ANDREW ROBERTS
The Storm of War
A New History of the Second World War
ALLEN LANE
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
ALLEN LANE
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published 2009
1
Copyright © Andrew Roberts, 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
ISBN: 978-0-14-193886-8
To the memory of Frank Johnson
(1943–2006)
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Preface
Prelude: The Pact
PART I
Onslaught
1 Four Invasions: September 1939–April 1940
2 Führer Imperator: May–June 1940
3 Last Hope Island: June 1940–June 1941
4 Contesting the Littoral: September 1939–June 1942
5 Kicking in the Door: June–December 1941
6 Tokyo Typhoon: December 1941–May 1942
PART II
Climacteric
7 The Everlasting Shame of Mankind: 1939–1945
8 Five Minutes at Midway: June 1942–October 1944
9 Midnight in the Devil’s Gardens: July 1942–May 1943
10 The Motherland Overwhelms the Fatherland: January 1942–February 1943
11 The Waves of Air and Sea: 1939–1945
12 Up the Wasp-Waist Peninsula: July 1943–May 1945
PART III
Retribution
13 A Salient Reversal: March–August 1943
14 The Cruel Reality: 1939–1945
15 Norman Conquest: June–August 1944
16 Western Approaches: August 1944–March 1945
17 Eastern Approaches: August 1943–May 1945
18 Land of the Setting Sun: October 1944–September 1945
Conclusion: Why Did the Axis Lose the Second World War?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
1 General Werner von Blomberg and Adolf Hitler at Ulm in September 1933 (Getty Images)
2 The signing of the Nazi–Soviet Pact, 24 August 1939 (Topfoto)
3 Benito Mussolini, Hitler, Major-General Alfred Jodl and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, 25 August 1941 (akg-images/ullstein bild)
4 Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Keitel and SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler confering with Hitler, 10 April 1942 (akg-images)
5 Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt inspecting the Atlantic Wall, 18 April 1944 (akg-images)
6 Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (Bettmann/Corbis)
7 General Heinz Guderian (Topfoto)
8 Field Marshal Walter (Austrian Archives/Corbis)
9 Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive-bomber, 1940 (The Art Archive)
10 Refugees fleeing Paris, June 1940 (Getty Images)
11 Operation Dynamo, Dunkirk, May 1940 (Imperial War Museum, NYP – 68075)
12 Allied vehicles, arms, stores and ammunition disabled and left behind in France, 27 May 1940 (akg-images)
13 RAF and Luftwaffe planes battling over Kent, 3 September 1940 (AP/PA Photos)
14 Pilots of 87 Squadron scrambling to their Hurricanes (The Art Archive/Imperial War Museum Photo Archive IWM)
15 Hitler and Goebbels at the Berghof, 1940 (Mary Evans Picture Library)
16 Operation Barbarossa, summer 1941 (ullstein bild/Topfoto)
17 Operation Typhoon stuck in atrocious mud, October 1941 (Robert Hunt Picture Library)
18 German soldiers surrendering to Russians, late 1941 (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
19 US Navy Douglas Dauntless dive-bombers at the battle of Midway, early 6 June 1942 (National Archives/courtesy Armchair General ®)
20 USS Yorktown at the battle of Midway, 4 June 1942 (National Archives/courtesy Armchair General ®)
21 Generals Sir Claude Auchinleck and Sir Archibald Wavell in the Western Desert, 1941 (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
22 General Harold Alexander in Tunisia, early 1943 (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
23 General Erwin Rommel at Tobruk, June 1942 (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
24 Soldiers of the 9th Australian Division at the battle of El Alamein (Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria)
25 Jews undergoing ‘selection’ for work details at Auschwitz-Birkenau, late May 1944 (USHMM, courtesy of Yad Vashem – Public Domain. The views or opinions expressed in this book and the context in which the images are used, do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
26 Corpses at the Dachau concentration camp, 29 April 1945 (Getty Images)
27 Destruction in Stalingrad, late 1942 (Getty Images)
28 Russian artillery in Stalingrad, early 1943 (RIA Novosti/Topfoto)
29 President Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others at the Casablanca Conference, January (Getty Images)
30 General Charles de Gaulle and General Henri Giraud in Algiers, 30 May 1943 (Bettmann/Corbis)
31 A convoy of merchantmen crossing the Atlantic, June 1943 (The Mariners’ Museum/Corbis)
32 The captain of a U-boat at his periscope (Cody Images)
33 The battle of Kursk, July 1943 (Cody Images)
34 Russian soldiers pass a burning Soviet tank at Kursk (Getty Images)
35 General Sir William Slim in Burma, 1944 (Getty Images)
36 Major General Orde Wingate (Bettmann/Corbis)
37 General Tomoyuki Yamashita (Getty Images)
38 General George S. Patton Jr (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
39 General Mark Clark in Rome, 5 June 1944 (Getty Images)
40 D-Day, 08.40 hours, 6 June (Imperial War Museum, B 5103)
41 American troops behind anti-tank obstacles on Omaha Beach (Topfoto)
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br /> 42 Mussolini, Hitler, Göring and Ribbentrop two days after the 20 July 1944 Bomb (AP/PA Photos)
43 General Dwight D. Eisenhower and General Montgomery, June 1944. (Bettmann/Corbis)
44 Russian infantry in Belorussia during Operation Bagration, June 1944 (ullstein bild/Topfoto)
45 The Ardennes Offensive, December 1944 (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
46 The aftermath of the Allied bombing of Dresden, February 1945 (akg-images/ullstein bild)
47 Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke and Churchill crossing the, 25 March 1945 (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
48 Red Army troops heading for Berlin, April 1945 (Cody Images)
49 Marshal Georgi Zhukov entering Berlin, May 1945 (RIA Novosti)
50 Marshal Ivan Konev (© Sovfoto)
51 Nagasaki after the dropping of the atomic bomb, 9 August 1945 (Getty Images)
52 Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu surrendering aboard the USS Missouri, 2 September 1945 (Time-Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Endpapers: Flak over a German city, 1940 (ullstein bild/Topofoto)
List of Maps
1 Poland, 1939
2 Finland, 1939–1940
3 Norway, 1940
4 France and the Low Countries, 1940
5 The Battle of Britain, 1940
6 The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1943
7 Russia and the Eastern Front, 1941–1943
8 Stalingrad, 1942–1943
9 The Holocaust
10 The Far East, 1941–1945
11 The Far East: Burma, 1941–1945
12 The Far East: Pacific, 1941–1945
13 The Far East: The Philippines, 1941–1945
14 North Africa and the Mediterranean, 1939–1943
15 El Alamein
16 Sicily and Italy, 1943–1945
17 Monte Cassino and Anzio, 1943–1945
18 The Battle of Kursk
19 The Allied Combined Bombing Offensive
20 The Normandy Landings, 1944
21 France and Germany, 1944–1945
22 The Eastern Front, 1943–1945
Poland, 1939
Finland, 1939–1940
Norway, 1940
France and the Low Countries, 1940
The Battle of Britain, 1940
The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1943
Russia and the Eastern Front, 1941–1943
Stalingrad, 1942–1943
The Holocaust
The Far East, 1941–945
The Far East: Burma, 1941–1945
The Far East: Pacific, 1941–1945
The Far East: The Philippines, 1941–1945
North Africa and the Mediterannean, 1939–1943
El Alamein
Sicily and Italy, 1943–1945
Monte Cassino and Anzio, 1943–1944
The Battle of Kursk
The Allied Combined Bombing Offensive
The Normandy Landings, 1944
France and Germany, 1944–1945
The Eastern Front, 1943–1945
Preface
Writing history, A. J. P. Taylor used to say, was like W. C. Fields juggling: it looks easy until you try to do it yourself. The writing of this book has been made much easier for me through the enthusiastic support of friends and fellow historians.
The historian Ian Sayer owns Britain’s largest private archive of hitherto unpublished Second World War material, and he has been fabulously generous with his time, advice and extensive knowledge of the period. It has been a great pleasure getting to know him in the course of researching this book, which I wrote at the same time as Masters and Commanders, since many of the sources and actors overlap.
Visiting the actual sites and scenes of many of the climactic moments of the war has been invaluable, and I would like to thank all those who have made my visits to the following places so enjoyable: the Wehrmacht headquarters at Zossen-Wunsdorf; the Maginot Line; Göring’s former Air Ministry and Goebbels’ former Propaganda Ministry in Berlin; RAF Uxbridge; the estate Hitler gave Guderian in Poland; the Cabinet War Rooms; the U-boat 534 in Birkenhead; the Lancaster bomber Just Jane at East Kirby, Lincolnshire; the site of Hitler’s Reich Chancellery on the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin; the Sevastopol diorama and U-boat pens in the Crimea; the Siemens Dynamo Works in Berlin; RAF Coltishall; Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises; the Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall; the Maison Blairon in Charleville-Mézières; the former German air-raid shelters on Guernsey; the Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde outside Berlin; the Obersalzberg Documentation Centre at Berchtesgaden; the Wolfschanze at Rastenburg; the Livadia Palace at Yalta; and Stalin’s dacha at Sochi in the Crimea.
I should particularly like to thank Oleg Germanovich Alexandrov of the excellent Three Whales Tours (www.threewhales.ru) for taking me around the Moscow Defence Museum, the Kremlin, the Armed Forces Museum in Moscow and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War; also Svetlana Mishatkina for showing my wife Susan and me around Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) and in particular the Grain Elevator, the Mamayev Kurgan, the Red October, Barrikady and Dzerzhinsky Tractor factories, Crossing 62, Field Marshal Paulus’ headquarters, the Rossoschka Russo-German Cemetery and the Panoramic Museum; also Lieutenant-Colonel Alexandr Anatolyevich Kulikov for taking me round the Museum of Tank Construction at Kubinka, and Colonel Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Budjony for showing us the museum of the Officers’ Club in Kursk and the battlefields of Jakovlevo and Prokhorovka.
I should like to thank the indefatigable Colonel Patrick Mercer MP for taking me on a fascinating tour of the 1944 battlefields south of Rome, and in particular to the Alban Hills, the Allied Landing Museum at Nettuno, the former ‘Factory’ (Aprilia), Campoleone, the Commonwealth Beach Head Cemetery at Anzio, the crossing over the Moletta river where Viscount De L’Isle won his Victoria Cross, the ‘Boot’ wadi off the via Anziate, Monte Lungo, San Pietro Infine, the Gari river crossings, Sant’Angelo in Theodice, the Commonwealth, Polish and German War Cemeteries in and around Cassino, the Rapido river, the Monte Cassino Monastery Museum and the Monte Cassino History Museum. I should also like to thank Ernesto Rosi at the American War Cemetery at Nettuno for showing me where to find the grave of General George C. Marshall’s stepson, Lieutenant Allen Tupper Brown.
I should once again like to thank Paul Woodadge of Battlebus Tours (www.battlebus.fr) for conducting me on battlefield tours of Omaha Beach, Beuzeville-au-Plain, La Fière, Utah Beach, Les Mézières, Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Bréville, Angoville-au-Plain, Merville Battery, Strongpoint Hillman, Sword Beach, Pegasus Bridge, Juno Beach, Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Lion-sur-Mer, Gold Beach and Crépon, as well as taking me to the Ryes Commonwealth War Cemetery at Bazenville and the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
It was kind of SPC Trent Cryer of Fort Myer, Virginia, to show me around the Pentagon, and in particular for tracking down the pen used by Douglas MacArthur, Admiral Nimitz and the Japanese delegation aboard USS Missouri on 2 September 1945 to sign the surrender document that ended the war. I would also like to thank Magdalena Rzasa-Michalec for Susan’s and my visit to Auschwitz–Birkenau, which she guided us around with great expertise, and David and Gail Webster for giving us a tour around de Gaulle’s wartime country residence of Rodinghead in Ashridge Park. Richard Zeitlin of the Veterans’ Museum in Madison, Wisconsin has also been most helpful.
The historian Paddy Griffith very kindly organized an advanced wargame of Barbarossa, which lasted almost as long as the operation itself, the lessons of which have greatly helped to inform my views as set out in Chapters 5 and 10. For giving so much of their time, I would like to thank Ned Zuparko (who played Hitler); Max Michael (Brauchitsch); Simon Bracegirdle (Stalin); Tim Cockitt (Zhukov). Thanks too to Martin James, General John Drewienkiewicz and Colonel John Hughes-Wilson for their views and thoughts on that occasion.
I also owe debts of thanks to the late Mrs Joan Bright Astley; Allan Mallinson; Mrs Elizabeth Ward; Bernard Besserglik; Ion Trewin; the late Professor R. V. Jones; St John B
rown; John Hughes-Wilson, RUSI; the Guild of Battlefield Guides; Hubert Picarda; Colonel Carlo D’Este; Professor Donald Cameron Watt; Major Jim Turner; Rory Macleod; Miriam Owen; Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup; Daniel Johnson; and Robert Mages, Richard Sommers and David Keough at the USA Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
A number of friends have read various chapters for me, and in some cases the entire book, including Johnnie Ogden, Conrad Black, my father Simon Roberts, Oleg Alexandrov, John Curtis, Antony Selwyn, Ian Sayer, Hugh Lunghi, Eric Petersen, Paul Courtenay, David Denman. Although the errors that have doubtless survived are all my own, I would very much like to thank them, as well as the genius Penguin proofreaders Stephen Ryan and Michael Page.
Without the superb, good-natured professionalism of my publisher Stuart Proffitt, agent Georgina Capel and copy-editor Peter James this book would never have happened.
I would like to thank my wife Susan for accompanying me to many of the places that appear in this book, including Mussolini’s execution spot above the village of Giulino di Mezzegra (the day after we got engaged), Auschwitz–Birkenau, the Kachanaburi death camp on the River Kwai, the battlefields of Kursk and Stalingrad, and other wartime sites in Budapest, Vienna, Cairo, Libya and Morocco.
This book is dedicated to Frank Johnson, in memory of our long walks discussing the issues raised by the war, and especially our visit to the Wolfschanze, Hitler’s headquarters in Poland. I will always regret that we never made the trip to Charles de Gaulle’s grave at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises together. He is hugely missed by all those who knew and loved him.
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