World War II - The Definitive Visual History

["I TA LY E N T E R S T H E WA R in North Africa was marked by a series A sinking in Taranto heavily outnumbered, the Exploding devil of advances and retreats along this Oil leaks from Italian warships after the British attack in British Western Desert Italian Mod.35 hand grenades were 1,200-mile (1,930-km) long strip, 1940. Two waves of Swordfish torpedo bombers left the Force went on the attack highly dangerous when found stretching from Tripoli to Alexandria, Illustrious and swept through Taranto harbor, shifting the on December 9, driving along which a chain of small ports balance of power in the Mediterranean. the Italians back 500 unexploded. They were nicknamed were the only points of military value. miles (800 km) to El \u201cRed Devils\u201d by British and The war took the form of dashes from enemy of water, fuel, ammunition, Agheila, taking Commonwealth troops. one point of maritime supply to the reinforcements, and food\u2014all the 130,000 prisoners next, with the aim of depriving the essentials of desert warfare. and a massive haul remained on the of equipment. defensive. The British In 1940 the British had things their launched a counter- own way. In September the Italians Mussolini\u2019s East stroke from Kenya into launched an offensive into Egypt from African empire Italian Somaliland in consisted of Italian January 1941. Mogadishu their North African colony in Somaliland, Eritrea, was captured on Libya. Although and Abyssinia. These February 25, forcing the territories threatened the Italian armies out. The entrance to the Red Sea and local British commander, Britain\u2019s adjacent African colonies. General Sir Alan Cunningham, pushed It fell to General Wavell, the British into Ethiopia and took the capital, commander-in-chief in the Middle Addis Ababa, on April 6 after an East, to tackle Italian forces here. They advance of 1,000 miles (1,600 km). outnumbered the British but remained strategically isolated, while the British Action in the north brought in reinforcements through the ports on the littoral of the Indian Ocean. In a separate campaign, the Italians were driven into Eritrea, while in The final push northwest Ethiopia a small unit of Sudanese and Ethiopian guerrillas took The campaign was the last con\ufb02ict on seven Italian brigades. The Italians of high empire, featuring camel corps, retreated to Keren, where they resisted native levies, and rugged terrain, and doggedly for eight weeks before being saw none of the armored formations ousted. Asmara, the Eritrean capital, of the Battle of France. The Italians fell to the British in April and the port quickly overran British Somaliland but of Massawa soon after. Mopping-up operations continued until November. Erratic performance The Italian military looked impressive on parade but its weaponry was a generation out of date. Many troops lacked the motivation to fight, though some divisions displayed outstanding skill and resourcefulness. AFTER Although Mussolini wanted to ally himself with Hitler, his people had other ideas. The German dictator was also harboring doubts about the alliance. FRIEND OR FOE? Far from being an asset to the Axis, Italy became an embarrassment, relying on German support as one catastrophe succeeded another, as in the war in the desert 124\u201325 gg. The enemies Mussolini chose were Hitler\u2019s but they were not foes against whom the Italian people harbored any animosity. A JUNIOR PARTNER The Italian upper classes were for the most part Anglophiles; the Italian peasantry and working classes were admirers of the US. However, out of misplaced loyalty, Hitler was obliged to stand by his fellow Fascist dictator, whose value as an ally was at best dubious and at worst disastrous. With the Allied landings in Italy 210\u201313 gg, the tide of war began to turn. 99","","4 THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete fell to Germany, but most German resources were conserved for the huge offensive against the unsuspecting Soviet Union. After Japan\u2019s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war against both Japan and Germany.","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 THE WIDENING WAR Leningrad was besieged The Bismarck presented Operation Barbarossa, by the Germans from such a threat to shipping in Hitler\u2019s invasion of the USSR, September 1941 until 1944. the Atlantic that the British In winter supplies could be made huge gains through driven across ice-covered deployed almost every the summer. But, as the Lake Ladoga, but more than available ship to hunt it a million starved to death. down. The battleship was Germans neared Moscow finally sunk on May 27. and winter closed in, they met stiffer Soviet resistance. Y FINLAND ICELAND A N W E EUROPE R D NO WE S Faeroe Islands NORWAY FINLAND BRITAIN (to Denmark) SWEDEN POLAND USSR ic Sea GERMANY FRANCE M ESTONIA I TA LY C Caspian Sea TUNISIABlack Sea North IT LATVIA S PA I N TURKEY MOROCCO Sea DENMARK B a l t LITHUANIA N AFGHANISTA IRISH GER. USSR PALESTINE SYRIA PERSIA TIBET FREE POLAND IRAQ STATE B R I TA I N NETH. ALGERIA EGYPT NEPAL L I B YA BEL. LUX. RIO DE ORO NEJD INDIA GERMANY (Saudi) SLOVAKIA F R A N C ESWITZ. HUNGARY FRENCH WEST AFRICA CAMEROONS ANGLO - ASIR OMAN GAMBIA (British mandate) EGYPTIAN YEMEN HADHRAMAUT ROMANIA YUGOSLAVIA BULGARIA SUDAN ADEN PROTECTORATE Y ALB. PORTUGUESE GUINEA NIGERIA FRENCH FRENCH SOMALILAND CEYLON GOLD EQUATORIAL BRITISH A Black Sea SIERRA LEONE ABYSSINIA SOMALILAND LIBERIA AFRICA L PORTUGAL COAST DA UGAN KENYA INDIAN S PA I N (to Italy) CAMEROONS TANGANYIKA (French mandate) ITALIAN MOROCCO Me d iterra TURKEY AT L A N T I C (British mandate) (to France) ALGERIA BELGIAN SOMALILAND O C E A N TUNISIA GREECE CONGO (to France) n ean Se SYRIA NYASALAND DODECANESE (French IRAQ OCEAN ANGOLA NORTHERN RHODESIA a (to Italy) mandate) (British (to Portugal) After a coup by the CYPRUS mandate) PALESTINE (to France) SOUTHERN MADAGASCAR pro-German Rashid Ali LIBYA (British mandate) SOUTH RHODESIA in April, Britain sent a (to Italy) EGYPT AFWREICSATBECLHAUNADNA- PORTUGUESE force from India to EAST AFRICA SWAZILAND invade Iraq and reinstate UNION OF BASUTOLAND a pro-British goverment. SOUTH AFRICA The Axis invasion Erwin Rommel and the of Yugoslavia in April Afrika Korps were sent to Libya was ruthlessly efficient. in February to reinforce the The Yugoslav air force Italians, who were in danger of was destroyed while still defeat. In his subsequent desert on the ground, then campaigns Rommel won the mechanized columns respect of friend and foe alike. completed the conquest in less than two weeks. I n 1941 the war in Europe and North Africa spread to the proved more than a match for the British in Egypt, threatening to Balkans, the Middle East, and, most significantly, the USSR. advance across the Western Desert to take the Suez Canal. The In preparation for Hitler\u2019s long-planned invasion of the USSR, Axis British also had to deal with the threat of hostile Vichy French forces forces first took control of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete. The Germans in Syria and Lebanon, and a pro-German miltary coup in Iraq. also went to the aid of the Italians in Libya. Although the latter were defeated in Abyssinia and lost all their other possessions in East In late June the focus moved to Eastern Europe when Hitler Africa, the new combined German-Italian force under Rommel launched the invasion of the USSR. Axis forces poured across a 1,000-mile (1,600-km) front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. 102","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 1941 Japan\u2019s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was designed to put the US Pacific Fleet out of action. Five battleships were sunk, but the all-important aircraft carriers were at sea. Alaska (to US) CANADA Roosevelt and Churchill met for the first time on a ship NEWFOUNDLAND off Newfoundland in August. There they drew up the Atlantic Charter, a blueprint for the postwar world. NGOLIA MANCHUKUO HINA KOREA PACIFIC U N ITED STATES AT L A N T I C OCEAN OF AMERICA OCEAN JAPAN BURMA Formosa MEXICO CUBA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HAITI Mariana Hawaiian Islands BRITISH HONDURAS VIRGIN ISLANDS Islands (to US) GUATEMALA LEEWARD ISLANDS (Japanese mandate) IAM FRENCH PHILIPPINE HONDURAS WINDWARD ISLANDS INDOCHINA ISLANDS GUAM NICARAGUA BARBADOS Marshall Islands EL SALVADOR TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Japanese mandate) BRITISH Caroline COSTA RICA VENEZUELA BRITISH GUIANA NORTH BORNEO DUTCH GUIANA Islands BRUNEI (Japanese mandate) PANAMA FRENCH GUIANA COLOMBIA ALAYA SARAWAK Gilbert Nauru Islands ECUADOR D U T C H E A S T I N D I E S TERRITORY OF NEW GUINEA PORTUGUESE PAPUA Solomon Ellice BRAZIL Islands Islands UAY TIMOR WESTERN PERU New SAMOA AMERICAN BOLIVIA Hebrides SAMOA PARAG AUSTRALIA Fiji Tonga New CHILE Caledonia President Roosevelt responded swiftly to the URUGUAY THE WORLD IN DECEMBER 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, declaring war on ARGENTINA Japan on December 8, and on Germany and Italy three Axis powers (Germany, Italy, When the Japanese days later. Here he looks over the joint Congressional and Japan) and allies invaded Malaya, the British Axis conquests to Dec 1941 warships Prince of Wales and declarations of war against Germany and Italy. Area under Japanese control, Dec 1941 Repulse sailed to intervene, Vichy France and colonies but were sunk by torpedo Allied states bombers on December 10. Allied conquests to Dec 1941 Neutral states Frontiers Sep 1939 Stalin and the Soviet forces were totally unprepared. German armies By the end of 1941 Germany had conquered vast swathes of Europe, swept forward along the whole front, taking hundreds of thousands of and the Japanese were in the process of doing the same in Asia and the prisoners, and by December were within striking distance of Moscow. Pacific. But the Axis had awakened two sleeping giants. The USSR\u2019s With Europe\u2019s attention focused on Germany, Japan decided that seemingly inexhaustible reserves of manpower would make it a far the time had come to execute its plan to take over the British, Dutch, more formidable foe than Hitler had imagined, while the US would French, and American colonies in Asia. Their offensive began with now put all its vast economic and industrial potential into combating the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to neutralize the US Navy. not only the Japanese in the East, but also Nazi Germany in Europe. 103","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 TIMELINE 1941 War in North Africa O Lend-Lease O The U-boat War O Secret Warfare O German Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece O Hunting the Bismarck O Operation Barbarossa O War in the Middle East O Siege of Leningrad O Pearl Harbor JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE MARCH 1 APRIL 2 Enigma machine JUNE 4 Bulgaria signs Tripartite Anti-British general 8 MAY Britain invades Iraq and Pact, becoming part of Rashid Ali seizes power Enigma encoding instals pro-Allied the Axis. in Iraq and cuts off machine obtained government. oil supply to the from U-110, which JUNE 8 MARCH 4 Mediterranean. is captured by British British and Free French British attack on oil off Iceland. troops enter Syria and facilities at Narvik, APRIL 6 20 MAY Lebanon. Norway. German, Italian, and German paratroopers Bulgarian troops invade land on Crete in German tank advancing Italian soldiers surrender FEBRUARY 6 MARCH 7 Yugoslavia and Greece. Operation Mercury. into the USSR near Bardia, Libya General Rommel British forces arrive JUNE 22 ordered to Libya to in Greece. APRIL 10 The Bismarck Operation Barbarossa: JANUARY 5 help beleaguered US occupies 24 MAY German troops invade Australian troops Italians. MARCH 9 Greenland, a step German battleship USSR. Italy and capture the town Start of final closer to supporting Bismarck sinks British Romania also declare of Bardia in Libya, FEBRUARY 7 unsuccessful Italian Britain in the Atlantic. battlecruiser Hood. war on USSR. SS just across the border Italian 10th Army offensive against 27 MAY Einsatzgruppen with Egypt. surrenders at Beda Greece. APRIL 10 Sinking of the Bismarck begin campaign Fomm. The British Rommel attacks after relentless pursuit of mass murder. take Benghazi. Roosevelt signing Tobruk; 24,000 Allied by Royal Navy. the Lend-Lease Act troops besieged. JUNE 26 Finland declares JANUARY 22 FEBRUARY 12 war on USSR. Operation Compass: Rommel lands in Tripoli JUNE 27 surrender of the Libyan to take command of Hungary declares port of Tobruk to the Allies. the Afrika Korps. war on USSR. FEBRUARY 25 MARCH 11 APRIL 17 JUNE 28 Mogadishu, capital of US President Roosevelt Yugoslavia surrenders Germans capture Italian Somaliland, falls signs Lend-Lease Act. This to the Nazis. A Minsk. Tens of to the British. allows the US to supply government-in-exile thousands of Soviet Britain and other Allied is formed in Britain. troops killed or countries with arms while, in captured. theory, remaining neutral. APRIL 18 Anglo-Iraqi War begins as Britain challenges pro-Axis government. MARCH 24 APRIL 23 Rommel retakes El King George II and Agheila in Libya in Greek government a surprise attack. evacuate to Crete. MARCH 27 APRIL 27 Coup in Yugoslavia German troops overthrows the occupy Athens. pro-Axis government. General Erwin Rommel 104","TIMELINE 1941 \u201c No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.\u201d PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT IN HIS SPEECH TO CONGRESS FOLLOWING PEARL HARBOR, DECEMBER 8, 1941 JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER JULY 3 AUGUST 5 SEPTEMBER 3 OCTOBER 2 DECEMBER 7 Stalin calls for Germans capture Auschwitz gas chambers Germans launch Japan bombs US naval \u201cscorched earth policy.\u201d Smolensk. used for first time. Operation Typhoon base at Pearl Harbor. US against Moscow. and Britain declare war JULY 7 AUGUST 7 SEPTEMBER 8 on the following day. US occupies Iceland. Stalin appoints himself 900-day siege of OCTOBER 15 Generalissimo, leader Leningrad begins. First heavy snowfalls JULY 14 of the Red Army. of Russian winter Allies overthrow recorded. Vichy French AUGUST 9 government in Syria. Roosevelt and Churchill meet aboard ship off Newfoundland coast OCTOBER 16 NOVEMBER 15 and sign Atlantic Soviet government Germans begin final Charter, setting out evacuates Moscow and push toward Moscow. their vision for the moves to Kuibyshev. postwar world. JULY 24 AUGUST 12 OCTOBER 18 US propaganda poster DECEMBER 11 Japan occupies French Hitler shifts forces War minister Tojo Germany and Italy Indochina. away from Moscow to Hideki becomes prime NOVEMBER 18 declare war against US. strike south through minister of Japan. Operation Crusader JULY 31 Ukraine to the Crimea. launched. British DECEMBER 13 Goering asks Reinhard General Tojo Hideki relieve troops trapped Germans retreat from Heydrich for \u201cfinal in siege of Tobruk, Moscow to form solution\u201d of the Jewish Rommel forced to \u201cwinter line.\u201d problem. withdraw to El Agheila. AUGUST 25 Menorah monument NOVEMBER 26 Germans engage to the victims of Babi Yar As Japanese fleet sets Soviets around Kiev to sail for the Hawaiian stop them retreating. SEPTEMBER 29 Islands, US delivers an The operation German SS troops kill ultimatum to Japan to successfully encircles thousands of Jews at withdraw from the Axis. almost half a million Babi Yar, a ravine on troops east of the city. outskirts of Kiev. AUGUST 25 OCTOBER 19 NOVEMBER 27 German soldiers braving Britain and USSR Official \u201cstate of siege\u201d Panzers reach the the Russian winter invade Iran to protect declared in Moscow. outskirts of Moscow. oilfields from Axis. DECEMBER 19 OCTOBER 21 NOVEMBER 28 Hitler becomes Exhausted Soviet troops Mass slaughter of Hitler meets Grand commander-in-chief Serbs carried out Mufti of Jerusalem and of the German Army. by Usta\u0161a fascists gives approval for Arab in Yugoslavia. actions against British. DECEMBER 25 Hong Kong surrenders to Japanese. 105","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Life under the Swastika By 1941 most of Europe was under the control of Nazi Germany. Only five states\u2014Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland\u2014remained neutral. Otherwise millions of people were living under German rule. Most resigned themselves to occupation, some collaborated, some resisted. V isible signs of Nazi foodstuffs vanished, food occupation included the presence of German lines appeared and local troops, swastikas \ufb02ying over public buildings, curfews, people had to make do with rationing, identity cards, and intense Nazi propaganda. alternatives. In France casein, Government of the occupied lands varied, although all a white protein, and ersatz directives came from the Reich. In some areas, the coffee, made from acorns, Germans retained existing governments, \ufb01nding it more entered the diet, wooden effective to work through collaborators and pro-Nazis shoes replaced leather ones, such as Vidkun Quisling in Norway, or extreme right-wing groups and people used bicycles or in Belgium and Hungary. In Poland, the Baltic States, and the western USSR, charcoal-burning vehicles Germany imposed total rule, setting up military governments headed by Nazi instead of gas-driven cars. A of\ufb01cials, such as Governor-General Hans Frank in Poland. Military black market thrived where governments were installed in Belgium and northern France. Uniquely, King goods could be bought for a Christian X of Denmark was left alone to rule his country, largely because price. But coal and \ufb01rewood Hitler considered the Danes Aryan and disappeared, as did soap. BEFORE Shortages were worst in the Even before war broke out, Germany had annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. Life in the ghetto cities but as war continued, hardships Once war was declared, German troops marched further into Europe. Nazi soldiers arrest Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, 1942. intensi\ufb01ed. Thousands starved in Greece OCCUPYING TERRITORIES From 1939 Polish Jews were herded into ghettos where during 1941\u201342, and in Holland during Between 1939 and 1940 German forces occupied western Poland ff\u000158\u201359, invaded they were intended to starve to death. Disease was rife, the winter of 1944\u201345 an estimated Denmark and Norway ff\u000174\u201375, and went on to occupy Belgium, Holland, and France ff\u0001 food rations were limited, and unemployment was high. 6,000 people died of starvation. The 76\u201377. By June 1940, northern France had fallen and the Vichy government had been set up in impact of occupation was worst of all non-occupied France. In 1940 German forces also occupied the Channel Islands. hoped the country would support him in Eastern Europe. Hitler and the Nazi PERSECUTION OF JEWS in his \ufb01ght against Communism. The 13,152 The number of Jewish In 1939 more than nine million Jews lived in king, however, honorably refused women, men, and Europe, many in Poland and more than 500,000 to collaborate and in 1943 Germany in Germany. The Nazi persecution of Jews had started with the \u201cNuremberg Laws\u201d passed in took control of Denmark. Throughout children rounded up in Paris on July 1933, which stripped Jews of their citizenship and began the process of segregating them. In occupied Europe, Berlin relied on 16\u201317, 1942 by the French authorities. November 1938 in a pogrom that became known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night, or the Night force or the threat of force to ensure They were then deported to Auschwitz. of Broken Glass) ff\u000142\u201343, Jewish businesses, cemeteries, and synagogues were attacked. co-operation, and on the compliance of mayors, police, and other local of\ufb01cials. regime considered the Slavic peoples\u2014 the Poles, the Russians, and the Shortages and hardships citizens of the Baltic States\u2014and Impact of occupation all Jews to be subhuman and on civilian life varied. dispensable. In the Nazi view On the surface, Nazi they should be removed occupation in Western to create what was Europe appeared known as Lebensraum benign. According to (\u201cliving space\u201d) for the Hitler\u2019s view of the German \u201cmaster race.\u201d world, Western Occupying forces in Europeans were Eastern Europe treated similar to Germans local populations with to their advantage. In 1941 and 1942 Hitler appeared invincible and and could therefore be great brutality, ignoring punishment for resistance was severe, so that for most individuals despair treated in a reasonably their civil rights, forcibly gave way to reluctant cooperation. civilized fashion. evicting people from Even so, people in all occupied countries found ways and means of However, resistance The yellow star their homes to make resisting. It was forbidden to listen to BBC broadcasts, but thousands of was punished, and Jews in most occupied areas were made to way for German settlers, people did so in secret and by 1942 the BBC was broadcasting in 24 languages, although citizens tried wear a six-pointed yellow star\u2014often bearing and rounding up those often sending coded messages to the French Resistance. Dutch citizens to live normally, there the word \u201cJew.\u201d The star above is Dutch; Jews deemed \u201cundesirable,\u201d walked out of Nazi propaganda \ufb01lms, patriotic graf\ufb01ti appeared on public were big changes. in Germany wore \u201cJude\u201d and in France \u201cJuif.\u201d such as Communists, walls, and the citizens of Denmark wore RAF colors. Certain courageous Both curfews and Roma, and Jews. All individuals frequently risked severe punishment or even death to help censorship were widely imposed, over the occupied territories, local movement was restricted, and there people were either encouraged or was the ever-present threat of being forced to go to Germany to work. stopped and searched. Food, clothing, and fuel rationing were introduced and Resistance and collaboration Germany stripped countries of There were many cases of direct resources, either to meet the needs of collaboration as people, either fearful the occupying forces or for the war or supportive of the Nazis, acted as effort within Germany. As normal informers or used German occupation 106","LIFE UNDER THE SWASTIKA AFTER Liberation from Nazi rule did not begin until 1944. For people living in occupied Europe conditions worsened although resistance increased. RESISTANCE AND LIBERATION By the summer of 1942 German-occupied territories extended from the Channel Islands to Moscow, but from 1943 the tide began to turn. Allied secret services aided resistance movements and from 1942 the French Resistance 222\u201323 gg intensi\ufb01ed its activities, while partisans in Albania and Yugoslavia harried occupying forces. In 1944 the Allies landed in France, beginning the Liberation 268\u201369 gg. THE HOLOCAUST From 1942 Nazi persecution of the Jews escalated into the Final Solution 176\u201377 gg. Jews everywhere were rounded up and deported to extermination camps such as Auschwitz. By 1945 the Jewish population of Europe had dropped to about three million\u2014at least six million had been murdered. Figures vary, but it is likely that about another \ufb01ve million people perished in and outside the camps. They included Roma, Communists, homosexuals, disabled people, and so-called \u201cundesirables.\u201d members of the French Resistance or rounded up and forced into ghettos or On the surface HOLOCAUST VICTIM (1929\u20131945) to come to the aid of Allied soldiers deported east to concentration camps. After the occupation, daily life apparently returned to who arrived behind enemy lines. In many areas, Jewish Councils were normal in Paris. Restaurants and bars reopened and ANNE FRANK set up to work with Nazi of\ufb01cials, German troops sat side-by-side with Parisians. Swastikas Treatment of Jews something that has since been argued and increasing civilian hardship gave the lie to normality. One of the best-known victims of the over. The move to deport Jews in Holocaust, Anne Frank was a German- Jews were persecuted throughout France was slower, but from 1941 they Europe where killing squads called born Jewish girl whose family left Nazi-occupied Europe. After the arrival too were being deported. The pattern Einsatzgruppen carried out mass Germany for Holland in 1933. In 1940, of occupying forces, local of\ufb01cials were was the same in every occupied country. extermination on a daily basis. Jewish when Anne was nearly 11, German ordered to provide lists of Jews, who Some brave individuals risked their ghettos were created in Poland in 1939, forces marched into Holland. Two years were then stripped of their civil rights lives to hide Jews or help them to and from 1942 thousands were sent to later, as Nazis began rounding up Dutch and banned from schools, restaurants, escape. Persecution was worst in Eastern their deaths in concentration camps. Jews, the family went into hiding, helped and public spaces. Soon Jews were by friends. They survived for two years in what Anne called their \u201csecret annex,\u201d \u201cOne day this terrible war will be over \u2026 we\u2019ll during which time she kept a diary of her experiences. In 1944 the family were be people again and not just Jews.\u201d betrayed and deported. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen, aged 15. Her diary survived ANNE FRANK WRITING IN HER DIARY, APRIL 11, 1944 and was published after the war. 107","EYEWITNESS June 14\u201316, 1940 Life under German Occupation In May 1940 German troops began their occupation of Western Europe. Moving swiftly, German troops occupied the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. On June 14, 1940 German forces entered Paris. Caught off guard by the speed of the German advance, the French Army and the people of Paris offered little resistance. \u201cWe first became aware that Germans were in occupation of the city when Paris fire trucks, manned by Frenchmen, stopped below our hotel on Friday morning and we watched them haul down the four big French flags which encircled the Rond-Point des Champs Elys\u00e9es. Then they began to tear down posters which urged Frenchmen to buy armament bonds. We went out then to meet the incoming troops, advancing along the Rue Lafayette, past the Madeleine [church] into the Place de la Concorde \u2026 it was startling to observe the nonchalance with which those Germans marched through the heart of Paris. They were still at war with France, but they did not even bother to assign guards along the boulevards through which they advanced. Those first German troops were young and alert and freshly shaved ... We stood at the Madeleine on that sunny morning amid small clusters of Frenchmen and watched the Germans pass. They looked about them with a lively curiosity at the beautiful city which most of them were viewing for the first time \u2026 The French people around us watched the procession in silence, bearing themselves with that dignity and sang-froid which their authorities had recommended. For several days after the occupation the German army authorities simply ignored the population of Paris \u2026 We had curfew at nine o\u2019clock and the blackout continued \u2026 Paris \u2026 took on the appearance of a military city. There were continuous troop parades up and down the boulevards, there were military band concerts, there was the incessant roar of planes flying low over the city \u2026 On the afternoon of the second day of occupation \u2026 the first French prisoners went by in trucks through the Place de la Concorde. The crowds had become larger then, and they surged towards the defeated men. Girls and women ran after them, a few weeping \u2026 Sunday the sixteenth, the third day of the occupation, was a cool sunny day. By this time Paris had become accustomed to the steady roll of army vehicles, carrying \u201dGerman troops and guns \u2026 JOURNALIST DEMAREE BESS, OBSERVING GERMANS OCCUPYING PARIS, JUNE 1940 Life as normal German officers and Parisians in a caf\u00e9 on the Champs Elys\u00e9es on Bastille Day, July 14, 1940. Caf\u00e9s and restaurants had reopened and life in Paris had all but returned to normal despite the German occupation. 108","","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE Governments in Exile In the summer of 1940, Hitler\u2019s troops As the German grip on Europe tightened, thousands fled their homelands and escaped abroad. Among swept through the Low Countries and into the refugees arriving in Britain were the monarchs and politicians of occupied countries, as well as their France. Most of Europe fell under Nazi rule. soldiers, sailors, and airmen, all determined to fight Nazi aggression on the side of the Allied forces. POLAND E arly on the morning of April 9, 1941 London Rally to the cause Perhaps 100,000 Polish servicemen escaped 1940, the German cruiser Bl\u00fccher was home to General de Gaulle meets volunteers from the French to neutral countries in 1939 when their nation slipped quietly into Oslofjord the monarchs, colony of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, in London, 1942. was overrun by Germany and the Soviets in Norway. The German plan was governments, The islands, off the coast of Newfoundland, joined the Free ff\u000158\u201359. Twice as many ended up as to arrest the Norwegian king and opposition leaders, French cause in 1941 after previous loyalty to Vichy France. prisoners in the USSR, where thousands, many his cabinet, and force the country and resistance of them army o\ufb03cers, would be murdered by to capitulate to their attack. Instead, movements of a Charles de Gaulle, a very junior the Soviet secret police (NKVD). the Bl\u00fccher was hit by torpedoes dozen occupied general who had brie\ufb02y been a from a Norwegian coast defense fort nations, all of government minister, escaped to GERMAN CONQUESTS IN 1940 them seeking an London. De Gaulle strongly opposed In April 1940 Hitler conquered Denmark and 20 The number, in percentage terms, early return to the newly established Vichy government Norway ff 74\u201375. The Danish government and of the world\u2019s oil tankers that their homelands king remained in the country throughout the war, belonged to Norway in 1940. More than and the restoration collaborating as little as possible with the one third of Britain\u2019s wartime oil imports of legal rule there. Nazis. The Danish merchant navy and the overseas came in Norwegian ships. possessions of Greenland and the Faroe Islands Polish ministers came under Allied control. Norway\u2019s king and and sunk. King Haakon VII and his had established government led a futile defense against the Nazi family escaped to carry on the \ufb01ght, a government in attack and then went into exile in Britain. eventually \ufb02eeing their country in exile in Paris, after June when defeat was inevitable. the disasters of September 1939. THE LOW COUNTRIES AND FRANCE When Germany invaded France in All of northwest Europe was occupied King Haakon VII was not the only May 1940, they escaped to London. during May and June 1940 ff 76\u201383. The national leader to sidestep capture in The Dutch royal family, headed by Dutch and Luxemburg governments went into a dramatic fashion. By the summer of the formidable Queen Wilhelmina, exile in Britain. Belgium\u2019s top politicians also \ufb02ed to the safety of Britain. escaped but ended up for a time in Vichy Training for the return home France, from where a number went to London to Czechoslovakian troops training in Britain in 1942. A When Belgium fell, King L\u00e9opold III set up a true exile government. France itself was Czech armored brigade fought in France in 1944 and surrendered, but the country\u2019s political an entirely di\ufb00erent matter. Marshal P\u00e9tain\u2019s helped lay siege to the German garrison in Dunkirk. leaders later transferred government Vichy regime remained in theory the legitimate Czech units also served with the Red Army in 1944\u201345. operations to London. On June 17 government of France after the surrender. Few in 1940, with French defeat imminent, 1940 believed that de Gaulle\u2019s Free French would in time take over that role.","GOVERNMENTS IN EXILE Flying for freedom had also set up a second (Communist) POLISH NATIONALIST (1881\u20131943) Polish fighter pilots fought effectively with Polish government in exile and the RAF from 1940 to the end of the war. A ensured that this had the dominant WLADYSLAW SIKORSKI Polish squadron, No. 303, claimed the highest role after the war ended. number of \u201ckills\u201d in the Battle of Britain. General Sikorski had been prime minister One of the obvious roles that all of Poland in the 1920s. He became head exiled governments played was to keep of government and commander-in-chief in touch with their people and inspire of Polish exile forces \ufb01rst in France and them to resist the German occupation. then from London. When Germany Queen Wilhelmina\u2019s broadcasts on attacked the USSR he negotiated a deal with Stalin for Polish prisoners in the USSR 15,000 The number of Polish to be released to \ufb01ght Hitler, but received army officers murdered no promise from Stalin that Polish territory by the Soviets at Katyn and elsewhere would be restored after the war. Sikorski in 1940. The Nazis publicized their died in an air crash in 1943. Allegations discovery of the mass graves in 1943. of sabotage surround his death. and made a series of radio broadcasts politicians and armed forces from the Radio Oranje were eagerly awaited AFTER by her people back home in the from the BBC urging his countrymen French territories freed by the Allies Netherlands, who had to listen to them Some governments in exile returned secretly (in the German-occupied zone, home with honor to play a full part in to \ufb01ght on: \u201cFrance has lost a battle in their advances since 1941. General it was illegal to listen to broadcasts the future political life of their nations. from Britain). The British Special Others were not so fortunate. but France has not lost the war!\u201d de Gaulle gradually won these political Operations Executive (SOE) worked with all the exiled governments to WESTERN EUROPE battles, while at the same time ferry agents into the occupied countries The exile governments and set up resistance groups. One of from Western Europe Carrying on the fight successfully asserting France\u2019s right the reasons why General de Gaulle\u2019s returned to restore Free French came to be accepted as the civilian democratic Some of the governments in exile had to an independent national role. legitimate leadership of France was rule in their countries. that they created a National Resistance There were inevitably few resources and depended entirely The scene in the East was different. Council actually in occupied France to political changes\u2014King coordinate resistance activities. L\u00e9opold of Belgium was on the support of the Allies, \ufb01rst from The war ended with the Soviets holding Armed forces eventually forced to abdicate Britain and later also via Lend-Lease on to the whole zone, which Stalin was LONDON\u2019S DE because of his wartime role, Many trained servicemen escaped with GAULLE PLAQUE for example. All countries faced from the US. Other going to rule as he their governments and were formed the problem of integrating the huge resistance into \ufb01ghting units to serve alongside forces who had fought hard at home with the governments were In 1939, when the captain of the Polish saw \ufb01t regardless of the British and other Allied forces. leaders and other exiles who had served abroad. Over 19,000 Poles served within the able to pay their submarine Orzel became sick, its crew, the consequences. British RAF, a Polish army corps fought EASTERN EUROPE in Italy, and an armored division in Both Czechoslovakia and Poland had postwar way: the Dutch and unable to return home, docked in Resistance tactics northwest Europe. The Dutch forces governments for a time that included London the Norwegians had neutral Estonia. They were arrested comprised many warships that were exiles and Communists aided by the Soviets. By berthed in the East Indies in May 1947\u201348 the Communists had seized control large incomes from but escaped with their boat, sinking The various London 1940. However, most of these in both countries by brutality and fraudulent were sunk in early combats elections. For Yugoslavia the wartime exile their merchant a Nazi troop transport off Norway. governments in against the Japanese in 1941\u201342. government had been discredited by its internal squabbling. Since the country had then navies, and the exile had broadly The largest exile forces were largely been freed by Tito\u2019s Communist partisans, French. At \ufb01rst de Gaulle had it was they who became the new government. Belgians had the mineral wealth of democratic aims, and often a strong few supporters but he gradually won over various French colonies 111 their African colonies. For the Allies anti-Communist bias. Stalin had no in Africa. Following the Torch invasion of northwest Africa in there was never any question that some, intention of letting them return home November 1942, the large French forces there, previously loyal to Vichy, like the Dutch and the Norwegians, and take control of their countries. came over to the Allied side. In August 1944 the French First Army played a were the legitimate governments of Poland was perhaps the most notable full part in the invasion of southern France, and in the same month General their nations; for others the situation victim of Stalin\u2019s ruthless tactics. Leclerc\u2019s French armored division led the liberating Allied troops into Paris. was far more complicated. General de Thousands of Poles escaped through Gaulle\u2019s Free French Forces Romania to the West when their were only formally recognized country was overrun in 1939, but tens by Britain and the US as the of thousands more went into Soviet provisional government of captivity where many were murdered. France in October 1944, after Eventually a large number were allowed most of the country had been to leave the Soviet Union to join their liberated from the Germans. compatriots \ufb01ghting alongside the In the meantime there had Western Allies. However, other Poles been much political were formed into army units under maneuvering to merge Soviet control. By the time the Red the Free French with Army reached Polish territory Stalin \u201c This war is not over as a result of the Battle of France. This war is a worldwide war.\u201d CHARLES DE GAULLE, IN A RADIO BROADCAST FROM LONDON, JUNE 18, 1940","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 LEADER OF THE FREE FRENCH Born 1890 Died 1970 Charles de Gaulle \u201c The \ufb02ame of French resistance must not and shall not die!\u201d CHARLES DE GAULLE\u2019S FIRST BROADCAST FROM LONDON, JUNE 18, 1940 P atriotic, individualistic, and often only French commander to achieve a dif\ufb01cult to work with, General de German retreat during their relentless Gaulle was leader of the Free invasion. Now a brigadier-general, he French forces and head of the French was appointed undersecretary of state government in exile. for national defense, and suggested an Anglo-French union for the duration Committed to the military from of the con\ufb02ict. The French cabinet an early age, de Gaulle served under rejected his proposal. By now P\u00e9tain Colonel Philippe P\u00e9tain in World War I. was prime minister and de Gaulle, who He was wounded at Verdun and spent \ufb01ercely opposed the armistice and 32 months as a prisoner of war. Always collaboration with Germany, \ufb02ew to an intellectual, his postwar career London on June 17, 1940, where the included lecturing at the French War following day he broadcast to the College and distinguished service in French people urging resistance. His Poland. He was appointed secretary hope, and that of Winston Churchill, to the National Defense Council and was that others would join him. P\u00e9tain should have had a glittering career, but branded him a traitor and sentenced in the 1930s he antagonized politicians and high-ranking military him to death in his absence. Resistance leader The Free French Le grand Charles The flag of the Free French, chosen by de Gaulle, consisted Dressed in a general\u2019s uniform of the Cross of Lorraine set against the tricolor. The cross From now on de Gaulle\u2019s role and standing 6 ft 4 in (1.94 symbolized resistance against invaders of France. was more political than military. m) tall, de Gaulle was an His aim was to build up a Free imposing and dignified figure. personnel by his outspoken criticism. French movement that he would His chances of promotion ceased, and lead from London. Winston he slipped into obscurity. Churchill backed him but When World War II broke out, de President Roosevelt, was wary, Gaulle was a tank commander in believing that de Gaulle\u2019s main Alsace. He had predicted a German concern was to restore France\u2019s advance through Holland and Belgium independence rather than the and championed the need for more wider Allied war aims. tank units, but his views were largely ignored. He attacked advancing De Gaulle\u2019s Free French German forces at Montcornet and forces initially included only those Caumont, where he became the French troops who had escaped the occupation of France, but gradually colonial territories in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Chad and Cameroon, rallied to de Gaulle, as did French Indochina and other smaller regions. From 1941 Free French forces were \ufb01ghting with the Allies in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. The Free French movement gathered momentum when an underground resistance movement was established within France. De Gaulle naturally felt that he should be the nominal leader of this movement, which he named the Fighting French Forces. He sent an emissary to France to try to unify 112","CHARLES DE GAULLE the various resistance groups under Flame of resistance TIMELINE his leadership, which was partially Charles de Gaulle made his first achieved in 1943 with the National broadcast to the French people O\u0001 November 22, 1890 Born in Lille, France, into Council of the Resistance. from the BBC studios after the a literary upper middle-class family. fall of France on June 18, 1940. In 1943 de Gaulle left London and set O\u0001 1912 Having shown an early and keen interest up his base in Algiers, where he formed in military matters, graduates from the Saint-Cyr the French Committee of National Military Academy. Liberation (FCNL) jointly with General Henri Giraud, commander-in-chief of O\u0001 1913 Joins an infantry regiment as a second the Free French forces in North Africa. lieutenant serving under Colonel P\u00e9tain. Later, de Gaulle skillfully maneuvered Giraud into a subordinate role. O\u0001 March 1916 Promoted to captain during World War I. Captured at the Battle of Verdun, he makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape. Tensions and liberation O\u0001 1919\u201321 Fights against the Red Army on a military mission to Poland, and gains Poland\u2019s By June 1944 Free French forces had highest military decoration. grown to more than 300,000 regular troops, and de Gaulle\u2019s popularity in Appeal of June 18, 1940 O\u0001 1923\u201325 Lectures at the French Staff College France was on the rise. But there were De Gaulle\u2019s famous words, \u201cFrance has lost a battle. and publishes his first book, Discord Among the tensions between de Gaulle and the But France has not lost the war!\u201d, were not part of Enemy (1924), about German politics. Promoted Allied leaders, many of whom saw him the official script for the BBC broadcast of June 18. to the staff of the Supreme War Council. as a loose cannon. His determination to restore France\u2019s glory was seen as a O\u0001 1934 Publishes The Army of the Future, in deviation from the main war effort. To which he argues for a professional standing army his annoyance, he was often sidelined and mechanized warfare, using tanks and planes. in decision-making and was suspicious of Britain and the United States\u2019 furious; they refused to recognize de Signi\ufb01cantly, de Gaulle was not invited O\u0001 1939 Takes over command of the 5th Army\u2019s attempts to in\ufb02uence France\u2019s future. Gaulle\u2019s action and excluded him from to the Yalta Conference in February armoured vehicle force in Alsace. the planning of Operation Overlord, the 1945, where the \u201cBig Three\u201d\u2014Stalin, Matters came to a head in 1944 when invasion of Normandy. On August 25, Churchill, and Roosevelt\u2014debated O\u0001 May 15\u201328, 1940 Made commander of the de Gaulle announced that the FCNL 1944, de Gaulle, preceded by the 2nd the shape of postwar Europe; nor was 4th Armored Division. Attacks German forces was to be known as the provisional Armored Division and the US Army, he invited to the subsequent Potsdam at Montcornet with tanks, forcing the German government of France, with him at its entered Paris. The French greeted him Conference, where the future of infantry to retreat. Promoted to brigadier general. head. Roosevelt and Churchill were as their new leader and by October the Germany was determined. Within Allies recognized him as France\u2019s leader. France, however, de Gaulle was a O\u0001 June 6, 1940 Appointed undersecretary of state hero. He headed the immediate for national defense by French prime minister. \u201c Since they whose duty it was to wield postwar government, but resigned in the sword of France have let it fall \u2026 1946. He returned as president in 1958, O\u0001 June 17, 1940 Marshall P\u00e9tain becomes prime I have taken up the broken blade\u201d and during his term of of\ufb01ce dealt minister of France; de Gaulle flies to Britain. with two uprisings in Algeria, agreed SPEECH GIVEN BY DE GAULLE, JULY 13, 1940 France\u2019s independent nuclear capacity, O\u0001 June 18, 1940 Broadcasts an appeal from and worked toward a uni\ufb01ed Europe. London to the French people. O\u0001 July 4, 1940 In his absence, sentenced to four years imprisonment by a court martial in Toulouse. On 2 August he is sentenced to death. O\u0001 June 1943 With Henri Giraud, sets up the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL). O\u0001 May 26, 1944 Announces that the FCNL is to be known as the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Leadership rivals FRENCH NEWSPAPER HERALDING General de Gaulle arrives in North THE LIBERATION OF PARIS Africa for talks with General Giraud, commander-in-chief of the Free French O\u0001 August 25, 1944 Enters liberated Paris with forces (shown left). Roosevelt favored US troops; in October Allies recognize him as Giraud as leader of postwar France. the head of the French government. O\u0001 November 13, 1945 Elected head of the French government. Resigns in January 1946. O\u0001 December 1958 Elected president of France\u2019s Fifth Republic, during the Algerian crisis. O\u0001 April 1969 Steps down as president of France and retires from public life. O\u0001 November 9, 1970 Dies suddenly at home in Colombey, and is accorded a small funeral at his local church, as specified by his last wishes. 113","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 O1 WARNING AGAINST \u201cCARELESS O7 RECRUITING POSTER (ITALY) TALK\u201d (US) O2 IMPENDING ALLIED DESTRUCTION OF NAZI GERMANY (US) O3 NAVY RECRUITING POSTER O4 CALL TO THE WORKERS TO O5 CELEBRATING EARLY VICTORIES AT SEA (JAPAN) O6 SHOW OF AERIAL MIGHT (JAPAN) (CANADA) JOIN THE WAR EFFORT (CANADA) Propaganda Propaganda was a powerful way of uniting the people and furthering a particular cause. It could manipulate public opinion, help with recruitment, stir patriotism, advertise ideologies and beliefs, and provide the public with safety information. O1 An American \u201ccareless talk\u201d poster highlights the danger Japanese troops, warning that \u201cWithout modern weapons Obl CELEBRATION OF HEROIC EFFORTS OF THE ARMS INDUSTRY (USSR) of enemy agents. Citizens of Japanese descent were interned you are doomed.\u201d They were written in several languages to as a precaution after Pearl Harbor. O2 An anti-Nazi poster persuade the Burmese people not to side with the Japanese. fosters public support for the US\u2019s allies and their cause. Obu A poster of Soviet and Allied cooperation in O3 A Canadian navy recruitment poster urges \u201cDo it well \u2026 overcoming the Nazis portrays the Soviet Union as doing the do it quickly \u2026 their victory will be yours.\u201d The Royal Canadian lion\u2019s share. Obl A Soviet arms industry poster illustrates the Navy went from having only six destroyers to being the world\u2019s direct contribution of the factory worker to the war e\ufb00ort. third largest navy by the war\u2019s end. O4 A poster for war Tens of thousands of Soviet women were employed in production in Canada a\ufb03rms \u201cIt\u2019s our war.\u201d The decision production. Obm Soviet anti-Nazi propaganda portrays the to declare war alongside Britain was initially controversial i enemy as inhuman, galvanizing the Soviet people to action. n Canada. O5 The Japanese air force is celebrated in this The strength of Soviet nationalism surprised the Germans. poster, which emphasizes how \u201cAircraft can be the di\ufb00erence Obn A Free French poster depicts the Free French as the anvil between winning and losing the battle.\u201d O6 A war bond on which the Nazis will be crushed by the hammer of the poster asks the Japanese public to buy war bonds in support Allies. Obo A German blackout poster reminds civilians to of the 1937\u201345 Sino-Japanese War e\ufb00ort. O7 An Italian observe blackout regulations: \u201cThe enemy sees your light!\u201d recruitment poster inspires men to enrol in the anti-aircraft Obp This Nazi anti-Soviet, anti-Jewish poster shows the artillery. The \ufb01gure loading the gun closely resembles exhumation of mass graves in the Ukraine. The \ufb01gure Mussolini. O8 This poster warning against spies was used presiding over the corpses is a Jewish-Bolshevik commissar. in both France and Britain. The public was reminded not to Many Ukrainians fought for Germany against the Soviets. discuss ship sailings, war production, or troop movements. Obq An anti-Soviet poster depicts Germany as the saviour of O9 British lea\ufb02ets dropped over Burma aimed to demoralize Europe, protecting it from the evil Soviet in\ufb02uence. 114","P R O PA G A N DA O8 WARNING AGAINST SPIES (BRITAIN) O9 LEAFLETS DROPPED TO DEMORALIZE JAPANESE TROOPS (BRITAIN) Obu ALLIED COOPERATION STRANGLING HITLER (USSR) Obm CALL TO EXTERMINATE HITLER\u2019S BEASTS (USSR) Obn \u201cBETWEEN THE HAMMER \u2026 AND THE ANVIL\u201d (FREE FRENCH) Obo WARNING NOT TO SHOW A Obp ANTI-JEWISH PROPAGANDA Obq SAVING EUROPE FROM THE LIGHT TO BOMBERS (GERMANY) IN UKRAINE (GERMANY) SOVIET DRAGON (GERMANY) 115","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 The Secret War Throughout the war Allied and Axis powers used codes and ciphers to pass sensitive military and diplomatic information around the world. Behind the scenes an army of codebreakers worked in absolute secrecy to intercept and interpret the information. By and large, the Allies had the edge. G ermany\u2019s greatest asset was the letters into code; and an illuminated Enigma machine \u201cEnigma\u201d machine. Developed lamp-board for displaying enciphered Enigma looked like an ordinary typewriter but was an for commercial purposes, the letters. A plug-board containing six electromechanical device that scrambled sentences into German Navy adopted one version cables sat below the keyboard. completely illogical sequences of letters, using pre-set in 1926, and the German Army later moving rotors. It could encipher a message in over adopted another. By 1935 Enigma Enigma\u2019s security derived from the 10,000 million, million ways. machines were standard equipment way it was set up. The rotors could be for all Germany\u2019s armed forces. Able arranged in a different order, aligned in to encipher messages in millions of any position, and set to rotate at varying ways, Enigma was ideal for the rapid speeds. Likewise, the cables could be enciphering and deciphering of military plugged in many different combinations. instructions that proved so useful for All these settings were changed daily, Germany\u2019s Blitzkrieg tactics. In 1939 according to a monthly code book. three Polish cipher experts managed to replicate Enigma and passed their The Germans believed the Enigma knowledge on to Britain and France code was unbreakable. In response, just weeks before war began. the British government assembled a team of outstanding mathematicians, The Enigma was a \ufb01endishly complex piece of equipment. It had three main Sending in code parts: a keyboard to type in the plain German soldiers use Enigma to encode letters; a scrambling unit of three, later a message. One worked the machine, four, alphabetical rotors to turn the plain a second called out the enciphered letters, the third wrote the message. BEFORE Skills in codebreaking\u2014cryptography\u2014 linguists, and scientists to form the text, sent out at 6:05am each developed considerably during World War I, with the British deciphering German codes. Code and Cipher School at Bletchley day, turned out to be the six BRITISH INTELLIGENCE Park, Buckinghamshire. Here, Alan letters of Wetter, announcing the German military and diplomatic messages were sent by a complex number code. In early 1917 Turing (see opposite) designed an day\u2019s weather forecast. Clues British codebreakers working in Room 40 of the Admiralty in London deciphered a major electromechanical machine based on such as these, together with communication between the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, and his an earlier Polish 2 The number of years that the procedural ambassador in Washington D.C. for onward version that could war was shortened by\u2014as errors in transmission to Mexico, o\ufb00ering that country some historians believe\u2014after setting the American territory if it declared war on the break the Enigma the British deciphered the machines up US. The release of the message to the US press code. Using a each day, and did much to bring the United States into the war procedure that against Germany ff\u000116\u201317 in April 1917. was known as German Enigma code in 1941. the capture of MORSE CODE Russia did not encipher its messages, but sent traf\ufb01c analysis, codebooks, them in Morse code. Early German victories in 1914 were the result of interception by it was possible to identify which type gave Bletchley the help they the German Signals Intelligence Service. of machine had enciphered a message, needed. From 1941 they were MORSE CODE TRANSMITTER thus reducing Enigma\u2019s many variables. deciphering all German naval 116 Luckily for the Allies, Enigma had a Enigma messages, and the vital \ufb02aw: it could not encipher any letter as intelligence gained\u2014codenamed itself. Also, some messages were very \u201cUltra\u201d\u2014proved crucial in similar; for example, a six-letter cipher revealing the location of U-boats","THE SECRET WAR MATHEMATICIAN (1912\u201354) ALAN TURING After studying mathematics at Cambridge University, Turing, at the age of 24, wrote a theoretical paper detailing the principles of modern computing. This envisaged a universal computing machine that could be programd to solve certain mathematical problems. One of the chief codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Turing provided some crucial breakthroughs in deciphering the Enigma code. The secrecy necessarily surrounding Turing\u2019s wartime achievements meant that his genius has only recently been fully acknowledged. Viewing windows Colossus calculating machine William Friedman, intercepted one AFTER Upper lid Developed at Bletchley Park, the Colossus broke the message that had been enciphered on Battery box most complex Lorenz codes used in high-level German both machines. They also discovered The work of the British codebreakers at Rotor cylinder communications. Ten machines worked full time to the telephone technology behind Purple. Bletchley Park remained top secret until with code letters reveal the contents of 600 top-secret messages a month. Armed with these two insights, they many years after World War II. Light bulbs broke the code in September 1940 and in the North Atlantic, helping Allied then reconstructed a Purple machine to IN THE NAME OF SECRECY Keyboard shipping to evade their attacks. Churchill decipher Japanese diplomatic messages. Ultra \ufb01les were locked away and, although the Socket saw the Ultra intercepts as a secret It was through Purple that the US Colossus was the world\u2019s \ufb01rst programmable, weapon, calling them \u201cgolden eggs.\u201d government learned that Japan was electronic computer, the machines were Front about to break off peace negotiations broken and their blueprints destroyed. panel Codebreaking in the US prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but they never completely broke the naval HELPING TO WIN THE WAR Across the Atlantic, the Americans code JN-25 and were caught unaware Breaking Rommel\u2019s codes aided Montgomery were working on Japan\u2019s \u201cAlphabetic when Japanese naval bombers attacked in the North African campaign 182\u201383 gg. Typewriter 97,\u201d \ufb01rst used to encipher the US Paci\ufb01c Fleet. Using Ultra enabled the Allies to divert ships diplomatic messages in 1939. It was away from danger during the Battle of the Atlantic 204\u201305 gg, and helped to reveal the \u201c The geese that laid the golden size and location of German forces in eggs and never cackled.\u201d Normandy before D-Day 254\u201355 gg. WINSTON CHURCHILL, ON THE TEAM AT BLETCHLEY PARK codenamed \u201cPurple\u201d because it was While the Japanese used machines, NAVAJO CODE TALKERS based on an earlier machine that the Americans used code talkers, speci\ufb01cally Americans had already cracked, which Navajo Native American. Recruited to was codenamed \u201cRed.\u201d work with US forces in the Paci\ufb01c, they sent and received military messages in The Purple code was created by a their own, unique language. The bene\ufb01t machine that consisted of two electric of using Navajos was that they worked typewriter keyboards connected by at the speed of speech, an improvement wires and switches based on standard telephone on the previous switchboard laborious system technology. Not of enciphering every Japanese and deciphering embassy had the messages using a new machine, cipher machine. however, so many messages were The \u201cPurple\u201d machine sent using the old \u201cPurple,\u201d the Japanese Red technology. cipher machine, differed Fortunately, the from Enigma in having codebreakers of telephone switches rather the US Army than rotating scramblers Signals Intelligence to encipher and decipher Service, led by its messages. 117","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE The U-Boat War Before the French surrendered in June The Battle of the Atlantic was a fight for Britain\u2019s very survival. Without supplies brought by sea, Britain 1940, both Britain and Germany achieved would starve and its army would have no fuel for its tanks, ships, or planes. Hundreds of ships needed scattered successes in the war at sea. to sail to and from British ports every month. Germany\u2019s U-boats had plenty of targets to choose from. BRITAIN\u2019S SUPPLY LINE F or the \ufb01rst year of the war, Tracking the enemy In 1939 Britain imported roughly half its food, German U-boat activity A U-boat captain at the periscope sets all its oil, and many other raw materials. In World against British supply lines his sights on an enemy ship, while his War I Germany\u2019s submarines had tried to cut was effective, but limited. This officers take instrument readings that Britain\u2019s supply lines and almost succeeded. all changed with the fall of will be used to aim the torpedoes. However, at the start of World War II the German France. Germany moved its Navy had relatively few submarines in submarine bases to ports in submerged submarines. service and manufacturing new ones was not western France, giving the However, it could not locate high on the country\u2019s priority list. boats direct short-range access a submarine on the surface. to the main Atlantic sea lanes. At night or in bad weather a BRITISH EXPANSION surfaced submarine was very As on land, combat at sea in 1939\u201340 was very Vulnerable under water hard to spot visually. The Navy infrequent. Germany\u2019s U-boats achieved some could use radar for the job but successes\u2014sinking the battleship Royal Oak U-boats sank dozens of Allied this was only gradually being ff\u000162\u201363 in the Royal Navy\u2019s main \ufb02eet base, ships each month between June introduced. During the second for example\u2014but Germany\u2019s attacks on 1940 and the end of the year. half of 1940, by exploiting this British trade had limited results. In e\ufb00ect, Admiral Karl D\u00f6nitz, the head weakness, U-boats regularly Britain was given a breathing space to get its of the U-boat force, introduced convoy system up and running and set about the \u201cwolf pack\u201d system where greatly expanding its anti-submarine forces. submarines hunted in groups, attacking Norway\u2019s large merchant navy, previously the convoys on the surface at night. neutral, went over to the Allies when Norway itself was attacked ff\u000174\u201375, more than At the start of the war the Royal Navy o\ufb00setting the initial sinkings by German U-boats. placed great faith in its ASDIC detection equipment, now usually known as U-BOAT ACE (1912\u20131998) sonar. This used sound waves to detect OTTO KRETSCHMER \u201cThe only thing that ever really frightened After joining the German navy in 1930, me during the war was Kretschmer became the most successful the U-boat peril.\u201d submarine commander of any navy during World War II, sinking 47 ships, WINSTON CHURCHILL mostly merchantmen but also warships. This earned him honors in Germany and Thousands of tonsSinking of merchant ships month by month, Jan 1940\u2013December 1941 the popular title, \u201cWolf of the Atlantic.\u201d In March 1941 his U-99 was sunk during a 350 Refuelling at sea convoy battle, Kretschmer was taken To keep the maximum number of combat submarines prisoner, and he spent six years in Allied 300 on patrol, a few large boats, like the former minelayer captivity. After the war he became an U-116 (top), were used to refuel and resupply smaller admiral in the West German navy. 250 attack boats, like U-406, a Type VIIc. 118 200 150 100 50 0 J FMAM J J A S OND J FMAM J J A S OND 1940 1941 Battle of the Atlantic 1940\u201341 Sinkings rose alarmingly when the Germans acquired new U-boat bases in France in 1940, but fell in 1941 when the British and Canadians began using escorts.","TH E U-BOAT WAR Torpedo calculator before sailing. which, although slow and horribly US Navy warships were in effect Submarine crews of all Ships heading for nations used complicated Britain were uncomfortable for their crews in bad \ufb01ghting alongside the Allies from devices like this one almost invariably to set the speed and heavily laden weather, were designed to carry the middle of 1941, at a time when path of their torpedoes with supplies; for firing, based on when one was effective anti-submarine weapons. codebreaking information had revealed estimates of the target hit, it went down ship\u2019s course and speed. like a stone. Less that Hitler did not then intend to go to than half of all penetrated right inside merchant seamen The problem of air cover war with the United States. Even so, convoy formations, sinking survived the sinking of up to half a dozen ships in a their ships. One convoy, in The British also steadily introduced several American warships were frantic hour or two before escaping October 1940, was spotted by six into the darkness. A small band of U-boats, four of them commanded by more air support for the convoys, both damaged or sunk in the fall of 1941. U-boat \u201caces,\u201d like Otto Kretschmer, \u201caces.\u201d Seventeen Allied ships were G\u00fcnther Prien, Erich Topp, Joachim lost, along with their vital cargoes. from land bases and aircraft-carrying In the aftermath of the surprise attacks Schepke, and other U-boat captains German attacks such as these forced in\ufb02icted terrible damage. the British to supply convoys with naval ships, but there 60 The percentage of cargo on Pearl Harbor on escorts for greater stretches of their was never received by Britain the morning of Improving tactics journey to and from North America, enough. Both during the war\u201440 December 7, 1941, but there was a critical shortage of sides used radio percent of its usual Hitler foolishly For the British during this time, it was these potentially life-saving escort intelligence and changed his mind a simple matter of survival. To combat vessels. Gradually, however, British the U-boat threat, merchant ships tactics improved. New ships called codebreaking peacetime cargo was lost. This meant and declared war traveled in convoy, but convoys could corvettes were developed. These were only move as fast as the slowest ship, small warships of less than 1,000 tons, information to that rationing of food and other on the United and it took time to assemble them initiate and essentials had to be tightened. States, making his avoid attacks. The own \ufb01nal defeat Germans had the advantage in this certain. However, for the \ufb01rst six respect but Britain managed to gain the months of 1942 German U-boats upper hand for some months from the attacked coastal shipping, running spring of 1941. amok off America\u2019s east coast. Throughout the year the United Because of astonishing command States, although still of\ufb01cially neutral, failures at the top of the US Navy, became increasingly committed to it took many months for a properly \ufb01ghting in the Atlantic. Although most escorted convoy system to be Americans did not realize it, \u201cneutral\u201d introduced in the western Atlantic and Caribbean. While German submarines were not well suited to operations so far from home, U-boat commanders scored success after success. By the middle of the year the Allies were \ufb01ghting back more effectively, but it was clear that the U-boat menace in the Battle of the Atlantic was far from over. AFTER The Battle of the Atlantic continued to the last day of the war but the Allied victory was inevitable by the middle of 1942. SHIPYARD BATTLE During July 1942, for the \ufb01rst time in World War II, more Allied merchant ships were launched than were sunk by German U-boats. In the middle of 1943, BADGE WORN BY A the United States\u2019 U-BOAT CREWMAN huge ship-building program 168\u201369 gg meant that the total Allied merchant stock now exceeded the level of 1939 and would continue to grow throughout 1944 and 1945. GERMAN LOSSES Germany\u2019s U-boats were doomed to failure. Growing Allied escort forces and their advanced technology con\ufb01rmed this in the Battle of the Atlantic 204\u201305 gg. From 1945 onward, most U-boats were sunk before their \ufb01rst patrols. Three quarters of men who served in U-boats died. 119","EYEWITNESS February 1943 Life on a U-boat Sometimes described as \u201ciron coffins,\u201d German U-boats were mainly deployed to attack Allied shipping convoys. Crews lived and worked in the confined spaces on board for up to three months at a stretch. Provisions were good\u2014though food often went moldy\u2014but the air became foul and water was at a premium, so washing and shaving were discouraged. U-boats were extremely effective in the early stages of the war, but by May 1943 the Germans were suffering mounting losses, while their attacks were becoming less successful. \u201cWe were now battling our way through the February storms, the severest of the winter. The sea boiled and foamed and leaped continually under the lash of gales that chased one another across the Atlantic from west to east. U-230 struggled through gurgling whirlpools, up and down mountainous seas; she was pitched into the air by one towering wave and caught by another and buried under tons of water by still another. The cruel winds whipped across the wild surface at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour \u2026 When we were on watch, the wind punished us with driving snow, sleet, hail, and frozen spray. It beat against our rubber diver\u2019s suits, cut our faces like a razor, and threatened to tear off our eye masks \u2026 Below, inside the bobbing steel cockleshell, the boat\u2019s violent up-and-down motion drove us to the floor-plates and hurled us straight up and threw us around like puppets \u2026 Shipboard routine had replaced the excitement of the chase and the battle. And it was a maddening routine. The small ship rolled and slapped, listed and shuddered endlessly. Utensils, spare parts, tools, and conserves showered down on us continually; porcelain cups and dishes shattered on the deck- plates and in the bilges as we ate our meals directly out of cans. The men, penned up together in the rocking, sweating drum, took the motion and the monotony with stoicism. Occasionally, someone\u2019s temper flared, but spirits remained high. We were all patient veterans. Everyone aboard looked alike, smelled alike, had adopted the same phrases and curses. We had learned to live together in a narrow tube no longer than two railroad cars. We tolerated each other\u2019s faults and became experts on each other\u2019s habits\u2014how everyone laughed and snarled, talked and snored, sipped his coffee and caressed his beard. The pressure mounted with the passage of each uneventful day, but it could be relieved \u201din an instant by the sight of a fat convoy. U-BOAT COMMANDER HERBERT E. WERNER, DESCRIBING LIFE ON BOARD U-230 Cramped conditions U-boats carried a crew of around 40 men, who shared cramped conditions among the torpedoes and food supplies. They also shared bunks: as one man got up to start his four-hour watch, another took the bunk. 120","","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Hunting the Bismarck Bismarck was on the move. All Allied heavy ships were put on alert and By the spring of 1941 Germany\u2019s major surface warships had caused extensive damage and disruption scouting forces hurried to cover the routes by which the Bismarck could reach the main Atlantic shipping lanes. to Britain\u2019s vital supply routes. Now a new battleship, the Bismarck, was ready, and more dangerous Battle of the Denmark Strait than anything that had gone before. One of the Royal Navy\u2019s tasks would be to hunt down the Bismarck. The German warships were sighted again northwest of Iceland and A s Germany\u2019s navy the Kriegsmarine Scanning the horizon shadowed southwestward through the was rebuilt during the 1930s, Able Seaman Alfred Newall on Denmark Strait. The battleship Prince it was clear that it would take lookout duty aboard HMS Suffolk. of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Hood were the nearest of the unavoidably considerable time to expand it to the Newall was reportedly the man who scattered major British vessels and point where it could challenge Britain\u2019s first sighted the Bismarck as it sailed were sent to intercept. Royal Navy in a \ufb02eet battle. Admiral through the Denmark Strait. On the morning of May 24, the big Raeder\u2019s pre-war \u201cZ Plan\u201d envisaged ships met and within minutes HMS having the forces needed to do so by battleships of the King Hood was attacked. An explosion tore around 1944. In the meantime, as well George V class that the battlecruiser in two, killing all but as attacking Britain\u2019s trade with U-boats, Britain had started three of its 1,418 crew. The Prince of the Kriegsmarine would deploy their manufacturing in the Wales, even newer than the Bismarck surface vessels for long-distance raids late 1930s were designed and not yet fully ready for battle, was on British commerce. to the limit of 35,000 badly damaged and retired to safety. As war loomed, Britain was aware tons. Germany\u2019s big ships Although rather old and outdated, of the German threat but was still all \ufb02agrantly breached the treaty limits. Brest preparing for new operations and the Hood had been regarded as the constrained by the inter-war naval In late 1940 and early 1941 the pocket would make a dangerous combination pride of the Royal Navy and its loss was disarmament treaties. Thus the new battleship Admiral Scheer and the if they could link up with the Bismarck. a major blow. Now more than ever it battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Vice-Admiral G\u00fcnther L\u00fctjens, who was vital to sink the Bismarck before it BEFORE made successful raids in the Atlantic and was to command the whole operation, could run amok in the convoy routes. Fortunately for the Allies, the ship had Indian Oceans. By the spring of 1941 wanted to wait until the other ships the newest of the not escaped Germany knew that its modest surface German ships, \u201c We shall \ufb01ght to the last shell. unharmed. Two \ufb02eet was no match for the British one the 42,000-ton shells from the and sought other naval means to Bismarck, more undermine the Allied war effort. formidable than Long live the F\u00fchrer.\u201d Prince of Wales any British vessel, had caused a fuel leak, and L\u00fctjens HITLER\u2019S NAVY was ready for ADMIRAL L\u00dcTJENS, LAST RADIO MESSAGE FROM THE \u201cBISMARCK\u201d decided to head operations, along for the safety of At the outbreak of the war, Germany\u2019s Grand with the heavy western France for Admiral Erich Raeder knew that his surface ships cruiser Prinz Eugen. Hitler had always could join them, but he was overruled repairs. With major British warships could not win a full-scale \ufb02eet engagement been reluctant to risk his navy\u2019s most by Raeder. The German squadron set sail closing in on all sides, the German with the much larger British Royal Navy. Hitler had prestigious vessels but Admiral Raeder on May 18, 1941 from the eastern Baltic ships separated and for a time shook told him that he did persuaded him that the time was right toward the North Sea. off their many pursuers. On May 26 not expect to have to launch the Bismarck and its smaller Intelligence information from the the Bismarck was once again spotted to \ufb01ght Britain until consort into combat. The Scharnhorst and Swedish Navy and air reconnaissance by a patrol plane just 30 hours the mid-1940s\u2014by the Gneisenau were at the French port of off Norway told the British that the from the safety of the French KRIEGSMARINE ENSIGN then Germany\u2019s KEY N 0 750 km \ufb02eet would be German ships 0 750 miles much larger. British ships 2 May 23 Frontiers 1939 COMMERCE RAIDING Heavy cruiser German ships detected Instead of seeking an all-out battle, when war Su\ufb00olk by cruisers Norfolk and began the German Navy (the Kriegsmarine) used Su\ufb00olk using radar its large ships for long-distance raids against GREENLAND DenSmtraaritk Battleship Prince 1 May 21 British trade. The pocket battleship Admiral ICELAND of Wales and Graf Spee was sunk on such a mission in 1939 4 6:00am May 24 battlecruiser Hood Bismarck and ff\u000162\u201363\u0001but its sister ships and Germany\u2019s Prinz Eugen sail battlecruisers and cruisers made several damaging Hood sunk from Norway voyages up to early 1941. As well as sinking Allied ships, they forced the British to halt or divert 3 5:52am May 24 Reykjavik Home Fleet: battleship NORWAY convoys, delaying the delivery of vital cargoes Heavy cruiser Norfolk King George V, carrier and signi\ufb01cantly disrupting Britain\u2019s war e\ufb00ort. Battle of the Denmark Victorious, battlecruiser Strait. Hood and Prince of Repulse and 5 cruisers Wales engage Bismarck and Prinz Eugen Bergen 5 May 25 AT L A N T I C North OCEAN S e a DENMARK Bismarck and Prinz Eugen part company. Bismarck Battleship Rodney B R I TA I N ERMANY evades pursuers IRELAND London 9 10:40am May 27 G Bismarck sunk Pursuit and sinking of the Bismarck 6 May 25 Britain\u2019s best chance of finding the Bismarck was in 7 10:15am May 26 Brest its voyage from Norway into the main Atlantic shipping Prinz Eugen starts to lanes, but even then a vast area east and west of Iceland sail back to Brest Bismarck spotted by 8 9:05pm May 26 FRANCE had to be covered. British forces were therefore widely Catalina \ufb02ying boat Sword\ufb01sh from Ark Royal Heavy cruiser Dorsetshire destroys Bismarck\u2019s Carrier Ark Royal and Force H rudder with torpedo spread and came into action at different times. 122","HUNTING THE BISMARCK The warship in action Soon after sighting the Bismarck, the Royal Navy opened fire but they were no match for the Bismarck\u2019s 15-in guns. HMS Hood sank within three minutes. The cause\u2014a single shell that pierced its magazine. coastline. Sword\ufb01sh torpedo aircraft from the carrier Ark Royal were sent on a last-chance attack. One of the two hits they scored jammed the Bismarck\u2019s rudder. The ship could only move slowly in a helpless circle and was an easy target. The British battleships King George V and Rodney arrived the next morning and pounded the Bismarck into a wreck. Multiple torpedo hits extended the damage but it is possible 714 The number of 14-inch (King George V) and 16-inch (Rodney) shells fired in the final action. About 80 were hits but the Bismarck\u2019s main armor was probably not penetrated. that in the end the Bismarck was German survivors rescued actually scuttled by its own crew. Only Many of the Bismarck\u2019s crew took to the water when 115 of the 2,222 men on board were their ship went down. Only a few were rescued by Allied saved. HMS Hood had been avenged ships, including by HMS Dorsetshire as shown, before and one great threat to Britain\u2019s a U-boat scare forced the British rescuers to leave. Atlantic lifeline cancelled out. But the Bismarck\u2019s sister ship Tirpitz was nearly ready for action. The Bismarck during training, 1940 AFTER Major vessels like the Bismarck needed a lengthy period of running in to correct manufacturing defects and train In naval affairs, as in land warfare, Hitler an efficient crew. One of the reasons for Bismarck\u2019s initial became increasingly convinced that he success was that the Prince of Wales still had dockyard knew better than his top commanders. workers aboard working on gun-turret problems. PRINZ EUGEN After splitting from the Bismarck, the Prinz Eugen should have continued its raiding operations alone, but engine trouble forced it to abandon its mission and head for France. NORWEGIAN BASES The loss of the Bismarck turned Hitler against using his capital ships for risky long-range raiding. He became convinced, too, that the Allies intended to invade Norway and ordered his navy to send all its big ships there, so that they would also be able to attack Allied supply convoys to Russia. CHANNEL DASH The German ships in western France were bombed by the RAF, but the Prinz Eugen, the Scharnhorst, and the Gneisenau made a daring daylight escape up the English Channel from their base in Brest in February 1942. Damage from the RAF attacks limited the force sent to Norway, however, and the Scharnhorst and the Tirpitz were both eventually sunk in Norwegian waters. 123","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 The War in the Desert The fighting in North Africa saw swings of fortune unmatched in any other theater of the war. First one side then the other had the upper hand, forcing their enemies into long and sometimes panicky retreats. Largely roadless and waterless, the desert was a hostile environment in which to fight. I taly was not well prepared to \ufb01ght 9 4 Feb 1942 M e d i t e r r a n e a n in World War II when Mussolini N Allies halt Rommel\u2019s joined the con\ufb02ict in June 1940. advance at Gazala Line S e a 2 Apr 1941 3 May 1941 For all Mussolini\u2019s boasting, his country\u2019s economy was weak and Derna Start of \ufb01rst Rommel\u2019s o\ufb00ensive its armed forces, though impressive reaches Sollum in size, had many weaknesses. Few siege of Tobruk ordinary Italian soldiers had much enthusiasm for the \ufb01ght and their Barce El A k h dMaerkili Timimi Tobruk Bardia Sidi Barrani training was very poor. Their generals Jebel Gazala El Duda spent more time enjoying a luxurious Sidi lifestyle than preparing for battle and Benghazi Bir Hacheim Capuzzo BRITISH the soldiers\u2019 weapons were second Rezegh Sollum 8TH ARMY rate. Much the same applied at sea Gulf of GERMAN Sidi and in the air. Many Italian naval Sirte Halfaya Pass guns were inaccurate because of Omar unsatisfactory manufacturing standards 1 Mar 24, 1941 Msus AFRIKA KORPS Sofa\ufb01 and the air force relied on outdated biplane \ufb01ghters and bombers dating Rommel\u2019s \ufb01rst 8 Jan 21, 1942 Maddalena EGYPT back well before the war. The Italian o\ufb00ensive from economy was too weak and ill-run Antelat Rommel launches 6 Dec 8, 1941 4 Jun 15\u201317, 1941 to rectify these problems. El Agheila second o\ufb00ensive Tobruk relieved British Operation El Agheila L I B Y A 5 Nov 18, 1941 Battleaxe fails and Agedabia is driven back to start line British launch 7 Dec 31, 1941 Operation Crusader Rommel withdraws 0 150 km to El Agheila 0 150 miles KEY Changing fortunes in the battle for Libya Rommel\u2019s \ufb01rst o\ufb00ensive Mar\u2013May 1941 At the end of 1940, and again in late 1941, Allied forces Rommel\u2019s second o\ufb00ensive Jan\u2013Feb 1942 advanced hundreds of miles west to El Agheila British defensive line only to be thrown back in subsequent weeks by Axis defensive line renewed German-led Axis offensives. Italy\u2019s empire modern Somalia) had been the bases forces in Egypt (from India, Australia In 1940, Italy had important colonies for the Italian pre-war conquest of and New Zealand as well as Britain), in North and East Africa. Modern Libya was then Italian ruled while in the Abyssinia, now modern Ethiopia. Both although less than a quarter as strong, horn of Africa, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland (the southern part of were potentially well-placed to attack still prepared a counter-offensive. BEFORE Britain\u2019s vital imperial lifeline through the Suez Canal in British-controlled Hitler intervenes Egypt. British land and air forces in The British attack began on December 7 the Middle East were small and could and was immediately very successful. expect little reinforcement at \ufb01rst after All the Italian front-line positions the disasters in were almost instantly France and with Erwin Rommel\u2019s skills at improvising overrun and a second When Italy entered the war the threat of won him the nickname \u201cDesert Fox\u201d phase of attacks from on Hitler\u2019s side, it opened up new and dangerous fronts in German invasion. from many rueful Allied leaders. the start of January the Mediterranean and Africa. On September began penetrating 23, 1940, Italy\u2019s 250,000-strong Tenth deep into Libya. The Italian troops Army advanced into Egypt from Libya were in full retreat with thousands ITALY ENTERS THE WAR then stopped cautiously. British Empire of men being captured daily. In June 1940 Italy declared war on Britain and France Hitler could not allow Italy, his main ff\u000198\u201399. Italy had a large Mediterranean \ufb02eet and colonies Italian troops surrendering ally, to be defeated so easily so he sent in North and East Africa. The British army had troops in Egypt, Australian troops take some of the 36,000 Italians who an ambitious young general, Erwin guarding the Suez Canal, the link to the British Empire in Asia surrendered at Bardia in January 1941. Thousands more Rommel, to Libya with a small force and Britain\u2019s Arabian oil supplies. would surrender as the Allied desert offensive continued. to block any further British advance. At the same time as Rommel was arriving, British strength in North Africa EARLY ITALIAN MOVES was diminishing. The Italian Tenth Army, badly trained, poorly equipped, and Some of the appallingly led, advanced a short distance into Egypt from Libya in British Middle September 1940, but then halted and went over to the defensive East Command\u2019s despite hugely outnumbering the opposing British force. resources in early 1941 were devoted ITALIAN to conquering the BAYONET Italian possessions in the horn of Africa, a process which was 124","THE WAR IN THE DESERT German observation post in the desert TECHNOLOGY A soldier uses rangefinding binoculars to check for Allied movement in typically open and featureless 88MM GUN desert terrain, well-suited to tank maneuvers and long-range anti-tank gunnery. Germany\u2019s 88 mm gun was the most powerful anti-tank weapon used in the desert war. The wide open spaces of the desert terrain emphasized long-range anti-tank gunnery and the \u201c88\u201d, originally designed as an anti-aircraft gun, had the high muzzle velocity and \ufb02at trajectory that made it ideal for this role. German tactics were to draw Allied tanks into range of hidden anti-tank guns. These were often other German weapons but the much-feared \u201c88\u201d was credited with many of the resulting tank \u201ckills\u201d. \u201c We have a very daring and skilful opponent against us, and, may I say \u2026 a great General.\u201d WINSTON CHURCHILL ON GENERAL ROMMEL effectively complete by April though worn down. Tobruk was relieved the \ufb01nal Italian surrender did not come and Rommel fell back to El Agheila. until November. More importantly, Once again the British forward other Allied units were withdrawn positions were relatively weak, in from Africa and sent to support part because British resources that Greece in what would be a fruitless might have come to Africa were battle against German invasion. being sent east to face the Japanese. Rommel\u2019s troops were reinforced with Rommel attacks tanks, supplies, and air support. They attacked on January 25, 1942, the This combination gave Rommel his Allies drew back, and by the start of chance. Realizing that the forces February the Germans had retaken opposing him were very weak he most of the territory they had just lost. attacked on March 24, 1941. Within a month his forces had recaptured all AFTER the ground the British had recently won except for the port of Tobruk which remained in Allied hands The British Cruiser Mk VI Crusader tank Although Rommel would make further was faster and more mobile than the advances in early 1942, overwhelming German Panzer IV but its lightweight Allied resources condemned him to 2-pounder gun and insufficient armor defeat at El Alamein later that year. proved to be inadequate against the Panzers\u2019 superior gunnery. THE END IN AFRICA El Alamein was followed by the Anglo-American though isolated behind German Torch landings 186\u201387 gg\u0001in northwest Africa. front-lines. It would go on to endure General Montgomery\u2019s forces advanced an eight-month siege. steadily west from Egypt. The First Army from Algeria moved east with di\ufb03culty, but by May For the moment Rommel, at the 1943 the last Italian and German forces in end of a long and tenuous supply line, Tunisia had been defeated. could go no further. German forces were easily able to beat off two minor DEATH OF THE DESERT FOX British attacks in May and June after After the \ufb01nal Axis defeat in Africa, Rommel\u2019s which both sides settled down to build next major command was in France in 1944, their strength for the battles to come. preparing the German forces to resist the D-Day invasion 258\u201359 gg. He was wounded in an In November the Allied forces struck Allied attack in July and while he was convalescing, \ufb01rst. For three weeks there was a it was discovered that he had known something confused series of tank battles between of the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler. Rommel the Egyptian frontier and Tobruk. The was forced to commit suicide. British forces frittered away much of the numerical superiority with which 125 they began the battles but the German and Italian resistance was gradually","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Medicine in the \ufb01eld New weaponry caused horrific injuries and took a terrible toll on life during World War II. The warring countries were desperate for troops and improved medical techniques and drugs helped soldiers return quickly to duty after injury. O1 An American Red Cross badge. The International Red contained two dressings in a waterproof wrapper and safety Cross was neutral and helped all those caught up in the pins. It was usually carried in a special pants pocket. con\ufb02ict. O2 This armband identi\ufb01ed German medical Obm This \ufb01eld dressing was carried by all members of the personnel. O3 This pennant marked the location of a \ufb01eld Japanese armed forces. Obn A Japanese thermometer and medical unit on D-Day. All the places where the unit served case. Fevers in tropical regions were caused by malaria, subsequently are written on the pennant. O4 A water bottle dysentery, and yellow fever. Obo The tin holds a tourniquet used to control excessive bleeding from a limb. Obp Drug was essential in the heat of the Russian summer, when many ampules and hypodermic needles in para\ufb03n wax casings soldiers were treated for dehydration. O5 Japanese water were carried by doctors in this safe, handy tin. Obq This 3\/4fl puri\ufb01cation kit. In the tropics, ground water had to be sterilized oz (20 ml) syringe is a good-quality doctor\u2019s instrument. before it was safe to drink. O6 This British tablet tin contained Obr This instrument roll contains an assortment of probes, painkillers, sedatives, and antiseptics for use by medical forceps, and other instruments for \ufb01eld surgery. Obs This \ufb01eld o\ufb03cers. O7 These German dental records found in Arnhem sterilizer consists of a small alcohol-fueled burner and a tray include an x-ray. Mobile dental units were vital to the health for boiling water to sterilize medical instruments. Obt Medical of troops. O8 This US Army steel helmet has red crosses orderly\u2019s pouch. German army medical orderlies carried two painted on all four sides. This form of identi\ufb01cation was \ufb01rst of these on their belts. They contained dressings and drugs. used in North Africa in 1943. O9 This haversack, carried by Ocu This morphine ampule is a one-use injection carried by medical personnel and sometimes by soldiers. Ocl This NCOs of the Royal Army Medical Corps, held drugs, bandages, Japanese medical kit contains various dressings, pills, and splints, and dressings. Obu The shell dressing was introduced medicines, including a powder for use in gas attacks. into the British Army in 1915 as a result of the large wounds caused by shell fragments. Obl The \ufb01rst \ufb01eld dressing pack O1 RED CROSS BADGE (US) O2 RED CROSS ARMBAND (GERMANY) O4 WATER BOTTLE (USSR) O6 TABLET TIN (BRITAIN) O3 RED CROSS FLAG O5 WATER STERILIZATION OUTFIT (JAPAN) O7 DENTAL DOCUMENTS OF SS SOLDIER (GERMANY) (BRITAIN) 126","MEDICINE IN THE FIELD O8 RED CROSS HELMET (US) Obu SHELL DRESSING (BRITAIN) Obl FIRST FIELD DRESSING (BRITAIN) Obo TOURNIQUET (BRITAIN) Obp TIN FOR CARRYING DRUGS AND NEEDLES (BRITAIN) O9 MEDICAL HAVERSACK (BRITAIN) Obm FIELD DRESSING (JAPAN) Obq SYRINGE AND CASE (BRITAIN) Obn THERMOMETER AND CASE (JAPAN) Obr SURGICAL INSTRUMENT ROLL (BRITAIN) Obs FIELD SPIRIT STERILIZER (BRITAIN) Ocl MEDICAL KIT (JAPAN) Ocu MORPHINE 127 AMPULE SYRINGE (BRITISH) Obt MEDICAL ORDERLY\u2019S KIT (GERMANY)","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 GERMAN GENERAL Born 1891 Died 1944 Erwin Rommel \u201cDon\u2019t \ufb01ght a battle if you don\u2019t gain anything by winning.\u201d ERWIN ROMMEL, IN HIS BOOK \u201cINFANTERIE GREIFT AN\u201d, 1937 F ield Marshal Erwin Rommel Mutual respect earned his fame as a commander Hitler was a huge fan of Rommel and regularly of mobile armored forces in promoted him. Although Rommel was not involved in Europe and North Africa from 1940 to the plot to kill Hitler, he was implicated by a conspirator 1943. He was unique in being praised and committed suicide to keep his family safe. by both sides in the war\u2014in the summer of 1942 British prime minister the German high command to lose Winston Churchill, described him as \u201ca track of its movements. Rommel\u2019s very skillful and daring opponent\u201d and absolute determination to maintain \u201ca great general,\u201d and in Germany he forward momentum, despite the risks was known as the \u201cpeople\u2019s marshal.\u201d of exposed \ufb02anks and outrunning supplies, played a decisive part in the Rommel\u2019s rise to prominence was early German victory. He ended the due, in part, to his association with campaign as one of its heroes and was the Nazi Party who held him up as an promoted to major-general in 1941. example of a \u201cgood German.\u201d A much decorated junior infantry of\ufb01cer in The desert general World War I and an advocate of bold, aggressive tactical doctrines, Rommel As well as being promoted, Rommel was further rewarded for his impressive was exactly the kind of military contribution to the successful invasion tactician who appealed to Hitler. of France by being sent to the North In the late 1930s the F\u00fchrer African desert, \ufb01rst as the leader of the drew Rommel from the relative German Afrika Korps and subsequently obscurity of a military academy as commander of all Axis forces in North into his entourage, giving him Africa. The location and conditions of command of his personal escort the Desert War were particularly suited battalion. The pair\u2019s respect and to Rommel\u2019s strengths. With control of admiration was mutual\u2014in 1940 his own show\u2014he was uncomfortable Rommel described Hitler as \u201ca in his relation to higher command\u2014he military genius.\u201d was often presented with opportunities for rapid movement and maneuver. The invasion of France Rommel was above all else a \ufb02exible tactician, commanding from the front Although Rommel had no and improvising imaginative responses experience with tanks, his to a constantly changing battle\ufb01eld personal in\ufb02uence with the situation. From the \ufb01rst moment of his F\u00fchrer won him command of arrival in Libya, he proved that, even an armored division for the with limited strength at his disposal, he invasion of France in May 1940. He more than justi\ufb01ed the choice. His 7th Armored Division earned the nickname \u201cthe Ghost Division\u201d because the speed of its advance from the Ardennes region to the Channel coast caused even Honored commander Rommel in the full dress uniform of a German general displays his panoply of decorations, including the Knight\u2019s Cross of the Iron Cross at his throat.","ERWIN ROMMEL The Desert Fox TIMELINE From August 1941 Rommel was given command of the German and Italian forces in the Western Desert O\u0001 November 1891 Erwin Rommel is born in of North Africa. His skill at conducting armoured warfare the town of Heidenheim, W\u00fcrttemberg, in the in Libya earned him the nickname \u201cthe Desert Fox.\u201d Swabian area of southern Germany, the son of a school headmaster. could outwit and outmaneuver O\u0001 January 1912 Commissioned as a lieutenant in the slower-moving British forces. the W\u00fcrttemberg Infantry after graduating from He molded his armored forces into Officer Cadet School in Danzig (Gdansk). a highly motivated team, winning the loyalty and respect of his subordinates, O\u0001 August 1914 At the outbreak of World War I and swiftly weeded out any of\ufb01cers he is sent to fight in France, where he is whom he deemed not up to scratch. wounded in September. Returning to the The ultimate failure of the Axis forces Western Front, he is awarded the Iron Cross in the Desert War was largely due to for bravery in January 1915. elements beyond Rommel\u2019s control. Yet even after his forces were held O\u0001 1916 Marries Lucie Mollin, whom he met at in July 1942 at El Alamein, stopped Officer Cadet School in Danzig (Gdansk). in September at Alam Halfa, and \ufb01nally defeated in November at the O\u0001 December 1917 Awarded the Pour le m\u00e9rite second battle of El Alamein, he had (known as the \u201cBlue Max\u201d), Prussia\u2019s highest demonstrated his outstanding skills military order, for his outstanding performance in as a battle\ufb01eld commander in a series mountain warfare on the Italian front. Promoted of ultimately doomed \ufb01ghting to the rank of captain. withdrawals and counterattacks. Hero of the Reich leadership. By 1944 O\u0001 January 1933 Involved in infantry officer Back in Europe Rommel\u2019s reputation as a military Rommel could see that his training in Germany\u2019s shrunken post-World War I genius was exploited by the Nazi country was heading into army, Rommel welcomes the rise to power of After the Axis surrender in North Africa propaganda machine. Here he is an abyss. He played no Adolf Hitler\u2019s Nazi Party. in 1943, the Nazi regime did not know featured on the cover of the part in the plot to what to do with Rommel. Goebbels\u2019s mass-market magazine Signal. assassinate Hitler in July O\u0001 1937 Publishes Infantry Attacks, a tactical propaganda machine had made 1944, but his off-the-record manual based on his experiences in World War I, Rommel into a German icon, but the Operation Overlord\u2014 criticisms of the conduct of which attracts the favorable attention of Hitler, shadow of defeat in Africa tarnished the Allied invasion in the war brought him under now F\u00fchrer of Germany. his reputation, and his health had June 1944\u2014showed suspicion. Convalescing deteriorated under the strain of war. the accuracy of his prediction after being wounded in O\u0001 September 1939 A major-general at Eventually given responsibility for the that, once a beachhead was established, Normandy, Rommel was offered the the outbreak of World War II, Rommel defense of the French coast, his efforts it would prove impossible to dislodge. choice of taking poison\u2014in which commands Hitler\u2019s personal ensured that the defenses of Normandy case his family would be spared from security battalion. were improved, but the success of Disillusionment and death Hitler\u2019s vengeance\u2014or face prosecution as a traitor. He chose suicide, allowing O\u0001 May\u2013June 1940 ROMMEL\u2019S CAP \u201c I would be rather Rommel\u2019s personal reputation the regime to claim that he had died Commanding 7th more happy had was untarnished by responsibility of his wounds, maintaining his status Panzer Division in he given me one for massacre or atrocity, and his as a war hero. His tragedy was the the battle of more division.\u201d treatment of Allied prisoners of war same as all those patriotic Germans France, he was exemplary, but he was never an who welcomed the opportunities the spearheads the opponent of Nazi ideology. He was, Nazi regime offered, and who realized armored thrust from however, increasingly critical of the their mistake far too late. the Ardennes to the regime for the failings of its military Channel coast. Leading from the front Rommel liked to keep up with the O\u0001 February 1941 Given command of the Afrika action, exercising command from Korps. By April he drives the British from Libya, a tank or staff car while maintaining except from the port of Tobruk. radio contact with his headquarters. O\u0001 June 1942 Promoted to the rank of field marshal by a grateful Hitler after victory at Gazala and the capture of Tobruk. COMMENT AFTER RECEIVING THE RANK O\u0001 October\u2013November 1942 When the British OF FIELD MARSHAL FROM HITLER, 1942 launch their major offensive at El Alamein, Rommel is away on sick leave. Returning to command, he cannot avoid defeat but manages a skillful withdrawal. O\u0001 March 1943 In poor health, he departs from Africa. Receives postings in Greece and Italy. O\u0001 November 1943 Responsible for the protection of Normandy against a possible Allied invasion, Rommel greatly strengthens the coastal defenses. O\u0001 June 6, 1944 On D-Day Rommel is on leave when Allied landings begin. He immediately takes command of the fighting around Caen. O\u0001 July 1944 Suffers a serious head injury when his staff car is strafed by an Allied aircraft during the battle for Normandy. O\u0001 October 1944 Accused of involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler and commits suicide to avoid trial. 129","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Con\ufb02icts in the Middle East In 1941 a new threat to the Allies emerged from the Middle East. Nationalists in Iraq sought to ally themselves with Germany, the Vichy regime was about to welcome Nazi troops into Syria, and Iran\u2019s neutrality threatened vital supply channels. For the British, the cost of defeat in the oil-rich region was unthinkable. B y early 1941 Britain was \ufb01ghting Free French troops were to country, meeting little resistance. the Italians (and presently Nazi overthrow the French garrisons Eventually, almost a quarter of Allied Germany) in Africa and was that had been loyal to the Vichy Lend-Lease supplies sent to the Soviet sending increasing military assistance regime. On July 12, after six Union passed through Iran. to Greece. The British government saw weeks of \ufb01ghting, the leader its control of Egypt and the Suez Canal of the Vichy troops, General Events in Palestine as a crucial link between its empire Henri Dentz, signed an in Australasia and Asia and the home armistice at Acre. Before the war British control of country. Iran and Iraq also provided Palestine had been disrupted by the much of Britain\u2019s oil supplies. Direct When Germany invaded growing confrontation between the Russia on June 22, 1941, the region\u2019s Arab and Jewish populations 11 MILLION Number Allies needed to transport and by the so-called Arab Revolt of tons supplies across of\ufb01cially-neutral of 1937\u201339. As war approached the of oil produced annually by Iran and Iran to the Soviet Union. Iran fundamental British objective was to Iraq, and available to the Allies if (then often known as Persia) avoid further troubles in the region. they kept control of these countries. refused to expel its considerable Grand Mufti Hadj Amin el-Husseini in Berlin German community, so threats to the oil stocks or via other After reaching Berlin from Iraq in 1941 the Mufti helped from August 25, 1941, territories in the region would be the Germans recruit Muslim volunteers for their armed British and Soviet \ufb01ercely challenged. forces. The Waffen SS eventually included numerous forces occupied the Muslim troops recruited in Albania and Yugoslavia. In 1939 Iraq had a pro-British government but many leading Iraqi British troop movements through soldiers were pro-Nazi. In April 1941 Iraq from the vital oil port of Basra in Rashid Ali el-Ghalani seized power in the south. All the fuel needed by the a military coup. El-Ghalani stopped British forces in the Middle East \ufb02owed along pipelines running through Iraq BEFORE and Syria to Haifa (in present-day Israel). Claiming that the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty had been violated, the Allies landed troops at Basra on April 18. Before World War II much of the Middle March on Baghdad East was ruled by Britain and France under League of Nations mandates dating from The British also had intelligence that the aftermath of World War I ff 18\u201319. the Nazis were sending military support to Iraq via Vichy French Syria, though END OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE in fact Hitler was too busy with his During World War I the Ottoman Empire in Turkey planned Russian invasion, and sent little fought as an ally of Germany and was defeated. support to the Iraqi cause. Despite this, Britain had promised its Arab allies that it el-Ghalani pressed on with plans to would support their independence after the attack the British airbase at Habbaniya (near Baghdad). Habbaniya was In the 1917 Balfour Declaration only guarded by half-trained pilots British foreign minister, Arthur and instructors but held out all the Balfour, wrote to Jewish leaders same. Britain rallied a 5,800-strong saying that Britain would support intervention force (Habforce) the establishment of a Jewish in Transjordan for a march on \u201cnational home\u201d in Palestine. Baghdad. Iraq\u2019s army proved no match for the British, and, dispirited by war and also made a vague commitment the lack of Axis support, the Iraqi leader to setting up some sort of Jewish homeland. In \ufb02ed to Iran, and then on to Germany. the event, to the anger of Arab nationalists and Zionists, Britain and France took control of Because the Vichy authorities had most of the former Ottoman Empire. allowed German aircraft to use bases in Syria en route to Iraq, Britain IRAQ decided to invade Syria. Operation Iraq was ruled as a British mandate in the Exporter began on the morning of 1920s but became independent in 1932 by a June 8, 1941. British, Australian, and treaty with the British. Britain retained oil rights and kept military bases in the country. French camel \u201ccavalry\u201d in Syria in 1940 France maintained camel units as part of its colonial army in North Africa and Syria before the war. The troopers were locally recruited but officers and many NCOs were from metropolitan France. 130","CONFLICTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST The No.27 ammunition limber could Breech Muzzle brake carry 32 rounds of 25-pounder ammunition. Gunshield The crew rode in the tractor and a small additional amount of ammunition could also be carried here. The CMP \u201cQuad\u201d artillery tractor was The 25-pounder gun had a shell Circular \ufb01ring one of the various vehicles used by British and weight,of 25 lb (11.3 kg). This was a lighter platform for Empire forces to tow artillery weapons. Many, weapon than equivalents in other armies but quick traversing like the Canadian-built Chevrolet 8440 (shown), it had good range of 13,400 yd (12,250 m). evolved from the British Morris C8 Quad. It was 87 mm (3.45 in) caliber. \u201c The Arabian Freedom Movement 25-pounders in service The 25-pounder was Britain\u2019s principal divisional in the Middle East is our natural ally artillery weapon throughout the war. An 8-gun 25-pounder battery was usually allocated to each against England.\u201d infantry or armored brigade but would also be available to fire in support of other units too. ADOLF HITLER, MAY 23, 1941 AFTER Therefore, in 1939, to appease Arab After World War II most countries opinion, Jewish immigration was in the Middle East became more truly virtually halted by the British, just independent than before and were when European Jews were desperately joined by a new nation, Israel. trying to escape from persecution. PALESTINE AND ISRAEL 4.2 MILLION The The Holocaust 176\u201377 gg transformed the amount position for Palestine\u2019s Jews and the Zionist movement. After the war many survivors in tons of Lend-Lease supplies shipped came to Palestine, seeking a Jewish homeland. Israel achieved its independence in 1948 to the Soviet Union via Iran, almost 344\u201345 gg, following a terrorist campaign exactly the same quantity transported 470 THOUSAND Jews lived in Palestine prior to the start by the dangerous Arctic convoys. of World War II. This placed Jewish leaders in a dilemma: 250 THOUSAND Nazi victims if they challenged the British authorities went to Palestine between in Palestine they would indirectly be 1945 and 1948. helping the Nazis. conducted against the occupying British forces. In the event Jewish-owned agricultural In November 1944 Lord Moyne, the British and industrial businesses in Palestine deputy resident minister of state, was supported the British war effort and assassinated in Cairo by Zionist terrorists. thousands of Jewish people fought in the British forces as part of the Palestine THE ARAB LEAGUE Regiment. They acquired arms and Although the Middle East undertook military training which was under Allied control would be of use in their own campaign from 1941\u201345, all the for independence after the war. Jewish regional countries either leaders also did all they could to support illegal Jewish immigration into Palestine, gained or reasserted their especially after early 1942 when they independence after the war. had de\ufb01nite information about the Holocaust. Called Aliyah Bet in Hebrew, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, this mass immigration grossly \ufb02outed Transjordan, and Iraq were the British quotas. founder members of the Arab League in 1945. Britain\u2019s aim of keeping the Arab Among other things this population of Palestine acquiescent called for an independent was achieved for the most part. Palestinian state. In\ufb02uential leader, Hadj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, had THE BRITISH DEPUTY MINISTER helped inspire the Arab Revolt but OF STATE, LORD MOYNE had \ufb02ed to Switzerland in 1937. He eventually ended up in Berlin, broadcasting for the Germans to the Muslim world and condemning British and Jewish in\ufb02uence in the Middle East in vitriolic speeches. 131","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE Hitler intended to control southeastern Europe and Italy\u2019s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini saw Greece as an easy conquest. ITALY IN ALBANIA AND GREECE Italy annexed Albania in the spring of 1939. In October 1940 Mussolini began an invasion of Greece from Albania without \ufb01rst informing Hitler of his plans. Greece fought back e\ufb00ectively and by early 1941 Greek forces had pushed Mussolini\u2019s troops back into Albania. At the same time Italians forces in North Africa were in retreat. 2.9 MILLION The tonnage of Romanian oil used by Germany in 1941. This was a vital resource to be defended at all costs. BARBAROSSA AND THE BALKANS Hitler\u2019s secret plan for 1941 was the attack on the USSR. But before beginning the campaign on the Eastern Front he needed to secure his southern \ufb02ank in the Balkans\u2014either by diplomacy or conquest. ITALIAN ARMORED CARS The Balkans Invaded A German column advances into Yugoslavia German armored cars and transport vehicles in a In April 1941 Hitler conquered Yugoslavia and Greece to secure Germany\u2019s flank for the invasion Yugoslav town. Many of the vehicles have German flags of the Soviet Union. Mussolini was on the retreat in Albania and British troops and bombers displayed to prevent \u201cfriendly fire\u201d attacks from the were arriving in Greece, all too near Romania\u2019s oilfields\u2014threats Hitler could not ignore. Luftwaffe, which dominated the skies above. E ven before the German failure be humiliated in this way. Worse still, month was overthrown in a coup. civilians died in these attacks. As well in the Battle of Britain Hitler was British air and ground forces were Hitler was furious and ordered his as being totally outmatched in the air, planning to ful\ufb01l his long-held arriving to help the Greeks, which forces to invade both Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavian forces on the ground ambition to destroy the Soviet Union posed a potential threat to Germany\u2019s Greece as soon as possible. were weak and scattered throughout and seize new territories for the vital oil supplies from Romania. Hitler\u2019s the country. They couldn\u2019t compare German people in the east. This attack only option was to attack Greece. Conquering Yugoslavia with the attacking German troops. was scheduled for the summer of 1941 but \ufb01rst Hitler wanted to ensure that In March 1941 the Yugoslavian ruler Germany\u2019s attack began on April 6, Germany\u2019s \ufb01rst ground advance into his southern \ufb02ank Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact. 1941, with the \ufb01rst of a number of air the country came from Romania on was secure. In the He had reluctantly agreed to join the raids on the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. April 8 and was joined over the next few winter of 1940\u201341 German bloc, but at the end of the All in all some 17,000 Yugoslav days by other units from Hungary and Hungary, Romania, Austria plus an Italian force in the far and Bulgaria were all pressured Sights north. They met little resistance. The into, in effect, becoming allies Yugoslavs surrendered on April 17. The of the Germans. Ammunition feed, by whole country was conquered at belt or drum a cost of only 150 German dead. In the meantime, Benito Mussolini\u2019s attack on Greece Folding bipod Fighting for Greece from Albania had gone badly wrong. By early 1941 half of German MG34 7.62 mm machine gun The Allied forces never established Albania was in Greek hands. a coherent plan for the defense of Hitler could not let his ally The MG34 was a standard German machine gun Pivoting trigger Greece. British commanders wanted to select full throughout World War II. It could be used by automatic or semi- the Greek military forces maneuvering troops with a bipod mount (as to withdraw from their automatic \ufb01re northernmost provinces shown here) or on a tripod in prepared positions. and pull back from their gains in Albania to set up a defence line, the \u201cAliakmon 132","THE BALKANS INVADED AFTER the country already lost, the British Yugoslavia and Greece both suffered command decided to evacuate Greece. greatly from German occupation, a The Germans entered Athens on April resistance struggle, and internal con\ufb02icts. 27. By the 29th the Allied evacuation was complete; 50,000 troops had left. RESISTANCE IN YUGOSLAVIA Thousands more were captured. Two main resistance groups emerged: the mainly Serbian C\u02c7etniks led by Draz\u02c7a Mihailovic\u2018 and Airborne attack on Crete the Communist partisans led by Josip Broz (usually known by his adopted name, Tito). In The last stage in the campaign was a addition, in Croatia the Usta\u0161a movement set German attack on Crete. Many of the up a semi-independent government which Allies from the mainland had been sent massacred many Serbs and Bosnians. there but they had few heavy weapons. When German paratroops landed on The Yugoslav groups fought viciously among the island on May 20 the garrison fought themselves as well as against the Germans. Britain back. For a time it looked as if the enemy and the United States \ufb01nally decided that the might fail but the Germans took the partisans were the most valuable allies. vital Maleme air\ufb01eld and poured in In 1944\u20135, with reinforcements in transport aircraft. Soviet help, Tito took control Yet again the Allies evacuated. Over of the country 11,000 men were captured and nine 276\u201377 gg. vital Royal Navy warships were sunk. GREECE USTA\u0160A DICTATOR PAVELIC\u2019 Germany had crushed Yugoslavia and The Germans left in Greece in little more than a month. The October 1944 and forces soon headed north to join the the British moved attack on the USSR which was not held in. Hundreds of up at all by the battle in the Balkans. thousands of Greeks, many of them Jews, German conquest of the Balkans, 1941 died under Nazi rule. Germany deployed six Panzer divisions and over 1,000 aircraft to lead their attacks, a combination the Allies were helpless to resist. Improvised Allied defense lines were soon outflanked. GERMAN H U N G A R Y ITALIAN 2ND ARMY HUNGARIAN 6 Apr 11\u201312 0 150 km 2ND ARMY Zagreb 3RD\u00a0 ARMY 0 150 miles Hungarian army overruns part of Trieste northern Yugoslavia, which is then annexed by Hungary Fiume C R O A T I A Sava 1 Apr 6, 1941 Line,\u201d in the mountains a little to German attack. However, their Zara Belgrade Heavy bombing of ROMANIA the south. The Greeks, however, did departure from the North African (to Italy) Belgrade. Yugoslav high not try to carry out this important desert had left the remaining Allied YUGOSLAVIA command paralysed Bucharest strategy until too late. Front vulnerable and given General Rommel the chance to make his Sarajevo Morov 2 Apr 6 Danube Three Australian and New Zealand \ufb01rst decisive move forward. divisions, along with other British Drina SE First Panzer Corps invades ground and air units, had been sent In Greece, the German troops Uzice from Bulgaria and reaches from North Africa to Greece\u2014far were soon advancing rapidly. On 7 Apr 16 Belgrade on the 12th too few troops to hold a determined April 21, with the northern half of o Fall of Sarajevo So\ufb01a B U L G A R I A R B I A Nis Dubrovnik ITALIAN 4 Apr 9 Scutari 9TH ARMY Skopje GERMAN Plovdiv 3 Apr 9 12TH ARMY German motorized corps Germans take Salonika, reaches Monastir ALBANIA StrNuemsto Vardar trapping Greek troops os Metaxas Line defending Metaxas Line 03K EBY oMxO MtiEtlNeT 7pt\/10pt Durazzo (to Italy) CAPTURE OF MALEME AIRFIELD ON CRETE, MAY 20\u201321 Tirana Monastir I T A L Y 5 Apr 10 Like all airborne forces German paratroops British start to Pogradec attacking Crete had only light arms and fall back from ITALIAN Edessa GREEK Thasos limited supplies. When they encountered opposition heavier than expected they Aliakmon Line 11TH ARMY Florina 2ND ARMY faced total defeat. The only way for the paratroops to be reinforced was to capture 8 Apr 20 Himara BRITISH Salonika Samothrace TURKEY the air\ufb01eld at Maleme. Fortunately for them GREEK Aliakmon a breakdown in communications on the Greek First Army W FORCE Line Lemnos Lesbos Allied side led to New Zealand troops surrenders 1ST ARMY Larissa A being withdrawn from the vital Hill 107 eg overlooking the air\ufb01eld. The Germans GREECE captured Maleme in \ufb01erce \ufb01ghting and D o d e(ctoaItnaley)s ebu Apr 24\u201330 began \ufb02ying in supplies and reinforcements. Thermopylae British evacuation It was the turning point in the battle but 9 Apr 24 ean Sea from Piraeus and even so, German paratroop casualties Cephalonia Khios ports in the had been so heavy that Hitler forbade any Germans break through bl Apr 25 Patras Peloponnese similar parachute operations in the future. British positions at Peloponnese Athens Thermopylae German paratroops Piraeus take Corinth Corinth Kalamata Nafplio bm May 20 German airborne M e d i t e r r a n e a n Monemvasia invasion of Crete Sea GERMAN Canea 5TH MOUNTAIN DIV SudaRethymno KEY N GERMAN Heraklion 7TH PARACHUTE DIV Axis advance Maleme Parachute\/glider landing Allied defensive position April 6, 1941 bn May 28\u2013Jun 1 Crete British and Commonwealth Sphakia troops evacuated from BRITISH Sphakia to Alexandria CREFORCE","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Operation Barbarossa Hitler\u2019s decision to invade the Soviet Union ushered in the bloodiest conflict in history. The battles on the Eastern Front would make up the decisive campaign of the war and would be fought with the utmost brutality. Hitler thought it would be an easy conquest, but it proved to be the Nazis\u2019 undoing. BEFORE I n the early hours of June 22, 1941, more than three million German, After his lightning victories in Western Hungarian, and Romanian soldiers Europe in 1939\u201340, Hitler turned to were ready to turn against the Soviet his greatest project, the complete Union; 3,350 tanks and 2,270 aircraft destruction of Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union. led the attack. It was the largest military SOVIET AND GERMAN EXPANSION force ever assembled. Army Group Hitler\u2019s and Stalin\u2019s foreign ministers agreed an North was to attack through the former uneasy alliance in August 1939 ff\u000154\u201355, Baltic States, to take Leningrad. Army under the terms of which they cooperated to Group South was to head for the overrun Poland the next month. From 1940\u201341 Ukraine, and Army Group Center was both dictators extended their in\ufb02uence to target Minsk and Smolensk. As into other areas of Eastern Europe. Hitler dawn broke, a huge German wave dominated Hungary and Romania and conquered poured across the 1,900-mile Yugoslavia and Greece. Stalin attacked (3,000-km) front from the Baltic to the Finland ff\u000164\u201365, annexed the Baltic States, Black Sea. Within hours the Luftwaffe and grabbed territory from Romania. Both were preparing for an eventual con\ufb02ict. 625,000 The number of HITLER\u2019S PLANS horses used by Hitler believed that the German race should the German army to invade the USSR. be supreme in Europe and that its greatest Most of the German forces relied in threat were Jews and Communists. He also large part on horse transportation. coveted the USSR\u2019s economic assets. In the summer of 1940 he planned an attack on the east. had practically wiped out the front-line German tank and infantry Group Center had surged on Soviet air units. On the ground Panzer 134 divisions led the advance, with infantry German infantry accompany a Panzer III tank. The to Smolensk and seemed poised to following behind. Russian positions were quickly overrun. Although they secret of the German success was not the power of continue on to Moscow. Hitler now had ample intelligence information of their own and had been warned of their tanks as such but the way they were used in close intervened and ordered much of Army the coming attack by Britain and the United States, the Soviet Union\u2019s forces cooperation with all the other sections of their army. Group Center\u2019s tank force to change were caught off guard. Stalin believed the Allied intelligence to be propaganda direction and attack south to help the and so had forbidden his generals to make effective defensive preparations. a mutual assistance pact, and both slower-moving Army Group South in Rapid German advances Britain and the US began sending its advance on Kiev. Army Group Center was the strongest supplies to the Soviet Union. German force, with two of the four groups of Panzer divisions. Within days Throughout the planning of Soviet losses they had reached Minsk in a pincer movement, cutting off some 300,000 Operation Barbarossa Hitler and his At \ufb01rst it seemed that Hitler had made Red Army troops to be taken prisoner by the following infantry. Army Group generals were unsure what should the right decision. Army Group South North began a relentless advance towards Leningrad. Army Group South be their main objective. One obvious took the city of Kiev after brutal made slower progress at \ufb01rst against more effective Soviet resistance. target was Moscow, the enemy capital; \ufb01ghting and strong resistance from Stalin had panicked when the attack another option the Soviets. Some began but \ufb01nally rallied, and on July 3 made a radio broadcast to his people, was Leningrad, Adopting a \u201cscorched earth policy,\u201d 600,000 troops announcing a \u201cscorched earth policy\u201d and appealing to Russian nationalism. the birthplace of Soviet forces would start fires to from the Red Army On July 13 Britain and Russia signed the Communist hinder the Germans\u2019 advance. In July were captured, Retreating Soviet soldiers The German advances threw the Soviet military system regime; a third 1941, an Axis command post was nearly the entire into chaos. Thousands of troops were separated from their units, and many, like these, lost their weapons in was the Ukraine, almost completely destroyed by a fire southwestern front the course of their desperate retreat. with its great in a pine forest near the Luga River. of the army. With agricultural and this considerable mineral resources, and beyond that loss, the Soviet Union had few reserves were the oil\ufb01elds of the Caucasus. left to defend the capital, Moscow. During July and August, Army Group While the \ufb01ghting around Kiev was North drove forward to Leningrad. By continuing, the Soviets mounted a the end of August it was only 30 miles desperate defense on the approaches (50 km) away. In the meantime Army to Leningrad. With resources being \u201c When Operation Barbarossa is launched, the world will hold its breath.\u201d ADOLF HITLER\u2019S EVE-OF-BATTLE MESSAGE TO HIS TROOPS, JUNE 21, 1941","OP ER ATION BAR BAROSSA 0 150 km 5 Jul 10 FINLAND 8 Sep 8 KEY committed elsewhere the German 0 150 miles German front line Jun 21 advance slowed to a crawl. Rather Start of Finnish Lake Start of siege German front line Sep 1 than embroil his tanks and infantry in o\ufb00ensive against Soviet Ladoga of Leningrad German front line Nov 15 a bloody battle in the city itself, Hitler decide to starve the city into surrender. Union in support of the Germans German front line Dec 5 The siege was to last 900 days. Gulf of Finland Sea Tallinn Leningrad Pocket of Soviet troops Narra German advance The road to Moscow E S TO N I A Hitler ordered Army Group Center to resume its march on Moscow in Baltic Luga N Operation Typhoon. Even with the Novgorod delay imposed by the Kiev operations, the road to Moscow seemed to be 3 Jul 1 NORTHWEST FRONT open. Stalin recalled Marshal Zhukov, his ablest general, from Leningrad to Germans bl Oct 2 command the defense of Moscow. take Riga Even so, by October 13 German forces Operation Typhoon, were only 90 miles (150 km) from the Riga the assault on Moscow, bs Dec 5 capital, but their advance slowed begins in the north dramatically with the arrival of the 1 Jun 22, 1941 L AT VIA German forces take rasputitsa, torrential autumnal rains Kalinin up defensive positions that turned the roads into seas of mud. 4th Panzer Group crosses Memel 15 miles (25 km) Neman and penetrates from Moscow Hitler had thought the war was 50 miles (80 km) into L I T H U A N I A Dvinsk 6 Jul 16 lost for the Soviet Union, but he had Soviet territory WEST FRONT underestimated the resistance. In fact, Germans take Smolensk, Moscow as the German advance on Moscow Tilsit Kaunas 1 Jun 22, 1941 but pockets of resistance \ufb01nally ground to a halt in freezing ARMY GROUP bn Oct 23 weather, Soviet reserves, assembled NORTH 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups hold out till 5 Aug from their forces in the Far East, were make rapid breakthrough Soviet troops in poised to counterattack. The war on EAST toward Minsk Dv Vyazma pocket the Eastern Front was far from over. PRUSSIA surrender ina Smolensk Mozhaisk Pripet Vyazma Tula ARMY GROUP Vis ula Kaluga CENTRE Bialystok Minsk Bug Volkovysk BYELORUSSIA 9 Sep 16 Bryansk bm Oct 14 bp Nov 15 AFTER Warsaw 2 Jun 26 Pripet Soviet forces trapped in Soviet troops in Germans resume The German victories seemed endless Brest-Litovsk Marshes pocket east of Kiev. City Bryansk pocket drive to Moscow but in reality their forces were struggling, Large numbers falls to the Germans surrender from Tula area worn out by Russia\u2019s vast distances and t of Soviet troops 4 Jul 3 three days later increasingly \ufb01erce Soviet resistance. encircled at Bialystok Orel bu Sep 30 GERMANY Germans claim to have A BRUTAL WINTER Kowel taken 324,000 prisoners Operation Typhoon, The German Army never made it to Moscow. POLAND after encircling Soviet the assault on Stalin\u2019s troops defended it ferociously and forces west of Minsk Moscow, begins forced the Germans back 140\u201341 gg. in the south ARMY GROUP Lutsk 1 Jun 22, 1941 Kiev Kursk SOUTH Tarnopol bo Oct 24 Army Group South USSR Przemysl encounters Soviet resistance Kharkov falls in advance toward Kiev Belgorod to Germans Kharkov Germany was completely unprepared for the hazards of winter warfare. Many soldiers 7 Jul 19 UKRAINE SOUTHWEST FRONT suffered from frostbite in the coldest winter in 140 years. The German retreat infuriated Hitler Soviet forces encircled Uman and he lost trust in his generals. But in 1942 around Uman Germany would attack again 190\u201391 gg. HUNGARY Dniester Prut SIEGE OF LENINGRAD The siege of Leningrad lasted until January 1944. Bug br Nov 27 Supplies of water, food, energy, and utilities were interrupted, 1 Jun 22, 1941 Germans forced to causing wipespread abandon Rostov, which starvation among Two Romanian armies they had taken on Nov 21 the beleaguered take part in German civilians. By the time drive into Ukraine Rostov Odessa Kherson ROMANIA Black Sea of the siege was \ufb01nally Sea Azov lifted about a CRIMEA million civilians Kerch had died and a further 1.4 million evacuated. Operation Barbarossa, 1941 Sevastopol SOVIET POSTER \u201cKILLING Time and again the Germans smashed the Russian defences THE NAZI SNAKE\u201d and time and again their deft tank units surrounded huge bq Nov 16 numbers of troops. But the distances involved and Russia\u2019s huge manpower reserves made final success elusive. Start of siege of Sevastopol 135","","EYEWITNESS Winter 1941\u201342 Leningrad Besieged The siege of Leningrad lasted from September 1941 until January 1944, but the first, bitter winter was the worst. Despite rationing, thousands starved to death\u20145,000 a day by January 1942. People ate cats, dogs, and birds, and there were reports of cannibalism. Bombing and freezing conditions destroyed the sewage system and water supply. Conditions slowly improved from March 1942. \u201c9 and 10 November 1941. We haven\u2019t been able to buy our full rations in this ten-day period: we are due 400 grams of cereal, 615 grams of butter, and 100 grams of flour\u2014but these items are nowhere to be found. And where they do come on sale, huge queues form, hundreds and hundreds of people out in the street, in the bitter cold, and the amount delivered is usually just about enough for 80 to 100 people. So people stand there, get chilled to the bone, and leave with nothing to show for it. People get up at four in the morning, queue outside the shops until nine in the evening, and still come away with nothing \u2026 At the moment there is an air-raid alert in force. It has already lasted for about two hours. Need and hunger drive people out to the shops, in the freezing cold, to join \u201dthe long queue, the crush of people. DIARIST YURA RIABINKIN, AGED 16, WHO PROBABLY DIED IN LENINGRAD AFTER HIS FINAL DIARY ENTRY ON JANUARY 4, 1941 \u201cI had lost so much weight that there was no flesh on my legs at all. My chest was like a man\u2019s\u2014just nipples \u2026 The children were also very skinny, and my heart would falter when I saw their bony little arms and their transparent little faces and huge eyes \u2026 There was nothing to heat water with or cook anything. Rosa told me that they had a little coal in the basement, but that it was a terrible place to go to, because they had been piling the dead bodies there \u2026 We took buckets and went. There were indeed a number of corpses there. We tried not to look at them \u2026 Once I went out for bread while the shelling was going on, because the queues were shorter \u2026 and I came under heavy shellfire \u2026 I constantly went about in my husband\u2019s felt boots and wore two overcoats: my own and my husband\u2019s on top of it. Everyone else \u201dwas bundled up like that too. DIARIST LIDIYA GEORGIEVNA OKHAPKINA, MOTHER OF TWO SMALL CHILDREN, AND SURVIVOR OF THE SIEGE Bombed out Citizens of Leningrad, muffled against the extreme cold, leave a bombed-out building with whatever possessions they can carry. The Germans bombed and shelled the city daily from September 1941. 137","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE Nazi Massacres The invasions of Poland and the Soviet Hitler\u2019s war in the East was to be different from any that had gone before. As German troops penetrated Union gave the Nazis the chance to implement their vision of a racial utopia. MEIN KAMPF deep into Russia, they waged an unprecedented campaign of slaughter against Communists and Jews. In his book, Mein Kampf, written while he was Prisoners of war on both sides were treated brutally and regularly shot out of hand. in prison in the 1920s ff\u000120\u201321, Hitler had explained how he blamed Communists and A lthough Germany\u2019s Jews were Bolshevism.\u201d His Commissar Order of lives were valueless. Some Ukrainians Jews for Germany\u2019s problems and how he viciously persecuted before the March 1941 spelled this out and added initially welcomed the Nazis and looked intended to eliminate them. war and hundreds murdered, that international law did not apply forward to gaining their independence. DEATH SQUADS IN POLAND mass killing was not then Nazi policy. because the Soviets had never rati\ufb01ed But the Nazis regarded the Ukraine as a As in Russia in 1941, the German forces The conquest of Poland in 1939 the Hague Convention. source of food, iron, coal, and slave invading Poland in 1939 ff\u000158\u201359 were brought millions more Jews under As in Poland in 1939 the German labor. As many as seven million followed by SS murder squads. They rounded Nazi control; thousands of Jewish (and armed forces were to be tracked Ukrainians died in the war, a sixth of up and killed anyone who was likely to non-Jewish) Poles were killed in the by Einsatzgruppen (or Special Action the population. Among the many resist the German conquest: political leaders, following months but most of Poland\u2019s Groups), SS units 33,771 The number of Jews cruelties, the intellectuals, priests, killed at Babi Yar near German Army and others. Many Jews were herded into ghettos, where that were to carry destroyed they could be put to work for the out the killings. Polish Jews were also German war effort. Many died of Although some Kiev, Ukraine, in September 1941. They numerous villages killed at this time but various cruelties, but there was German army were rounded up, made to undress, led in murderous most were herded not yet a program of of\ufb01cial leaders had to a ravine, forced to lie down, and shot. reprisals for Soviet into ghettos in the systematic killing. The planned misgivings, army partisan activity. major cities to be dealt invasion of the Soviet Union, commanders generally concurred Across the Soviet Union, increasingly with later. SS COLLAR TAB however, would bring yet more with Hitler\u2019s orders and cooperated barbaric acts were carried out on an Jews into German hands. Here, a fully with the SS killers. unimaginable scale. In 1941, however, more determined and deliberate There were four Einsatzgruppen, of Hitler\u2019s main worry was that, despite policy would be introduced. some 3,000 men in all, operating all the vast numbers dying every day, the Victims of a Nazi massacre Invasion and atrocity along the Eastern Front. Some of the killing techniques were too clumsy. New Russian survivors search for relatives and mourn their killing was assisted by local civilians, methods of mass murder were needed. dead. Massacres of civilians by roaming Nazi murder Hitler told his generals that the notably in parts of the Ukraine and squads or Einsatzgruppen, rare in other war theaters, attack on Russia would be a war Lithuania, where anti-Semitism was Slaughter of the masses were common on the Eastern Front. of annihilation targeting \u201cJewish already deep-seated. Unlike the death camp mass executions, the Nazis did not The killing escalates hide their activities in 1941. Many German troops and even some civilians saw what was being done in their name. In summer meetings between Hitler and senior of\ufb01cials, the Nazi policy AFTER grew clearer. All measures were to be taken to cleanse the Soviet Union of Jews and Bolsheviks. These victims were rounded up and taken to secluded Although perhaps one million people had sites to be shot and buried in ditches been murdered by the Nazis in the East by or quarries, notably at Babi Yar near the end of 1941, this was only the beginning. Kiev where, over two days toward the end of September 1941, thousands THE HOLOCAUST of civilians were massacred. It also The Einsatzgruppen had killed many Jews by the became common to lock Jews in their end of 1941 but the process was too slow for the synagogues and set them alight. And Nazis. Death camps would now take over the all this was carefully reported by the ful\ufb01llment of the \u201cFinal Solution\u201d 164\u201365\u0001gg. SS units. Their own records list the murder of some 600,000 Jews in 1941. THE WAFFEN-SS Soviet prisoners of war also suffered. As well as dealing with the \u201cJewish problem,\u201d the They were denied medical care, beaten, SS had its own army, the Wa\ufb00en-SS, commanded starved, and shot if too ill to march. The by Heinrich Himmler. In 1941 this was only a small Nazis captured 3.8 million part of the German Soviet troops in 1941; forces but it would around 3 million did not increase substantially \u201cThe struggle is one of ideologies survive their captivity or later\u2014from six divisions and racial di\ufb00erences and will have to the years of slave labor to nearly 40. Waffen-SS in Germany that followed. units rarely took Much of the ill-treatment prisoners on the in the \ufb01rst stages probably Eastern Front and be waged with \u2026 unmerciful and arose from the German were known for their Army simply being ruthless determination unrelenting harshness \u2026 my orders unable to cope with the in attack. They were volume of prisoners. responsible for many must be followed without complaint.\u201d However, as Slavs, Nazi BABI YAR MEMORIAL atrocities on all fronts. ideology saw the Soviet people as ADOLF HITLER, \u201cCOMMISAR ORDER,\u201d MARCH 1941 Untermenschen, or sub-humans, whose 138","","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 Moscow Saved Operation Typhoon\u2014Germany\u2019s offensive against the Soviet capital, Moscow\u2014should have been another spectacular success for Hitler. Instead, the outcome was the first major reverse for the German Army, proving that Hitler was not invincible after all. W hen Germany launched its would be a \ufb01nal decisive offensive, to front-line commanders, they \u201cLet\u2019s Defend Moscow\u201d Soviet offensive, Operation capture the city of Moscow and break attacked again. Winter had now Soviet wartime propaganda was Barbarossa, in June 1941, the Red Army. Many German generals set in completely and, with the very successful in inspiring its Hitler expected the campaign to be had wanted to begin this attack more ground frozen solid, vehicles citizens to fight fiercely in what over in just 10 weeks. At the end of than a month before, when they were were able to move once again. it called the Great Patriotic War. September, having sent its forces deep likely to have better weather, but Hitler into the Soviet Union, Germany\u2019s high had overruled them. Instead, German Germany loses the advantage command launched what was hoped forces were gathered from across the entire Eastern Front. Germany\u2019s army Hitler had been so con\ufb01dent of BEFORE supply system was failing to cope with a quick victory that his troops the Soviet Union\u2019s vast distances and were completely unprepared Germany planned to annihilate the Soviet dif\ufb01cult roads, however, and it now for the severity of the Russian Army in a brutal and rapid assault. Initially, had few reserves left. winter. They had little warm the German campaign went to plan. clothing, yet the winter of 1941 German troops took the OPERATION BARBAROSSA important cities of Bryansk was the worst in about Germany\u2019s invasion of the USSR began on and Vyazma, and captured 140 years. Many troops June 22, 1941. Within weeks, the Germans had hundreds of thousands of suffered from frostbite; over captured hundreds of thousands of Soviet Soviet prisoners, but it was 14,000 had limbs amputated. troops and vast swathes of territory ff\u0001134\u201335. becoming clear that the Hot food was a rarity, while weather was worsening washing became impossible. JAPANESE\u2013SOVIET NEUTRALITY PACT while Soviet resistance Many sentries simply froze Japan and the Soviet Union fought numerous was stiffening. Every to death. Tank crews often battles on their far eastern borders in the 1930s year, for a few weeks in had to light \ufb01res under their but, in April 1941, they signed a neutrality pact. vehicles in the morning to Japan was tempted to abandon this when Hitler 7.62 mm Tokarev TT-33 warm the engines enough attacked the USSR but instead kept to its new Like all Soviet weapons, the for them to start. policy of southern expansion ff\u0001146\u201347. Tokarev automatic pistol The German offensive was robust. It had an began on November 15. GERMAN GENERAL (1888\u20131954) 8-round magazine Just six weeks before, they and could also use had amassed a substantial HEINZ GUDERIAN German 7.63 mm numerical superiority on ammunition. the Moscow front, but now A leading expert in tank operations, numbers were nearly equal. Guderian helped to create the armored spring and fall, heavy rain creates Furthermore, Soviet troops \u201cPanzer\u201d divisions that led the German a muddy terrain in Russia, this would were supplied with new, Army to its early victories. He commanded have made military operations all but highly effective equipment, Panzer units to great e\ufb00ect in Poland in impossible. This rasputitsa season almost including T-34 and KV-1 1939, then France in 1940, and his troops halted the German advance. It made won some of Germany\u2019s biggest victories life hard for the Red Army, too, although tanks, and Katyusha in Russia, in 1941. However, Guderian Soviet defenses were being strengthened artillery rocket launchers. was \ufb01red that same winter after failing to by hurriedly organized militia forces reach Moscow. He did serve later as and troops transferring from the far For all their losses and eastern border, which it was now clear increasing hardship, the inspector general Japan had no plans to attack. German advance again of Panzer forces began well. By the end and chief of the By the end of October the German of November German general sta\ufb00, but attack had been halted. Their troops troops were \ufb01ghting in by that time were exhausted. Even so, in mid- the northeastern suburbs Hitler chose to November, despite the doubts of the of Moscow itself, within ignore his advice. 18 miles (30 km) of the city center. But they could go no further. It was now clear\u2014and not just on the Moscow front\u2014that Germany\u2019s attacking power was \u201c Moscow will be defended to the last.\u201d JOSEPH STALIN, ORDER OF THE DAY, OCTOBER 19, 1941 140","MOSCOW SAVED AFTER exhausted. The cracks were beginning offensive, in which some 88 divisions Despite suffering heavy losses, the Germans to appear. At the southern end of the would attack the German Army were able to rebuild their forces for new front, Army Group South retreated along a 500-mile (800-km) front. The attacks on the Eastern Front in 1942. from Rostov. Hitler \ufb01red General von Siberian troops emerged from ferocious Rundstedt, its commander, for allowing snowstorms, clad in white camou\ufb02age GERMAN WITHDRAWAL uniforms. Panic immediately spread The Soviet attacks forced the Germans to 918,000 The number of among the German troops, who were retreat up to 175 miles (280 km) from Moscow Axis casualties forced to pull back. They continued to but the Soviet reserves were suffered in Russia in 1941\u2014almost retreat rapidly for a week or so. Hitler exhausted, while one third of the force\u2019s initial strength. was furious and commanded his troops con\ufb01dence returned to hold their positions. Stalin ordered to the Germans. this; the German Army commander-in- his men to develop new attacks, but chief, two of the three army group his troops lacked strength and Germany HITLER\u2019S VOWS commanders, and two of the three top was able to rebuild its front. tank leaders would all be \ufb01red before Hitler had argued the winter was out. Moscow had been saved, and Hitler did not try to take the city again. He Soviet counter-offensive had the resources to rebuild his army repeatedly with his SOVIET ARMY for new campaigns but, with almost commanders during the HAT The German attack on Moscow had one million casualties to date, Germany failed and they now hoped to stand would never be as strong as it had been battles of 1941 and, following the failure to where they were, on the defensive, in 1941, able to attack along the whole through the winter. The Soviets had of the Eastern Front. Far from being capture Moscow, he dismissed the army\u2019s different ideas, however. At 3am out of Russia before the winter set in, on the morning of December 5, the German troops struggle to keep warm the Germans would now have to attempt commander-in-chief and a range of other Russians launched a major counter- As well as lacking effective winter clothing, German new attacks in the summer of 1942. troops found much of their equipment inadequate During the battle for Moscow\u2014from for coping with the intense Russian cold. Lubricating German soldiers surrender to the Russians early October 1941 to January oil in weapons and vehicle engines often froze solid. German prisoners of war in Soviet hands suffered as 1942\u2014some 650,000 soldiers from the badly as Red Army troops held by the Germans. Tens Red Army died. The figure represents of thousands died from ill-treatment and the last of the about 50 percent of the men fighting survivors were not released until well into the 1950s. on the Eastern Front at the time. top generals. From now on, he would make all the major military decisions himself, many of which proved to be serious mistakes. GERMANY\u2019S NEXT OFFENSIVE Germany\u2019s targets for 1942 were Stalingrad and the Caucasus 190\u201391 gg. Hitler, however, never decided clearly which wing of the attack was more important. Both failed disastrously.","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 America on the Brink President Roosevelt wanted, if at all possible, to keep America out of full-scale participation in the war. But Japan and Germany posed a threat to US interests and both were ruled by brutal, morally repugnant governments. Preventing their victory and yet staying out of war was a difficult challenge. O n the eve of Pearl Harbor the against Germany\u2019s U-boats in the war until America\u2019s own rearmament Chinese Nationalist troops armed by the US United States was still of\ufb01cially The US sent substantial shipments of arms to the neutral but had in fact moved western Atlantic. And in the Paci\ufb01c had built up the country\u2019s strength to a Chinese Nationalists later in the war, but outside help a long way from the neutrality that it was not as important as the Japanese thought in had maintained in September 1939. the United States had imposed drastic level the Japanese would not dare to preventing their victory in China before December 1941. The legal restrictions imposed by the Neutrality Laws of the late 1930s had economic sanctions against Japan, attack. British and French arms orders both the Atlantic and Paci\ufb01c theaters. been greatly eased. Not only were This measure was really a response to countries at war able to obtain arms cutting off its oil 1The slender majority in the United in 1939\u201340 had the German threat but the Japanese and other supplies from the US, but supplies and most States House of Representatives helped expand saw it as a direct challenge to their the United States\u2019 government was of its foreign trade. following the vote on August 12, America\u2019s military expansionist aims. The next step was paying for much of them under the 1941, in favour of extending the manufacturing a compulsory military draft for young Lend-Lease scheme introduced in the All of these capabilities, but the men\u2014the \ufb01rst time this had occurred spring of 1941. By the summer of measures followed 1941, the US Navy had in effect joined the British and Canadians in the \ufb01ght from President term of service of American draftees real impetus came Roosevelt\u2019s policy from one year to 30 months. after the fall of to give all possible France when the aid, short of declaring war, to Britain US military budget was vastly increased, and its allies so that they might defeat notably in the \u201ctwo-ocean navy\u201d plans. Germany. At the same time, Roosevelt These gave the US forces the capability wanted to deter Japan from going to to \ufb01ght a major war simultaneously in BEFORE Americans were overwhelmingly anti-war, but Japanese aggression meant that con\ufb02ict looked increasingly inevitable. AMERICA AND THE EUROPEAN WAR From the outbreak of the European war to the autumn of 1941, the US gave increasing aid to its British allies but was still determined to avoid going to war with Germany if at all possible. Japan\u2019s feeble pretext for going to war with China in July 1937 ff\u000140\u201341 outraged many Americans. Washington was not yet prepared to go to war with Japan but instead began exerting economic and diplomatic pressure. Events in the European war also led ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL AT THE \u201cATLANTIC CHARTER\u201d CONFERENCE IN AUGUST 1941 to large-scale strengthening of American armaments from the summer of 1940, which the Japanese took as a threat to their expansion plans. From then the tensions escalated, with Japan trying new advances and the United States responding with embargoes and other economic measures. 142","AMERICA ON THE BRINK in the US in peacetime. Oil embargo on Japan AFTER Congress approved the Barrels of oil intended for Japan US Conscription Bill in are held in the US following the The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was September 1940. introduction of the oil embargo almost immediately followed by Hitler\u2019s in August 1941. Fears over their declaration of war on the United States. US weaknesses dwindling oil supplies helped bring the Japanese government\u2019s PEARL HARBOR American military decision to go to war. By December 1941 all attempts at a peaceful planning was also settlement between the US and Japan had greatly developed. Secret ordered in 1940 were available to the the summer of 1941 failed. On December 7 Japanese forces went talks with the British in naval \ufb02eet. Cooperation between the opinion polls still showed on the offensive with a surprise attack on Pearl Washington D.C. in early US Army and Navy was also notoriously that most of the United Harbor, an American naval base on the Hawaiian 1941 established a basic poor and, although the US had good States\u2019 population wanted island of Oahu. The following day President framework for military intelligence on Japanese plans, an to avoid war. American Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war coordination. Both organization to put this to good use politicians were likewise on Japan 148\u201349 gg. On December 11 Hitler Roosevelt and Churchill was sadly lacking. unsure. When Roosevelt foolishly declared war on the US, making agreed that, in the event asked Congress to extend the war a truly global con\ufb02ict. of the US being at war There was a growing acceptance by the draft in August 1941 his plans were with both Germany and the American people that they might only narrowly passed after \ufb01erce debate. AMERICAN RESOURCES Japan, defeating Germany would be a well be forced to join the \ufb01ght, but in Although American rearmament had begun higher priority for the Allied countries. Atlantic combats in earnest following the fall of France in 1940, it took time for the various production programs to Despite all this there were still By the summer of 1941 the Pan- gather speed. However, by 1945 the US had weaknesses. It would take considerable American Neutrality Zone set up by supplied not only its own armed forces but time to train the \ufb01rst draftees and to the US extended roughly halfway across also a quarter of British requirements and make the weapons they needed. US the Atlantic. Warships of non-American some 10 percent of Soviet needs. A range of land and air power had been neglected countries could be attacked inside that government agencies, like the War Production between the wars. The US Navy was area but because Canada was part of Board and the O\ufb03ce of War Mobilization, the same continent as the US, and part oversaw every aspect of the economy. The US better preparedw but it would take of the British Commonwealth, British made huge amounts of equipment in every many months before the ships warships were exempt. The US Navy category\u2014300,000 aircraft, for example. These was also escorting convoys to the US were the sort of \ufb01gures that neither Germany Marine garrison in Iceland, so clashes nor Japan could hope to match. with Germany\u2019s U-boats were inevitable. On September 4 a US destroyer was \u201c The structure of world peace \u2026 must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.\u201d PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT\u2019S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, MARCH 1, 1945 attacked by a U-boat. The destroyer \ufb01red to avoid incidents with the Americans, back but neither was hit. However, in as Roosevelt knew from codebreaking mid-October, 11 men of the US Navy information passed on by the British. died when the USS Kearny was struck Although President Roosevelt was by a torpedo, and 100 more men were clearly taking the United States to the killed when the USS Reuben James was brink in the actions he ordered against sunk at the end of 2 The years that it was estimated Germany\u2019s U-boats that month. Japan\u2019s oil stocks would last its in the Atlantic Ocean and in the The people of America were troops, unless new fields were taken aggressive sanctions not fully aware of or a deal made with the US. he brought into just how far their effect against the government had committed them to Japanese, he was also well aware that the \ufb01ght. President Roosevelt portrayed both potential enemies had a record of these incidents as the result of German starting wars whenever it suited them. aggression, which was far from true. President Roosevelt\u2019s policies were Hitler had in fact ordered his U-boats designed to guarantee that, if the United States decided on war, it was US equipment for the Allies likely to begin in circumstances that British Army mechanics at work preparing a US-made were as favorable as possible for the M3 Stuart light tank for service \u201csomewhere in England\u201d country. In the end, when the United in 1941. In updated forms the Stuart would remain States did go to war it was by Japan\u2019s in US and Allied service until the end of the war. and Germany\u2019s choice. 143","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Born 1882 Died 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt \u201c We must be the great arsenal of democracy.\u201d F. D. ROOSEVELT, DECEMBER 29, 1940 W hen Japan bombed Pearl recovery, and reform.\u201d Elected in 1932, Harbor on December 7,1941, he introduced a raft of progressive social Franklin Delano Roosevelt legislation, known as the New Deal, was already serving his third term as which enabled much needed social US president\u2014the only president to welfare. He also initiated his famous serve more than two terms. He had \u201c\ufb01reside chats,\u201d where he spoke directly won popularity as the man who brought to the nation via radio broadcasts. By the US out of the Depression; he went now immensely popular, Roosevelt\u2019s on to lead the US through World War reward was a second victory in 1936. II, playing a major role in defeating the Axis powers and determining the War approaches shape of the postwar world. By the late 1930s, with the Depression Always a Democrat, Roosevelt almost over, foreign policy became the entered politics in 1910, when he won major issue in the US. Roosevelt had a seat in the New York State Senate. He always advocated a policy of military gave his support to Woodrow Wilson, preparedness and he clearly saw the who, as US president, subsequently threat posed by Nazi Germany and appointed Roosevelt Assistant Secretary Japan. The mood of the country, of the Navy. The post gave Roosevelt valuable naval and administrative Long-serving president experience, and during World War I Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often known he gained even more experience in as FDR, was the 32nd President of the military naval planning. United States. Widely admired, he served his country continuously In 1921 Roosevelt was diagnosed with from 1933 to 1945. polio and became completely paralyzed. He made a slow recovery but never regained the use of his legs. Encouraged and assisted by his wife, Eleanor, he fought to resume his political career and in 1928 was elected Governor of New York. The following year the Wall Street Crash marked the beginning of a long economic depression in the US, and the world. Roosevelt ran as the Democratic presidential candidate, promising an interventionist program of \u201crelief, Declaration of war FDR. signs the declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941. Roosevelt had provided support to Britain and other Allies but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America irrevocably into the war. 144","F R A N K L I N D . R O O S E V E LT Quebec Conference a series of meetings with Winston TIMELINE At the conference held in Churchill and other Allied leaders, at Quebec in August 1943, Cairo, Tehran, and Casablanca, in which O\u0001 January 30, 1882 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born in Hyde Park, New York, into a wealthy Roosevelt, Churchill, and the progress of the war was decided. As family. He is second cousin to former president, Theodore Roosevelt. Canadian prime minister the balance of the war shifted, Churchill Mackenzie King (top and Roosevelt discussed plans for the left) agreed to intensify invasion of France. The two men were O\u0001 1903 Having studied history at Harvard, he begins studying law at Columbia University. bombing raids on not always in agreement: Roosevelt Germany and build up favored a direct invasion of France; O\u0001 1905 Roosevelt marries Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of Theodore Roosevelt. US forces in Britain. Churchill preferred a more indirect They go on to have six children. approach from the Mediterranean. In the event it was Roosevelt\u2019s plans that O\u0001 1908 Having passed his bar exam, Roosevelt joins a prominent Wall Street law firm. were adopted and he appointed General Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead the Allied O\u0001 1910 Enters politics as a Democrat and is elected to the New York State Senate; he command. Roosevelt sought to establish is re-elected in 1912. a close alliance of all the Allied nations, however, had been isolationist since In 1940 Japan joined the Axis powers working with Soviet leader Joseph O\u0001 1913 President Woodrow Wilson appoints him the 1920s, and Congress, which had Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position he passed the Neutrality Act in 1935, and consequently relations between Stalin and Chinese leader Chiang holds until 1920. advocated neutrality for the United States. However, when Britain declared Japan and the United States worsened. Kai-shek. As early as December 1941 war on Germany in 1939, Roosevelt stated that although the US might Roosevelt was aware of Japan\u2019s hostility Roosevelt was planning for the postwar remain neutral, it could not remain inactive. He persuaded Congress to and in 1941 cut US supplies of oil to world, and in the Declaration of the O\u0001 1918 Tours European battlefields. support Allied efforts with \u201call aid short of war,\u201d while at the same time Japan, while continuing diplomatic United Nations laid the foundations O\u0001 1920 Enters politics full time and is chosen as strengthening US defenses. Roosevelt vice-presidential candidate to James M. Cox in increased the US contribution by negotiations. However, on December 7, for the modern United Nations, which the presidential election. They run on a providing warships in exchange for pro-League of Nations ticket but are defeated. naval bases, and in one of his \ufb01reside 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The was set up in 1946. It was work that chats urged the public to consider further involvement. mood of the country changed Eleanor Roosevelt continued after \u201cThe United completely and Roosevelt Roosevelt\u2019s death, when she O\u0001 August 1921 Contracts polio and is paralyzed States can from the waist down. now had its full support. drafted the UN Declaration accept no result The following day in a of Human Rights. O\u0001 1932 The Democrat Party elects Roosevelt as save victory.\u201d its presidential candidate. speech to Congress, he ROOSEVELT DECLARES WAR ON JAPAN, DECEMBER 8, 1941 famously described Ill health O\u0001 March 1933 Is inaugurated as the 32nd President. He implements the New Deal One of Roosevelt\u2019s \ufb01rst moves in his December 7 as a \u201cday of War took its toll on program of social and economic reforms and historic third term as president was delivers his first \u201cfireside chat.\u201d to pass the Lend-Lease Act, which infamy\u201d and declared Roosevelt and by 1944 allowed the United States to provide military aid to Britain, China, and war on Japan. A few his heath was quickly the Soviet Union. In August 1941 Roosevelt met with British prime days later Germany and deteriorating. However, he O\u0001 1936 Is re-elected president. minister Winston Churchill in the \ufb01rst of many wartime meetings. They Italy declared war on the was in good enough health issued the Atlantic Charter setting out an 8-point charter of aims for the United States. With the to secure a fourth term O\u0001 February 1941 Roosevelt achieves an historic postwar world. They also pledged their third term as president. He makes his famous two countries to \u201csee the \ufb01nal US now in the war, \u201cWe want FDR again\u201d of of\ufb01ce as US president, \u201cFour Freedoms\u201d speech (freedom of expression destruction of the Nazi tyranny.\u201d and religion; freedom Roosevelt immediately Roosevelt\u2019s popularity led to his and attended the Yalta from want and fear). The US enters the war became a very active nomination as Democratic presidential Conference in 1945 Many Americans saw World War II as a European affair, but there was another Commander-in-Chief, candidate for an unprecedented third where the \u201cBig Three\u201d threat to American neutrality\u2014Japan. appointing military term in 1940. decided the shape of O\u0001 March 1941 Fourth-term president Roosevelt signs the Roosevelt speaks at his inauguration ceremony commanders and postwar Europe. By this Lend-Lease bill to in January 1945. Despite his declining health, he provide arms and defeated Thomas E. Dewey comfortably, but died working on strategy. Despite the attack time he was obviously exhausted and financial help to after only three months in office. Britain and other on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt prioritized suffering from advanced arteriosclerosis. Allied nations. Germany\u2019s defeat and, appointing Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, less General MacArthur to \ufb01ght in the than a month before the German Paci\ufb01c, concentrated on achieving surrender and victory in Europe, and victory in Europe. To this end he held with defeat of the Japanese imminent. O\u0001 August 1941 The Atlantic Charter: Roosevelt and THE FIRST LADY Winston Churchill commit to destroying Nazi Germany. O\u0001 December 8, 1941 Delivers his \u201cInfamy Speech\u201d to Congress urging a declaration of war on the Japanese empire. O\u0001 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca: they determine to accept only unconditional surrender from Germany. O\u0001 August 1943 Quebec Conference: Roosevelt and Churchill plan the Normandy invasion O\u0001 November\u2013December 1943 Cairo Conference: Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek discuss strategy in the Far East. O\u0001 April 12, 1945 Suffers massive cerebral hemorrhage and dies at \u201cLittle White House,\u201d his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. 145","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE Japan Gambles on War Japan\u2019s attempts to expand its empire in Many Japanese leaders were convinced that it was their national destiny to rule in Asia. But they were China were met with trade sanctions by still struggling to win the war in China and Japan\u2019s lack of natural resources was as threatening as ever. Western powers, sending Japan looking They decided that the only way forward was new attacks that would somehow make all come right. elsewhere for allies and new conquests. J apan\u2019s invasion of China from 1937 \u201c If we yield to America\u2019s WAR IN CHINA did not lead to decisive results. At demands, it will destroy the Japan had annexed and begun to exploit the outbreak of the European war the Chinese province of Manchuria in the in 1939, for all its victories, Japan was early 1930s, setting up the puppet state of bogged down. As the war dragged on, Manchukuo. In 1937 Japan started full-scale attacks on China ff\u000140\u201341. By 1939 the it used up valuable manpower and fruits of the China incident.\u201d Japanese controlled large areas of northern and resources. The United States had eastern China and had more than a million troops in action. The process was brutal, with responded to the invasion by imposing GENERAL TOJO HIDEKI, OCTOBER 14, 1941 trade restrictions on exports to Japan 250,000 The lowest likely estimate of scrap metal and iron. Japan needed of the number of Chinese killed in the Japanese Army\u2019s rampage of pillage, these supplies to continue the war Indies, by war if necessary. The \ufb01rst if Japan was going to start a war mass rape, and murder in Nanking. and build an empire; almost a third step was to move troops into northern anyway then an embargo would the most notorious incident being the \u201crape of Nanking\u201d in 1937\u201338. This agression and such of Japanese imports came from the Indochina in September 1940. At the weaken them in the meantime. atrocities brought widespread condemnation from the US and the European countries with US. When Germany conquered the same time Japan agreed the Tripartite Failed diplomacy Asian colonies and interests in China. Low Countries and France in 1940, Pact with Germany and Italy. From EMPIRE EXPANSION the Japanese government saw new Japan\u2019s point of view this was aimed Negotiations of a sort between the Most Japanese leaders believed that they could solve the country\u2019s problems by expanding its opportunities to resolve their problems. at limiting US involvement in Asian United States and Japan continued empire and accessing raw materials for industry. They wanted to create an anti-imperialist \u201cGreater Japan\u2019s long history of con\ufb02ict with affairs. But the Japanese had in the later months of 1941. The US East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere\u201d from which all native Asians would bene\ufb01t. In fact, the Russia and the USSR had continued miscalculated and government knew empire was more brutal than those it attacked. in the 1930s but Japan had been badly the United States Richard Sorge, a German spying for how dif\ufb01cult they JAPANESE POSTER EXTOLLING THEIR (ALLEGEDLY) PEACEFUL COOPERATION WITH MANCHUKUO defeated in 1939. This put an end to were not at all the Soviet Union in Japan, told the were making life NORTH OR SOUTH? all attempts of expanding the Japanese intimidated by Russians in September 1941 of Japan\u2019s for the Japanese Japan\u2019s dilemma was which direction to attack in. During the 1930s Japan fought various empire northward on mainland Asia. Japan\u2019s new decision to attack south. Stalin moved but they did not battles with the Soviets along the borders of the far eastern USSR. In 1939 Japan was badly But gains to the south were a different alliance. Instead, armies from the Far East just in time think the Japanese defeated in a crucial campaign in Mongolia. From then on Japan would look further matter. With the Netherlands and the Americans to defend Moscow that winter. sincerely wanted south for new conquests. France defeated, and Britain menaced introduced an peace. In fact, 146 by Hitler, their colonies seemed ripe embargo on metal exports to Japan. the Japanese had not truly made up for the picking\u2014and they had vast The next big development came in their minds. The country stepped up resources. The Dutch East Indies had July 1941 when the Japanese sent preparations for war but also continued oil, and British Malaya had rubber, troops into southern Indochina. The their attempts to negotiate, in part tin, and much more. For Japan, it US immediately froze all of Japan\u2019s because Emperor Hirohito made was too good an opportunity to miss. assets, and embargoed the sale of oil. it clear that he did not want con\ufb02ict. The fateful decision This action was soon followed by the In October a new prime minister, British and the Dutch. It meant a loss General Tojo Hideki, took over in In July 1940 the Japanese government of 90 percent of Japan\u2019s oil imports. Japan. He and his government thought adopted a new policy. They would win One reason for the US\u2019s tough line it inconceivable for Japan to withdraw their war in China by blocking supplies was that American codebreakers were from China, as the US demanded. reaching the Chinese through British reading many Japanese diplomatic Athough war with the United States Burma and French Indochina messages. They thought that Japan was a great risk, the Japanese still had and they would gain control of the was at the point of no return and only a chance if they stopped hesitating and resources of Malaya and the East drastic measures might stop war, and attacked immediately. The Japanese army and navy had plans for rapid JAPANESE GENERAL AND PRIME MINISTER (1884\u20131948) conquests already prepared and on November 29 the government decided TOJO HIDEKI to go to war. Emperor Hirohito gave his formal permission on December 1 Born in Tokyo to a military family, Tojo was and the attack orders went out. The a hardliner who became one of the most Japanese would remove the United important generals in the Imperial Japanese States from the Paci\ufb01c in one devasting Army in the 1930s. He advocated attacks blow. All that remained was the delivery on China, and in 1940, as army minister, of a \ufb01nal diplomatic note to the helped create the Tripartite Pact with Americans immediately before the Germany and Italy. In October 1941 he attack on Pearl Harbor began. succeeded Prince Konoe as prime minister It was typical of the indecisiveness and led Japan into war. In the opening of Japan\u2019s approach to war that this months Tojo held enormous power but last step was bungled. The note was repeated military disasters brought about delivered late, after the bombs had his resignation in 1944. He was arrested started hitting Pearl Harbor and as a war criminal by the Allies in 1945, after the Americans already knew brought to trial, and executed in 1948. its contents from their ef\ufb01cient codebreaking service.","JAPAN GAMBLES ON WAR Japanese troops training on bicycles Western powers greatly underrated Japanese training and technology. Using \u201clow-tech\u201d transport like these bicycles during their invasion of Malaysia, for example, made the Japanese more mobile than their opponents. AFTER The Japanese attacked British, American, and Dutch territories in Asia and the Paci\ufb01c in December 1941, making World War II a truly global con\ufb02ict. JAPAN\u2019S OFFENSIVE The attack on Pearl Harbor 148\u201349 gg started at 7:55am on December 7, local time. The Japanese achieved total surprise. In less than an hour, the American Paci\ufb01c Naval Fleet was crippled. The US was at \ufb01rst appalled, then angry at what was felt to have been a \u201csneak\u201d attack. No formal declaration of war had been made by Japan. Japanese landings in Malaya began on December 8, before the Pearl Harbor raid started. Strikes on the Philippines, Hong Kong, Guam, and Wake Island followed 158\u201359 gg. AXIS ALLIANCE Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, but Germany and Japan never cooperated e\ufb00ectively. In addition, the Allies were able to decode signals from Japanese diplomats in Berlin to learn important information about secret German plans. Japanese Army aircraft GERMAN AND JAPANESE GENERALS DISCUSS Mitsubishi Ki-21 bombers on the ground and MILITARY STRATEGIES IN MARCH 1941 Nakajima Ki-27 fighters above. Both types of aircraft served effectively in Japan\u2019s attack on 147 China but were less successful in later combats.","THE WIDENING WAR 1941 BEFORE Pearl Harbor As Japan\u2019s ambitious plans for expansion While negotiating peace, Japan was preparing for war. In November 1941 an aircraft carrier strike force in Southeast Asia met with opposition, it secretly set sail toward the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack, which devastated had no alternative but to prepare for war. the US Pacific Fleet, ensured that the US would become a major player in the war. NEGOTIATIONS BREAK DOWN O n November 26, 1941, the six decision on December 1, and Japan\u2019s negligible but the US Navy was a more The Japanese military, bogged down in its war aircraft carriers of Japan\u2019s First aircraft carriers received the signal to serious threat to Japan\u2019s plans and so, with China since 1937 ff\u000140\u201341, now badly Naval Air Fleet left the Kurile carry out their attack on the US Fleet by this roundabout reasoning, became needed raw materials and oil. Western powers their primary target. Although several with territorial interests in Southeast Asia Islands in northern Japan and sailed in Pearl Harbor as planned. Japanese leaders warned otherwise, it disapproved of attacks on China and halted trade was generally assumed that the United with Japan. Attempts were made to negotiate a across the Paci\ufb01c. For several months Japan\u2019s main strategy was to seize States was weak and decadent and peaceful settlement, but Japan refused to back would give up after a few defeats. down ff\u0001146\u201347. By late November 1941, prior to leaving, the carriers\u2019 airmen territory in Southeast Asia that could diplomacy was failing and war in the Paci\ufb01c Japan\u2019s surprise attack seemed inevitable. The United States now had trained for an attack on the main provide natural resources that were expected attacks on Malaya, or possibly the Strict radio silence was maintained as Philippines, to begin at any time. base of the US 5 The number of Type A midget not found in Japan. Japan\u2019s strike force headed eastward. Paci\ufb01c Fleet at submarines that attacked Pearl This would give the Mainly using codebreaking information, JAPANESE DOUBTS Pearl Harbor. Japanese Empire the Western intelligence picked up that the Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku was opposed to \ufb02eet had sailed, but no one could say war with the US. He said that his \ufb02eet could win Now they were Harbor. The two-man boats may have ability to win its war victories for six months or so, after which Japan would be crushed. His prediction proved to be getting ready to made one torpedo hit but all five in China and defend correct. Even so, he dutifully planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, drawing on lessons learned carry it out. vessels were lost. itself against enemies. from the British attack on the Italian \ufb02eet base at Taranto in November 1940 ff\u000198\u201399. The Japanese The armed forces of government met with military chiefs the European colonial powers in the on November 29, and discussed the area were weak and could be easily pros and cons of war at length. In the defeated. The Philippines, then a US event, however, they decided it would commonwealth, stood on the \ufb02ank of be humiliating to give in to the United the proposed advance so it, and other States\u2019 latest demands. Emperor Hirohito American possessions, would be hit as formally accepted his government\u2019s well. The US land and air forces were JAPANESE ADMIRAL (1884\u20131943) Bombing of Oahu As well as the ships in the fleet anchorage, the Japanese YAMAMOTO ISOROKU bombed airfields on the island of Oahu. The destroyer Shaw can be seen exploding in the background of this Yamamoto was commander-in-chief of view of the wreckage at the Ford Island seaplane base. the Japanese Combined Fleet during 1941\u201343. Before the war, he became Japan\u2019s top expert in naval air power and planned the attack on Pearl Harbor, despite his belief that Japan was foolish to attack the United States. His strategy was less successful in the Battle of Midway in 1942, when his plan was discovered by US codebreakers. Admiral Yamamoto was killed on April 18,1943 when his plane, heading for Ballalae Air\ufb01eld in the Solomon Islands, was ambushed by American \ufb01ghter pilots and shot down over the jungle of Bougainville. The Admiral\u2019s death was a major blow to Japanese morale. 148"]