The World War II Story E-Book

Chris McNab

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

In September 1939, Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Thus began the greatest armed struggle in history. Within days of the invasion, Germany was at war with France, Great Britain and much of the Commonwealth, but by the end of 1941 – by which time Japan and the United States had been plunged into war – the conflict had engulfed virtually the entire planet. World War II witnessed the mobilisation of more than 100 million military personnel. Here was 'total war' on a scale never previously experienced by any of the countries involved. The conflict eclipsed everything: industry, technology, the economy and home life. It transformed the lives of an entire generation of men and women, who grew up under the shadow of violence, separation and loss. It was also fought in every conceivable terrain and theatre, from the arctic conditions of the Soviet winter to the tropical landscape of the Pacific islands, with the battle for seas and skies being equally brutal. By the time it ended in September 1945, World War II had claimed the lives of more than 50 million people, and it witnessed the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare to this day. The World War II Story charts the dramatic narrative of the conflict from its first shots to its final apocalyptic end.

Leseprobe

The World War II Story

The World War II Story

Chris McNab

Published in the United Kingdom in 2011 byThe History PressThe Mill · Brimscombe Port · Stroud ·Gloucestershire · GL5 2QG

Reprinted 2017

Copyright © The History Press, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in anyform, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of thepublisher and copyright holder.

Chris McNab has asserted his moral right to be identified as theauthor of this work.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary.

e-ISBN 978-0-7524-8564-5

Typesetting and origination byThe History PressPrinted and bound in China.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 6

Introduction 7

Poland and Western Europe, 1939–40 10

The Balkans and North Africa, 1940–43 26

Operation Barbarossa, 1941–43 40

War in the Pacific, 1941–42 55

Italian Campaign, 1943–45 69

The War in the Atlantic, 1940–43 75

Strategic Bombing Campaign against Germany, 1942–45 83

Overlord and the Western Front, 1944–45 89

The Eastern Front and Germany’s Downfall, 1943–45 100

Victory in the Pacific, 1943–45 110

Conclusion 124

Further Reading 127

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank several individuals and organizations who  

have been central to the production of this book. Thanks go to  

Ted Nevill of Cody Images, for providing many of the photos in  

this title, and to Jo de Vries of The History Press for the same,  

despite her own heavy workload. Special thanks go, as always, to  

my family – Mia, Charlotte and Ruby – for lightening long days.

NB: Photos credited to NARA are from the collections of theNational Archives and Records Administration.

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INTRODUCTION

The Soviet foreignminister VyacheslavMolotov signs theGerman–SovietNon-Aggression Pact on23 August 1939. Germanforeign minister Joachimvon Ribbentrop and JosefStalin stand behind him.(NARA)

World War II is undoubtedly the  

most destructive military event in  

human history. Between 1939 and 1945,  

an estimated 56 million people were  

killed in a conflict that was truly global in  

scale, the theatres of war stretching from  

Western Europe to the Central Pacific.  

It included individual campaigns that  

alone cost more than a million lives, and  

incorporated human rights violations of an  

unprecedented nature. Unlike the previous  

world war, civilians would constitute the  

majority of the dead and wounded.

For the Allied powers – chiefly the British  

Empire, the United States and the Soviet  

Union – World War II consisted of two  

conflicts: that fought in Europe, North Africa  

and the Soviet Union against Germany, and  

the Pacific War against Japan. As we shall  

see, both had distinct, separate causes. In  

Europe, where it all began, however, the  

catalyst was undeniably a single man, Adolf  

Hitler. Leader of the Nationalsozialistische  

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Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National  

Socialist German Workers’ Party), or Nazi  

Party, Hitler rose to power during the  

1930s on a bitter manifesto of revenge  

for Germany’s defeat in World War I,  

anti-Semitism and economic rejuvenation.  

Through electoral means he took the  

Chancellorship of Germany in 1933, then  

established himself as the undisputed  

Führer (leader), turning Germany into a  

one-party dictatorship. Hitler aspired to  

achieve Lebensraum (living space) for the  

German people, primarily through military  

conquest, and to this end he rejected  

the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty  

(the peace settlement terms imposed on  

Germany after its defeat in World War I)  

and comprehensively rebuilt not only the  

national economy, but also Germany’s  

armed forces.

During the later 1930s, German  

expansionism manifested itself in the  

annexation of Austria in 1938 and the  

takeover of most of Czechoslovakia in  

1939, both ‘bloodless’ conquests achieved  

through a mixture of devious diplomacy or  

outright bullying. Britain, France and other  

nations protested, and rattled sabres, but  

it amounted to little more than posturing.  

By the autumn of 1939, therefore, Hitler  

felt confident of his next step, the military  

conquest of Poland.

Did you know?

The Versailles Treaty peace settlement following the end ofWorld War I limited German forces to 100,000 personnel,prohibited armoured vehicles, submarines and combat aircraft,and restricted the German Navy to six battleships, six cruisers andtwelve destroyers.

Adolf Hitler receivesa mass Nazi salute in theReichstag in March 1938,following Germany’sannexation of Austria.The Anschluss, as theannexation was known,was just the first stagein Hitler’s expansionistambitions. (NARA)

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POLAND AND WESTERN EUROPE, 1939–40

The German 1stPanzer Division,including its diminutivePanzer I tanks, entersPoland in 1939. Suchtanks would be largelyobsolete by the end ofthe campaign in Poland,being underarmed andwith inadequate armour.(Cody Images)

Hitler’s long-term aspirations for  

Lebensraum generally looked to the  

East, and primarily to Germany’s immediate  

neighbour, Poland. Hitler not only wanted  

Polish territory for German resettlement,  

he also wanted to eradicate the ‘Danzig  

Corridor’, a stretch of Polish land leading  

to the Baltic coast and separating Germany  

from its easternmost state, East Prussia. In  

addition, Poland would provide the first big  

test of Hitler’s Wehrmacht (armed forces).  

During the inter-war years, the army  

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I was shocked at what had become of thebeautiful city I had known – ruined and burnt-out houses, starving and grieving people.

– German officer Walter Schellenberg, on visitingWarsaw after its bombing

In a rather stagedimage, German mountedtroops cross the Polishfrontier in September1939. Hitler’s officialexcuse for invading Poland– some justification wasneeded – was a response toPolish aggression.(Cody Images)

and Luftwaffe (air force) had pioneered  

combined-arms tactics, utilizing armoured  

spearheads to break through weak points  

in enemy defences, while ground-attack  

aircraft such as the Ju 87 Stukas served as  

flying artillery to smooth the way. Known  

to history as Blitzkrieg, these tactics were  

unleashed on 1 September 1939.

The invasion of Poland was an unequal  

struggle. Five German armies, arranged into  

two army groups, thrust into Poland from  

the west. The two army groups formed  

a massive pincer action, trapping entire  

Polish armies west of Warsaw; the capital  

itself was subjected to devastating air raids,  

and German troops reached its outskirts by  

8 September. Polish resistance was not as  

easily dismissed as many historians have  

described. The obsolete Polish Air Force  

During the Polishcampaign, the Germanarmed forces werecombat testing newtheories of armouredwarfare, including the useof fast, deep penetrationsby tanks units such as theone seen here.(Cody Images)

Did you know?

The German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact wassigned on 23 August 1939. It openly declareda commitment not to wage war against eachother for the next ten years. In secret, however,it also granted the Soviets permission to takeover the Baltic States and for Germany and theUSSR to divide up Poland between them.

put up a surprisingly tenacious defence in  

places, and the Polish Army fought hard  

enough to kill or wound more than 35,000  

Germans. Yet the Poles were no match  

for the modern, fast-moving German  

divisions. Furthermore, on 17 September  

the Soviets invaded Poland from the east,  

Joseph Stalin having agreed to a partition  

of Polish territory with Hitler. By early  

October, Poland was completely under  

foreign occupation. It was divided between  

the victors, the Germans also creating  

a new territory known as the ‘General  

Government’, a literal slave state that  

would also become the principal location  

for Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Europe’s  

Jewish populations.

By the end of the Polish campaign,  

the scale of the war had widened. On  

3 September, both Britain and France  

declared war on Germany, following an  

unfulfilled ultimatum that Hitler withdraw  

his forces from Poland. Having conquered  

Poland, therefore, Hitler now turned his  

eye to the West. With future ambitions  

against the Soviet Union, he knew that  

he couldn’t leave his western borders  

unsecured, so Germany would once again  

fight old adversaries.

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