The Second World War

by Winston S. Churchill

  General von Kleist’s First Panzer Army of fifteen divisions led the onrush to the Caucasus. Once across the Don they made much headway against little opposition. They reached the Maikop oilfields on August 9, to find them thoroughly destroyed. They failed to reach the Grozny oilfields. Those of Baku, the greatest of them all, were still three hundred miles away, and Hitler’s orders to seize the whole of the Black Sea littoral could not be carried out. Reinforced by fresh troops sent down by railway along the western shore of the Caspian, the Russians everywhere held firm. Kleist, weakened by diversions for the Stalingrad effort, struggled on till November amid the Caucasian foothills. Winter then descended. His bolt was shot.

  On the front of Army Group B worse than failure befell. The lure of Stalingrad fascinated Hitler; its very name was a challenge. The city was a considerable centre of industry and a strong point on the defensive flank protecting his main thrust to the Caucasus. It became a magnet drawing to itself the supreme effort of the German Army and Air Force. Resistance grew daily stiffer. It was not till September 15 that, after heavy fighting between the Don and the Volga, the outskirts of Stalingrad were reached. The battering-ram attacks of the next month made some progress at the cost of terrible slaughter. Nothing could overcome the Russians, fighting with passionate devotion amid the ruins of their city.

  The German generals, long uneasy, had now good cause for anxiety. After three months of fighting the main objectives of the campaign, the Caucasus, Stalingrad, and Leningrad, were still in Russian hands. Casualties had been very heavy and replacements insufficient. Hitler, instead of sending fresh contingents forward to replace losses, was forming them into new and untrained divisions. In military opinion it was high time to call a halt, but “the Carpet-eater” would not listen. At the end of September Halder, Hitler’s Chief of Staff, finally resisted his master, and was dismissed. Hitler scourged his armies on.

  By mid-October the German position had markedly worsened. Army Group B was stretched over a front of seven hundred miles. General Paulus’s Sixth Army had expended its effort, and now lay exhausted with its flanks thinly protected by allies of dubious quality. Winter was near, when the Russians would surely make their counter-stroke. If the Don front could not be held the safety of the armies on the Caucasus front would be undermined. But Hitler would not countenance any suggestion of withdrawal. On November 19 the Russians delivered their long and valiantly prepared encircling assault, striking both north and south of Stalingrad upon the weakly defended German flanks. Four days later the Russian pincers met and the Sixth Army was trapped between the Don and the Volga. Paulus proposed to break out. Hitler ordered him to hold his ground. As the days passed the Army was compressed into an ever-lessening space. On December 12, in bitter weather, the Germans made a desperate effort to break through the Russian cordon and relieve their besieged comrades. They failed. Thereafter, though Paulus and his army held out for seven more terrible weeks, their doom was certain.

  Great efforts were made to supply him from the air, but little got through, and at the expense of heavy losses in aircraft. The cold was intense; food and ammunition were scarce, and an outbreak of typhus added to the miseries of his men. On January 8 he rejected an ultimatum to surrender, and next day the last phase began with violent Russian attacks from the west. The Germans fought strongly, so that only five miles were gained in as many days. But at last they began to crack, and by the 17th the Russians were within ten miles of Stalingrad itself. Paulus threw into the fight every man who could bear arms, but it was no use. On January 22 the Russians surged forward again, until the Germans were thrown back on the outskirts of the city they had tried in vain to take. Here the remains of a once-great army were pinned in an oblong only four miles deep by eight long. Under intense artillery fire and air bombardment the survivors defended themselves in violent street-fighting, but their plight was hopeless, and as the Russians pressed forward exhausted units began to surrender wholesale. Paulus and his staff were captured, and on February 2 Marshal Voronov reported that all resistance had ceased and ninety thousand prisoners had been taken. These were the survivors of twenty-one German and one Roumanian divisions. Thus ended Hitler’s prodigious effort to conquer Russia by force and destroy Communism by an equally odious form of totalitarian tyranny.

  The spring of 1943 marked the turning-point of the war on the Eastern Front. Even before Stalingrad the mounting Russian tide had swept the enemy back all along the line. The German army of the Caucasus was skilfully withdrawn, but the Russians pressed the enemy from the Don and back beyond the Donetz river, the starting line of Hitler’s offensive of the previous summer. Farther north again the Germans lost ground, until they were more than two hundred and fifty miles from Moscow. The investment of Leningrad was broken. The Germans and their satellites suffered immense losses in men and material. The ground gained in the past year was taken from them. They were no longer superior to the Russians on land. In the air they had now to reckon with the growing power of the British and American Air Forces, operating both from Britain and in Africa.

  Victory, however, made Stalin no more genial. If he could have come to Casablanca the three Allies might have worked out a common plan face to face. But this was not to be, and discussions were pursued by telegram. We told him of our military decisions, and on my return home, with the President’s authority, I had sent him an additional explanation of our plans, namely, to liberate Tunisia in April, capture Sicily, and push our preparations to the limit for crossing the Channel in August or September.

  “… It is evident,” he replied promptly, “that, contrary to your previous calculations, the end of operations in Tunis is expected in April instead of February. I hardly need to tell you how disappointing is such a delay.… It is [also] evident from your message that the establishment of the Second Front, in particular in France, is envisaged only in August-September. It seems to me that the present position demands the greatest possible speeding up of the action contemplated—i.e., of the opening of the Second Front in the West at a considerably earlier date than indicated. In order not to give the enemy any respite it is extremely important to deliver the blow from the West in the spring or in the early summer and not to postpone it until the second half of the year. …”

  And a month later (March 15):—

  “Fully realising the importance of Sicily, I must however point out that it cannot replace the Second Front in France. … I deem it my duty to warn you in the strongest possible manner how dangerous would be from the view-point of our common cause further delay in the opening of the Second Front in France. This is the reason why the uncertainty of your statements concerning the contemplated Anglo-American offensive across the Channel arouses grave anxiety in me, about which I feel I cannot be silent.”

  It was evident that the most effective aid which we could offer the Russians was the speedy clearing of the Axis forces from North Africa and the stepping up of the air war against Germany, but although the pace of our advance from the east had surpassed expectations, the Allied situation had for some time remained anxious. Malta was indeed re-victualled and rearmed and had again sprung into full activity. From our new bases in Algeria and Cyrenaica our naval and air forces ranged widely, protecting Allied shipping and taking heavy toll of enemy supplies and reinforcements. Besides blockading Tunis, where German air forces were still strong, we reached out to the ports on the Italian mainland. Palermo, Naples, and Spezia all felt the lash as our strength mounted, and R.A.F. bombers from home took over the attack on Northern Italy. The Italian Fleet made no attempt to interfere. Apart from the presence of the British Fleet, the lack of oil was serious. There were days when there was not one ton of fuel in all Sicily for the escort vessels covering supplies to Tunis.

  But all this could not disguise the fact that after the failure to conquer Tunisia in December our initial blow was spent. Refusing to recognise that he could not safeguard by sea or air even the short passage from Sicily, Hitler ordered the creation
of a new army to meet the impending Allied attacks from both east and west. Rommel, promoted to command all the Axis troops, concentrated two German armoured divisions east of Faid to throw back the opposing U.S. Corps and prevent them from coming down on his flank and rear while he was engaged against the hard pressure of the Eighth Army. The attack began on February 14. It had been mistakenly expected that the main blow would come through Fondouk and not Faid. Consequently the 1st U.S. Armoured Division, under General Anderson’s orders, was much dispersed. On the 17th Kasserine, Feriana, and Sbeitla were in German hands. Rommel then struck northwards. A fierce fight ensued, but by noon on the 22nd he began a general withdrawal in good order and eventually our original line was re-established. But Rommel was not yet finished. Four days later he began a series of strong attacks on the front of the British Vth Corps. South of Medjez the enemy were repulsed without significant gains; to the north they won several miles, leaving the town itself in an awkward salient. Near the coast our troops were forced back twenty miles, but they then held firm.

  In the last week of February General Alexander took command of the whole front. At the same time, in accordance with the Casablanca agreement, Air Marshal Tedder assumed control of the Allied Air Forces. The battle in Tunisia was now at its height. On March 6 Rommel made four major attacks on the advancing Eighth Army, using all three of the German Panzers. Every one of them was beaten off with heavy loss. This was probably Rommel’s sharpest rebuff in all his African exploits. Moreover, it was his last action there. Shortly afterwards he was invalided to Germany, and von Arnim succeeded him.

  The Eighth Army then moved forward to close with the enemy’s main position, the Mareth Line. This was a highly organised twenty-mile-long defence system constructed by the French before the war to prevent Italian incursion into Tunisia. Now Italians were manning it against the British! A fortnight was needed to prepare a deliberate assault against such strongly held defences. The blow was struck during the third week in March, the enemy were outflanked, and on April 7, after bitter and complicated fighting, a patrol of the 4th Indian Division met one from the U.S. IInd Corps. The American greeting, “Hello, Limey”,* although not understood, was accepted with the utmost cordiality. The two armies which had started nearly two thousand miles apart were now at last joined together. On the 18th a great enemy air convoy a hundred strong was set upon by our Spitfires and American Warhawks off Cape Bon. The convoy was scattered in confusion; over fifty were brought down. Next day South African Kittyhawks destroyed fifteen out of eighteen; and finally on April 22 a further thirty, including many laden with petrol, went flaming into the sea. This virtually ended Hitler’s obstinate attempt, which Germany could ill afford. No more transport aircraft dared to fly by day. Their achievement had been great. In the four months December to March they had ferried more than 40,000 men and 14,000 tons of supplies to Africa.

  On May 6 Alexander launched his culminating attack. The Allied Air Forces put forth a supreme effort, with 2,500 sorties in the day. The Axis had been gradually worn down, and at this crisis could only make sixty sorties in reply. The climax was at hand. The relentless blockade by sea and air was fully established. Enemy movement over the sea was at a standstill, their air effort ended. The British IXth Corps made a clean break in the enemy front. The two armoured divisions passed through the infantry and reached Massicault, half-way to Tunis. Next day, May 7, they pressed on, the 7th Armoured Division entered Tunis, and then swerved north to join hands with the United States force. Resistance on the main American front had cracked at the same time, and their 9th Infantry Division reached Bizerta. Three German divisions were thus trapped between the Allied troops, and surrendered on May 9.

  The 6th Armoured Division, followed by the 4th British and with the 1st Armoured on their right, drove east, through and beyond Tunis. They were held up by a hastily organised resistance at a defile by the sea a few miles east of the city, but their tanks splashed through along the beach, and at nightfall on May 10 reached Hammamet, on the east coast. Behind them the 4th Division swept round the Cape Bon peninsula, meeting no opposition. All the remaining enemy were caught in the net to the south.

  “… I expect all organised resistance to collapse within the next forty-eight hours,” cabled General Alexander on May 11, “and final liquidation of whole Axis forces in the next two or three days. I calculate that prisoners up to date exceed 100,000, but this is not yet confirmed, and they are still coming in. Yesterday I saw a horse-drawn gig laden with Germans driving themselves to the prisoners’ cage. As they passed we could not help laughing, and they laughed too. The whole affair was more like Derby Day …”

  Admiral Cunningham had made full preparation for the final collapse, and he ordered all available naval forces to patrol the straits and stop an Axis “Dunkirk” evacuation. The appropriate code-name of this operation was “Retribution”. On the 8th he signalled, “Sink, burn, and destroy. Let nothing pass.” But only a few barges tried to escape, and nearly all were captured or sunk. On the 12th the encircling ring was closed. The enemy laid down their arms. At 2.15 p.m. on May 13 Alexander signalled to me:

  Sir:

  It is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores.

  No one could doubt the magnitude of the victory of Tunis. It held its own with Stalingrad. Nearly a quarter of a million prisoners were taken. Very heavy loss of life had been inflicted on the enemy. One-third of their supply ships had been sunk. Africa was clear of our foes. One continent had been redeemed. In London there was, for the first time in the war, a real lifting of spirits. Parliament received the Ministers with regard and enthusiasm, and recorded its thanks in the warmest terms to the commanders. I had asked that the bells of all the churches should be rung. I was sorry not to hear their chimes, but I had more important work to do on the other side of the Atlantic.

  CHAPTER XXII

  ITALY THE GOAL

  THE reasons which led me to hasten to Washington, once the decision in Africa was certain, were serious. What should we do with our victory? Were its fruits to be gathered only in the Tunisian tip, or should we drive Italy out of the war and bring Turkey in on our side? These were fateful questions, which could only be answered by a personal conference with the President. Second only to these were the plans for action in the Indian theatre. I was conscious of serious divergences beneath the surface which, if not adjusted, would lead to grave difficulties and feeble action during the rest of the year. I was resolved to have a conference on the highest possible level.

  The doctors did not want me to fly at the great height required in a bomber, and it was therefore decided to go by sea. We left London on the night of May 4, and went aboard the Queen Mary in the Clyde on the following day. The ship had been admirably fitted up to meet all our needs. The whole delegation was accommodated on the main deck, which was sealed off from the rest of the ship. Offices, conference rooms, and of course the Map Room, stood ready for immediate use. From the moment we got on board our work went forward ceaselessly. The conference, which I had christened “Trident”, was to last at least a fortnight, and was intended to cover every aspect of the war. Our party had therefore to be a large one. The “regulars” were in full force: the Chiefs of Staff, with a goodly number of Staff Officers; Lord Leathers, with senior officials of the Ministry of War Transport; and Ismay, with members of my Defence Office. The Commanders-in-Chief in India, Field-Marshal Wavell, Admiral Somerville, and Air Chief Marshal Peirse, were also with us. I had summoned them because I was sure that our American friends would be very anxious that we should do everything possible—and even impossible—in the way of immediate operations from India. The conference must hear at first hand the views of the men who would have to do whatever task was chosen.

  There was much to be settled among ourselves before we reached Washington, and now we were all under one deck. The Joint Planning and Intelligence Staffs were in almost continuo
us session. The Chiefs of Staff met daily, and sometimes twice a day. I adhered to my usual practice of giving them my thoughts each morning in the shape of minutes and directives, and I generally had a discussion with them each afternoon or evening. These processes of probing, sifting, and arguing continued throughout the voyage, and grave decisions were reached in measured steps.

  22*

  We had to think about all the theatres at once. Upon the operations in Europe, following the victory in Africa, we were in complete agreement. It had been decided at Casablanca to attack Sicily, and all preparations were far advanced. The British Chiefs of Staff were convinced that an attack upon the mainland of Italy should follow, or even overlap, the capture of Sicily. They proposed the seizure of a bridgehead on the toe of Italy, to be followed by a further assault on the heel as prelude to an advance on Bari and Naples. A paper setting out these views and the arguments which led up to them was prepared on board ship and handed to the American Chiefs of Staff as a basis for discussion on our arrival in Washington.

  We anticipated more difficulties in reaching agreement with our American friends over the second great sphere of British military action, namely, the operations from India. Many plans had been set forth on paper, but we had little to show in fact. The President and his circle still cherished exaggerated ideas of the military power which China could exert if given sufficient arms and equipment. They also feared unduly the imminence of a Chinese collapse if support were not forthcoming. I disliked thoroughly the idea of reconquering Burma by an advance along the miserable communications in Assam. I hated jungles—which go to the winner anyway—and thought in terms of air-power, sea-power, amphibious operations, and key points. It was however an essential to all our great business that our friends should not feel we had been slack in pulling our weight and be convinced that we were ready to make the utmost exertions to meet their wishes. What happened in Burma will be recounted later.