Burmese beast

lines

and

for

the chinthe, through

two

months attacked

Japanese lines of communication. Although

to

this did

be as good as the Japanese

fighting. StilwelFs

not

Americans

also took

at jungle

up long-range

much time northern Burma

penetration and Merrill's Marauders spent

operating behind

during the

first

enemy

was agreed

in principle that

the country should be partitioned, but the detailed

how

planning of

decided

this

was

be done was

to

left to

lines

in

half of 1944.

for the invasion of France.

The campaign

in Italy did

not impress him. Admittedly, the British and icans

Amer-

had found the going hard and successive German

defense lines meant that progress was slow. By the end of 1943 they were fact that they

still

well to the south of

Rome. The

were tying down German forces cut

Stalin eventually

managed

to secure a

promise from

Churchill and Roosevelt that the invasion of France

would be mounted before the end of that

it

May

1944, and

would comprise landings across the English

Channel and

in the

South of France.

Now

committed

Overlord and Anvil, as these two operations were

code-named, the Western

Allies realized that shortage

of landing craft would prevent any other amphibious

At the end of November 1943 another

historic

meeting

operations being mounted, for example in Burma.

of Allied war leaders took place,

time

Tehran,

concession that Stalin did make

this

at

of Persia (Iran), and involved not just

capital

Churchill and Roosevelt, but Stalin as well.

The main

object was to discuss postwar Europe, and

it

was

who dominated

end of 1941

the proceedings.

onward, the Soviets had made in their sphere of influence

upon with partitioned

the

Germans

was

to

Soviet Union. At

it

From

the

clear that

River.

Russia would join in the after

Poland was

1939 when the country was

Germany had been

Thus, the

Stalin

and that the border agreed

.Allies

One

Tehran was that war against Japan two months at

defeated.

had agreed on the tasks

While the Soviets continued

to drive the

for 1944.

Germans back

and out of Russia, the British and Americans would maintain pressure on the

Germans

in Italy

and prepare

for

what was

be Poland's eastern border with the

all

time, across the English Channel. Allied forces

Tehran he

would go onto the offensive

in

also

proposed that the

border with Germany should be moved westward

Oder

little

ice with Stalin.

to

The Tehran Conference

the

be

at a later date.

Allied planning

achieve a major impact, the British and Indian soldiers

were seen

it

In terms of military strategy, Stalin continued to press

summer. This was "long-range penetration" of the Japanese

Germany,

for

Much

Burma.

to regain

As

to the

Pacific the in

on Japan

to

be the greatest amphibious operation of

in

Burma, and

in the

two island-hopping offensives would close itself.

ET1

CONFLICT IN THF 20TH CFNTURY

3

CHAPTER 3 VICTORY ROAD 1944-1945 Wide Gentian forces

were kept tied down in

Normandy,

ofthe country

Italy, the

quickly liberated the remainder

and much ofBelgium and southern

Holland. Then overstretched supply i

nter weather

•:.

and German

itself.

lines,

the coming

recovery slowed

them

In the East the Russians relentlessly drove the U ntry

and back

into

Germany

In a last desperate gamble Hitler turned on the

Western Allies with a counterattack in December 1

but

it

w.

i


.

After this the time. .

With mobilization and war production reaching new peaks, the Allies were poised for major new offensives.

Europe,

In

movements

resistance

to undermine the Axis from within, at the same time expressing their political allegiances

helped

for the postwar settlement.

Allies successfully landed in France and, after hitter

fighting in

Allied convey sweeps through St. Lo. Normandy, July 1944.

u

end of the

In the Far

back a*

Throughout 1942 and 1943, the occupied countries

resistance

movements

had been growing. They

in

re-

ceived arms and equipment, as well as advisers on the

ground, from the American Office of Strategic Services tive

(OSS) and

(SOE). The

the British Special Operations Execu-

OSS

and

SOE agents often had a hard

time identifying which resistance groups to back. In the Balkans the

Communists, encouraged by the

Soviet Union, used the resistance to seize

power

end of the war. In Yugoslavia, the

groups were

more concerned

to

crush Tito's

royalist

Communist

at the

partisans

than they were to attack the Germans, and indeed collaborated with the

latter.

Nevertheless, the part played

by the resistance movements

in tying

down German

troops which could have been used elsewhere cannot

be underestimated.

VICTORY ROAD,

The Holocaust

Germany

By 1944, time was running out

German

for those

lieved that the

Jews held

in

Himmler be-

concentration camps. Heinrich

Aryan (German and north European)

race was superior to

were subhumans,

a

all

"harmful influence," and should be

In what he called "the final solution,"

Himmler

set

The

concentra-

camps multiplied and when more

traditional

about destroying the Jews in Europe.

such as shooting and hanging, did

killing,

not produce a high enough rate of deaths, he intro-

duced poison-gas chambers into which Jews were herded

1943. In Britain and the Soviet Union, for instance,

men and women who

both

in droves.

Others were

sterilized or

used as

There were constant roundups of Jews and

in

most

and sent

The

cits'.

Many,

fearing what might

into hiding, often sheltered

who were

fully

would be sent

Non-Jews lies it

aware that

if

as well

largely

happen

them, went

to

by non-Jewish families,

they were caught, they too

to a concentration

by being made

was

notably Warsaw, they

camp.

go to work

in

their fami-

Germany. Indeed,

imported foreign labor that allowed

German

snipers

are flushed out by Resistance fighters, August 25, 1944.

mainly

England

begin preparing for Overlord.

to

the mountains, which gave the defenders an advantage.

Their next major objective was Rome, but the

Allies

were held up by the formidable Gustav Line, which the 120

built

km

(75 miles) south of the

city.

In order to get around this, British and .American troops at

Anzio 50 km (30 miles) south of Rome onjanuary

1944.

They

failed

the beaches and a swift

next five weeks,

Hopes

that

as

move

to

German

the success of the landings

was

quickly inland

off

response meant that

in the

balance for the

Germans counterattacked. to the German evacuation

the

Anzio would lead

of the Gustav Line faded and for the next few months

monaster}.

The

on Monte Cassino, with

its

famous

Americans, Britons, Cana-

fact that

New

dians, Indians,

Zealanders and Poles are buried

here gives some indication of the intensity of the fighting.

Parisians dive for cover as beleagured

to

the fighting centered

were often parted from

to

troops,

7

22,

cities,

reason was

other was the difficult} of the terrain, especially

landed

some major

some

One

seasoned veterans of North Africa, were withdrawn

they were forced to wear a large yellow star on their

to live in ghettoes in particular parts of the

progress was slow.

in Italy

before the end of 1943

that

occupied countries they were easily recognizable since

clothing. In

in factories.

Breaking the Gustav Line

Germans had

guinea pigs in inhuman medical experiments.

were made

did not join the armed

work

forces were conscripted to

Meanwhile

methods of

fully until

others and that Jews and Slavs

eliminated.

tion

economy

not to mobilize her war

1944-45

finally

Not

until the latter half

capture

it,

and

Germans withdrew

Rome had been

Roman

Catholic Church.

.Allies at

The

city."

fight in it

did the Poles

Rome.

declared an "open

remains and because

historic

May

Anzio advanced, the

to the north of

both sides agreed not to

that

On

as forces at

of

it

This meant

because of

was the seat of the

Rome was

"liberated" by the

the beginning of June.

relief of

Leningrad

the Eastern Front, the Soviets had gone over to the

offensive immediately after the Battle of

Kursk and by

the autumn of 1943 had driven the Germans back the

its

to

Dniepr River. They now outnumbered the Ger-

mans by two

to

were growing

one and

all

their strength

and confidence

There was,

also, increasing

the time.

German invaders as the Russians advanced westward. The country had been entirely desolated by the Germans, and there was much

bitterness toward the

evidence of atrocities against the civilian population.

was that

therefore understandable that the Russians

when

they reached the

would exact revenge in kind.

German

It

vowed

borders they

EE1

CONFLICT IN

II IE

20TH CENTURY

There was no question that the offensive would pause during the winter months.

The Germans must

not he given time to regroup, and the Russians were

helped

in this b\ the fact that the

mild

unusual!}

on the

winter of 1943-44 was

Eastern

Front.

Their

first

Appointed

in

overall

command

of Overlord was

General Eisenhower, with General Montgomery

to

They both returned

to

command London

the actual landings.

January 1944. Training for the British,

in

American and Canadian troops now

same

number of special

At the

intensified.

devices were developed

came in January when Leningrad was finally relieved. During the 890 days of the siege some 200,000 people had been killed by enemy fire and more

to help the troops get

than 500, 000 had died of cold or starvation.

harbors, which were to be towed across the Channel

success

The Russians now struck blow

Germans.

On

blow on the

after

January 6, attacking from west of Kiev,

time, a

Most

ashore and keep them supplied.

notable of these were the

and anchored offshore so

that

Mulberry

artificial

supply ships could

Under

unload. There was also Pluto (Pipeline

the

had crossed the prewar border with Poland. The

Ocean), which would be the main means of transport-

German Army Group North was driven back during the latter half of January and February from south of

ing fuel supplies. Five beaches were selected for the

tfiej

Leningrad

Latvian and Estonian borders. In the

to the

South, by mid-April the Soviet armies were poised

far

to enter

Hungary and Rumania and were beginning

great

but

skill,

Juno, Gold and Sword

The

Allied air forces also

meant

had

a

major part

positions long after the Russians had bypassed them.

had

air

It

was

crucial that the .Allies

supremacy over the beaches and

also that the

Germans be prevented from rushing up

reserves to

Overlord preparations

drive the invaders back into the sea. In the

The main

leading up to the invasion, the

France,

it

to

be Overlord. Once ashore

would only be

in

matter of time, with the

a

spectacular Soviet advances in the East, before Ger-

many was crushed. Detailed planning Channel invasion had begun

when this

a special

as early as April

1943

headquarters was set up in England for

planners grappled with the problem of where to land.

state

was gathered from many sources on the

of the beaches, tides and

German

defenses along

the entire coastline of northern France. Secret agents,

Commandos were

the French Resistance and

along with

air

used,

photographs and even people's prewar

The Germans had been

holiday picture postcards.

aware from the very beginning that an invasion would be mounted

at

some

time,

and had been preparing the

coastal defenses for the past three years.

They expected the landings

to

be

select another spot

keep

this

elaborate

secret

in

the Pas de

planners decided that they must

and chose Normandy. In order from

deception

the

plans

Germans to make

they the

to

evolved

Germans

continue to believe that the Pas de Calais would be

used and also to persuade Hitler to keep troops tied

down

in

Nor\\a\

in

RAF

and

months strategic

bombing offensive against Germany was halted, and the bombers were given the task of attacking aircraft factories

and railway marshaling yards.

The D-Day landings In

order

to

especially

was scheduled postponement

American and vered by

a

obtain

case there was an invasion there.

the

right

weather

from the point of view of the for

June

conditions,

tides,

Overlord

but bad weather forced a

5,

for twenty-four hours.

Spearheaded by and co-

British paratroop operations,

massive naval bombardment, 70,000 troops

stormed ashore on the morning of June

1944,

6,

establishing themselves against often stiff resistance. In

the next two months, two million .Allied troops

be landed

would

in France.

The Germans were Hider was convinced

Calais since this was the closest point to Britain. For this reason, the Allied

US

for the cross-

purpose. Throughout the next few months, the

Intelligence

to play.

were two other

obliterating the defenses, there

key tasks to be carried out.

were concerned was

and

Apart from the direct support for the landings, which

Hitler's repeated insistence that they should hold onto

event in 1944 as far as the Western Allies

and

for the Americans,

farther east for the British

Canadians.

to

The Germans continued to fight with lost men unnecessarily because of

clear the Crimea.

Omaha and Utah

landings:

main landings

in the

taken by surprise, and for a time that

it

was

a feint

Pas de Calais were

and that the still

to

come.

He therefore refused to allow Rommel, who was now commanding the anti-invasion forces, to move his tank reserves to Normandy. Nevertheless, the Germans, as was so often the

case, quickly recovered

surprise and for the next two

hard going. In

Normandy

months the

from

Allies

their

found

the winding lanes and

it

little

fields

enclosed by hedgerows on top of banks very

much

favored the defender.

^H^ THE D-DAY LANDINGS AND ADVANCES IN NORTHERN FRANCE JUNE 6 - AUGUST 25, 1944 n Allied forces departure points^^^ Anglo-Canadian force advances v and assembly area, June 6 I

Territory held by Germany as of Aug 2

\ US force advances

THE D-DAY BEACHES JUNE 6 Anglo-Canadian

US force landings

•

force landings

ISIGNY

BAYEUXO CAEN«

The Bomb Plot On July 20, 1944, battling

away

in a

field

officers in conjunction with politicians

A bomb

room where

Hitler

headquarters.

movement

in

~J

while the Western Allies were

Normandy,

in

in East Prussia.

N

a dramatic event

hidden

in a briefcase

was holding

There

Germany

had

a

a

against Hitler for

and one previous attempt on attempt was the work of a

his

life.

number of

British infantry follow a Churchill tank in

wanted

to

occurred

The

exploded

ruthlessly

conference

been

still

at his

resistance

some

time,

This second senior

army

come

attempt

to

terms with the

failed

hunted down.

the conspirators

priests,

who

conspirators

the

Many were

executed.

were

Among

was Rommel, who three days before

had been wounded

in

France

later forced to take his little

and

and

Allies.

own

in

life.

an

air attack.

The Bomb

He was Plot had

effect on the course of the war except to make

Hitier distrust his generals

bocage country ofNormandy, June 1944.

more and more.

ri'RY

The

Juh

In

Eisenhower, however,

liberation of Paris

and Canadians wore down

British

the

German armor

in

Normandy.

Pattern's

LS

the

Third Army

then quickly cleared Brittany and moved west and

The

(

ierman

line

east.

was pushed baek and soon the Allied

tanks were dashing aeross France in pursuit of a beaten

enemy.

On

August

Operation Anvil (now renamed

15,

Dragoon), the landings

to

move northward

US

to link

Seventh Army

up with the armies

in

French Resistance.

would

Paris to

troops, after five days' fighting with the

Free French

ists

Germans surrendered

later the

tr\

It

was apparent

that the

The

Belgium and on September

now

The farther east the supply lines became.

Hopes

Commun-

for

liberated.

It

both liberated and

moved, the longer

their

to

It

that

the

took time to

open them up again

now began

to

to

run

short of fuel and were forced to halt, thereby giving the

chance

a

There was now

Montgomery the

Men of the

I

debate on what to do next.

believed that he could achieve victory by

end of 1944 with

side if,

a

on

a

broad

front, at least as far as the

be-

Rhine, even

because of the supply situation, progress might be

very

much

slower.

Operation Market Garden Nevertheless, Eisenhower allowed

Montgomery

to

put

Ever since D-Day, June

into action.

6,

1944, there had been a large airborne army sitting in

England waiting

to

be used. Montgomery had devised a

plan for putting pressure on the

German

flank by

single thrust

S 82nd Airborne Division

US

Eisenhower gave him two British airborne division

September

launched. at

and

a Polish airborne brigade.

17, Operation Market Garden was

The Americans

successfully seized bridges

Eindhoven and Xijmegen and

linked

airborne divisions, a

up with them, but the

British

ground forces

farthest objective,

Arnhem, which had been given

to

at

the British and

Polish paratroopers, proved to be overly ambitious.

The

link-up forces were constantly held up. After eight

days' bitter fighting, the paratroopers

were ordered

to

withdraw from Arnhem, but only 30 per cent arrived

to recover. a fierce

He was

thus determined that the Allies should advance side

On

that they could shorten

shipping. Consequently, the Allies

Germans

would be

through Holland: the Maas, Waal and Lower Rhine.

was

into fortresses.

reduce them and even longer

and

British soon reached

them were dashed when Hitler ordered Channel ports be turned

such a narrow advance

supplied

extremely vulnerable to attack on the flanks.

the Allies faced a problem. Allies

that

seizing crossings over the three major rivers that ran

was

3 Brussels

was an exhilarating few weeks liberators alike, but

felt

adequately

forestalled by

to seize power, but this

the arrival of de Gaulle.

be

one of his ideas

northern and eastern France.

Ten days

not

south of France, began

in the

and General Alexander Patch's began

could

on Germany.

back inside the Allied chance

to finish the

1944 was gone.

drop near Nijmegen, September 1944.

•

•

•

lines.

war

With

in the

this failure, the last

West before

the end of

VICTORY ROAD, toward Myitkyina. the

It

was slow going not

resolute Japanese

just

because of

defense but also because of

Chiang Kai-shek's continual

hesitation. Indeed, at

point the Americans threatened to cut off

To

order to get the Chinese to move.

both

advance,

1944-45

Merrill's

one

aid in

all

support the

Marauders and Wingate's

Chindits were dropped behind the Japanese Eventually Myitkyina was captured on August

lines.

3.

A problem now arose in China. The Japanese were earning out an offensive, directed against both Chiang Kai-shek's forces and those of his

Mao

Communist

Tse-tung. This new offensive was aimed

Szechuan province

in the Southeast,

where the Amer-

icans had established air bases from

Japan.

The Americans proposed

which

bomb

to

that Stilwell be put in

all

Chinese forces but Chiang Kai-shek and

advisers

had become increasingly disenchanted

charge of his

rival,

at the

with Stilwell and used this opportunity to obtain his dismissal.

bombing

The problem

by events in the

The

with the threat to the

US

was solved, however,

offensive against Japan Pacific.

destruction of Japanese naval aviation

In the Southwest Pacific the Americans and Australians

New

continued to clear

Guinea and the Solo-

Xew

mons. By mid-February 1944,

Burma

Progress in

The

first

had seized the Green

half of 1944 finally saw an upturn in

Both sides had been preparing

was the Japanese who struck

mount

to

first.

Burma.

attacks,

but

it

At the beginning of

February, two Indian divisions were advancing steadily

major

attack.

by the Japanese

in the

into the Arakan, to secure positions for a

They were unexpectedly

On

flank.

hit

previous occasions the British and Indians

had always pulled back, but

commanding

Slim,

ordered his

men to

the

this

time General William

British

stand fast and

it

weeks' bitter fighting the Japanese

Fourteenth

Army,

worked. After three fell

back exhausted.

This also occurred on the central

front,

which

followed the line of the Chindwin River and relied for its

supplies on a single road running from the railhead

at Dimapur through Kohima and Imphal in India. On March 8, a Japanese army struck at the last two named

places.

By

early

April

the

garrisons

surrounded and they became entirely airlift

system,

their supplies

much

of both were reliant

of it carried out by the

and reinforcements. After

on an

USAAF,

for

bitter fighting

Burma, goaded by

Kai-shek had begun

to

Stilwell,

Chiang

advance from Ledo southward

Zealand troops

which put the

used

on

power

air

to tackle It

Allies only

(100 miles) from the main Japanese base

Rabaul. Rather than attempt to capture to neutralize

Dutch

Xew km

it,

it,

at

the Allies

and MacArthur moved

Guinea.

was much the same

Truk, some 3,200

where

in the Central Pacific,

(2,000 miles) west-northwest of

the Gilbert Islands, was the

main Japanese base. By

mid-February the Marshall Islands were

in

US

hands,

again after bitter fighting. This brought them 1,250

km

They now launched

air

(800 miles) closer to Truk. attacks

on the base and during two days, February

17-18,

they

1944,

dropped

thirty

times

explosive as the Japanese had on Pearl

as

much

Harbor and

rendered Truk unusable.

Admiral Ximitz, commanding the Central Pacific,

US

now turned on

US

forces in the

the Mariana Islands.

Marines landed on Saipan on June

15, but four

days later a Japanese carrier task force attempted to intervene.

It

was

disastrous. In

what became known

the Battle of the Philippines Sea,

244 Japanese

the Japanese were driven back by early July.

In northern

km

160

Islands,

and sank

aircraft for the loss

a carrier, while a

another carrier.

US

as

down of their own

pilots shot

of just 31

US submarine accounted for

ED Nevertheless, the Japanese on Saipan fought with their usual determination

and

Landings were then made on

August the Marianas were

h\ earl\

meant

some 27,000 men.

lost

Guam

and Tinian, and

US

in

Americans were now

that the

range of Japan, and later in the year they

bombing squadrons from China

to

hands. This

bombing moved their

within

four carriers, three battleships, ten cruisers and eleven

and

Indicative of the growing Japanese desperation,

was

It

cost the

smaller ships.

five

the introduction of the kamikaze pilot.

The word means

"divine wind" and the pilots were volunteers for special suicide units which

the Marianas.

Americans an

aircraft carrier

destroyers.

would

fly

packed with

their aircraft,

explosives, into Allied ships in the belief that to die for

§ strategy in the Pacific

I

now

H\

cleared, and

had been

MacArthur's and Nimitz's forces were

commanding position

a

New Guinea

remainder of

the

to

emperor was the highest form of honor.

the

mount combined

in

operations.

The Americans, however, were

know

not to

at the

time the extent of the damage which they had inflicted

on the Japanese Navy

at

the Battle of Leyte Gulf. In the

a

meantime, with the Japanese using every form of

debate on what to do next. Originally, the American

maritime transport available to reinforce Leyte, the

planners had agreed that the next objective should be

Americans were

had been the case

\s

Northwest Europe, there was

in

the Philippines, but as

1944 wore on, alternatives were

still

locked in combat on the island

at

the year's end.

suggested by the planners.

me

(

air

was

to

power very much closer

that heavier

bomb

to

Japan. This would

mean

loads could be carried and another

supply route could be opened to China. Another

air

was

invade

to

Kyushu. \\

go straight for Formosa, which would put

Both

these

ideas,

Mac Arthur

However, both

would be overextending

It

was then agreed

should be captured the Filipinos

return, argued that the liberate

of Japan,

and

this

Leningrad

southern Philippines

Mac Arthur, who had vowed 1

942

that

to

he would

Americans were duty bound

was eventually accepted. in

the

to

It

was

also

Dutch East

Borneo and the Celebes should be bypassed.

in

Having seized Peleliu Morotai

for their

Philippines

in

The the

Ulithi in the Carolines as a fleet anchorage,

decided I

to

.eyte in the center

in

as

Mac Arthur

bypass the island of Mindanao and go for of the Philippines. Landings were

made here on October 20, 1944. The Japanese now tried the same used

and

airfields, as well

the

tactic that they

had

Marianas, that of using their ships to

US ships supporting the landings. Between October 23-26, the Japanese naval forces engaged in destroy the

battle with the

The

result

was

US a

3rd and 7th Fleets

at

Leyte Gulf.

disaster for the Japanese

destruction of their naval power. They

lost

no

and the less

than

they were

the

now

front.

Soviet terms had been moderate

-

a return to

agreement of March 1940 - but there was

demand

that the Finns disarm the

The Finns

the north of the country. this.

since

from the main German

isolated

German

a

troops in

could not agree to

Negotiations were therefore broken

off,

but in

now wanted a formal surrender, but the Finns objected. At the same time, the Germans promised them reinforcements and

June they were re-opened.

that the

the Palau archipelago

much needed

May

January 1944, the Finns had approached

Soviets for an armistice,

Stalin

Finland remained in the war.

The reconquest of the

but then in

in the spring,

Russians began to attack once more. In the extreme

the

left in early

made during

maintained during the rest of the year. There was a

temporary pause

their operations.

agreed that the Japanese forces Indies,

months of 1944 on the Eastern Front was

north they put pressure on Finland. After the relief of

and main island of Luzon, before they did anything else,

progress which the Soviets had

the early

in

the Philippines, including the northernmost

all

The good

Philippines.

originated

the

Soviet advance into Poland

and Nimitz objected that

that the

first.

when he

which

bypassing

envisaged

ashington,

this

southernmost island

the

The

Two weeks France, struck

It

was only

at this stage

United States broke off relations with Finland.

the

first

after the

.Allies

had landed

in

north of the Pripet Marshes, the one area

where the Germans territory.

Western

main Soviet offensive resumed. They

still

had

a

toehold

in

Soviet

Minsk and then Grodno were recaptured,

much of northeast Poland was cleared and the German Army Group Center virtually destroyed. The Soviets now attacked south of the Pripet Marshes and soon linked up with the more northern thrust, and the end of July had closed

the Baltic the

to the Vistula, while

near

German Army Group North was

danger of being cut off Attention

up

now turned

to

in the

Warsaw.

at

in

Courland peninsula.

VICTORY ROAD,

: The Warsaw Uprising The Poles had organized

directed from

an underground army, called

Home Army, under General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski. When the Germans seemed on the point of

more

the

evacuating the

city,

ordered the

to rise against

Poles assumed that the Soviets,

suburbs of the

August

move

for the next

during which

of

Home

in

Soviet

began

while

On

indeed changed sides, while the Bulgarians,

pilots

the

it

was too

city

The

liberated Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, with the help

of Tito's partisans and entered the plains of Hungary.

all

Coming up

Controversy surrounds the

The

stiffening

and

However,

it

German

was not

resistance

in Stalin's interest to allow Poles

still

members of the Waffen-SS, help

to

capital, at

resistance

and could make no progress.

Efforts to outflank the city to the north

had been

also

troops, including

Hungarian

November, they found the

unexpectedly tough

were very stretched.

their supply lines

against Budapest, the

the beginning of

to this

Soviets had good military reasons for not

getting involved, in that

German

Warsaw Uprising

Rumanian oilfields at Ploesti. now began a huge outflanking operaroll back the German right flank. They

Russians

tion designed to

themselves

September, but

resistance by October 2.

day.

who up

also occupied the

to land

and the Germans crushed

late

(450

quickly surrendered and

until

dropped some sup-

Russians

Rumania

now had managed to retain a semblance of neutrality, made overtures to the British and the United States. The Soviets countered this by invading Bulgaria, which quickly declared war on Germany. The Bulgarians offered no resistance to the Soviet troops, who

made no

destroyed. British,

a belated air supply operation in

by then

km

to their support.

Warsaw was

to a

South. Beginning on August

miles) in 18 days.

Army, but were not allowed

territory,

in the

the

reinforcements into the

American and Free Polish plies to the

was not so

had come

20, the Soviets advanced no less than 725

two months there was bloody fighting

much

difficult to control after the war.

halt, this

to help the Poles.

The Germans rushed and

London them. The

the uprising began, but the Soviets

1

it

major part in the

would make Poland

who had reached

would come

city,

to play a

If the Soviet offensive in the center

the Polish government in

Home Army

London

liberation of their country since

1944-45

and south were

checked and by the end of the year Budapest was in

crush the

German Warsaw

hands.

Uprising,

August 1944.

LRV

The Germans prepare Alter the failure of

which had

Ri\cr,

used

at

the end of

Germans in Montgomery

To

gradual!)

and the

US

first

German border in a

It

was

finally

all

\ery

in

Allied troops actually crossed

US

it

could only be

in

on

all

finally

First

Army became

the Hurtgen Forest.

sides, they

stiff resist-

which to

great

secrecy.

matter of time before

to

prolong the fighting.

chose to

through the Ardennes, the same attack route

that had proved so successful

May

in

1940. This time

there were, however, differences. For a start

winter rather than spring, and there

was

it

was snow and

ice

on the ground. The Germans did not have

their air

superiority of 1940 and they were faced by

a battle-

hardened and confident enemy.

The Germans had Allies

three advantages, however.

The

chose to ignore various pieces of intelligence

pointing to a

German

attack, not believing that they

were capable of it. In the event, the Germans were able to

assemble an entire army group, including 1,000 in

The US

complete secrecy.

Ardennes were

wounds

gen Forest.

fog

Finally,

after

troops in the

from the United

either fresh divisions

States or licking their

combat

in the

Hurt-

masked German movements

and placed severe restrictions on

had

been

West designed

The

.Allied air

pow er.

Battle of the Bulge

The Germans launched

be dented.

Hitler

it

He

from the Americans.

were running desperately

This optimism was now

counteroffensive in the

a

mount

tanks,

defeated, especially since,

short of resources with

In

to

September, near Aachen. There

stiff battle in

Germans were

hemmed

opened

along the front, the Western Allies remained

confident that the

be

and Free French were doing

Although the Germans were putting up ance

to

November 1944. Leasing the own devices, reached the German border.

General Courtney Hodges'

engaged

Antwerp was

if

northern Holland to their

the south, the

the same, the

be done

to

advance into Germany.

shipping

banks of the Scheldt

This was seen as vital to support the

as a port.

\llied

Market Garden, Montgomery had to clearing the

turned his attention

splitting the British

a counterattaek

planning to

a

recapture

\nrwerp, thus cutting the Allied supply line as well as

On

their attack

the flanks of the arrack they

on December

were soon held up, but

much

confusion.

YAXCES IN EUROPE,

1944-45 on August 25, 1944 K Allied advances up v to December 1944 Allied advances up to May 8, 1945 Allied territory

\

.

—

Axis-held territory at

in

number of Germans dressed

the center they advanced rapidly, capturing a

prisoners and creating

16.

May

8,

1945

Neutral countries

VICTORY ROAD,

1944-45

The Yalta Conference It

would take the Western

and begin

resumed

Warsaw

all

of January to recover

advance once more. In the East, the Soviets

to

on January

their offensive five

Allies

days

later. It

12, finally liberating

was against

this

background of

West

progress in the East but standstill in the three major Allied

war

met once more,

Stalin,

that the

leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt this

and

time at Yalta on the Black

Sea. Victory

Germany was now

against

in

and

sight,

Roosevelt was very keen that the Soviets should become

war against Japan.

actively involved in the

declare

war

as

soon as he could

Stalin agreed to

Germany had been

after

defeated. In return, Roosevelt and Churchill gave Stalin a free

hand

in Poland,

Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria,

although there was an assumption that the postwar

government of these countries would be determined on the basis of free elections.

concede

Stalin did, however,

were now trying

British

to prevent a takeover

Communists, would remain of influence.

Greece, where the

that

in the

Western

it

than the Western

Allies.

The

the current Soviet offensive by

American

in

troops during Battle

in the eastern part of

of the Bulge.

American uniforms were sent

in to operate

One

town, Bastogne, a key communications center in

however,

was,

denied

to

them.

Hastily

reinforced by an airborne division, the garrison held tight,

Germans

allowing the in the side

to bypass

it

but becoming a thorn

of the advance.

very short of fuel, having failed to capture any Allied supplies,

something on which they had relied

planning. Moreover, on

December

in their

forces.

should take

Eisenhower agreed that Montgomery

command

of the northern flank of the

and he moved British formations forward into

blocking positions. In the south,

Patton,

seeing what was happening,

even before being given orders to do to turn his

army north

in just

so.

move north

He was thus

48 hours and the

Bastogne on December 26 marked the end of

The

Battle of the Bulge

the west and

it

had

Germans were

failed.

was

Hitler's last

able

relief

of

German

gamble

in

driven back to the line of the

Oder and

Neisse Rivers. Budapest continued to hold out for some

and

indeed

Germans launched

the

armored counteroffensive

When

this

That

in

night,

February

13,

saw one of the more

bombed Dresden. This was one of which the Western

but, apart

surrendered

finally

13.

controversial Allied actions of the war,

east"

strong

a

order to relieve the garrison.

petered out, the garrison

on February

it

"read" the battle well and began to plan for a

Soviets quickly overran the

remainder of Poland, East Prussia was isolated and the

weather

23, the

cleared and Allied aircraft were able to support the

hopes.

would support

the major cities

Germany.

With Warsaw captured, the

time,

Furthermore, the Germans were beginning to run

salient

be

The bombing of Dresden

region,

ground

latter

bombing

to

much closer

behind the

lines.

the

sphere

Germany, the Soviets were

In

responsible for taking Berlin, since they were to

by the

Allies'

Allies

the

to

bomb,

historic buildings,

fleeing

from the East.

Many have condemned the bombing as inhumane the city

Yet

it

RAF

the "cities of the

had agreed

from having many old and

was packed with refugees

when

since

contained no targets of military significance.

was an attempt

that the Soviets

together.

to

demonstrate to the Germans

and the Western

The Germans rushed

and were able

Allies

were acting

troops from the

West

to halt the Soviet offensive, at least

temporarily, by the third

week

in February.

RV

The

This reduction the

Germany

Allied advance into

Allies

German

in

moving forward once

get

to

The

mor-e.

defenses west of the Rhine quickly collapsed,

German

and the) destroyed from one

at

\mericans. British

West helped

strength in the

all

the bridges over the river, apart

Remagen. which was quickly seized by

Two

weeks

on March 23 and 24. the

later,

and Americans crossed the Rhine

in strength

Ruhr,

and quickly enveloped and surrounded the taking the surrender of no less than 320,000

The

troops trapped there by April 18.

dampened,

however,

death

the

b\

the

German

euphoria was of

President

Roosevelt on April 12, although Vice-President Harry

Truman immediately stepped

Some

of Eisenhower's

into his place.

commanders,

subordinate

notabh Montgomery and Patton, wanted him

go

to

direct for Berlin in order to beat the Russians to the city.

Eisenhower refused on the grounds that

already been agreed

During the on

last

faded.

reality

that Berlin

was

it

had

a Soviet objective.

few months of the war, Hider's grip

Along with

he had installed

his staff,

L

S

troops battling through

Germany, 194?.

himself in an underground bunker in Berlin, and

seldom appeared above ground. By mid-April the Soviets were advancing once

more and had reached

the

suburbs of Berlin. In Italy, too, the

After slowly pushing the

defenses were crumbling.

enemy back during

the last

then, in April 1945, launched

and

what would turn out

to

Germans back toward the passes of the Alps. More and more Italian partisans joined in to harry them in the rear. They also captured Mussolini, who was hiding in the Como area, offensive,

final

driving the

and unceremoniously shot both him and hanging

their bodies upside

down

in a

own

life.

market square.

Later that day, April 30, Russian

soldiers hoisted a Soviet tlag Reichstag, the

German

declared that the war in

was not happy about

the surrender

keen

also

since he had

this,

document signed

in Berlin,

It

was not

reply

and

8.

wanted

and he was

were

that they

in the early

evening of the

until the

Germans

8th that the Soviets informed the

them

May

Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia,

to capture

before the war's end.

against

day.

to surrender.

still

fighting

There was no

hours of the following day, after a

massive bombardment, Soviet troops entered Prague.

Only then did the guns

in

Europe stop

firing.

his mistress,

This occurred on April 28, only two days before Hitler

took his

Truman now

Europe would formally end the following Stalin

German

half of 1944, the Allies had paused for the winter

be their

Churchill and

on top of the ruins of the

The war

against Japan

This

Japan as

left

Allies, since the Soviet

against

her.

Troops,

transferred from the

parliament.

major problem for the Western

a

Union had aircraft

not declared war

still

and ships were now-

European theater

to the

Far East

and, indeed, the British already had a fleet operating in

The

German surrender

the Pacific under the Americans.

Hamburg and

Japan was now in a desperate power were virtually destroyed.

state.

and the Americans reached the Elbe, where thev met So\iet troops. Hitler had appointed Admiral Doenitz

succeeded

almost

In the North, the British captured

as his successor.

He

tied to

Schleswig-Holstein, where

he negotiated surrender with the forces

in

Italy

had,

Allies.

however,

alreadv

unconditionally on April 29, and

on Ma\

2.

was signed

The surrender of at

Liibeck,

all

all

The German surrendered

fighting finished

other

German

Eisenhower's headquarters

at

forces

Reims.

in

establishing an

Her

.Allied

naval and air

submarines had total

blockade

around the Japanese mainland, which meant that she

was now starved of the raw materials, especially rubber and the

oil,

on which she

Americans

bombing in the

had,

relied to

since

wage war. Furthermore,

November

1944,

been

the industrial cities of Japan from their bases

Marianas.

VICTORY ROAD, Japanese defeat in Burma In Burma, the Chinese had continued from the north during the

November,

at the

last

the British had crossed the

Iwo Jima and Okinawa their

advance

few months of 1 944. In

end of the monsoon

(rainy) season,

Chindwin and were driving

toward Mandalay. In the Arakan another offensive had

Akyab was seized by amphibious

been launched.

assault in early January 1945,

month

a

and

determined Japanese

at the

end of the

counterattack

was

repulsed at Kangaw.

This

offensive

down,

priority for supplies

was switched

Rangoon. Mandalay

fell

fierce fighting

were

at

less,

in

March

however, to the

advance on

after twelve days'

km

(50 miles) short of Rangoon.

broke, but General Slim was, nonethe-

determined

to

continue his advance.

was secured on

Americans were already looking objectives,

Marianas.

of these was the island of Iwo Jima, a tiny

May to

3.

Meanwhile, the

and tackling

their next

designed to take them even closer

Japanese mainland.

US flamethrower in action

to

the

km

The Americans

(400 miles) north of the

thought

it

would be

a useful

base for fighters escorting heavy bombers in raids on

Japan. After intensive sea and

US

IVlarines

air

bombardment, the

landed on February 19. They expected to

secure the island in four days, but such was the ferocity

of the Japanese defense, that lives

Okinawa was

it

took about

It

was seen

weeks

five

of 6,800 Americans.

the next objective.

It lies

midway be-

tween Formosa and Japan, as well as being close

to

China.

an ideal base for the invasion of Japan.

as

The Japanese were

in considerable strength

on the

island

and had prepared very strong defenses, so the invading forces landing

attacks

Troops were landed to the south of Rangoon by sea, and the city itself

first

volcanic island lying 640

because

and by the beginning of May the British

Pegu, only 80

The monsoon

The

and cost the

slowed

1944-45

on April

1

,

found

sunk or damaged during the 6,

it

tough going. Kamikaze

on the supporting ships led first

in a final naval flourish, the

last

remaining

to thirteen

few days.

On

being April

Japanese sent their

fully operational battleship,

Yamato, in a

suicide attack against the Allied shipping, but she

sunk by

US

carrier-based aircraft on the next day.

duringfierce fighting to take Iwo Jima, February 1945.

was

DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMB

o

BLOMON ISLANDS GUADALCANAL

MacArthur's

k-,-

forces

-i '

'

Japanese-held on

territory

August

15,

1945

1000

Miles

THE ENT) OF THE WAR IN THE FAR EAST

In the end,

it

took three months to clear Okinawa,

and the campaign cost the Americans some 50,000 casualties (12,500 killed)

seemed

and the Japanese 110,000.

that the closer the Allies got to the

mainland,

more

the

Japanese resistance became. of Japan

The

itself

When

raids.

spectacular of these

B-29s

dropped

bombs on Tokyo, capital

and

war against Japan

killing

1,700

Some consider

starting fires in

started.

of

incendiary

40 per cent of the

80,000 people. These raids ruined

the war economy and shook

civilian

They

it

necessary to use the atomic

conferences took place

believed that the unceasing air attacks on the

Japanese mainland, combined with the destruction of her naval power and her virtually complete lack of the necessary raw materials with which to continue the war,

meant

that she

Allied invasion,

was already beaten. Even without an it

was merely

Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin.

at

German) would Soviet

Truman,

Stalin

and Chur-

Apart from agreeing that the government of

powers -

rest in the

hands of the four major

Britain, France, the

Union - each of

whom

United States and the

would have

a

zone of

occupation, and that the seal of government would be in

Berlin, the

a matter

of time before

feelers

and the only sticking

point appeared to be the question of unconditional

of the great Allied wartime

last

\ttending were President chill.

bomb on Japan.

she would surrender. Furthermore, the Japanese had

morale.

Potsdam Conference 1945 the

an

of Truman's circle of military advisers did not

been putting out peace In mid-July

as well as

advantage in dealing with increasing Soviet stubborn-

bombing

tons

end

to a quick

on July

to bring

ness on the future of the postwar world.

The most 9-10 was on March when 234

over

as a test

the

Boeing B-29 bombers

were

was exploded

first

the

the invasion

these proved disappointingly

ineffective, nighttime fire raids

the

Japanese

Air Force maintained the

offensive against Japan, sending

bomb. Indeed,

the fact

developed the atomic

at last

This gave the United States the means

fanatical

They viewed

United States had

16.

with increasing concern.

US Army

on daytime

and

desperate

It

The Potsdam Conference was dominated by that the

main topic on the agenda was how

hasten the defeat of Japan.

to

surrender:

the

Potsdam declaration demanded

Japan be occupied and declaration of little

its

war criminals

war might well make

tried.

this a

A

that

Soviet

problem of

consequence.

On

the other hand, there were indications that the

Japanese government was not speaking with one voice

and

it

was known

that

it

included a sizeable militarist

element that was prepared to cost.

If this

faction

invasion might well

fight

on regardless of the

gained the

upper hand, then

become

necessary.

VICTORY ROAD,

_ Dropping the atomic bomb Having obtained finally declare

The Japanese government

agreement that he would

Stalin's

war on Japan, Truman

told

him

that the

United States now possessed a more powerful than any previously used. This was the atomic

bomb bomb

may have known about from Soviet spies United States. On July 26, Truman, Churchill

which

Stalin

in the

and Chiang Kai-shek issued

a joint

ultimatum

to

Japan

demanding unconditional surrender.

The Japanese government way

positive

to

bomb be used

On

that very

Moscow, on

as

same

Truman ordered

2.

ambassador

to

day, the Japanese

but

behalf,

the

when

8,

the Soviet

Western

Soviet

minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, refused to see

August

that

soon as possible after August

the instructions of his government, asked

on Japan's

foreign

him

until

Union declared war.

B-29

called Enola

Gay took

Its

target

time the

80,000

was the

city-

first

off from Tinian, in the

operational atomic

bomb.

of Hiroshima. At 8:15 A.M. local

bomb was dropped and people

outright,

the explosion killed

seriously

injured

37,000,

obliterated over 6,325 hectares (4 square miles)

and

caused complete chaos.

The aftermath of the B-29 fire

U+jZ

The

only

to continue fighting until the

was

of agreement

area

institution of the

the

that

emperor must be maintained. With

no immediate reaction forthcoming, the Americans

dropped August

second bomb,

a

That same

9.

time on Nagasaki, on

this

day, the

Soviets launched a

The Japanese surrender The shock

of these three events caused Emperor

Hirohito to do something that no Japanese emperor

had ever done before. spoke

at a

the next day, the 10th, he

in order to save his people further suffering.

were

sent

expressing it

was

the Japanese to

ditional surrender

was

Messages

willingness

to

be another four days and a

further intercession by the

emperor before the uncon-

finally

accepted.

announced the surrender on the radio

The emperor

to his

people in

another unprecedented step. Only, however, with the formal surrender ceremony presided over by General

USS

Mac Arthur on

board the battleship

September

1945, could the Second World

finally

raids: devastation in Tokyo,

On

Cabinet meeting, siding with the peace party

surrender, but

In the meantime, in the early hours of August 6, a

Marianas, earning the

end.

immediately

massive attack on the Japanese forces in Manchuria.

the Soviet government to negotiate with the Allies

and those who wished

faced an intense debate

to surrender

did not respond in any

begin with, and

the

between those who wanted

1944-45

1945.

2,

be said

to

have ended.

Missouri on

War

4 1

IK

I

[N THE

20TH CENTURY Bclscn: the horror

During the

CHAPTER

THE

The Second World War, far more than

its

predecessor,

total war, with civilians

finding themselves time and again on the front left

ec/

nipped

Vie human

and economically exhausted and

to face the problems cost

- among than

had been

millions

and the survivors

in the midst of

and formerly

economic

and ruined cities.

arrangements were needed

to the defeated

to restore

occupied countries.

time, the old colonial empires

had been

order

At

the

fatally

weakened, and confrontations between the I nited States

and the Soviet

I

nion carried the threat offuture

nightmares. In V)45, lutpes that the world could resoke its

current

and future problems without

now

lay in the

I

less

than 50 million people lost their

the

most cosdy war,

War no

lives. It

human

terms of

in

combatants, almost the same

was

life,

in

were

total as in the First

World War. The Soviet Union suffered the highest casualties, with 20 million deaths, but Poland,

where the war had begun, suffered most, with

some 22 per cent of her population being killed. The high proportion of civilian casualties meant that

ill-

of refugees and shatteredfamilies

chaos, food shortages, black markets Political

of the Second World

was

it

truly a total war,

parts of the world

where

its

and there were few were not felt.

effects

of the postwar world.

catastrophic,

-faced the task of reconstruction

me

line. It

Europe and many other parts of the world

physically

six years

history. Yet, of these, less than 17 million

IMPACT OF MAR m caled the true horrors of

ofthe concentration camps.

recourse to conflict

nited Nations.

As

any war, the Second World

in

both "man's inhumanity of humankind.

qualities

place

the

in

German

War

brought out

to man" and the highest The atrocities which took

concentration

camps

and

Japanese prisoner-of-war camps illustrated only too well

how

cruel

humans can

be.

On

the other hand, the

countiess acts of selfless bravery and sacrifice on the battlefield,

bombing of

human The equally.

in

the

cities

concentration camps,

during the

and elsewhere showed the best of

nature.

horror of war affected both rich and poor

This helped break down

class barriers in the

democracies of Western Europe, which was reflected in the election

of Socialist governments to power in the

immediate aftermath.

-

The US was

never directly attacked and her people

same hardship

did not suffer the

Being

as elsewhere.

were

subjected

same

the

to

contribution of women and blacks

United

the

In

States,

armed

the

for

as

but

forces,

also

factories

women

form of war work, either

in

and elsewhere, but

was on

it

Only

a greater scale in the

.

on the front

and

line

actually

kill

bomber regiment composed

which

greatly

a

distinguished

Hero of

and

itself,

award. In other countries

woman who

located approaching

German

bombers and another woman who directed the aircraft

x^t^

'

1

-^W*frv a V-2 attack

rescue services, help out following

proved

names

to

be as brave as men.

Some

of the

movements

in

Europe were of women, and

partisans in Yugoslavia suffered exactiy the their

as

Thus

male counterparts.

took another stride forward in their battle to

establish equality with

they lost ground as

men, although,

as after 1918,

men came back from

reclaimed the jobs that they

felt

were

the

war and

While some Indians and Burmese transferred

their

allegiance to Japan, the concept of the Greater East

Within the

occupied countries. Nevertheless, those the British

felt

who

granting their countries independence.

Commonwealth also and Canada fell more under

Britain's relationship with the

changed. Both Australia

the influence of the United States. Australia especially

had been more

closely involved with the

United States

during the campaign in the Pacific.

US Armed

Forces, segregation between

and the

only

In Western Europe a

Displaced

created,

new breed of people had been These

Persons.

included

survivors of Hider's concentration camps,

given a combat role.

everything;

would take another war,

It

in

Korea, before segregation was broken down.

British

Empire

significant

landmark

self-determination. This Asia,

where the

was

early

demonstrated that the white

in

the

struggle

especially so in

for

South-

Japanese victories had

man was

those

in the free forces

For the different peoples of the British Empire, the war

not all-powerful.

the

who had lost who had been press-ganged into working in German factories and fields; those who feared to return to Eastern Europe; those who fought

difference from 1917-18 was that black units were

a

by

Refugee problems

and whites was maintained,

The breakup of the

fought for

that Britain could only repay her debt

traditionally the

male preserve.

east

London,

treatment handed out to the inhabitants of Japanese-

in the various resistance

same hardships

marked

in

March 1945.

did not work. This was mainly due to the often brutal

women

blacks

J^-'-^yp/

guns onto them. However, she was not allowed

the occupied countries in

women

_3lL

Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, proposed by the Japanese,

Women

the

The

<^p

anti-

to pull the trigger.

greatest

B^>

i

i

close

was more often

it

-"^=»

ijpBws

during the

came very

also

—

f

There was

one female sniper was

women

2^~~

serve

the Soviet Union, Russia's highest

to killing. In Britain, for instance,

than not a

women

the enemy.

JJUJR

''.^v

-

-

X

entirely of women pilots,

fighting for Stalingrad at least

made

..

Second World War.

Union, however, did

in the Soviet

wk^k

fBil

during 1914-18,

to fight

«»

I

i

uniform or in the factories

men

to allow

.

;f^'Jg5

.

a

>*

a"

women had done some

exempted. In many countries,

I »

1

as well

men, with only mothers of small children being

as

I *

jfflriLff

manpower

the

for

producing war materials. This affected

/

m'

1

was

there

just finding

*

1^'

:•

Europe,

in

meant not

conscription and this

'

food

stringent

rationing that Europeans had to endure.

The

^R

A

IB •B

-7

Canadians nor Amer-

self-sufficient in food, neither

icans

W*

/

*"•!

wish

to

of the occupied countries but had no

be under Soviet domination; and those foreign

nationals

who had

fought

voluntarily or otherwise.

Many had no

on

Above

all

the

German

side,

there were the Jews.

wish to remain in Europe and wanted to

settle in Palestine.

OMUCT IN THE 20TI

(

I

CENTURY

The spread of communism The the

Soviet

Union had suffered greater

Western

spread

Indeed, as early as September 1945, taking advan-

lilies.

1

loss

of life than

tage

of international

communism

in

1945

of the fact that the Free French were in no

Ho

position to reestablish themselves in Indochina,

lowever, the prospects for the

Chi Minh declared an independent republic of Viet-

were

brighter than they had been even in 1919. Eastern

nam. The struggle against communism

Europe was now dominated by Soviet Russia, although she had agreed that the people of these countries would

would engage the French and then the Americans

have the right to decide their

government through

Communist

too.

Greece,

in

In

Economic problems Perhaps

had the upper hand. In

war between Communists and those who

civil

looked to the Western democracies continued to

In the

the

role

in

operations

against

Germany and

many

had

strategic

Allies

had

was not

situation

poised to seize power.

troops raise the red flag over the

German parliament

+*f-

* X

£ ''V\

V;

•

T^

.

s.

had been

and roads. Thus the

%s

\

1 r

dim*-

*

-

>T' *X

w ^

m

"CI

u!

•

still

conquered intact, the

US bombing

Japanese industry.

t

1m

was

bombing campaign, which

as bad, but the

**M >

1945

result of both fighting

to take total responsibility for the

virtually destroyed

g-

was the

largely destroyed the railways

by the Allies (and captured from the Japanese), were

t;

in

industry

peoples. In Japan, with the government

Malaya and Indochina, equipped with arms supplied

The triumph of the Allies: Soviet

problem

countries,

Italy this

on land and the

the

Japanese occupation forces. By the end of the war those in

In

serious

destroyed, people were homeless, food was short. In

flare

Far East, Communist guerrillas had often leading

most

the

economic.

up, with British troops supporting the latter.

taken

for

Tse-tung was

the Balkans,

Yugoslavia, and in Albania,

partisans

Mao

Vietnam

ready to seize power from Chiang Kai-shek.

own form of postwar

elections.

free

was all-powerful

Tito

the next thirty years. In China, too,

in

building in Berlin, April 1945.

had

THE IMPACT OF WAR The Western European

countries which had been

under German occupation were They,

too,

since

it

had suffered from the bombing, especially

had been

on

concentrated

also

left

Countries

been fought over and suffered much damage

as a result. Britain

much

and

industry

Low

communications, and France and the

had

bad way.

also in a

was not

cost of the

war had

her virtually bankrupt, her people were exhausted,

and large parts of her major towns and

had been

cities

Out of these meetings produced

came

in detail.

into

force

the United Nations Charter was

On to

October 24, 1945, the Charter

mark

a

new

step

forward

in

achieving lasting world peace.

The postwar world The problems facing

Only the United States emerged from the war

in a

more

the world in 1945 were

formidable than those of 1918, even though the extent

of victory was

devastated.

US

summer

shoulder too

in a position to

The enormous

of the burden.

Francisco Conference in the spring and early

of 1945, attended by the representatives of fifty nations.

much

greater. Indeed, in

Second World War had brought

many ways the number

to the fore a

which had

of global problems which had been growing before

provided the hardware and equipment necessary for

1939. German, Italian and Japanese fascism had been

stronger

position.

final victory. all

was

It

The war had

industry*

stimulated her

the Allied nations were in her debt.

wartime

economy and

During the

later

conferences, the Americans began to

.Allied

dominate proceedings, especially

in dealings with the

bomb

possession of the atomic

United

enormous

an

States

between communism and capitalism, colonialism and self-determination, "haves" and "have nots,"

Arab and many

others.

be an easy place

enigmatic Stalin.

The

vanquished, but the war had not solved the conflicts

whether the Russians realized

which

to live.

although

was not yet

clear.

THE FINAL RECKONING: MILITARY AND CIVILIAN

Truman, like President Wilson in 1918, had announced that the United States would

CASUALTIES,

shoulder her share of the burdens of the world.

1

Certainly, President

SEPTEMBER 1939-ALGLST

which could ensure conflict

on the

that there

300,000 military,

up some mechanism

to set

would never be another

scale of 1939-45, especially with the

emergence of the atomic bomb. After the

First

War, the League of Nations had

do

there was hope in

On

January

1,

failed to

World

this,

but

successor, the United Nations.

its

1942, twenty-six nations then fighting

Germany, including the

5-8 million civilian

3

a declaration

of coop-

which the term United Nations was

first

used. Another twenty-one countries later followed

suit.

4-5 million military,

593,000 civilian dead 4 China: 3 million military

At Tehran on December

1,

1943, Roosevelt, Stalin

and Churchill had declared that they recognized the peace

which

on the United Nations "to make a

command

will

goodwill

the

overwhelming masses of the peoples banish

the

and

terror

scourge

in the

of war

of the

world and for

many

generations."

However,

it

was not

autumn of 1944

until the late

that the

United Nations was

set

summer and

early

structure of the postwar

down. This took place

two-phase Allied conference, held in

dead

5 Japan: 1

million military,

600,000 civilian dead 6 Yugoslavia: 500,000 military, 1

million civilian

dead

200,000 military, 400,000 civilian dead 8 Great Britain: 300,000 military, S>7,000 civilian

responsibility resting

dead

Germany:

7 France:

governments of the

exiled

occupied countries, had signed eration in

dead

2 Poland:

up the United Nations

Another urgent task was

1945

Russia:

6 million military, 14 million civilian

Setting

Jew and

post- 1945 world was not to

also gave the

advantage, this

in

The

at

at a

Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C. This was followed by the San

dead

9 Italy: 150,000 military, 150,000 partisans civilian dead 10 United States: 300,000 military dead

European Jews: 5-9 million dead (from a of 9 million)

total

(

(

)\I I.ICT IN

THE 20TH CENTURY

CONFLICT IN THE 20th CENTURY: APPENDICES The style of warfare between 1939 and 1945 reflected the technological developments in weapons during the previous 20 years. The most successful commanders were those who had the vision to exploit these new weapons to the utmost and the flexibility to adapt them to the varying conditions in each theater of war. Both sides improved and developed ways of fighting in the jungle, desert, at sea and in the air.

THE KEY COMMANDERS Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) Free French leader. De Gaulle became the leading exponent of armored warfare in France in the 1930s. In May 1940 he was in command of an armored division and then briefly became Undersecretary of War

He was NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1950-52) and President of the United States (1953-61

rose to be Chief of Staff of the

German Army in July 1944, only to be dismissed in March 1945.

before fleeing to Britain just before the French armistice with the

Germans. He soon became the leader of the Free French and his moment of triumph came in August 1944 when he returned to Paris and was

Arthur Harris (1892-1984) British Marshal of the RAF. One of the most controversial figures of the Second World War, "Bomber" Harris led RAF Bomber Command from 1942 until the end of the war. He firmly

installed as President of the

Committee

of National Liberation.

His single-minded aim to restore

French fortunes made him a difficult and he bitterly resented not being invited to the Tehran and

believed that Germany could be brought to defeat through bombing.

ally,

He was President France 1945-46 as well as from

Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) American general and Allied

Yalta conferences. of

Dwight Eisenhower

1958-69.

Heinz Guderian (1888-1954) German Panzer commander. Guderian was appointed General of Panzer Troops in 1938 and played a leading role in the Polish and French campaigns and the invasion of Russia in 1941. Dismissed by Hitler at the end of 1941 for making a tactical withdrawal against orders, he was recalled to duty as Inspector of Panzer Troops in early 1943. He

commander. After a distinguished World War, MacArthur rose to be Chief of Staff of the US Army and then became military adviser to the government of the Philippines. fighting record in the First

Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general and Supreme Allied

Commander in

Eisenhower was

a

Europe. founder member

US Tank Corps,

of the

action in the First

but did not see

World War.

Recalled to active duty in July 1941, he conducted the defense of the Philippines against the Japanese and then became commander of the

In

June 1942, he was appointed commander of US forces in Europe. He was in charge of the Allied operations in North Africa 1942-43

and the invasions of Sicily and In December 1943 he became

Southwest Pacific area. His "islandhopping" strategy was highly successful and saved many

Italy.

He finished the war as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in the Pacific theater. He casualties.

Supreme Commander, Allied I

itionary Force in \\

Europe and

(.onducted Overlord and the

campaign in Northwest Europe. His powers of diplomacy made him an ition warfare commander.

later commanded the United Nations' forces in the Korean War, but was removed for wanting to

Heinz Guderian

extend the war to Red China.

APPENDICES Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) British army commander. "Monty" was one of the few commanders to come out of the campaign in France in 1940 with his reputation intact. Appointed to command the British Eighth Army in Egypt in August 1942, he led it through North Africa, Sicily and Italy and then from 1944 commanded 21st Army Group in the Normandy landings and in Northwest Europe. The secret of his

Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) Japanese admiral. Responsible for building up the Japanese Navy before the war, Yamamoto was opposed to going to war with the United States. Nevertheless he planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. Having studied at Harvard University and been the naval attache in the United States, he was

success was careful preparation for his battles and ensuring that every

inflicting the greatest possible

man knew what was expected

so that Japan could obtain the best

convinced that Japan would lose in the long run and he believed in

damage

of

possible peace terms.

him. His brash self-confidence, while a morale booster to his own men, created much friction with his fellow

commanders

in the Allied

in the shortest period of time

at Pearl

In April 1943 he died

Isoroku

Yamamoto

aircraft

He succeeded

Harbor, but failed at Midway.

when his

was shot down by US

fighters

camp. After the war, he became Chief of the British General Staff and then NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Konstantin Rokossovsky (18961968) Soviet army commander. Dismissed from the Soviet Army and imprisoned during Stalin's purges in

Chester Nimitz (1885-1966) American admiral. An outstanding US naval commander, Nimitz was given command of the US Pacific Fleet shortly after Pearl Harbor. His intelligent use of information gleaned from intercepts of top secret Japanese messages resulted in the victory at Midway and from then on

the 1930s, Rokossovsky

he commanded the drive toward Japan in the Central Pacific. He maintained a rivalry with

MacArthur for resources in the Pacific. Quiet and efficient, he was highly regarded by all.

was

recalled

during the Russo-Finnish War. He first made a name for himself in the defense of Moscow at the end of 1941 and then played a leading role in the victory at Stalingrad. As commander of the Belorussian

Front, he failed to go to the help of

the Poles in

Warsaw in August

1944.

In 1945 he cleared northern Poland

and Danzig and met with the

British

near Liibeck.

Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) German army commander. Rommel won Germany's highest bravery award in the First World War. He proved

Georgi Zhukov (1896-1974) Soviet

commander. He first came prominence during the operations against the Japanese in Mongolia just before the outbreak of the Second World War and was appointed Chief military

to

of Staff of the Soviet

and

decisive.

himself a skilled tank division commander in France in 1940. He took the Deutsches Afrika Korps to Libya in early 1941 and for the next 18 months consistently outfought the British. After his defeat at El

Alamein he conducted

a very skilful

withdrawal into Tunisia, where he surprised the Americans at Kasserine Pass. After tours of duty in Italy and the Balkans, he took charge of Army Group B in France until

wounded

in July 1944. Implicated in

Bomb Plot, he was forced to take his own life. A fearless commander, who led from the front, he was

the

Bernard Montgomery

popular with his men.

Army in

January 1941. Later, in August 1942, he became Deputy Commissar for Defense. He was deeply involved in the overall conduct of all Soviet operations on the Eastern Front, but often took personal charge, especially during the siege of Leningrad, the 1944 offensives and the capture of Berlin. At the beginning of the war. he was cautious but became more daring

Georgi

Zhukov

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

WAKFAHi: DEVELOPMENTS Special Forces by both sides.

Blitzkrieg

enemies

means "lightning war" and was the secret of the German success on land during 1939-42. The doctrine was developed by British

very easy to outflank and infiltrate defenses in the jungle, so

Blitzkrieg

in the jungle.

It is

the Allies learned to stand fast rather

and Captain Basil Liddell Hart, but the Germans, especially

than withdraw and to disrupt the enemy by frequent counterattacks. Another important tactic was the ambush, for which, of course, the

General Guderian, applied

jungle

military theorists Major General

J.

F.

C. Fuller

it

in the

had

is

ideally suited.

The troops

use of fast-moving armored columns closely supported by aircraft. These

be trained to react very rapidly, especially in returning quick and accurate fire. Resupply was always a problem, although not so much for the

were used as

Japanese,

1930s. In essence Blitzkrieg meant the paralyzing of the enemy through the

aerial artillery, to slice

through the enemy defenses and disrupt their ability to

command and

control their forces. Follow-up

troops

would then reduce the

still holding out. It proved remarkably successful in Poland, France and the Balkans. In Russia, however, Blitzkrieg faltered mainly because of the vastness of the country. Also Hitler launched his attack too late in the year, which meant that the tanks ground to a halt in the autumn mud and winter snow. The weather also hampered fuel and fodder supplies

defenses

(much relied

The

of the

German army

still

on horse-drawn transport). adopted the

Allies, too,

Blitzkrieg concept, especially after

the breakout from

Normandy

in

1944, and during the Soviet offensives on the Eastern Front in 1944-45.

Jungle warfare

The Japanese

victories after Pearl

to

subsist

on the

Allies,

other hand, placed increasing

soldiers

had

to take tablets daily to

protect themselves from

it.

Desert warfare

The North African

desert

was by far

the "cleanest" battleground since, apart from wandering Arabs

was numbers

and the

coastal towns, there

little

chance

of civilians

of large

being caught in the fighting. The

dominant weapon was the tank, and was marked by bursts of fast-moving and furious fighting followed by sometimes long pauses while both sides drew breath and regrouped. Because advances were often rapid, supply lines became very stretched, and for a long time it was this that prevented either side from winning a decisive victory.

the campaign

much of the time, Rommel handled his tanks much better than For

tended

He

kept his tank forces

to split theirs up. Often, too,

but also learning to live in the jungle,

Rommel would

which can be a frightening place for those who do not know it. Gradually, however, spearheaded by the Chindits, Merrill's Marauders and

into a trap, using his

is

in

New Guinea, the

the coast, but the vastness of the

Libyan Desert meant that there was always an open flank, of which both sides, but

more especially the

British, took advantage.

of

Small teams

men were used to gather

intelligence and cause disruption behind the enemy's lines. Battle of the Atlantic

the British in 1939, there

The

concentrated, while the British

Allies learned to fight as well as their

The

close to

using makeshift landing strips. Malaria was a constant problem and

who were able to

little.

the British.

just battle tactics,

was always

emphasis on resupply by air, either dropping supplies by parachute or

on very

Allies failed to recognize that jungle

meant not

battle area

This was the most crucial campaign of the war at sea. As an island nation, Britain had to maintain her maritime trade, and her transatlantic links were vital, as had been demonstrated by the U-boat campaign in the First World War.

Harbor quickly revealed that the Japanese understood the jungle, while the Allies did not. Indeed, the fighting

main

lure the British tanks

own armor to

draw them toward cunningly concealed anti-tank guns, of which the foremost was the 88 mm. Another aspect which marked the fighting was the extensive use of

While convoying was

instituted

was

by

a

desperate shortage of escort ships

and aircraft. Likewise, although the Germans had only 50 U-boats at the onset, these were soon inflicting damage out of all proportion to their numbers, and surface ships and aircraft also

played their

part.

Doenitz, the Flag Officer U-boats,

convinced Hitler that priority must be given to U-boat construction and soon many more merchant ships were being sunk than could be replaced. In 1940 Doenitz introduced the "wolf pack" concept, which meant groups of U-boats deployed along the convoy routes, notably in the "Black Gap" in the mid-Atlantic which was beyond the range of British and North American air cover.

The fortunes fell,

of both sides rose and but in mid-1943 came the

turning point

when the Allies

finally

upper hand. Their eventual success was due to a number of

got the

factors

- the

ability to

decipher radio

between the U-boat headquarters and the U-boats at sea, improved technical aids for detecting and destroying U-boats, long-range patrol aircraft and good

traffic

escort drills.

APPENDICES Bombing it was thought that the bomber aircraft was invincible and could be used to defeat a state by Strategic

Before the war

direct attacks on its centers of government and population. Although there was no formal

prohibition of the

bombing

of

both sides went to war recognizing that such attacks went against the spirit of the laws of war. Apart from the bombing of Warsaw civilians,

in 1939,

which the Germans deemed

a military target

would not

because the Poles

surrender, and of

Rotterdam, which was bombed by mistake in May 1940, both sides held to this until the Battle of Britain.

U-boats under construction, 1941.

Airborne warfare This was a new form of warfare. The Germans were the first to demonstrate how effective airborne forces could be when on May 10, 1940, a party of glider-borne paratroop engineers captured the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael. This was followed by the capture of Crete

by paratroops

in

May 1941. However,

airborne operations were also very costly in transport aircraft,

and the

Germans mounted few after Crete. The British also formed parachute battalions, which were used in Tunisia and during the invasion of Sicily. The Normandy landings were preceded by US and British airborne landings. The tragedy at Arnhem in September 1944 showed that airborne troops had to be relieved quickly by ground forces. They did, however, play a crucial role in the British crossings of the Rhine.

The use of radar and the monoplane fighter did, however, prove that the bomber could be intercepted and shot down before it reached its target. The British and Germans were therefore forced to mount their bombing attacks by night in order to protect their aircraft

from fighters. Inaccurate bombaiming devices and navigation systems meant that bombing accuracy was low and civilian targets were inevitably hit. As a result, both reverted to "area bombing," designed to affect civilian morale and hit war industries.

The Germans

failed to bring about

the collapse of Britain during the Blitz in the winter of 1940-41. The Allies also failed against

Germany,

although industry was severely, but not critically, disrupted. The Americans believed that daylight bombing could succeed if bombers weie given sufficient protective armament, but their experiences over Germany during 1943 showed that this was not enough and longrange fighter escorts were needed.

Bombing by night became technological battle. there

a

On the one side

and and on the achieve navigational and

was the need

to detect

intercept the bomber,

other to

homing accuracy,

as well as

protection against night fighters.

Enola Gay, the converted B-29 which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

It

can be said that the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan represented the only decisive use of strategic bombing.

E£l

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY First

LAM) WEAPONS Tanks At the outbreak of war, tanks were basically of three types - heavy, medium and light. Heavy tanks were used to break through enemy defenses, medium tanks to exploit a breakthrough and light tanks to carry out the traditional cavalry role of

reconnaissance, although this was also

done by armored

cars.

There

The alternative was to look for a compromise between firepower, mobility and protection. Good examples of this were the US Sherman, the most widely produced tank of the war, the German PzKpfw IV and the Soviet T-34, perhaps the best tank, in terms of robustness and simplicity, to be produced by either side.

were, however, exceptions to this

There were also, especially by the developments in

World War tradition

of "super

heavy" artillery, the main emphasis during 1939-45 was on mobility. Artillery had to be able to keep up with and support fast-moving armored formations at all times. It was the field gun - the US 105-mm howitzer, British 25 pounder, German 105 and Soviet 76 mm which was the workhorse of both sides, backed up with medium guns

mm

of

155-mm caliber. By the middle of the war,

self-

propelled artillery, often using an existing tank chassis, began to be introduced to give even greater

British,

mobility, and examples of this were

"specialized armor," tanks for

the

into the fast-moving Blitzkrieg

particular tasks, such as bridgelayer

concept, and neither did the British, who had infantry support tanks

tanks and tanks fitted with

Canadian-designed Sexton. Wheeled antitank guns were also an artillery responsibility and, like tank guns,

genera] rule in that the

Germans had

no heavy tanks, since they did not

fit

Some

instead.

As the war progressed, tank design became very much a race between gun and armor, but there were penalties to be paid.

A tank with a

gun and very thick armor was inevitably very large, which meant that its mobility suffered. This was

big

some of the later German models - the Panther and

flails for

clearing mines.

countries produced armored

fighting vehicles with the sole task of

destroying other tanks. The

Americans developed the tank destroyer, the Germans the Sturmpanzer and Jadgpanzer and the Soviets the

SU assault gun.

especially so with

Artillery

the Royal Tiger - although they were

Although the Germans and, to a lesser extent, the British, with their coastal artillery, did carry on the

formidable in defense.

T-34 tank in action

on the Eastern Front.

A US Sherman

German Hummel and

the

.

calibers

grew

larger as tanks

became

better protected.

Undoubtedly, the most formidable was the German 88 mm, which was feared by all Allied tank of these

crews.

The other main artillery branch was anti-aircraft, and guns ranged from large caliber used against highflying bombers to small, highly mobile quick-firing cannon like the Swedish-designed Bofors.

tank/alls into

German hands

in 1944.

The German 88-mm antitank gun

The German PzKpfw IV Infantry weapons The infantryman's basic weapon, the rifle and bayonet, remained much the same as in 1914-18. However, light machine guns weighing much less than their 1914-18 forebears and submachine guns were developed to increase an infantryman's firepower at

the lowest level.

own

were also much

lighter

than the cumbersome trench mortars of the First World War. In fact the greatest concern of the infantry was the tank threat. In 1939, most armies were equipped with the antitank rifle, but this soon became ineffective because of the increasing thickness of tank armor.

weapon.

The other major development was and missiles, which was an area pursued by the Germans alone. During the late 1930s and the first part of the war, they worked on what became known in strategic rockets

Mortars, the infantry's "artillery,"

because they could put down a heavy weight of explosive onto a small area of ground. Curiously, the Western Allies never adopted this weapon to the same extent except as an amphibious-landing support

The

lay in the hollow charge, or

as Vergeltungsvva/Jfen ("Vengeance"

or V- Weapons),

solution

Monro

named for the US engineer discovered it in the 1880s. A projectile with a cone-like hollow head lined with metal would, when detonated, create a stream of molten metal and hot gases which would penetrate armor. The US Bazooka, German Panzerfaust and British Projector Infantry AntiTank (PLAT) were all excellent tankeffect,

who

ambush weapons. Rockets There were some notable rocket developments during the Second World War. On the battlefield itself it was the appearance of the multiple-barreled rocket launcher, the German NebeJwerfer and Soviet

Katyusha. They were important

The V-2 rocket

which

Hitler

regarded as "miracle weapons" designed to turn impending defeat into victory. There

the V-l

,

which was

were two types, in effect a

packed with explosive, and the V-2, a guided rocket. Not until June 1944. just after pilotless aircraft

the

Normandy landings,

did the

Germans begin to use them in action. London and Antwerp suffered most. Apart from giving the Western Allies a scare, there were never enough produced to have any significant impact on the course of the last year of the war.

(

(

)\FLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

NAVAL WEAPONS Aircraft carriers

development in the war at sea during 1939-45 was that the aircraft carrier superseded the battleship as the most important

The most

significant

warship. The effectiveness of aircraft against warships had been

demonstrated by the US air theorist General Billy Mitchell in the early 1920s in a series of experiments using ships laid up from the First World War. Except for Germany and the Soviet Union, all the world's major navies possessed aircraft carriers at the outbreak of war. But it was not until the end of 1941 that the potential of the aircraft carrier

was

convoys against the submarine, using their aircraft to seek and

As dominance destroy.

a result of the increasing

of the carrier, the

battleship's roles carrier protection

were reduced and shore

to

bombardment.

ship's propellers.

Submarines The power of the submarine also increased. At the outbreak of war submarine ranges were much greater than they had been in 1914-18 and they were true ocean-going vessels.

dramatically improved by the introduction of the Schnorkel,

Underwater capability was

In 1939, however, submarines

number of drawbacks. They were not

still

suffered from a

able to

operate underwater for long because

on Pearl Harbor, which was launched from carriers.

the air inside the vessel

From then

on. the aircraft carrier

dominated the war

in the Pacific,

giving navies the ability to

mount

long-range strikes without bringing their fleets within the range of the enemy guns. Smaller carriers also played their part in protecting

and they had

became

to surface to

any event, underwater speeds were low. This meant that a submarine only dived or

it

was

getting close to

its

target

had been discovered. Another problem from which the

German U-boats

that the U-boat could

which enabled the submarine

to

travel at relatively high speeds

underwater and very quietly in order reduce the risk of detection. These developments, how ever, came too late to restore Germany's fortunes. r

stale

recharge

their batteries. In

when

which meant

"breathe," and the Walther Turbine

to

demonstrated with the Japanese attack

in the first year of the war, was torpedo unreliability. It was the Germans who took the lead in overcoming these problems. They developed torpedoes which would automatically home in on the target. The first type had a preset zigzag course which increased the chances of hitting a ship in a convoy. Later they introduced an acoustic torpedo which homed in on the noise of a

suffered, especially

Antisubmarine warfare

SONAR,

or

called

introduced in 1918,

it.

ASDIC as

the British

detected a submarine underwater by bouncing sound impulses off it. To detect a submarine on the surface, two types of devices were used, apart from visual contact.

Radar

at

Sea

Destroyer

SONAR, or ASDIC worked by bouncing sound waves (1) off underwater objects such as a submarine (2), after which depthcharges

(3)

could be fired

to

collapse the submarine's hull. the surface, the submarine

On

(4)

could be detected by normal radar (5), although in this case the target would be smaller.

•nger torpedo bomber flies over aircraft carrier deck.

APPENDICES

Amphibious warfare Little attention was paid

to landings

from the sea before 1939, but they

became a very marked characteristic of the Second World War. A successful landing required very close cooperation

among air force,

navy and army, and

it was very important that the troops quickly established themselves on the shore so that they could effectively resist

counterattacks.

A Landing Ship Tank, about to The

was

unload, southern France, August 1944.

The most important element of an amphibious landing was the landing craft, flat bottomed with a ramp,

Allies at an early stage of the war.

which took the troops

which was operated by hand. By 1943 sets with a 32-km (20-mile) range were in service. Radio direction-finding was the

They were,

Early types were small and designed

other method. This detected

that the information gained

submarine radio transmissions and a bearing to the submarine could be obtained. With two sets operating on

of date.

first

radar, using a

rotating aerial,

different ships, the submarine's

exact position could be established

by charting the intersection

of the

as

on land and

in the air,

invaluable in establishing the

enemy's intentions, although often the time taken to decipher meant

was out

To destroy the submarine, the depth charge, delivered by both ships and aircraft, was the main weapon. These were "bombs" fired in a pattern and set to detonate at a

bearings.

certain depth. Later, the British

The top-secret codes used by the German and Japanese submarines, code-named ULTRA and MAGIC

introduced Hedgehog, a launcher which fired 24 explosive projectiles simultaneously, which would only detonate if they hit something solid.

respectively,

were broken by the

merely to land troops, but larger ships were built to carry tanks and other heavy equipment, as well as fire-support vessels armed with guns

and multi-barreled rocket launchers. Often obstacles below the tide line and the nature of the beach meant it was not possible to land troops without getting their feet wet. Kits were developed to enable tanks to

swim ashore, as well as special tracked amphibious vehicles, which could also swim.

Mines As in the

First World War, mines played an important part in the war at sea. They were laid by both ships

Retlected radio waves are picked up by Destroyer

Surfaced

to the shore.

The traditional type of which relied on a ship hitting mine, and it

/—J

aircraft.

to detonate

it,

quickly gave

the magnetic type.

submarine

this

way to

The answer to

was degaussing.

A cable, placed

around the hull of the ship and connected to the generators, could produce a countermagnetic field and

Reflected sound waves are picked up by Destroyer

r Depth charges

cancel out the existing one. Acoustic mines, detonated by the noise of the ship's propellers, and pressure mines, which worked by responding to the varying water

pressure under a moving ship, also made their appearance, as did

combinations of these. To make the task of rendering them safe more various anti-handling devices were introduced. Another type of mine was the limpet, which could be attached to the hull of the difficult,

Submerged submarine

ship and had a timing device. It was used in Special Forces operations.

7

C

(

)MLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

AIR

WEAPONS Fighters It

was the monoplane eight-gun with radar, which

fighter, together

disproved the prewar belief that the bomber "would always get through."

and Germans had some outstanding fighters, the Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109, which were all modified to improve speed and range and remained in service throughout the In 1939, the British

war. all

The Japanese Zero outclassed

existing Allied fighters in the

early days of the

The Germans

war

in the Far East.

also introduced the

Focke\VulfFwl90. The Germans used the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber to provide close support for troops on the ground. This was even fitted with sirens to frighten the enemy. The Allies had fighter-bombers like the Soviet Ilyushin 11-2 Sturmovik and the British Typhoon. To combat night bombers, radarequipped Messerschmitt Bf 110s and de Havilland Mosquitos were introduced, and to protect day

The German Me 262

jet

had

a top speed

on the other hand, had drawn up specifications for long-range four-

during the

improved

unlike the RAF, believed that

Bombs

bomber had enough guns, it could operate by day. and the B-l was known as the Flying Fortress. However, this only became really

As the war progressed, bombs became larger and heavier. At the beginning the largest was the 500pounder (227-kg), but soon 455-kg

if

the

km (2,800 miles) and a load of 5.5 tons. It was this

of 4.500

type that dropped the atomic

bombs

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

and 909-kg

possible with the introduction of the

(1,000-lb)

long-range fighter escort. Also on

bombs were developed. The heaviest conventional bomb

long flights the B-17's

bomb

load

year of the war.

Bombers The Germans lacked a true strategic bomber in terms of range and bombload, and this was one of the reasons they failed to win the Battle of Britain and to disrupt Soviet war industry. The RAF and the USAAF,

situation

with the appearance of the Boeing B29 Superfortress, which had a range

bomb

had several successes last

was restricted. However, the

engined bombers well before the outbreak of war and these made their appearance in 1941. The two best known were the Avro Lancaster and the Boeing B-l 7. There was, however, a difference in philosophy. The Americans,

bombers, long-range fighters like the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51 Mustang, with a range of 2,090 km (1.300 miles), eventually gave effective cover. The most radical development was, however, the appearance of the jet fighter. In 1944 it finally came into service in the shape of the Gloster Meteor, which was used to intercept V-l flying bombs, and the German Messerschmitt Me 262, which, although somewhat unreliable,

o/869 km/h (540 mphj.

The North American P-51 Mustang

(2,000-lb)

APPENDICES

aircraft flying

toward England.

It

was

originally called Radiolocation,

implying the use

bounced

name

of radio

waves

off solid objects, but the

US

Radar (Radio Direction and Ranging] was soon universally adopted. Radar played a vital role in the Battle of Britain, and the Germans soon afterward set up their own system, combined with antiaircraft guns and night fighters, to protect Germany from the RAF's night bombing.

Lancaster S-Sugar of No 467 Squadron

is

was the British 9,975-kg (22,000-lb) Grand Slam, which was

war,

'bombed

of

This was called the Kammhuber Line after the general responsible for installing it. Radars installed in night fighters enabled them to

up.'

detect, locate of all

used

all

Allied efforts were pooled in

the United States under what

to destroy the Bielefeld railway

viaduct in Germany in March 1945. Incendiary bombs, using thermite or phosphorus, and delayed action bombs were also used by both sides.

called the

Manhattan

was

Project.

was not until July 16, 1945 that an atomic bomb was successfully testexploded, at Alamogordo in the New

and attack enemy

bombers. Likewise, the bombers themselves had radar systems which enabled them to locate their targets

It

accurately.

Mexico

Systems were also introduced to jam or confuse the enemy's radars. The best known was Window, which

desert.

revolutionary development was the atomic bomb. At the beginning of the

Radar

consisted of strips of aluminum which were dropped by the

war

the

Radar came to dominate the war in air, perhaps even more so than at

bombers, producing a cloud-like effect on the radar's display. This

The most awesome and

began to investigate how atomic energy could be transformed into a weapon. With the entry of the United States into the scientists

British

Chain

Coastal radar

back

Home Radar, (1)

picks

(3) to fighters (4).

sea.

It

was the

British

late

1930s in order

to detect hostile

system, now called Chaff, is still very much in use as a counter to missile attack.

"Window"

1940

up bombers

who first

installed a defensive system in the

(2);

information

is

fed

at War, 1944 Lead aircraft (1) drops "Window" (3) and protect bombers (4).

(2) to

confuse radars

1

£fc P^? ^

j^SX

Normal

-

"Window" confusion

CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

1942

CHRONOLOGY

January

1 26 nations sign the Declaration of the United Nations

Washington, DC Axis forces cleared from Cyrenaica (Libya) in

1941

1939 September

German invasion

1

of

Poland

September 3 Britain and France declare war on Germany September 17 Soviet invasion of

January 19 February 7 defeated

November 30

Soviet attack on

Italians decisively at

Beda

Fomm in Libya

Germany and Bulgaria

Italy attacks

Greece from

Albania 11

1940 ^^ ^^ ^^

of British

^»

Peace between Soviet Union and Finland signed in

Moscow German invasion of Denmark and Norway May 10 German invasion of France

April 9

and the Low Countries begins; Churchill appointed British prime minister

May 15 May 27 May 28

Holland surrenders Dunkirk evacuation begins Belgium surrenders

June 10

Italy declares war,

invading southern France next

day June 22 the

French sign armistice with

Germans

July 3-8

French

British

bombard the

fleet in

North African

ports

July 16 Hitler issues orders for the invasion of Britain

September 13

Italian forces invade Egypt from Libya September 15 Climax of the Battle

of Britain:

London

is

heavily

bombed September 27 Japan joins Axis October 7 German troops enter Rumania October 28 Italy invades Greece from Albania

November 5 Roosevelt reelected US President November 20 Hungary and then Rumania

join the

December 9

British launch recapture

Axis

British troops begin to

drive the Italians out of Egypt

March 24

March

British cleared

from

Singapore surrenders Japanese enter Rangoon,

7

Burma on Tokyo

April 18

Doolittle raid

May 4-8

Battle of the Coral Sea in

the Pacific

May 6 US fortress of Corregidor

Rommel begins

May 19-28 Germans victorious at

(Philippines) surrenders his first

offensive in Libya April 6 Germany invades Yugoslavia (surrenders April 17) and Greece (surrenders April 21) April 13 Soviet Union and Japan sign five-year nonaggression pact April 29 Pro-Fascist revolt in Iraq, which British put down

May 5

attacks in

Somaliland and enter

Ethiopia

March 12

January 31 Malaya February 15 capital of

US Lend-Lease Bill

becomes law

March 16

Rommel

January 21 Libya

sign military pact

March

Finland

British invade Eritrea

February 8

March 9

Poland

January 6

Emperor Haile Selassie

re-

enters his capital in Ethiopia

May 20 German airborne assault on Crete, which falls on May 31 June 8 British attack Syria June 22 Hitler invades Soviet Union July 12 Britain and Soviet Union sign mutual assistance pact August 9-12 Churchill and Roosevelt meet off Newfoundland and draw up the Atlantic Charter August 25 British and Soviet troops enter Iran to secure the oilfields

September 8 Leningrad surrounded

November 18

British launch a major offensive in Libya December 4 German drive on

Moscow halted December 7 Japanese

Kharkov on the Eastern Front

May 26 Rommel attacks and soon breaks the British Gazala Line in Libya June 4-7 Battle of Midway (Pacific)

Eisenhower assumes

June 24

command

on

US troops in

July 1-27 First Battle of El Alamein in Egypt July 3 Germans secure Sevastapol in the

Crimea

August 7

US landings on

Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands, Pacific)

August 9

Germans capture

Caucasus

oilfields

August 12 Churchill, Stalin, US and Free French representatives meet in Moscow to discuss the Second Front August 19 Canadian raid on Dieppe fails August 30-September 2 Montgomery repulses Rommel at

Alam

Haifa, Egypt

September attack

of all

Europe

1

Germans reach the

outskirts of Stalingrad

Roosevelt meet in Washington,

October 23-November 4 Second Battle of El Alamein November 8 Allied landings in French North Africa (Torch) November 11 Germans occupy Vichy France

DC

November 19

Pearl Harbor brings the United States into the

war

December 1 1

Germany and Italy war on the United States December 22 Churchill and declare

(Arcadia)

December 31

Japanese capture Manila, capital of the Philippines

Soviet counter-

offensive at Stalingrad

APPENDICES

44

1943 Anglo-US

January 14-23 conference

at

at

Anzio,

Stalingrad

US troops finally

secure Guadalcanal in the

Solomons February 14-22

Battle of

Kasserine, Tunisia

Anglo-US

April 23

HQ set up in

invasion of Europe May 13 Final surrender of Axis

Normandy

Atlantic

US Marines

land on

New

Solomons Battle of Kursk (Eastern

Georgia,

July 5-12 Front)

Anglo-US landings

in

Sicily

Mussolini overthrown in

Italy

July 25-August 3 Hamburg devastated in bombing raids August 14-24 Allied Quadrant Conference in Quebec August 1 7 USAAF lose 60 aircraft in first Schweinfurt raid August 23 Soviets recapture

Kharkov

September 3

Allied landings

across the Strait of Messina on Italy

September 8

Italy makes peace with the Allies September 9 Allied landings at

Salerno

October 13

war on in

Soviets retake Kiev

US

landings on

Tarawa and Makin

in the Gilbert

Islands (Pacific)

November 28-December 1

Tehran Conference - Churchill, Roosevelt

and Stalin meet

Union

Paris liberated; Allied

troops begin attacks on the Gothic

Soviets retake

October 14 USAAF lose heavily second Schweinfurt raid

US troops begin to break Normandy beachhead

July 28 Soviets retake BrestLitovsk August 1 Polish patriots rise in Warsaw (crushed October 2) August 15 Allied landings in southern France August 23 Rumania surrenders to

Line

Italy declares

life

fails

the Soviet

Germany

November 6 November 20

cut off in the Baltic states July 20 Attempt on Hitler's

July 25 out of

US

landings on

in the Philippines

December 16-January 20, 1945 German counteroffensive Ardennes

in the

(Battle of the

Bulge)

1945 January 17 Warsaw liberated February 4-1 1 Yalta Conference with Churchill, Roosevelt and

February 13 Budapest finally falls February 13-14 Bombing of Dresden February 19 US landings on Iwo Jima, Pacific

land on Saipan

(Mariana Islands) June 19-20 Battle of the Philippine Sea (Pacific) June 22 Soviet offensive in Belorussia begins July 9 German Army Group North

August 25

(Italy)

September 24 Smolensk

US forces

June 15

Mindoro

Stalin

captured June 4 Rome liberated June 6 Anglo-US landings in

temporarily away from North

July 25

Leningrad relieved

Rumania

May 16-17 RAF Dambuster raid May 24 German U-boats ordered

July 10

Italy

January 27 January 31

May 18 Monte Cassino (Italy)

forces in Tunisia

June 21

at

launched in central Burma March 29 Soviet troops enter

Britain to begin planning the

President Roosevelt

December 15 Allied landings

US landings on the Marshall Islands (Pacific) February 15 Soviets reenter Estonia February 29 US landings on the Admiralty Islands (Pacific) March 8 Major Japanese offensive

surrender

February 9

7

elected for a fourth term

January 22

Casablanca

Germans

January 31

November

(Italy)

September 3 Brussels liberated September 8 Bulgaria declares war on Germany September 15 US troops cross the German border between Aachen and Luxemburg September 17-24 Allied airborne

March March

3

Manila secured

7

US troops seize Remagen

bridge over the Rhine March 9-10 Fire raid on Tokyo

April

Final offensive launched in

1

US

Italy;

landings on Okinawa President Roosevelt dies

April 12

and is succeeded by Truman April 25 US troops make contact with the Soviets on the Elbe River, southwest of Berlin April 28 Mussolini killed by partisans

German forces

April 29

sign an

armistice in Italy

April 30

May 1

Hitler

commits suicide

Berlin surrenders to the

Soviets

May 3 Rangoon recaptured by the British

May 7 Germany formally surrenders

Okinawa finally secured

June 21 July 16

First successful

atomic

bomb test July 16-August 2 Conference July 26

Potsdam

Attlee replaces Churchill as

operation to seize river crossings in Holland (Market Garden) September 19 Armistice signed between Finland and the Allies

prime minister August 6 Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima August 8 Soviet Union declares war on Japan August 9 Atomic bomb dropped on

October 20 US landings, Leyte October 23-26 Battle of Leyte Gulf

September 2

off the

Philippines

British

Nagasaki surrenders

Japan formally

E

:

ET1 CONFLICT IN THE 20TH CENTURY bombing

INDEX Note:

Numbers

illustrations or

in

'

bold refer to

maps

British

Army

Belgium, 8,9. 34 Dunkirk. 9. 58

28,35,36.54.54,56-57.5657

France, 32, 33, 33. 34

Albania, 11 Allied forces. Western advances, 20, 20, 21, 22. 24.

Germany,

38, 39.

North Africa, 20.21,24 Norway, 9

25.25,26,32.34.34.35, 35.39,39,40.41.42

40

11, 19,20,

Singapore, 16 Southeast Asia, 16, 22,

23,29,35,35,41

conferences, 16, 23, 29, 39,

42.47.58,59 defeats, 9, 10, 11,15,16. 17.

expeditionary force, 7 Western Desert Force, 11,

20,24,25,49

23,29,34.34

British Empire. 45

26,29,32,34.35.36.40, 19.21,22,23, 24,28,29,31,34,35,36, 38,39,50 weapons. 10, 16.24,25,26, 41.41,54,55.56.57; Anvil." 29, 34 Arcadia Conference, 16, 58 Ardennes. 38 Arnhem, 34, 36,51 artillery, 30,52,53 Atlantic, Battle of, 24,25,26, 26,50 Atlantic Charter, 13,58 atomic bomb, 30. 42, 42, 43, 47.51,51,56,59 Auchinleck, Claude, 11 Australia, 16, 17,21,21,22, 28,35,45

Canada. 45,58

23, 29,

17, 19, 31, 32, 33, 34,

Casablanca, 21; conference,

23,26,59 casualties, cost of war, 7, 8, 10,

15,17,19,26,31,36,39,41, 42,43,44,46,47,47 Caucasus, 18, 18-19, 23 Chamberlain, Neville, 7 Chiang Kai-Shek, 14, 15, 16,

Battles

conscription, 45

Balkans,

6,

Atlantic., 24, 25, 26, 26,

Britain, 6.

50

10,51,56,57,58

Bulge, 38, 39 Coral Sea, 17,58

58 Kursk, 26.26. 27,31,59 LeyteGutf, 36 Midway, 22, 49, 58 Stalingrad. 14, 18. 23,23,

11.12,50

59

movements. Vichy France, 10,

58; resistance 10, 31, 32;

North Africa, 21;

•Overlord." 24, 29. 30, 32,

47

Warsaw

Uprising,

Balkan offensive, 37;

Battle of the Bulge, 38, 39;

Dresden

air raids, 39, 39;

surrender, 40; postwar, 29, 42, 45; final casualties,

47

Ghandi, Mahatma. 23 Gilbert Islands, 28, 28, 29, 35 Goering, Field Marshal

Hermann, 27 Graf Spee. 8 Great Britain: how war began,

German

Dunkirk.

US,

9:

offensives,

relations with

10, 13; Battle of Britain,

10. 10: offensives in

de Gaulle. General Charles. 10, 34,48 German Air Force (Luftwaffe) campaigns Ardennes, 9.38.39 Eastern Front, 27 Great Britain, 10, 10, 17 Holland and the Low Countries, 9, 9, 38 Malta, 11

German Army Blitzkrieg strategy,

7, 9, 9,

12,50 campaigns Ardennes, 11,

9, 38, 39 Eastern Front, 12,18,18,

19,19,23,23,27,27, 28,29,30,31,32 France, 10, 21,34 Holland and the Low Countries,

Mediterranean, 11; support for Soviet Union, 13: Atlantic Charter, 13: declares war on Japan, 16; defeats in Far East and Southeast Asia, 15, 16; Battle of El Alamein, 20. 20: Allied "Torch" operation, 21: victory in North Africa, 24: strategy for Japan, 22-23;

Germany. 23. 24.25: "Overlord," 24, 29, 32,33, 33. 34, 59; invasion of Italy,

for

24;Gustav Line, 31: raid on Germany, 24,25.25, 26: Tehran Conference. 29; "Market Garden," 34, 34; Yalta

bombing

8, 9, 9, 38,

39

Conference, 39; Potsdam Conference, 42; postwar. 44. 45. 47; final casualties. 47;

see also Allied forces Greece, 11,39.58

Italy, 24, 29,

30 North Africa, 11,20.20. 21,21.24

Guam,

Norway,

Harris, Arthur, 25, 26, 48

9

Poland, 6, 7,7, 8,8. 12. 39 Panzer Armies, 9, 13, 18, 18

German Navy

U-boats, 7,8, 11,17.24,26,

convoys, 17 Norway, 9

26,50,51,53,59 Germany: how war started.

15. 16,36 Guderian, Heinz, 48, 48, 50

Hiroshima, 42, 43, 51, 59 Hitler, Adolf: invasion of

Poland,

6, 7, 8, 8:

Stalin, 6:

D-Day. 32,33, 34 Denmark, 9, 58

58

31, 32, 39;

9:

"Channel Dash," 17

Doolittle, Colonel James, 28,

bombing of, 24, 25, 25, 26: Battle of Atlantic, 26; defeat on Eastern Front. 29,

Allied

6-8. 58:

33, 34; liberated, 34,59;

Crimea, see Eastern Front Czechoslovakia, 6, 6

50

8. 9. 30. 34. 51. 58.

Blitzkrieg. 7,9.9.

11,27,58

Doenitz, Admiral Karl, 26, 40,

27.45,49.59 Belgium.

convoys. 7. 11. 13, 17, 19, 50, 53 Coral Sea, Battle of, 17, 58 Crete,

ElAlamein.20.20. 21.49.

Finland, 9, 36, 58, 59 food rationing, 45 France; how war began, 6,7,8; Finnish campaign, 9; in Norway, 9; Dunkirk. 9: invasion by Germany, 10,

Bulge, Battle of the, 38, 39

Burma, 14, 14, 16, 22, 30.35,35,58,59

Alamein, 20,20,21; Vichy France, 21: Battle of Stalingrad, 18,23,23,26: defeat in North Africa, 24; Italy declares war on. 24: of El

37, 37;

45,48

11,23,31,32,37, 39,46,58.59 Baltic States, 8, 13, 32, 36, 59 Bataan Peninsula, 17, 17

Axis forces, 6, 6. 11, 19, 20. 20. 21,23,24.38, 58, 59; see also Eastern Front

56

Free French forces, 10, 34, 38,

Bulgaria, 37,58. 59

22,35,43,45 China, 14, 16,22,23,35,35, 36,41 Chindits, 29,35,35 Chuikov, General Vassili, 26, 29,42 Churchill, Winston, 10, 13, 16, 19,23,24,29,39,40,42,43, 47.58 communism, 39, 40, 46, 46, 47 concentration camps, 6, 31, 44,45

Austria, 6

21,49,58

final casualties.

Brussels, 34, 58

41 strategies, 17,

12, 13, 13, 58; signs Tripartite Pact. 14; declares

27,28,31,32,36.39.58,59

11, 21; in

see also Allied forces, Battles, Great Britain

naval operations, 7, 9, 10, 11.16,17, 19.22,24.25,

war on US, 16; offensives on Eastern Front, 18, 19: Battle

9; Battle of

invades Soviet Union, 12,

fighter aircraft, 9, 9, 10, 25. 26.

Italy. 24. 25. 29, 31,

air operations, 7, 8, 11, 21,

East Africa, 11 Eastern Front, 13, 18, 23, 27,

Countries,

Britain, 10, 58; Malta, 11;

40

Holland, 34

25,28,28,29,31,32,32, 33.34.35,35.36,38,38, 39.40.41.42.58,59

Low

Eisenhower, General Dwight, 19,24.32,34.39,40,48,48, 58 El Alamein, Battle of, 20. 20,

Balkans, 11

17,22,26,

"Dragoon," see "Anvil" Dresden, 39, 39, 59 Dunkirk, 9, 58 Dutch New Guinea, 35

Egypt. 11.20,49,58

campaigns

airraid shelters, 11 aircraft. 11, 15, 16,

raids 7, 8, 9, 10, 15,

17,22,24,25,25, 26.28, 32,35,36,39,42,43.43.46, 51,51,54,56.57.57 Bor-Komorowski, General Tadeusz, 37 Britain. Battle of, 6, 10,51,56, 57.58 16,

6,

Pact with

ultimatum from

Britain, 7; launches U-boat campaign, 7; invasion plans in West, 8; Battle of Britain. 10, 58; support for Italy. 1 1

"Barbarossa," 12, 13; strategy for Eastern Front,

Bomb Plot,

7,7, 8; Pact with Soviet

18, 23, 27, 28;

Union,

33, 59; Allied invasion, ("Overlord"), 32; strategy

invades France and the

7, 12;

Norway,

9:

on

INDEX ports, 34; Battle of the Bulge,

38, 39; death,

Holland, 59

40

8, 9, 30,

34,38, 58,

29,31,35,35 infantry weapons, 53. 53 Iraq, 11,58 India, 22,23,

Nagasaki, 42, 43

Italian fleet, 11;

Nagumo, Admiral Chuichi, 22

of troops, 1 1

Nazis (National Socialists), 10, 13 New Guinea, 22, 28, 35, 36 New Zealand, 31,35 Nimitz, Admiral Chester, 22,

Malta, 11; Prince of Wales,

35,36,49

non-involvement, 7; invasion of France by, 10,

Italy;

58; campaign in North Africa, 11, 24, 58; invasion of Greece by, 11, 58; defeats,

;

evacuation importance of

16; Repulse, 16;

Royal Oak,

8;SSAthenia,7 Rumania, 37, 58, 59 Russia, see Union of Soviet Russo-Finnish War, 9

43; postwar, 45;

47 United Nations. 16, 44, 47, 58 United States of America; final casualties, 44,

declares neutrality,

7;

relations with Britain, 10,

13,16; with Japan, 14. 15; Pearl Harbor raid, 14, 15, 15,

Socialist Republics

Normandy, 30, 32, 33, 33 North Africa, 11, 19, 20, 20, 21,21,23,24,31,48 Norway, 6,9, 58

on Japan,

16. 58; enters war, 16; Battle

of Coral Sea, 17,58;

"Sea Lion," 10 Sicily. 21, 24,48,49,51.59 Sikorski, General Wladyslaw, 8

shipping losses, 17; supply routes, 19; "Torch," 20, 20, 21; strategies for: Pacific, 14,

11: air offensives in Malta,

Okinawa, 41,42,59

Singapore, 14. 15, 16

17,22,28,29,35,36,39;

11; signs Tripartite Pact, 14;

"Overlord," 24, 29, 31, 32, 33

Sitzkrieg, 8

Southeast Asia, 22-23;

Allied invasion of, 14, 24, 25; surrender of German

Slim, General William, 35, 41 Pacific, theater of

Germany. 23, 24, 25; France, 24, 29; North Africa, 24;

forces in, 40; postwar world, 45; final casualties,

47 Iwo lima,

41, 41, 59

Japan; how war began, 14, 14, 15; attacks Pearl Harbor, 15, 15; campaigns in Far East

and Pacific, 15,16, 16, 17, 17,22,23,28,29,35,35,41, 41, 42, 42; USSR joins war against, 29, 59;

US air

attacks on, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43;

naval power, 36, 40; air power, 40: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 42, 42, 43; postwar, 46-47; final casualties,

14,15,15,16,17,22,28-29, 30,35,36,40-43,45,49,58, 59 Patton, General George, 24, 34, 39,40 Paulus, General Friedrich, 23, 26 Pearl Harbor, 14, 14, 15, 15,

41 Kasserine Pass, 24, 49, 59 Katyn, 29 Kursk, Battle of, 26, 26, 27, 31, 59

Leningrad, 13, 18, 23, 31, 36,

58,59 Libya, 11,19,20,58 Luftwaffe, see

German Air

Force

started, 6;

and

Warsaw 59; Warsaw

into, 36;

uprising, 37, 37, liberated, 39; postwar, 29, 45; final casualties, 44, 47

Potsdam Conference, 42, 59 prisoners of war (POWs), 17, 44

Malta, 11

Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano, 13, 14, 16, 17,19,

Mariana Islands, 35, 36, 41 "Market Garden," 34, 34, 38,

11,

20,20,21,24,32,33,49,58

23,24,29,39,40,47,58,59

59 Marshall Islands, 35 Merrill's Marauders, 29, 35,

Royal Air Force (RAF); attacks on German naval bases, 8; Battle of Britain, 10;

35,50

response to "Blitz," 10; Singapore and Malaya, 16;

Mers-el-Kebir, 10

Middle East, 10, 11, 19, 20, 20, 21,21,24 Midway, Battle of, 22, 49, 58 mines, 28, 55

Montgomery, General

raids

on Germany,

10, 24,

25, 25, 26; "Overlord," 32;

Dresden bombing, 39, 39 Royal Navy, 7; convoy system, 11,13,17, 19; pursues Graf Spee, 8; Dunkirk, 9; Mers-el-Kebir incident, 10; 7,

Bernard, 20, 21, 24, 32, 34,

38,39,40,49,49 11, 24,

Conference, 29; German counterattack in Italy, 31; "Overlord." 24, 29, 31,32, 33, 34, 59: Finland. 36; Yalta Conference, 39; Allied

23,29,35,35,41,45 SS(SchutzSra#elnJ,6,13 Stalin, Joseph, 6, 12,18, 19,

29,39,40,42,43,47

29,35 submarines, 52-53, 52-53 Sudan, 11

Rome, 31 Rommel, General Erwin,

7,

Germany,

Southeast Asia, 14, 15, 16, 22,

Stilwell, General Joseph, 22,

MacArthur, General Douglas, 17,35,36,43,48 Malaya, 14, 15, 16

Mussolini, Benito,

South Africa, 11

36,49,58,59 "Phony War, "8 Poland; how war

15,57,57 Rangoon, 23,41,59 refugees, 45 Reichstag, 40, 40 resistance movements, 10, 31, 33.34,44 Rhine River, 40, 51,59 rockets, 26, 53, 53 Rokossovsky, Konstantin, 49

58

10, 10, 11, 11

Japan, 22,2829,41; Allied raid on

Italy, 24, 25;

Philippines, 14, 14, 15, 16, 17,

radar,

London Blitz,

58,59 Somaliland, British, 11, 58

Stalingrad, Battle

advance

56

Bill, 10,

Islands, 22, 28, 35,

of, 14, 18,

23,23,27,45,49,59

Tehran

advance into Germany, 40; Far East campaigns, 40-42, 42; Potsdam Conference, 42; drops atomic bombs, 42, 42, 43; surrender of Japan to, 43; postwar, 44, 47; final casualties, 47; see also

Sweden, 9 Syria,

24, 25;

11,58

Allied forces

,

pilots, 36,

Lend-Lease

Solomon

16,17,22,28,54,58 Petain, Marshal Phillipe, 10

France, 6, 7; German invasion of 6, 7,7,8,8,58: partitioned, 8; Soviet

Jews, 10, 31,45

Kamikaze

of, 14,

relations with Britain

47

jet fighters, 56,

war

40

Battle of Britain, 10;

and

tanks, 7,18,18, 21,27, 28, 52,

52

Tehran Conference,

29, 47,

59

Thailand, 15

V-weapons, 45, 53, 53 Vichy France, 10, 11,21 von Arnim, General Dietloff Jiirgen,

Timoshenko, Marshal Semyon, 18

24

Wainwright, General

Tojo. General Hideki, 15

Jonathan, 17

Tokyo, 42, 43

Wake, 14,15,15

"Torch," 20, 21, 58 torpedoes, 53 Truman, President Harry, 40,

warfare tactics, 50-51, 54, 55

42,43,47 Tse-tung, Mao, 35 Tunisia, 14,21,24,49

Wavell, General Archibald, 11,

22,23 weapons,

U-boats, see German Navy Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); Pact with Germany, 6, 12; and Poland. 8; war with Finland, 9, 58:

invasion by

see also weapons Warsaw, 8, 8, 36, 37, 39, 49, 59 Washington Conference, 16

Germany of,

12,

12, 13, 13, 58; neutrality

with Japan, 16; attack on Caucasus, 18, 18, 19; Battle

9, 12, 17, 18, 21, 27,

30, 41, 51, 52-57, 52-57; see

also Allied forces, bombing raids Western Desert Force (Eighth

Army), 11,20, 24, 25,49 Wingate, Brigadier Orde, 29, 35 women, 45, 45 World War I, 7,10, 23

of Stalingrad, 18, 23, 23, 26;

Battle of Kursk, 27, 27, 28:

Tehran Conference, 29, 47; war with Japan, 16, 58; Eastern Front, 29. 31, 32, 59;

advance

to

Warsaw,

28.49,49 Yugoslavia. 11.45, 58

36, 37,

Warsaw

Uprising, 37; liberates Warsaw, 39; Yalta 37:

Yalta Conference, 39, 59 Yamamoto, Admiral Isoroku,

Conference, 39; Poland overrun by, 39; advances in Balkans, 39; Germany surrenders, 40; Potsdam

Conference, 42; declares war

Zhukov, Georgi,

49,

49

E

C< )\'FLICT IN

THE 20TH CENTURY

FUH 1lIKll READING German Air Force Operations in Salem, NH, 1968) Erickson, John, The Road to Berlin: Continuing the History of Stalin's War with Germany (Westview, Deichmann,

P.,

Support of the

Army (Ayer,

Boulder, CO, 1983) Erickson, John, The Road to Stalingrad (Westview,

Boulder. CO. 1983) Foot,

M.

R.,

Alistair,

(Penguin,

New York,

1985) Smith, R. Harris, OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency (Univ. of California Berkeley, 1972) Strawson, John, The Battle for North Africa (Scribner, New York, 1969) Time-Life Book Editors and Halloran, R., Japan at War (Time-Life, Alexandria, VA, 1981) Weigley, Russell F., Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign in France and Germany, 1944-1945 (Indiana Univ. Pr., Bloomington, 1981) Winter, J. M., The Great War and the British People (Harvard Univ. Pr., Cambridge, MA, 1986) Pr.,

S.O.E. in France:

An Account of the Work

of the British Special Operations Executive in France 1940-1944 (Univ. Pubns. of Am. .Frederick, MD, 1984)

Home.

Saward, D., Bomber Harris: The Story of the Marshall of the Royal Air Force (Doubleday, New York, 1985) Seaton, Albert, The German Army 1933-45 (Meridian,

To Lose a

New York,

Battle:

France 1940

1979)

Lewin, Ronald, The American Magic: Codes, Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 1982) Liddell Hart, B. H., History of the Second World War (Perigee, New York, 1970) Nissen, N. H., ed., Scandinavia During the Second

Winton, John, War in the Pacific: Pearl Harbor to

Tokyo Bay (Mayflower,

New York,

1979)

World War, Munch-Petersen, T, tr. from Scandinavian (Univ. of Minnesota Pr., Minneapolis, 1983) Nitobe, I., Bushido, The Warrior's Code, ed. Lucas, C. (Ohara, Burbank, CA, 1975) Salmaggi, Cesare and Pallavisini, Alfredo, eds., 2194 Days of War: An Illustrated Chronology of the Second World War (Mayflower, New York, 1979)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Cover:

MARS; title page: MARS;

Bilderdienst: page

8:

page

7:

Ullstein

Ullstein Bilderdienst; page

MARS: page 10; Imperial War Museum; page 11: War Museum; page 12 (top): Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 12 (bottom): MARS; page 15: MARS; page 16: MARS; page 17: Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 18-19: MARS; page 19: MARS; page 20: Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 20 (bottom): MARS: page 21: MARS; page 22: MARS; page 25: Photosource/Keystone; page 26: MARS; page 27: MARS; page 28: MARS; page 30: MARS: page 31: Camera Press; page 33: Suddeutscher Verlag; page 34: MARS; page 37: Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 39: MARS; page 40: MARS; page 41: MARS; page Imperial

MARS; page 44: Photosource/Keystone; page 45: BBC Hulton Picture Library: page 48 (bottom left):

43: 9:

Popperfoto; page 48 (bottom right): Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 49 (top): Suddeutscher Verlag; page 49 (bottom left): Photosource Central Press; page 49 (bottom right): Photosource; page 51 (top): Photosource/ Keystone; page 51 (bottom): Pilot Press: page 52 (bottom left): Suddeutscher Verlag; page 52 (bottom right): Ullstein Bilderdienst; page 53 (top left): Ian Hogg; page 53 (top right): Robert Hunt Library; page 53 (bottom): Suddeutscher Verlag; page 54: MARS; page 55: MARS; page 56 (both): Pilot Press; page 57:

V

Photosource/Central Press.

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CONFLICT IN Tin? 20TII CENTURY From the world's

first total

war

to the East- West clashes

and the

ongoing struggles in today's world, this series truly highlights the conflicts of our century. The first four volumes trace the history of conflict, while the final six are topical and up-to-date, providing the basis for current affairs discussion. Conflict in

its

is

used

widest sense to include the social, economic and political

impact of the wars that provide the central themes of each book.

Titles in the series:

The First World War The Second World~War The Middle East

Rise of the Asian Superpowers

Southeast Asia

South and Central America

Africa

The

Rise of the Dictators

The Cold War

Terrorism and

Civil Strife

A FRANKLIN WATTS LIBRARY EDITION

ISBN 0-531 -10321

-8

-4