The Second World War in 100 Facts

by Clive Pearson

  This book is dedicated to my patient and

  long-suffering wife, Anya

  First published 2017

  Amberley Publishing

  The Hill, Stroud

  Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP

  www.amberley-books.com

  Copyright © Clive Pearson, 2017

  The right of Clive Pearson to be identified as the Author

  of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted

  or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,

  mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,

  including photocopying and recording, or in any information

  storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing

  from the Publishers.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781445653532 (PAPERBACK)

  ISBN 9781445653549 (eBOOK)

  Typeset in 11pt on 13pt Sabon.

  Origination by Amberley Publishing.

  Printed in the UK.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  1 - Appeasement Was Not the Easy-Peasy Option

  2 - Britain Didn’t Just Go to War to Defend Poland

  3 - Hitler Told Everybody His War Aims … But Few People Were Listening

  4 - Admiral Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax Fails to Cut the Mustard

  5 - Britain and France Enter the Phoney War … and Await Events

  6 - Captain Hans Langsdorff Scuttles His Ship

  7 - The Norwegian Campaign is Not So Glorious

  8 - Churchill Was an Eccentric Maverick Who Made It

  9 - British Military Writer Invents the Blitzkrieg for the Germans

  10 - The Maginot Line Didn’t Defend France

  11 - French Generals and Their Men Were Not Fit for Purpose

  12 - The British Did Not Really Betray the French at Dunkirk

  13 - Hitler Spares the British Army

  14 - Hitler Rubs Salt in the Wound at Compiègne

  15 - A Scarlet Pimpernel Helps the Allied Cause

  16 - Mussolini Expects Easy Pickings but Gets Some Nasty Shocks Instead

  17 - Hitler Hopes for Peace with Britain

  18 - The German Air Force Gets Its Comeuppance

  19 - Churchill’s Speeches Inspired the Nation … Mostly

  20 - The Horror of the Blitz Was Incessant

  21 - The British Lived in Caves

  22 - The Italian Fleet Gets a Drubbing

  23 - The ‘Desert Fox’ Causes an Upset

  24 - Operation Barbarossa Kicks In Late

  25 - Stalin Wouldn’t Believe the Truth

  26 - Hitler Made a Mistake By Turning South

  27 - Stalin Was a Brutal Paranoid Dictator

  28 - A British Submarine Keeps a Reindeer on Board!

  29 - German U-Boats Have ‘Happy Times’

  30 - The Merchant Navy Was the Forgotten Branch of Britain’s Armed Services

  31 - Hitler Was a Super Junkie

  32 - Pearl Harbour Wakes the Sleeping Giant

  33 - Britain and America Begin Their Collaboration

  34 - The Japanese Take South-East Asia by Storm

  35 - A Leg Is Parachuted in for a British Ace Pilot

  36 - Leningrad Was Besieged for 900 Days

  37 - The Wannsee Conference Starts the Holocaust in Earnest

  38 - The Battle of Midway Is Decisive

  39 - The Jerry Can Proved a Winner

  40 - PQ17 Was the Convoy from Hell

  41 - The Americans Have a ‘Good War’

  42 - Lend-Lease Was an American Lifeline That Helped All the Allies

  43 - In Britain Everybody Is Mobilised for the War Effort

  44 - The British Wartime Diet Was Not So Bad

  45 - Operation Blue Starts Off Well

  46 - In the Ukraine Factories and Workers Are Transported Eastwards

  47 - The Burma Campaign Marked the Longest Retreat in British Military History

  48 - Shostakovich Shows Solidarity with the Besieged Leningraders

  49 - Bletchley Was the Golden Goose That Never Cackled

  50 - Monty Sends the ‘Desert Fox’ Packing

  51 - Stalingrad Was a Huge Turning Point in the War

  52 - Marshall Zhukov Was the Man Who Saved the Soviet Union

  53 - The T-34 Tank Was a Decisive Weapon for Stalin

  54 - Goebbels Demands Total War

  55 - Albert Speer Performs a Miracle

  56 - Manstein Stabilises the Front at Kharkov

  57 - The Dambusters Didn’t Bust All the Dams

  58 - A German Army Is Deserted in the Desert

  59 - Kursk Was a Battle That Hitler Couldn’t Win

  60 - ‘Mincemeat Is Swallowed Rod, Line and Sinker!’

  61 - Italy Was Not Such a Soft Underbelly

  62 - Mussolini Is Saved in an Audacious Rescue

  63 - There Was a Bad and a Good Goering

  64 - Dönitz Calls It a Day in the Atlantic

  65 - Churchill Sets Europe Alight

  66 - The Chinese Get Help via the Hump

  67 - A Countess Runs an Escape Line

  68 - The Japanese Military Believed in Face Slapping

  69 - A Death Railway Is Completed Ahead of Schedule

  70 - Many British Prisoners Preferred Knitting to Escaping

  71 - The Germans Reap the Whirlwind

  72 - A Bear Helps Wage War on the Nazis

  73 - Himmler Was an Evil Fantasist

  74 - Ian Fleming Was a Would-be James Bond

  75 - The French Resistance Plays Its Part

  76 - The Allies Leave Nothing to Chance

  77 - Hitler Expects Victory Over the Allies

  78 - XX Agent Garbo Is Decorated by Both King George VI and Adolf Hitler

  79 - The Führer Is Led on a Wild Goose Chase

  80 - Japanese Forces are Defeated on the Tennis Court

  81 - The D-Day Landings Go Better than Expected

  82 - British Troops Enjoyed a Nice Cup of Tea on the Normandy Beaches!

  83 - Hitler Unleashes His Secret Weapons

  84 - A Tale of Two Prima Donnas

  85 - Hitler Has a Hair-raising Experience

  86 - French Pilots Fly for the USSR

  87 - American Island-Hopping Keeps the Japanese on the Hop

  88 - Arnhem Was a Bridge Too Far

  89 - The Warsaw Uprising Is another Polish Tragedy

  90 - A Bulge Suddenly Appears … Then Equally Rapidly Disappears

  91 - President Roosevelt Attends His Final Conference

  92 - Crossing the Rhine Is a Mighty Operation

  93 - Stalin Organises a Race

  94 - Mussolini and His Mistress Are Highly Strung

  95 - Hitler Makes His Farewell

  96 - Germany Surrenders Twice

  97 - The Holocaust Was an Unspeakable Horror

  98 - The Japanese Surrender as the World Goes Atomic

  99 - The Nurmberg Trial Brought a Measure of Justice

  100 - There Were Some Winners … and Some Losers

  INTRODUCTION

  If the First World War was not truly global in its embrace then the Second World War came much closer to achieving this. Japanese ambitions resulted in vast swathes of the Far East and the Pacific becoming embroiled and this meant that this war was not just about a struggle centred on Europe as in the previous conflict. With particular regard to the European theatre, however, the Second World War
is seen by many as a continuation of the first with a ‘Twenty Years’ Truce’ in between. Interestingly, there are certainly many similarities; for example, both wars started in Eastern Europe, both began with an alliance of Britain and France bent on denying Germany her imperial ambitions, and both wars were finally won by a grand alliance of Britain, France, Russia and the USA.

  Of course, the two wars did have clear differences. To begin with it was France not Russia that suffered defeat and occupation. Above all the Second World War was a struggle between ideologies. On the one side you had the extreme right-wing forces of Nazism, Fascism and Japanese militarism and on the other Communism and liberal democracy (the latter two were rather unfamiliar bedfellows). Perhaps more than any other previous wars the belligerents were engaged in a race for technological innovation. The war resulted in the development of rocketry, the jet engine and the atomic bomb. We must not forget too that the Second World War was a racial war; both Germany and Japan were determined to set themselves up as racial superiors over those they conquered. In the case of Nazi Germany this extended into genocidal policies resulting in the deaths of 6 million Jews and 27 million Russians. Overall, the war was much bloodier than previous conflicts, with an estimated 50 million people losing their lives.

  You may well ask if it was inevitable that the Allies would win. On paper this would seem to be the case. The Axis powers and Japan were taking on the might of the most powerful country in the world (the United States), the country with the largest empire in the world (Great Britain) and the largest country in the world (the Soviet Union). Indeed, the production figures of America alone dwarfed that of the enemy powers. However, nothing is certain in war. Allied victories sometimes came about by the narrowest of margins. Apart from the massive resources at their disposal, the Allies also helped their cause by operating much more closely together and by having better command structures. (The German armed forces were dependent on the whims of one rather unhinged dictator for their orders.) More importantly, they effectively harnessed their peoples into a moral crusade to destroy the forces of terror and oppression.

  There have been countless books published on the Second World War. As in all the other books in the 100 Facts series, this book is intended as a gentle introduction to the topic. You don’t have to devour it all in one sitting. You can, if you prefer, take it in easy stages, perhaps accompanied by a light beverage. Whichever is your preference I hope you enjoy reading it.

  1. APPEASEMENT WAS NOT THE EASY-PEASY OPTION

  During the 1930s Britain and France had a choice in their foreign policy. Either they could confront the dictators (in particular Germany’s Adolf Hitler) or they could seek to avoid a war by trying to offer the dictators what they wanted within acceptable limits. This latter option was dubbed ‘appeasement’, which was explained as giving in to the ‘just grievances’ of the dictators and thereby creating a lasting peace.

  This policy is mostly associated with the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. However, he was not alone. He carried most of the establishment with him and only a few voices, such as that of Winston Churchill, denounced it. However, it is perhaps rather unkind to describe it as the soft option. British and French leaders were constrained very much by public opinion in their respective countries. The carnage and terrible losses of the First World War, which had ended in 1918, were still fresh in people’s minds. The French had said ‘jamais plus’ (never again) to a European war and this was also an opinion widely held in Britain. In addition, Britain in particular had scaled back her army and air force as part of the peace dividend and felt unready for a war. Above all, Chamberlain naively believed that Hitler and his ally, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, were people that could be trusted once their demands had been met. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that. Once one piece of territory had been gobbled up and digested, the dictators came back greedily for more. This scenario is all too well illustrated by Hitler’s adept exploitation of this appeasement policy. When in 1936 German forces boldly reoccupied the Rhineland, this was deemed justifiable by Britain as the Versailles Treaty of 1919 was felt to have been overly harsh on Germany. However, Hitler had been prepared to make a rapid withdrawal had he been confronted. When Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 it was justified because Austrians were fellow Germans who wanted to join the Reich. Hitler used the same excuse in September when he demanded Sudeten Germans should be allowed to join Germany. Shamefully, at Munich Britain and France agreed and left Czechoslovakia stripped of her border defences. Afterwards the dictator solemnly pronounced that he had no more territorial ambitions in Europe. Upon his arrival back in Britain Chamberlain unveiled a piece of paper with Hitler’s guarantee and declared there was ‘peace in our time!’ Alas for Chamberlain and the people of Europe, six months later the Führer broke his promise by unceremoniously marching his armies into Prague and breaking up the Czechoslovak state. This time, though, there could be no more justification as few Germans lived there.

  At this juncture even Chamberlain realised that Hitler was a ruthless aggressor with limitless ambitions. Hitler had clearly broken his trust. It marked a turning point in the policy of appeasement. When, in September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland the Allies, Britain and France, perhaps rather belatedly, declared war on Germany.

  2. BRITAIN DIDN’T JUST GO TO WAR TO DEFEND POLAND

  The reader may have previously been bemused by the thought that Britain declared war on Germany to defend a country that it had little hope of liberating; indeed Poland stayed firmly under Nazi control for most of the war before swiftly passing under the Soviet boot. The real reason, then, must surely lie elsewhere.

  Back in 1939 Britain still had her world empire and considered herself to be a ‘great power’. Germany was threatening to dominate the Continent and thereby threaten that very status. The invasion of Poland can be seen, then, as the occasion for Britain going to war in order to defend her position. The cause had been building for some years.

  By March 1939 it was clear that the appeasement policy had failed and that the Allies, Britain and France, had to prepare for war. However, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had not been negligent regarding Britain’s armed forces. Britain’s air and sea forces had been in the process of renovation over the previous year or so. The timing of the declaration of war was also important. By 1939 both countries felt that their economies could now withstand a long war and formally offered guarantees to Poland in March.

  Hitler had confidently expected no reaction from the Allies after German forces entered Poland. When he received the British ultimatum he was clearly taken aback. Looking rather worried he turned to his entourage and said ‘What are we going to do now?’

  3. HITLER TOLD EVERYBODY HIS WAR AIMS … BUT FEW PEOPLE WERE LISTENING

  Hitler set out his blueprint for power in his book Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’), which was published in 1925. After coming to office Hitler regretted having written the book and said that if in 1924 he had known that he would become Chancellor of Germany, he would never have written it. However, he need not have worried too much. During most of the 1920s he was not taken seriously, as at this time he was a relatively unknown and obscure politician. In 1928 he wrote a second volume of Mein Kampf. Even in 1933 when over a million copies of his book had already been sold (and incidentally had made him a rich man) most people complained that it was unreadable as it was so turgid and crudely written. Many of those who did know its contents believed it to be too fanciful and preposterous to be credible … until it was too late.

  It is not surprising that people found the book unreadable as its contents were nothing more than the rantings of a megalomaniac. Hitler outlined his racial theories, which are, alas, so familiar to us today. The Germans (along with the Scandinavians and British) were part of the Aryan race, which was physically and intellectually superior to all other races according to Hitler. It was the giver of modern civilisation. Jews were inferior parasites and were par
t of an international conspiracy and had to be removed from German soil. Furthermore, Jews (and socialists) had betrayed Germany at the end of the First World War and were responsible for Germany having the hateful Versailles Treaty imposed upon her. The Slavic races of Eastern Europe were also deemed inferior. The subject people of these areas – Poles, Ukrainians and Russians – would be enslaved for the benefit of the German people who needed ‘living space’ (lebensraum).

  Incredibly, by the end of 1939 much of his plans had already come to fruition. The Versailles Treaty was clearly dead in the water and nearly all Germans had been united into the Third Reich. However, one part of his plan had not worked out properly. He had hoped that Britain, as a fellow Aryan nation who he claimed to admire, would be on his side. Instead he found himself at war with the country. Nevertheless, he still hoped that the British would see sense and make peace. Two years later with the invasion of the Soviet Union Hitler almost achieved his dream, but found out that the Soviet people were not so inferior after all. If that part also hadn’t worked out, his scheme to remove all Jews from Germany became reality and turned into something far more horrific as it extended to most of Europe and transformed itself into the Holocaust.

  The demonic dreams of one man led to the deaths of over 40 million people in Europe in the Second World War. It is one of the great tragedies of history that so few people bothered to read that boring tome.

  4. ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD AYLMER RANFURLY PLUNKETT-ERNLE-ERLE-DRAX FAILS TO CUT THE MUSTARD

  After Hitler had dealt with Czechoslovakia in March 1939 the next target was clearly Poland.

  Hitler was bent on the total destruction of the Polish state, which had been resurrected under the hated Treaty of Versailles. This new state had been given access to the sea through the Polish Corridor, with the result that East Prussia was sundered from the Reich. It was Germany’s greatest humiliation.

  The problem for Hitler was that he faced a possible war on two fronts if both the Allies and the Soviet Union should intervene. After going back on his promise over Czechoslovakia the chances of getting a deal with the Allies looked bleak. Coming to an understanding with Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, looked like the only chance. The problem was that the Soviet Union was communist and the arch-enemy of Nazi Germany. They were at opposite ends of the political spectrum and it seemed inconceivable that the two could even get to be on speaking terms.