Second World War

A short history of the Second World War

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Amongst other sources, I found Robert Tombs, The English and their History, 2023, pages 687 to 756 particularly helpful to summarising the history of the Second World War.

The outbreak of War

At 11 am on 3 September 1939, Chamberlain, in a 5 minute broadcast on the Home Service, announced that as Hitler had failed to respond to British demands to leave Poland, this country is at war with Germany. Chamberlain added that the failure to avert war was a bitter personal blow, and that he didn't think he could have done any more.

There was an immediate anticipation of air attack. All places of entertainment were to close with immediate effect. People were discouraged from crowding together, unless it was to attend church. Details of the air raid warning were given. Tube stations were not to be used as shelters. Sandbags appeared everywhere. Cities were blacked out. The paintings in the National Gallery were moved to a mine in North Wales.

The Official evacuation plan, Operation Pied Piper, was part of widespread evacuations totally 3.5 million people.

In London the air raid sirens sounded only 8 minutes later. John Snagge, a presenter, donned his tin helmet and rushed to the roof of Broadcasting House to watch the bombs falling. However there was no immediate threat to the homeland. Nazi bombers were still out of range. The Allies had 3 to 1 superiority in manpower and 5 to 1 in artillery. The Royal Navy was dominant at sea. Italy and Japan had not yet joined the war. The US might join the Allies. The British and French population was 90 million and GDP of $470 million. The German-Austrian Axis had a population of 76 million and GDP of £375 million.

There was a perception that the French Army and the BEF could repulse a westward attack across the Continent.

However Russia’s pact with Germany had upset the calculations. Scandinavia was also an important strategic consideration, particularly as a source of iron ore.

Phoney War

The early months were a period of stalemate. The Phoney War was an eight month period at the start of the war when there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district.

On 9 April 1940, the Germans invaded Norway. Poorly armed, Norway became the first victim of the war.

The Battle for France

On 10 May 1940 the Germans mounted a surprise attack on Holland, Belgium and France at 05.35 hours.

After criticism of Chamberlain for his handling of the disastrous Norwegian campaign, Churchill became Prime Minister that afternoon. Chamberlain remained Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Halifax remained Foreign Secretary.

On 13 May 1940 Winston Churchill, in his first address as Prime Minister, told the House of Commons, I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. He felt that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

The German attack on France was in desperation. Hitler feared that he would lose a long war. The German army thrust through the woods of the Ardennes, and used surprise and speed, gained by tanks and aircraft, crossing the River Meuse on 13 May 1940, as Churchill addressed the nation.

By 15 May 1940, seven armoured Panzer divisions advanced into France. The Allies had trained for static warfare and were not ready to respond. The allied defensive force ran out of ammunition and fuel. Most of the British army comprised recently recruited territorials. In the European theatre, Britain had fourteen hastily assembled divisions, to 141 German, 104 French and 22 Belgian. A minor success by the British at Arras on 21 May 1940, made German commanders nervous, but didn’t achieve strategic success. The French Prime Minister rang Churchill to tell him they were defeated.

On 19 May 1940, only a week after the start of the German offensive, the British began a fighting withdrawal to Dunkirk. Churchill declared in his radio broadcast, Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of truth and justice. Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict, for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altars. As the will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.

Despite German successes, Hitler was also losing confidence. He grew concerned about a counter offensive and encirclement. He ordered a halt to the advance on 24 May 1940.

On 26 May 1940 the Dunkirk evacuation, Operation Dynamo, began. It was organised by Admiral Bertram Ramsay and his staff in Dover between 26 May and 3 June 1940. A broadcast appeal was responded to by fishing boats, weekend sailors, lifeboats and by barges and tugs from, the Port of London. The RAF lost 177 planes and shot down 244 Luftwaffe planes. Some 300,000 British and Allied troops were evacuated and another 130,000 escaped later from ports still in French hands. 54,000 vehicles, 2,500 artillery pieces and 68,0000 soldiers were lost.

On 4 June 1940, Churchill gave his defiant response, We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

On 7 June 1940, German panzer divisions pierced the French defensive line.

On 10 June 1940, Mussolini declared war.

On 12 June 1940, the French army began a general retreat.

On 14 June 1940 the Germans reached Paris.

Churchill suggested to France that Britain and France become a single Franco-British nation. The Anglophobic deputy Prime Minister, Marshall Philippe Petain rejected the proposal as an invitation to marry a corpse.

Talk of negotiations had ended in Britain. On 16 June 1940 Churchill told the cabinet that Britain was fighting for her life, and no chink should appear in her armour.

On 17 June 1940 Petain became Prime Minister and ordered fighting to stop.

On 18 June 1940 Churchill made another speech. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

Britain was left without European allies.

Facing the threat

The British population soon grew used to the new state of things. Evacuees drifted back home. People stopped carrying their gas masks.

There were still those who called for peace through appeasement. Yet appeasement rested on assumptions that Hitler’s intentions were limited. His central aim remained racial conquest and the conquest of lebensraum, living space. It was not Hitler’s primary aim to destroy Britian, though he had a hatred of London and New York as centres of Jewish capitalism.

The polls showed that 75% of the population wished to fight on.

People sought strong leadership. At this point in the war, Churchill’s leadership was an essential rally. He was a master of words. He made two thousand speeches in his lifetime. Attlee later said Churchill’s main contribution to the war was talking about it. He was satirised as Winstonocerous. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke found working with him to be unbearable. He didn’t know the detail and only got half the picture in his mind. He led Britain into total war, without much thought, but with a single purpose, to destroy Hitler’s ambitions.

Amongst the general population there was a rush of marriages and 300,000 men and women volunteered for the reserve and 1.5M for the Auxiliary Fire Service, Air Raid Precautions (“ARP”) and the Special Constabulary.

The Military Training Act 1939 had required young men to undergo 6 months training.

The National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 extended the obligation to all men between 18 and 41, with universal registration of men and their occupations.

The threat to Britain was still very real. The Germans were starting to plan an invasion of Britian, Operation Sealion, scheduled for late September 1940. A Black Book had been prepared of targets for arrest. The Germans were ready to murder the elite to reduce the nation to slavery.

The already weak German navy had suffered badly in the Norwegian invasion. The Luftwaffe had heavy losses in France, but still had 750 long range bombers, 250 dive bombers and 750 fighters to Britain’s air force of about 750 fighters. Britain had developed a system of control stations integrating radars and spotters. However the limited range of radar meant they gave only a few minutes warning, which then took 4 minutes to reach RAF fighter stations, so fighters had to scramble into action and start fighting even before the whole squadron was airborne.

The Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain, the only decisive battle fought entirely in the air, began in August 1940, which was a month of intense daytime aerial combats.

On 20 August 1940 Churchill gave his famous speech, echoing Shakespeare’s Henry V. The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

On 5 September 1940 the German attack switched to cities, especially London, Birmingham and Liverpool in the Blitz. On 7 September a large raid started fires across the East End.

On 15 September 1940 German attacks on London were met by massed fighters in Battle of Britain Day. It started to become clear that German air strength was not sufficient to gain air superiority.

Between July and October 1940 the RAF lost 790 planes to the Luftwaffe 1,300.

The Germans switched to night attacks on cities. By mid November the Luftwaffe had dropped 13,000 tons of high explosives and a million incendiaries on London.

What ended the Blitz was the diversion of the Luftwaffe to Russia. Its effect on Britian’s economy had been limited, and its attempted impact on morale was counter productive.

Across Europe resistance against German aggression saw in Britain a sense of cheerfully stoical defiance, a mustn’t grumble attitude.

During the war 6,000 civilians were killed. Half were in London. Only 4% of the population used the tube and most didn’t use shelters. ARP wardens, policemen and firemen worked tirelessly. There were very few psychological breakdowns, and involvement in important work became a therapy. Suicides fell.

Global war

Britain was at war with Germany and Italy and Japan was threatening interests on the other side of the world. Britain had the resources and manpower of its empire, 2.5 million in India, 500,000 in Africa, 1 million in Canada, 1 million in Australia and 300,000 in New Zealand.

Leaders across the world started to judge and make calculations as to who might win. Vichy France and Franco’s Spain contemplated joining the war on Germany’s side. Jewish settlement in Palestine and anti semitism attracted some Arab support to the German interest. King Farouk in Egypt faltered in June 1940. The pro Nazi nationalist Rashid Ali seized power in Iraq. There were moves towards self government in India. However Britain’s continued fight denied the claim that Germany had won. Goebbels concluded from a Commons debate in June 1941 that there was no sign of weakness.

The Italian army was defeated in Abyssinia and eastern Libya by smaller British forces between October 1940 and April 1941.

The Italian army invaded Greece unsuccessfully in October 1940 but again in April 1941 with German assistance.

Crete fell in May 1941.

The Germans came to the aid of their Italian allies in North Africa by the dispatch of General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, with his Afrika Corps in February 1941.

With no obvious way to defeat Britain, Germany started to contemplate its Plan Z, to build a battle fleet and long range bomber force by 1948, to attack US.

The War at Sea

The Atlantic routes to Canada and US were the principal lifeline. The Mediterranean was the embattled route to north Africa, the Suez canal, and the Arab oilfields. The south Atlantic was important for imports of meat and grain from South America. Meantime the Royal Navy attempted a blockade on Germany.

Germany was much weaker at sea than in 1914. In December 1939 the pocket battleship the Graf Spee was tricked into scuttling itself in Montevideo harbour. The Bismark managed a six day sortie in May 1941 and sank the Hood, but was damaged by the Prince of Wales. Otherwise, the German navy lurked away in Norwegian fjords. It was also constrained by a lack of fuel. It could still wreak havoc though. In July 1942 the codebreakers revealed that the Tirpitz was about to go to sea, and the targeted convoy was ordered to scatter, but was then picked off by aircraft and submarines.

In the Mediterranean, Italy’s most effective military force was its navy. It suffered significant losses in the Battle of Taranto on 11 to 12 November 1940. The Mediterranean was bitterly contested at sea and in the air until 1943. The exposed Royal Navy outpost of Malta was constantly attacked, with 75% damage to the houses of Valetta. Malta was uniquely awarded the George Cross for the whole island in April 1942.

The peak of losses in the Atlantic was between June 1940 to March 1941, when over a million tons of British shipping was sunk. Perhaps 9,000 convoys were escorted using the global convoy system. Wolf packs of several dozen U boats attacked them. However Germany struggled to maintain its submarine campaign. The biggest difficulty for Britain was protection in the 600 mile Atlantic Gap, the mid ocean area which was beyond air cover.

On 19 August 1942 a largely Canadian raid on Dieppe brought the Allies briefly onto French soil.

By summer 1943 the Battle of the Atlantic had been won. The mastermind was Admiral Sir Max Horton who trained support groups of anti submarine ships and aircraft carriers coordinated by long range shore based patrol aircraft.

Breaking codes

The Germans used the encoding machine Enigma developed in Germany in 1923. The Polish intelligence service had begun to succeed in breaking its code in the early 1930s and shared its work with France and Britain. The British continued the work at Bletchley Park and began to decipher messages by April to May 1940. The Bletchley staff, often academics and students, increased its staff from 150 in 1939 to 3,500 in 1942 and 9,000 in 1945. Prominent members of the team were Max Newman and Alan Turing.

The deciphering system was codenamed Ultra, and used new computer technology and native cunning. Great care was taken to conceal its successes from the enemy. An important driver of the work was the use of regular phrases, such as Heil Hitler. Daring actions allowed the recovery of lists of Enigma key settings, including a daring recovery from a sinking submarine on 30 October 1942.

War in the East up to 1943

By July 1940 Hitler started to consider an attack on his ally, Russia, a target for lebensraum. He perceived that the elimination of Russia would also free up Japan’s power in the Far East, so that the United States would be diverted to war with Japan.

Stalin had taken advantage of his pact with Hitler to invade Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Romania.

On 22 June 1941, Germany attacked Russia in Operation Barbarossa. The Russian army was taken by surprise and quickly defeated, but recovered to temporarily stop the German advance in December 1941.

On 7 December 1941 Japan launched simultaneous strikes on the American naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and against British colonies.

On 8 December 1941 the Japanese attacked the Philippines, Malaya and Hong Kong.

The battleship Prince of Wales and Battlecruiser Repulse were sent to disrupt Japanese landings on the cost of Malaya but were sunk on 10 December 1941. The Japanese marched into Malaya with ruthless efficiency.

The Japanese occupied Hong Kong on 25 December 1941, in a spree of rape and killing.

Churchill survived a vote of no confidence in the Commons in January 1942.

The Japanese Empire captured the British stronghold of Singapore, with fighting lasting from 8 to 15 February 1942. At the outset, the headmaster of Raffles school asked what his boys saw and Lee Kuan Yew, later first president of an independent Singapore replied, the end of the British Empire. Singapore was the foremost British military base and economic port in South–East Asia and had been of great importance to British interwar defence strategy. The capture of Singapore resulted in the largest British surrender in its history.

The Japanese had taken Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and North Borneo for the loss of 5,000 soldiers.

However on 4 June 1942 the Americans caught a Japanese fleet at Midway and sank four aircraft carriers.

In summer 1942, Gandhi and the Congress Party called for a huge campaign of civil disobedience in its Quit India movement.

Famine in Bengal in the summer of 1943 was exacerbated by world food shortages and later mitigated by an improved harvest and a drive by the new viceroy, Field Marshall Viscount Wavell.

In January 1943, the Germans faced their first disaster on the eastern front when the survivors of the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad.

War in North Africa and Italy

In Libya, Rommel’s forces tipped the balance when they took the key port of Tobruk in June 1942.

However the Axis forces in North Africa were hampered by shortages of food, fuel and ammunition. British naval power and air superiority was a problem for them.

In September 1942, a plan by Rommel to attack Egypt had been intercepted and decoded by the Ultra project. Montgomery’s 8th Army blocked Rommel at Alam Halfa.

The Second Battle of El Alamein between 23 October to 11 November 1942 took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa had prevented the Axis forces from advancing further into Egypt. It was the first major defeat of the Germans and Churchill ordered the ringing of church bells.

In November 1942, 65,000 British and American troops landed in Morocco and Algeria.

In January 1943, at a conference in Casablanca, the British Chiefs of Staff led by General Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, proposed that military and political efforts were focused on the early conquest of North Africa, to reopen the Mediterranean and open the soft belly of the Axis in southern Europe. Although the strategy has been criticised, it was hard to see a realistic alternative. The British and Americans lacked the military force including ships for the risky strategy of a cross channel invasion, but were already in North Africa, including Tunisia, within easy reach of Sicily and Italy.

In July and August 1943 the Germans were fooled by a corpse carrying bogus papers and Sicily was successfully invaded.

In September 1943 an Anglo-American landing at Salerno, almost repulsed, began the Italian campaign.

Italy collapsed in summer 1943.

The Strategic Bombing Campaign

Despite allied success at sea, in North Africa and a turning of the tide in the east, Hitler retained a strong hold in northern Europe.

In the crisis of May 1940, Churchill had ordered air attacks on Germany. In daylight, bombers were very vulnerable. However bombing was Britain’s only serious weapon to strike Germany.

In February 1942, Air Chief Marshall Arthur Bomber Harris took over Bomber Command.

He launched fire raids on Luebeck and Rostock. The Germans retaliated with the Baedeker raids on historic English towns, including York, Norwich and Canterbury.

A new generation of four engine bombers had been ordered in 1936 and the Avro Lancaster was operational from March 1942, able to carry 10 tons of bombs.

On 30 May 1942 in an escalation, Harris launched a 1,000 bomber raid against Cologne which inflicted massive damage. Harris planned to leave industrial workers homeless. There were concerns about breaches of international law and the devastation of cities as threatening the roots of civilisation. The German industry continued despite the bombings.

From 1942, a systematic campaign was pursued.

In March 1943 the Battle of the Ruhr was launched.

In May 1943 the Dambuster operations, Operation Chastise, attacked the Ruhr water supply with bouncing bombs.

Between 24 July and 3 August 1943, the port city of Hamburg was devastated.

In November 1943 the Battle of Berlin began.

Bomber command’s losses approached the unsustainable. In the 1943 Ruhr campaign it lost 640 bombers. There was moral pressure to carry on. Downed airmen sometimes evaded capture and intelligence believed that every airman who escaped cost the life of one helper.

The bombing campaign did have an important strategic impact on Germany’s fighting ability. Bombing forced a large part of German industry to switch to air defence. Germany was forced to deploy 850,000 workers to the aircraft industry. This meant it could not build so many tanks and artillery for its eastern front, as it was forced to protect its homeland. By July 1943 at the crucial Battle of Kursk, the Wehrmacht could only muster half the tanks of the Red Army. There were 55,000 anti aircraft guns defending Germany. Life in Germany was increasingly disrupted and demoralised workers became absentees. By 1943 the Nazi party was losing grip on its control and members were no longer wearing badges. There were looters in bombed cities. The German home front was falling apart.

War in the East after 1944

In January 1944 the nine hundred day German siege of Leningrad was lifted.

Between 8 March and 18 July 1944 on the border with India, Japan suffered its biggest defeat at the Battle of Imphal at the hands of General William Slim’s Indian, British and African 14th Army. The Battles of Imphal and Kohima were the turning point of one of the most gruelling campaigns war. The decisive Japanese defeat in north-east India became the springboard for the Fourteenth Army’s subsequent re-conquest of Burma. Japan’s defeat at Imphal became a rout in which they lost 60,000 soldiers, two thirds of their total force.

Land invasion of western Europe

The Channel has rarely been successfully crossed by an invading force. William the Conqueror had success in 1066 when Harold’s force was fighting the Danes in the north. William of Orange had managed it in 1688 when faced with no opposing force. Napoleon, the Kaiser, and Hitler had been forced to abandon their plans to invade Britian. Modern armies required far greater resources in ammunition, food and fuel. Churchill did not want to rush the inevitable opening of a second front across the Channel.

Normandy was chosen for the site for Operation Overlord, with wide beaches and a harbour at Cherbourg once it could be secured. Phantom armies were assembled in Scotland, Essex and Kent and there was a disinformation campaign to suggest the main landing would be across the Straits of Dover. The French Resistance were set to disrupt German movement.

D Day was delayed from 5 June to 6 June 1944 due to storms. The invasion was under the supreme command of General Dwight D Eisenhower and the local command of Montgomery, Air Chief Marshall Sir Trafford Leigh Mallory and Admiral Bertram Ramsay. Airbourne troops landed in advance of the mass seaborne landings.

On 13 June 1944 Germany began its V1 flying bomb campaign, launching 10,000 rockets, a third of which crashed, many landing in London killing over 6,000 people.

The fight inland in the narrow hedgerow bocage country of Normandy, was bitter and difficult. The country was perfect for defence by a determined German defensive force. Advance was made field by field. There followed a ten week battle of attrition. Survival was often down to luck.

From 18 to 21 July 1944, the British army lost 6,000 men and a third of its tanks.

On 15 August 1944 a mainly Franco American force supported by British naval and air assets, landed in Provence and marched up the Rhone valley.

On 8 September 1944 the first V2 rocket carrying nearly a ton of explosive was launched from the Netherlands.

Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation fought in the German occupied Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. Its objective was to create a 64 mile salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the Nederrijn, the Lower Rhine River, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by two separate operations. The first, known as Market, was to seize nine bridges with combined US and British airborne forces. The second, known as Garden, was an operation by British land forces swiftly following over the bridges. Its failure ended hopes of an end to the war that year.

The approach of winter slowed the Allied advance.

Hitler’s last gasp offensive through the Ardennes against the Americans in the Battle of the Bulge from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945 was a surprise, but failed to meet its objectives.

The end of war in the West

From 4 to 11 February 1945 the Big Three Allied leaders, Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, met at Yalta in the Crimea, to strike a deal on the division of postwar Europe.

On 13 to 14 February 1945 Dresden was attacked, targeted as a transport hub by 800 Lancasters.

In March 1945 the allied armies crossed the Rhine into western Germany.

On 15 April 1945 British troops liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp and the young BBC reporter, Richard Dimbleby reported.

The Red Army ‘liberated’ Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Austria and the eastern part of Germany.

On 30 April 1945 Hitler shot himself.

On 2 May 1945 Berlin fell.

On 3 May 1945 German forces in Italy surrendered.

On 4 May 1945 German forces in northern Germany surrendered in Lüneburg, at Montgomery's control centre. Admiral von Friedeburg signed the partial surrender of German forces operating in the Northwest of Germany.

On 7 May 1945 German delegates signed an unconditional surrender at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims and on 8 May 1945 did the same for Stalin in Berlin.

The end of the war in the east

A large part of Britian’s fleet was sent to the Pacific and there were plans for a British army to join the invasion of Japan.

In August 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The idea of an atomic weapon had originated as early as 1904 when Frederick Soddy had told the Royal Engineers about the possibility. Work began in Britain in the 1940s and the research was transferred to US.

A new age had begun.

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