Rupert Colley - World War Two - History in an Hour

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz: ‘It can only end in annihilation for one of us’ The Battle of Britain and the Blitz: ‘It can only end in annihilation for one of us’ The Mediterranean: ‘One moment on a battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace’ North Africa: ‘A great general’ Germany’s Invasion of the Soviet Union: ‘The whole rotten structure will come crashing down’ War in the Far East: ‘Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars’ The Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk: The new field marshal The Holocaust: ‘The man with an iron heart’ The Battle of the Atlantic: ‘The U-boat peril’ The Big Three Italy Falls: ‘You are the most hated man in Italy’ The Bomber Offensive: ‘My name is Meyer’ The Normandy Invasion: D-Day France Free: ‘Liberated by her own people’ Approach from the East: ‘For the good have fallen’ The End of the War in Europe: The Death of a Corporal The End of the War in Japan: ‘Complete and utter destruction’ Appendix 1: Key Players Appendix 2: Timeline of World War Two Copyright Got Another Hour? About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

With Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France under Nazi control, Britain now faced the German onslaught alone. Operation Sea Lion, Germany’s codename for the invasion of Britain, was quietly announced on 16 July. Hitler decreed that, as a prelude to a full-blown invasion, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, would destroy the RAF’s air superiority over Britain. The following day, Hitler issued Britain a peace offering, his ‘last appeal to reason’: ‘It can only end in annihilation for one of us. Mr Churchill thinks it will be Germany. I know it will be Britain.’ Many in Parliament were tempted; Churchill was not.

The main thrust of Hitler’s air assault, the commencement of the Battle of Britain, began on 13 August, the ‘Day of the Eagle’, when 1,485 German aircraft attacked Britain’s coastal airfields. During the next month, the RAF and the Luftwaffe fought above the fields of south-east England in a series of dogfights where the average life expectancy of a British pilot was four to five weeks. But the RAF enjoyed certain advantages of flying over home ground: if a British pilot had to bail out, he at least parachuted on to British soil and could return to the fight, unlike his German counterpart who, on landing, was whisked off into captivity. And, unlike the Luftwaffe, the RAF pilot was not subject to anti-aircraft fire; the British, by this stage, were using radar (still a comparatively new invention), and had learnt, through the team at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, to decrypt Germany’s Enigma codes. Bletchley Park knew, for example, of Operation Sea Lion before many of Hitler’s generals did.

German Heinkels during the Battle of Britain, 1940

On 23 August, as they were returning from a sortie over Britain, a Luftwaffe patrol got lost and mistakenly bombed Croydon on the outskirts of London. The RAF bombed Berlin on 25 August. The damage was insignificant but Hitler, enraged, ordered the bombing of London. Between 7 September 1940 and 16 May 1941, the people of London and many other British cities as far north as Glasgow, endured the Blitz, a sustained campaign of bombing.

London during the Blitz, c. 1941

After May 1941, the Luftwaffe was diverted to the Soviet Union. In just one night, 14 November 1940, 440 German bombers dropping over 1,000 tons of explosives destroyed Coventry, killing 568 people and seriously injuring 863. Altogether, during the Blitz, over 40,000 were killed and almost 50,000 injured. But if the aim was to destroy resolve, it failed: the bombings merely strengthened it. For Londoners, the sight of Churchill, and on another occasion, the King and Queen stepping through the devastation and talking to the locals certainly helped boost morale. After Buckingham Palace had been hit, Queen Elizabeth said: ‘I’m glad we’ve been bombed – now I feel we can look the East End in the face.’

A second unintended consequence of Hitler’s decision to target civilians was to give the RAF time to regroup and prepare for the next onslaught. That attack came on 15 September, now known as Battle of Britain Day, when the Luftwaffe, believing that the RAF was on its knees, launched a concentrated attack on south-east England. The RAF doggedly fought them off and the Battle of Britain was effectively over. Two days later, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. As Churchill stirringly said, ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’

The Mediterranean: ‘One moment on a battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace’ The Mediterranean: ‘One moment on a battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace’ North Africa: ‘A great general’ Germany’s Invasion of the Soviet Union: ‘The whole rotten structure will come crashing down’ War in the Far East: ‘Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars’ The Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk: The new field marshal The Holocaust: ‘The man with an iron heart’ The Battle of the Atlantic: ‘The U-boat peril’ The Big Three Italy Falls: ‘You are the most hated man in Italy’ The Bomber Offensive: ‘My name is Meyer’ The Normandy Invasion: D-Day France Free: ‘Liberated by her own people’ Approach from the East: ‘For the good have fallen’ The End of the War in Europe: The Death of a Corporal The End of the War in Japan: ‘Complete and utter destruction’ Appendix 1: Key Players Appendix 2: Timeline of World War Two Copyright Got Another Hour? About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Since coming to power in 1922, Benito Mussolini fancied himself as a modern-day Caesar and Italy his Roman Empire. In his bid to start building an empire worthy of his ancient predecessors, Italy grabbed for itself Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) in 1936 and Albania in 1939. On 16 May 1940, Churchill had pleaded with Mussolini not to declare war: ‘Is it too late to stop a river of blood from flowing between the British and Italian peoples?’ he asked. But just three weeks later, on 10 June, with France only days from capitulating, Mussolini declared war on the Allies, boasting, ‘One moment on a battlefield is worth a thousand years of peace’, and prompting Hitler to comment: ‘First they were too cowardly to take part. Now they are in a hurry so that they can share in the spoils.’ On 28 October, from their bases in Albania, Italy attacked Greece. Mussolini’s dreams of empire soon unravelled in humiliating fashion. With insufficient weapons, lack of winter clothing and supplies, the Italians faltered within fifty miles. The Greeks, with help from the British, pushed the Italian forces into a hasty retreat, carrying the fight into Albania. Having dealt with the Italians, the Greeks now faced the more daunting prospect of a German attack.