The Second World War in 100 Facts

by Clive Pearson

  Nevertheless, these supplies provided vital succour for the Chinese and meant over a million Japanese troops continued to be tied down who could have been used elsewhere.

  67. A COUNTESS RUNS AN ESCAPE LINE

  By 1943 there was a myriad of escape lines across Western Europe set up to assist anybody considered a refugee from Nazi justice – they could be downed pilots or escapers from prisoner of war camps. Typically, an Allied pilot who had bailed out in northern France would be kept in a safe house until he could be given safe passage to the Spanish border. From there he would be taken over the Pyrenees and thence to Gibraltar. Fascist Spain was officially neutral at the time.

  The men and women who ran these escape lines often showed incredible heroism and the story of Mary Lindell is just one example. Mary was brought up in England and served in the First World War as a nurse. She received rewards for gallantry and dedication to the wounded from both the French and Russian governments. After the war she married a certain Count de Milleville, with whom she had three children.

  With the defeat and occupation of France in 1940 Mary lost no time in assisting escapers, and the whole family took part in the enterprise. As a result of her activities she was captured by the Gestapo and banged up in Fresnes Prison for nine months. Her son, Maurice, was also captured, tortured and imprisoned. After this she fled Paris and escaped back to England.

  Mary was determined to carry on with her work, however. In 1942 after completing training with M19 (tasked with helping escape lines) she returned to the town of Ruffec (in western France) to set up a new network called the Marie-Claire line. The line was active with immediate effect and she was able to assist two British commandos who had recently carried out a raid on Bordeaux. Unfortunately, around this time she suffered appalling injuries when she was deliberately rammed off her bicycle by a collaborator’s car. She was taken to hospital by fellow resistance workers but had to be stretchered down to a cellar when the Gestapo came looking for her. Afterwards she insisted on carrying on her work despite not being fully recovered.

  As 1943 drew on there was a steady stream of Allied aircrews seeking assistance. However, getting them out across the Pyrenees into Spain was becoming increasingly difficult due to heightened German security measures. One day while waiting at Pau station for four ‘parcels’ she was arrested by the SD (Secret Police) and placed on a train for Paris. She managed to jump from the train but her guards loosed off two shots, which went into her face and head. Ironically, her life was then saved by a German surgeon.

  After her recovery it was decided not to execute her but to send her to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In April 1945, determined and indomitable, she at last walked free.

  At the time of her capture there were 160 airmen waiting in safe houses. It is not clear how many ‘evaders’ Mary Lindell saved but it is reckoned to be several hundred.

  68. THE JAPANESE MILITARY BELIEVED IN FACE SLAPPING

  The military creed of Japan went back to the days of the samurai when the warriors of yore were guided by a chivalric code of bushido. However, this ‘spirit of bushido’ was exploited and doctored by the regime and embedded into the wartime Japanese Army. War was presented as purifying and death a duty. To die for the emperor would be an honour.

  Discipline throughout the army was strictly enforced. Any orders that were misunderstood or not carried out correctly were met with face slapping. This permeated down through the ranks and for Allied prisoners of war who misunderstood instructions on a daily basis face slapping was then a frequent occurrence.

  As all Japanese soldiers were expected to fight and die in an honourable way surrender was out of the question and was considered a disgrace; hence when European soldiers gave in seemingly almost without a fight the Japanese soldier had nothing but disdain for them. These prisoners, it was believed, owed a debt to their captors that could never be repaid. The resulting brutal treatment knew no limits and torture and beheadings were not unknown.

  The ‘spirit of bushido’ meant that Japanese forces would accept any orders to fight to the death. In the closing years of the war Japanese pilots were expected to sacrifice themselves in kamikaze fashion against the advancing American armada. In addition, when defeat and disgrace loomed a Japanese officer might choose hara-kiri to atone.

  This all contributed to make the Japanese Army a fearsome military machine.

  69. A DEATH RAILWAY IS COMPLETED AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

  After the fall of Burma in mid-1942 the Japanese were determined to continue their offensive by attacking British India. The problem was that supplying their forces by sea was no longer an option due to the American victory at Midway Island. Supplies and men would have to come overland via Thailand and across Burma itself. A railway would need to be built which in total would stretch for 258 miles. The Japanese were not short of workers to carry this out as they could use Asian civilian labour and Allied prisoners of war taken in Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere.

  Work began in the autumn of 1942 and initially the conditions were bearable for workers. However, with the arrival of the monsoon season conditions rapidly worsened. British and other Allied forces were sometimes made to march all day before being forced to set up camp in torrential rain. With little protection from the elements the main task in such circumstances was survival. This was made all the more difficult by Japanese maltreatment of the prisoners, which included harsh punishments and long hours of work. The rations were poor and many men ended up with beriberi due to a deficiency of vitamin B in the rice diet. On top of this the prisoners soon acquired various other diseases such as malaria, scabies, dysentery, typhus, smallpox and even spinal meningitis! Inevitably, the death rate remained high.

  In early 1943 the Japanese decided that they needed to bring in more prisoners to hasten the work. In addition, they now ratcheted up the pressure on the men and ‘speedo’ became the order of the day. Many who were clearly sick were forced to work and no more than 10 per cent of prisoners were allowed to stay in the ‘hospitals’. Those who stayed back in camp were given reduced rations to encourage the others. This treatment, of course, left the ranks decimated. Two British work parties sent out from Singapore in April 1943 were treated in this way. Only 3,200 men returned out of an original force of 10,000.

  Hellfire Pass in Burma has gone down in history as the worst example of the demands exacted on the prisoners. Without proper tools the men had to hack through sheer rock in order to create a cutting. Japanese treatment was excessively harsh with sixty-nine men being beaten to death, and many more dying of disease, starvation and exhaustion. It is all too easy to understand why the Burma Railway was dubbed the ‘Death Railway’.

  Various bridges had to be constructed by the prisoners. Famously a film was made in 1957 by David Lean entitled A Bridge on the River Kwai starring Alec Guinness.

  In the end the railway was finished three months ahead of schedule in October 1943. But the cost had been enormous. Something like 90,000 Asian workers and over 12,000 Allied prisoners had died.

  The Japanese never did invade India and just over a year later the railway was abandoned.

  70. MANY BRITISH PRISONERS PREFERRED KNITTING TO ESCAPING

  While many British soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese had a hard time of it, those captured in Europe had it easy by comparison. Early on in the war the latter would be greeted by the phrase ‘For you the war is over’. Officers and men were then separated out. Ordinary privates would be sent to Stalags where they were usually expected to work. Officers, on the other hand, were sent to Oflags where they were given a life of enforced leisure. How to fill that time became a problem.

  It is a surprising fact that knitting was one of the more popular pastimes for many officers. This is not to say that this was their sole activity; others indulged in making models of aircraft or railways while some took up painting and drawing. Reading and self-improvement were also popular and more than a million books were left behind by Allied prisoners i
n 1945. You could even take special degree courses and it is estimated that 17,000 exams were sat during the war. The theatre was also popular with some men controversially taking on some of the female roles.

  Sport became an important part of camp life. The Red Cross generously supplied tens of thousands of footballs, tennis balls and boxing gloves. Another ‘sport’ was teasing the German guards. The prisoners called themselves ‘Kriegies’ and the Germans were dubbed ‘Goons’. ‘Goon-baiting’ was one way of passing the time, especially during ‘Appells’. The Germans regularly held these in order to disrupt escape plans or to discover illegal radios etc.

  Another hobby practised was trying to escape. It is reckoned, however, that only around 5 per cent of internees were habitual escape artists and the majority of their attempts failed – most headed for Switzerland or the German ports but very few made it there due a lack of German and general wherewithal. Well-forged documents did not guarantee your survival, especially when Nazi security forces were scouring the countryside for you.

  Famously, some did manage to carry out a home run. Colditz Castle was supposed to be escape proof but Airey Neave and his Dutch companion brazenly walked straight out dressed as German army officers. Pat Reid and three fellow prisoners managed to get out through a narrow flue. Each of them was carrying a small suitcase with the idea that once out they would appear to be foreign workers. The trick worked and they all made it all the way to Switzerland.

  The ‘Great Escape’ of March 1944 took place in a Stalag south-east of Berlin. This time it was achieved using tunnels. Rather inventively they built three named ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’. The idea was that if the Germans discovered one tunnel they would stop searching. A grand total of seventy-six prisoners got out through ‘Harry’, but unfortunately fifty of these were rounded up and executed by the Gestapo and only three made it back home.

  Escape, then, was a risky business. No wonder many officer-class prisoners preferred to stay put and enjoy their knitting!

  71. THE GERMANS REAP THE WHIRLWIND

  In the early years of the war the German Luftwaffe was able to bomb other countries almost at will; for example, several cities in Holland, Britain and the Soviet Union were particularly devastated. However, when the tide of war began to turn it was inevitable the Allies would seek retribution. Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, Chief of British Bomber Command, used a Jewish proverb to set out his stall: ‘They have sowed the wind, now they will reap the whirlwind.’

  To begin with attempts to hit Germany’s industry proved something of a joke. A report in 1941 highlighted the fact that only a third of British bombs got within 5 miles of the target. German defences meant daytime bombers were forced to fly at a great height while those at night had difficulty identifying their targets. After his appointment in early 1942 Harris soon abandoned the idea of precision bombing and instead advocated the idea of ‘Strategic’ or ‘Area’ bombing at night. The hope was that deliberately hitting civilians would destroy morale as well as industrial output and just possibly the war could be won by bombing alone.

  The Americans, however, took a different view and sent in bombing raids during the day. They were able to hit industrial targets more precisely but suffered horrific losses of around 20 per cent. In 1943 the Allies were able to launch increasingly heavy raids. The British bombing of Hamburg over three nights in July proved particularly devastating. Dry weather caused a massive firestorm resulting in over 40,000 German civilians being literally incinerated as temperatures rose to over 1,000 degrees Celsius in the city centre. But despite the fact that Germany and the Nazi regime were shaken, morale did not break.

  Losses of Allied bomber crews over Germany remained high due to the lack of fighter protection. The Germans maintained a large fighter force forewarned by an effective radar defence system leaving Allied bombers at their mercy. However, all this changed at the beginning of 1944 when an American fighter, the Mustang P51, suddenly appeared in vast numbers over the skies of the Reich. With its larger fuel tank it was able to protect the Allied bombers right across Germany. Famously, Hermann Goering, the Luftwaffe Commander, initially refused to believe the first sightings as he feared it would spell doom for Germany in the air war. He was right. By March the German fighter force had been decimated and lost control of the skies forever.

  It was now the turn of the Allies to be able to bomb at will. More precision bombing meant they were now able to target areas such as steel and synthetic oil production, which were reduced by as much as 80 per cent. Controversially, in February 1945 British bombers destroyed the undefended city of Dresden, leaving 25,000 civilians dead. Germany had truly reaped the whirlwind.

  Bombing by itself did not win the war but it did strike at Germany’s ability to maintain production. In the process 55,000 Allied pilots and perhaps half a million German civilians lost their lives.

  72. A BEAR HELPS WAGE WAR ON THE NAZIS

  A 6-foot bear is not something you expect to see on a battlefield, still less supplying ammunition to an artillery company. Incredibly, this actually happened. Some Polish soldiers adopted a bear cub and trained it up while it accompanied them on their tours of duty.

  It all started in the spring of 1942. Polish troops who had been released from Soviet captivity found themselves stationed in Iran, and the men there decided to adopt a Syrian bear cub that had recently been orphaned. He was named Wojtek (pronounced voytek), which translates as ‘joyful warrior’. At first he was fed on condensed milk out of a vodka bottle before graduating on to fruit, marmalade and honey. Unfortunately, as a youth he got into bad company, was led astray and ended up drinking beer and smoking (and eating) cigarettes. Beer soon became his favourite tipple – straight from the bottle, of course.

  Wojtek became great mates with the unit, slept with them in the tents and enjoyed wrestling with them. He was trained to salute and liked travelling in the front of vehicles with his head hanging out the side causing consternation to all passers-by.

  The Polish unit, the 22nd Artillery Supply Company, was under British jurisdiction and was posted to Palestine before going on to Egypt and Italy. However, British Army rules forbad animals being kept in camp, so Wojtek was made a private with a pay-book and serial number.

  In 1944 the unit was posted to southern Italy, where it participated in the bloody battle of Monte Cassino. Wojtek was keen to play his full part and manfully set to by carrying heavy boxes of ammunition forward to the guns – apparently, he was unperturbed by the sound of gunfire. This image of a bear carrying howitzer ammunition soon became the emblem of the unit.

  At the war’s end Wojtek obtained a well-earned promotion to corporal before being assigned to Edinburgh Zoo. He was often visited by his old playmates, who would offer him cigarettes and sometimes jump in for a wrestle for old time’s sake. He died in 1963 at the age of twenty-two.

  Wojtek is remembered to this day. In 2013 Krakow city in Poland and Edinburgh City Council gave the go-ahead for the erection of bronze statues in his memory. To cap it all a film was made in 2011 that recorded his exploits.

  Of course this is not the full story – merely the bear details! (I humbly beg for the reader’s forbearance here.)

  73. HIMMLER WAS AN EVIL FANTASIST

  Heinrich Himmler is renowned for being Hitler’s most ruthless and evil acolyte. He was in charge of all security forces including the SS and was directly responsible for the genocidal policies carried out in the concentration camps and elsewhere. Yet he was also imbued with a romanticised view of German history.

  Nothing prepared the world for the emergence of this mass-murderer. His family background was a traditional stable one. His father was a teacher and tutored a member of the Bavarian royal family. Himmler was too young to participate in the First World War but felt the bitterness of many at Germany’s defeat. After joining the Nazi Party he became one of Hitler’s most loyal supporters. By 1929 he had worked his way up in the party to becoming head of the tiny SS, which at that
time only numbered 280 men. The official task of the unit was to be Hitler’s bodyguard, but Himmler soon expanded its role into a large elite force.

  By the time the Nazis came to power in 1933 the SS had expanded to 50,000. In theory, they were still a subordinate part of the SA (Stormtroopers), but a year later the SS took part in the Night of the Long Knives, which effectively removed the SA as an obstacle to his ambitions. From now on Himmler expanded his powers inexorably. By 1936 he had taken full control of the Gestapo and all police and security forces across Germany. This included the notorious concentration camps. By the outbreak of war Himmler had also created a military wing called the Waffen SS, whose members became the most feared and fanatical of Hitler’s armed forces. As the war progressed the SS became ‘a state within a state’ with its own business empire composed of armaments and construction companies. Much of these enterprises were run using slave labour from concentration camps.

  Himmler was also something of a crank. He was obsessed with the notion of a mystical German past shrouded in paganism. He despatched researchers across Europe and as far as Tibet in the quest for traces of Aryan ancestry. He saw the SS as an order of the Teutonic Knights and he organised strange mystical ceremonies in Wewelsburg Castle. Meetings were held in which his twelve leading men were designated places around a circular Arthurian table surrounded by fake medieval coats of arms.

  Although by 1944 the war was going badly, it also marked Himmler’s apogee. There were by now more than a million members in the SS and Himmler was to receive more accolades. Following the July Bomb Plot Hitler gave more military responsibility to his most trusted follower. He was assigned control of Army Group Vistula facing the Russian steamroller, but ultimately it was a step too far as his health collapsed under the pressure.