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In 1940 British forces were withdrawn from the Channel Islands,
allowing the Germans to occupy British territory. Hitler was
determined to hold onto what he saw as a valuable prize, and the
islands were heavily fortified. However, despite being extensively
defended, the occupied Channel Islands remained vulnerable to
commando-style raids. Indeed, a total of nine such operations were
conducted between 1940 and 1943. Many others were planned but never
executed. Each one was a bold and dangerous expedition, with small
groups of men daring to trespass on Hitler's cherished British
stronghold. The first of these attacks, Operation Ambassador, took
place on the night of 14/15 July 1940. The second ever raid
undertaken by the Commandos, it was focused on the island of
Guernsey. Though the mission failed to achieve any of its
objectives, valuable lessons were learnt. In the weeks, months and
years that followed, raids were also undertaken against Jersey,
Sark, Herm, Burhou and the Casquets lighthouse off Alderney. The
final attack, Hardtack 22, was one of the three carried out against
the German garrison on Sark. After the second mission, Hardtack 7,
had to be aborted, the Commandos returned to the island on the
night of 26/27 December 1943, tasked with undertaking a
reconnaissance and capturing prisoners. This too was a failure
after the raiders entered a minefield; two men were killed and most
of the others wounded. Compiled from official reports and
first-hand accounts, each of the raids is packed with intrigue and
drama - including the fear of reprisals being taken against the
islanders. Each of the missions are explored on the ground today by
the authors, with the routes taken and all key locations relating
to each attack photographed and described. The planned but never
executed raids are also explored. Never before have these stories
been told in such detail, and never before in the words of those
that took part in the raids and those who ultimately, were most
affected.
From its south-eastern tip Sussex is little more than sixty miles
from continental Europe and the county's coastline, some
seventy-six miles long, occupies a large part of Britain's southern
frontier. Before the days of Macadam and the Turnpike, water travel
could prove more certain than land transportation and the seas that
define the borders of our nation aided, rather than deterred, the
invader.Though the last successful invasion of Britain took place
almost 1,000 years ago, the gently shelving beaches of Sussex have
tempted the prospective invader with the promise of both an easy
disembarkation and a short and direct route to London - the last
time being just seven decades ago.As the authors demonstrate, the
repeated threat of invasion from the Continent has shaped the very
landscape of the county. The rounded tops of the Iron Age hill
forts, the sheer walls of the medieval castles, the squat stumps of
Martello towers, the moulded Vaubanesque contours of the
Palmerstone redoubts and the crouched concrete blocks and bricks of
the Second World War pillboxes constitute the visible evidence of
Sussex's position on Britain's front line.
As dawn was breaking on the morning of 19 August 1942, Allied
troops leapt ashore to the east and west of the French port of
Dieppe. These were British commandoes accompanied by U.S. Rangers,
tasked to silence the German gun batteries that flanked Dieppe.
Other troops - the men of the 2nd Canadian Division - landed closer
to Dieppe to capture the German positions that overlooked the port
while, minutes later, the main body of the predominantly Canadian
assaulting force began clambering from landing craft that had run
onto the beach along Dieppe's seafront. This was the start of
Operation Jubilee, the Allies' most ambitious assault upon Hitler's
so-called Fortress Europe - it quickly became a bloodbath. The
early months of 1942 had been difficult ones for Prime Minister
Churchill. Stalin was demanding action in Western Europe to lessen
the pressure of the 280 German divisions that were bearing down
upon Stalingrad. Roosevelt was insisting that U.S. soldiers must
start fighting the Germans in Europe, and Mackenzie King, the
Canadian Prime Minister, desperately needed Canadian troops to
become involved in the war to keep his politically divided nation
together. Churchill's response to these measures was to authorise a
�super-raid' upon German-held territory, and the target selected
by the planners was Dieppe. Apart from the notable success of No.4
Commando, the raid was a disaster with more than 50 per cent of the
6,086 men who landed being killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, plus
all the Churchill tanks landed in support of the infantry suffered
mechanical failure or were shelled into smoking wrecks. Yet amid
the scenes slaughter, of confusion, and communication breakdown,
were acts of almost unimaginable heroism, ingenuity, determination,
and self-sacrifice to which the awarding of two Victoria Crosses
paid a worthy tribute. There were also special missions associated
with the raid, the details of which remained a closely guarded
secret until long after the war. This book opens a window on
Operation Jubilee, allowing the reader a rare insight into the
death and destruction inflicted upon the Allied force during just a
few hours, and of the damage done to Dieppe itself, with many of
the photographs being taken by the victorious German defenders. The
raid saw the heaviest casualty figures experienced by Canadians in
the Second World War, and the photographs in this book are a stark
reminder of that fateful day in late summer of 1942.
Throughout his political life, Adolf Hitler was the subject of
numerous assassination plots, some of which were attempted, all of
which failed. While a few of these have become well known,
particularly the bomb explosions at the Burgerbr ukeller in Munich
in 1939 and the Stauffenberg _Valkyrie_ attempt carried out at the
Wolfsschanze on 20 July 1944, many others have received far less
attention -until now. In this book, John Grehan has examined the
known planned or proposed assassination attempts on Hitler, from
Chicago to London and from Sweden to the Ukraine -some of which
have not previously been presented to the general public by
historians. All manner of methods were proposed by those willing to
bring Hitler's life to a premature and sticky end and Hitler was
well aware of the danger which lurked potentially around every
corner of every road, railway track, every building and even every
individual. As a result, an immense, multi-layered security
apparatus surrounded the Fuhrer day and night. Despite this, and
knowing the risks they faced, many people sought to kill the German
leader, and some very nearly did. Yet Hitler survived, often by
just a minute or a millimetre, to die ultimately of his own hand.
These plots and conspiracies are detailed in this book, along with
a unique collection of photographs of many of the proposed or
actual assassination locations. All will be revealed in this
fascinating compilation of the obscure, the fanciful and the
carefully considered attempts to assassinate Hitler.
In the 200 years since the famous battle in the muddy, bloody
fields of Waterloo, almost every aspect of the fighting has been
examined and analysed, apart from one - that of finding and
illustrating locations relating to the campaign. From Napoleon's
landing on the Golfe Juan on France's C�te d'Azur, along the
Route Napoleon and through Grenoble, the Emperor's journey back to
Paris, and back to power, is shown in glorious full colour. In this
beautifully produced book, we see where Napoleon distributed the
Imperial Eagles to the regiments of his army, and where his forces
assembled before marching to war, and where the Due of Wellington's
Anglo-Allied army gathered in Brussels. The camera follows the
initial encounters on the banks of the River Sambre and the
manoeuvring of the French and Coalition forces leading to the first
great battles of the campaign at Quatre Bras and Ligny. The key
sites occupied by the opposing armies at these battles are
investigated as are the routes of the withdrawal to Mont St Jean by
Wellington's army and to Wavre by Bl�cher's Prussians. The
Waterloo battlefield and its associated buildings are examined in
pictorial detail, as are the locations which marked the pivotal
moments of the battle. The sites of the corresponding battle at
Wavre are also shown, as well as the pursuit of the two wings of
beaten French Army, including the sieges of the fortresses by the
British army, before Paris was finally reached. The uprising in the
Vend�e and the last clashes of the campaign before Napoleon's
abdication are also featured. The book closes with Napoleon's
journey from Paris to St Helena via l'�le d'Aix and Plymouth.
Headquarters buildings, observation posts, monuments and memorials,
bridges and battlefields, and the principal locations of the
campaign are portrayed in unique photographs - and behind every
plague and place is a tale of political posturing, military
manoeuvring, sacrifice and savagery. Together these images tell the
story of Napoleon's greatest gamble, and we know that a picture is
worth a thousand words!
After the astonishing Japanese successes of 1941 and early 1942,
the Allies began to fight back. After victories at Guadalcanal,
Coral Sea, Midway and other islands in the Pacific, by 1944, the
Japanese had been pushed back onto the defensive. Yet there was no
sign of an end to the war, as the Japanese mainland was beyond the
reach of land-based heavy bombers. So, in the spring of 1944, the
focus of attention turned to the Mariana Islands - Guam, Saipan and
Tinian - which were close enough to Tokyo to place the Japanese
capital within the operational range of the new Boeing B-29
Superfortress. The attack upon Saipan, the most heavily-defended of
the Marianas, took the Japanese by surprise, but over the course of
more than three weeks, the 29,000 Japanese defenders defied the
might of 71,000 US Marines and infantry, supported by fifteen
battleships and eleven cruisers. The storming of the beaches and
the mountainous interior cost the US troops dearly, in what was the
most-costly battle to date in the Pacific War. Eventually, after
three weeks of savage fighting, which saw the Japanese who refused
to surrender being burned to death in their caves, the enemy
commander, Lieutenant General Saito, was left with just 3,000
able-bodied men and he ordered them to deliver a final suicide
banzai charge. With the wounded limping behind, along with numbers
of civilians, the Japanese overran two US battalions, before the
4,500 men were wiped out. It was the largest banzai attack of the
Pacific War. As well as placing the Americans within striking
distance of Tokyo, the capture of Saipan also opened the way for
General MacArthur to mount his invasion of the Philippines and
resulted in the resignation of the Japanese Prime Minister Tojo.
One Japanese admiral admitted that 'Our war was lost with the loss
of Saipan'. This is a highly illustrated story of what US General
Holland Smith called 'the decisive battle of the Pacific
offensive'. It was, he added, the offensive that 'opened the way to
the Japanese home islands'.
Set deep in the heart of the Masurian woods of northern Poland, in
what was formally East Prussia, lies a vast complex of ruined
bunkers and shelters that once constituted Hitler's headquarters -
the Wolfsschanze or Wolf's Lair - for Germany's attack upon the
Soviet Union in 1941. Built in conditions of the utmost secrecy,
the Wolfsschanze was surrounded by fences and guard posts, its
paths and tracks were hidden, and buildings were camouflaged and
concealed with artificial grass and trees planted on their flat
roofs. As the war in Eastern Europe continued, so the Wolf's Lair
grew in scale and sophistication, until it's 2.5 square miles
incorporated more than eighty buildings including massive
reinforced bunkers. It was also at the Wolfsschanze that Colonel
von Stauffenberg almost killed Hitler in the summer of 1944\. That
building is still there, its roof sitting on its collapsed walls.
With the aid of a unique collection of colour photographs, the
reader is guided around the Wolfsschanze as it appears today, with
each building and its purpose identified. Laced with numerous
personal accounts of the installation and of Hitler's routines,
supplemented with contemporary images, the Wolfsschanze is brought
to life once more. The Wolfsschanze, however, was not the only
military complex in this small part of the Eastern Front. Once
Hitler has established his command centre at the Wolfsschanze, in
effect the home of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (or military high
command), the other branches of the German armed forces and civil
authorities quickly followed suit. Just a few miles away, for
example, the German Army built its own operational headquarters at
Mauerwald - a complex which amounted to an even greater
concentration of buildings, many of which remain intact and open to
the public. Goering duly ordered that the Luftwaffe's headquarters,
codenamed _Robinson_, be built further out near the current Russian
border, whilst Himmler's SS headquarters at Hochwald and that for
Hans Lammers' Reich Chancellery were situated back nearer the
Wolfsschanze. For the first time, these astonishing sites, five
complexes from which the war on the Eastern Front was directed, are
shown and described in one book, providing a comprehensive survey
of the installations whose gigantic scale still evinces awe and
wonder.
Despatches in this volume include the Despatch on air operations by
the Allied Expeditionary Air Force in North West Europe between
November 1943 and September 1944, the despatch on the assault phase
of the Normandy landings June 1944, despatch on operations of
Coastal Command, Royal Air Force in Operation Overlord - the
invasion of Europe 1944, the despatch on operations in North West
Europe between 6 June 1944 and 5 May 1945, by Field Marshal the
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Commander 21st Army Group, the
despatch on the final stages of the naval war in North West Europe,
and, as an addition, the despatch on the Dieppe Raid in 1942. This
unique collection of original documents will prove to be an
invaluable resource for historians, students and all those
interested in what was one of the most significant periods in
British military history.
Incredible as it may seem today, detailed plans were drawn up to
re-capture the Channel Islands, the most heavily fortified of all
the German-occupied territories, regardless of the potentially
severe' loss of life and the widespread destruction to the property
of the British citizens. Under the codenames Constellation, Condor,
Concertina, and Coverlet, the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and
Alderney were to be attacked in 1943. The operation against
Alderney would be preceded by a bombardment by between 500 and 600
medium/light bombers and an astonishing forty to fifty squadrons of
fighters. The official papers which have now become available state
that: The islands cannot be taken without causing some civilian
casualties. In the case of Alderney, it is thought that the air
bombardment will have to be on such a scale that all personnel on
the island will have to become casualties.' A similar number of
aircraft would attack Guernsey while, for the assault upon Jersey,
thirty-one squadrons of heavy bombers and strike aircraft would
bombard the island's east and west coasts. This would be followed,
on D-Day, by parachute and infantry landings and then a commando
assault in the south-west. On Day 2 of the operation the first of
the tanks were to land, with more armour and infantry to follow on
subsequent days. As the German garrison of the Channel Islands was
some 40,000 strong, the islands would be turned into an enormous
battlefield, and a vast killing ground. The consequences for the
Islanders were almost too horrendous to imagine and the political
fallout beyond calculation if the operations failed in their
objectives after the devastation and loss of British lives that the
fighting had caused. Despite all this, it was thought that such
operations would become the second front' so persistently demanded
by Stalin to draw German troops from the Eastern Front and might
also help the Allied forces which were about to invade Italy -
Operation Husky - from North Africa. Equally, the Channel Islands
would be the ideal base for the D-Day invasion of France scheduled
for 1944. There was much then in favour of mounting the operations
against the Channel Islands regardless of the fact that it meant
the death of untold British citizens at the hands of British troops
and the Allied air forces. The Allied Assault Upon Hitler's Channel
Island Fortress is, therefore, the first detailed analysis of what
would have been the most controversial operation ever undertaken by
the British and American armed forces.
The key naval battles against Imperial Japan in the Pacific during
the Second World War have been described many times by numerous
diligent and skilful historians. Such histories are, of course, the
products of many years, even decades, of accumulated knowledge, but
also of a received consensus of how the war played out to its,
seemingly, inevitable conclusion. That of course is not how it was
perceived at the time. Hindsight, as we know, gives us 20/20
vision. The accounts here, compiled for and on behalf of the
Admiralty, were written either during or immediately after the end
of the war before historians had begun to give their assessments of
these momentous events. These accounts were written for internal
consumption, to guide and instruct naval officers. It was never
intended that they would be released to the general public. As
such, there was no jingoistic drum beating, no axes to grind, no
new angles to try and find. The authors of these accounts relate
each battle, move by move, as they unfolded, accurately and
dispassionately. This makes these accounts so invaluable. They read
almost like a running commentary, as action follows action, minute
follows minute. This sensation is magnified by the absolute
impartiality of the authors, their sole attempt being to provide a
thorough but very clear and comprehensible record so that others in
the future could understand precisely how each battle was fought.
These accounts can never be superseded and never replaced. Written
by naval officers of the time for naval officers of the future,
they are the permanent record of the great victories, and the
sobering defeat in the Java Sea, during the struggle for control of
the Pacific which, for many months, hung precariously in the
balance.
Special Operations Executive was one of the most secretive
organizations of the Second World War, its activities cloaked in
mystery and intrigue. The fate, therefore, of many of its agents
was not revealed to the general public other than the bare details
carved with pride upon the headstones and memorials of those
courageous individuals. Then in 2003, the first batch of SOE
personal files was released by The National Archives. Over the
course of the following years more and more files were made
available. Now, at last, it is possible to tell the stories of all
those agents that died in action. These are stories of bravery and
betrayal, incompetence and misfortune, of brutal torture and
ultimately death. Some died when their parachutes failed to open,
others swallowed their cyanide capsules rather than fall into the
hands of the Gestapo, many died in combat with the enemy, most
though were executed, by hanging, by shooting and even by lethal
injection. The bodies of many of the lost agents were never found,
destroyed in the crematoria of such places as Buckenwald,
Mauthausen and Natzweiler, others were buried where they fell. All
of them should be remembered as having undertaken missions behind
enemy lines in the knowledge that they might never return.
In 1944, a compilation of medical reports from the main prisoner of
war work camps along the infamous Thailand-Burma railway was
submitted to General Arimura Tsunemichi, commander of the Japanese
Prisoner of War Administration. The authors stated that the reports
were neither complaints nor protests, but merely statements of
fact. The prisoners received only one reply -that all copies of the
documents must be destroyed. As one officer later recalled, Of
course, this was not done' and copies of these reports survived,
stored away in dusty files, for future generations to learn the
truth. Work on the railway began in June 1942, the Japanese using
mainly forced civilian labour as well as some 12,000 British and
Commonwealth PoWs. Such is well-known. So are the stories of
ill-treatment and brutality, many of which have been published. The
vast majority of these accounts, however, were written after the
war, coloured by the sufferings the men had endured. The reports
presented here are quite unique, for they were written by the
medical officers in the camps as the events they describe were
unfolding before their eyes. The health and well-being of the PoWs
was the medical officers' primary concern, and these reports enable
us to learn exactly how the men were treated, fed and cared for in
unprecedented detail. There are no exaggerated tales or false
memories here, merely facts, shocking and disturbing though they
may be. We learn how the medical officers organised their hospitals
and dealt with the terrible diseases, beatings and malnutrition the
men endured. As the compilers of the reports state, 45 per cent of
the men under their care died in the course of just twelve months.
But equally, we find that the prisoners did have a voice and had
the facilities, and the courage, to write and submit such reports
to the Japanese, perhaps contradicting some of the long-held
beliefs about conditions in the camps. Through the words of the
Medical Officers themselves, some of the detail of what really
happened on the Death Railway, for good or ill, is revealed here.
The Special Operations Executive developed a vast network of agents
across Occupied Europe which played a vital role in developing and
sustaining Resistance movements that persistently sought to subvert
German control of their territories. The culmination of their
efforts was seen when the Allied armies landed at Normandy in June
1944, with the SOE and the Resistance causing widespread
destruction and disruption behind the German lines. None of this
would have been possible had it not been for the Royal Air Force.
Not only did the RAF supply the SOE, and the movements it led and
co-ordinated, with the thousands of tons of arms and equipment
needed to undertake this role, it also delivered and retrieved
agents from under the very noses of the enemy. Compiled at the end
of the war by the Air Historical Branch of the RAF, this is an
extremely detailed and comprehensive account of the RAFs support
for the SOE, and in it we learn of the enormous and complex
arrangements undertaken by the Special Duties squadrons as well as
showing how the material delivered by these aircraft was used in
the field. This account is reproduced here in its entirety, along
with a detailed appendix containing the official historical record
of Bomber Command aircrews and aircraft engaged in clandestine
operations. Taken together, this book represents the most
comprehensive account of the RAFs support for SOE ever published.
The Battle of Hastings is the most defining event in English
history. As such, its every detail has been analysed by scholars
and interpreted by historians. Yet one of the most fundamental
aspect of the battle the place upon which it was fought has never
been seriously questioned, until now. Could it really be the case
that for almost 1,000 years everyone has been studying the wrong
location? In this in-depth study, the authors examine the early
sources and the modern interpretations to unravel the compulsive
evidence that historians have chosen to ignore because it does not
fit the traditional view of where the battle was fought. Most
importantly, the authors investigate the terrain of the battlefield
and the archaeological data to reveal exactly where history was
made.
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The Blitz (Paperback)
John Grehan
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For months, The Few' had defended Britain against the might of the
Luftwaffe. Then, on 7 September 1940, everything changed. Instead
of targeting airfields, the German bombers turned their attention
to London. The Blitz had begun. For two months, London was
systemically attacked in one of the most sustained aerial bombing
campaigns in history. The onslaught soon spread to other cities,
including Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Hull, Birmingham and
Belfast, causing widespread destruction. In the face of this
extreme devastation and heartbreak, however, came stories of
survival, heroism and courage from the people of Britain. With
sections examining life in the shelters, Britain's air raid
defences and bomb disposal, citizen heroics and the rise of crimes
such as looting, this book takes a look back at the Luftwaffe's
unsuccessful attempt to break the British spirit and shares what
life was really like during the Blitz.
The fighting in the Gallipoli or Dardanelles campaign began in 1915
as a purely naval affair undertaken partly at the instigation of
Winston Churchill, who, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had
entertained plans of capturing the Dardanelles as early as
September 1914. It was the Royal Navy that bore the brunt of the
initial action, supported by the French and with minor
contributions from, the Russian and Australian fleets. On 3
November 1914, Churchill ordered the first British attack on the
Dardanelles following the opening of hostilities between Ottoman
and Russian empires. The British attack was carried out by battle
cruisers of Carden's Mediterranean Squadron, HMS Indomitable and
HMS Indefatigable, as well as two French battleships. This attack
actually took place before a formal declaration of war had been
made by Britain against the Ottoman Empire. Royal Navy submarines
had already been operating in the region. When the naval operations
failed, a full invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula was launched.
The bitter fighting that followed resonated profoundly among all
nations involved. The campaign was the first major battle
undertaken by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC),
and is often considered to mark the birth of national consciousness
in both of these countries. For the Turkish forces it would prove a
major victory.
Despatches in this volume include that on the Far East between
October 1940 and December 1941, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert
Brooke-Popham; the despatch on operations in Hong Kong between 8
and 25 December 1941, by Major-General C.M. Maltby, General Officer
Commanding British Troops in China; the report on the air
operations during the campaigns in Malaya and Netherland East
Indies between December 1941 and March 1942; and the important
despatch by Percival detailing the fall of Malaya and Fortress
Singapore. This unique collection of original documents will prove
to be an invaluable resource for historians, students and all those
interested in what was one of the most significant periods in
British military history.
On 1 April 1942, less than four months after the world had been
stunned by the attack upon Pearl Harbor, sixteen US aircraft took
to the skies to exact retribution. Their objective was not merely
to attack Japan, but to bomb its capital. The people of Tokyo, who
had been told that their city was invulnerable' from the air, would
be bombed and strafed - and the shock waves from the raid would
extend far beyond the explosions of the bombs. The raid had first
been suggested in January 1942 as the US was still reeling from
Japan's pre-emptive strike against the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl
Harbor. The Americans were determined to fight back and fight back
as quickly as possible. The 17th Bomb Group (Medium) was chosen to
provide the volunteers who would crew the sixteen
specially-modified North American B-25 bombers. As it was not
possible to reach Tokyo from any US land bases, the bombers would
have to fly from aircraft carriers, but it was impossible for such
large aircraft to land on a carrier; the men had to volunteer for a
one-way ticket. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy' Doolittle, the
seventy-one officers and 130 enlisted men embarked on the USS
Hornet which was shielded by a large naval task force. However, the
ships were spotted by a Japanese ship. The decision was therefore
made to take-off before word of the task force's approach reached
Tokyo, even though the carrier was 170 miles further away from
Japan than planned and in the knowledge that the B-25s would not
have enough fuel to reach their intended landing places in China.
The raid was successful, and the Japanese were savagely jolted out
of their complacency. Fifteen of the aircraft crash-landed in, or
their crews baled-out over, China; the sixteenth managed to reach
the Soviet Union. Only three men were killed on the raid, with a
further eight being taken prisoner by the Japanese, three of whom
were executed and one died of disease. The full story of this
remarkable operation, of the men and machines involved, is explored
through this fascinating collection of images.
Singapore and Hong Kong had fallen to the forces of Imperial Japan,
Thailand and Burma had been invaded and islands across the Pacific
captured. But one place, one tiny island fortress garrisoned by a
few thousand hungry and exhausted men, refused to be beaten. That
island fortress was Corregidor which guarded the entrance to Manila
Bay and controlled all sea-borne access to Manila Harbour. At a
time when every news bulletin was one of Japanese success,
Corregidor shone as the only beacon of hope in the darkness of
defeat. The Japanese 14th Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu
Homma, threw everything it had at Corregidor, officially named Fort
Mills. But deep within the island's rocky heart, a tunnel had been
excavated into Malinta Hill and there the US troops, marine, naval
and army, endured the terrible onslaught. At their head was General
Douglas MacArthur who became a national hero with his resolute
determination never to surrender, until ordered to evacuate to
Australia to avoid such a senior officer being captured by the
enemy. Bur with his departure, the rest of the garrison knew that
there was no possibility of relief. They would have to fight on
until the bitter end, whatever form that might take. That end came
in May 1942\. The defenders were reduced to virtually starvation
rations with many of them wounded. Consequently, when, on 5 May the
Japanese mounted a powerful amphibious assault, the weakened
garrison could defy the enemy no longer. Corregidor, the 'Gibraltar
of the East', finally fell to the invaders. Those invaders were to
become the invaded when MacArthur returned in January 1945\. For
three weeks, US aircraft, warships and artillery hammered the
Japanese positions on Corregidor. Then, on 16 February, the
Americans landed on the island. It took MacArthur's men ten days to
hunt down the last of the Japanese, after many had chosen to commit
suicide rather than surrender, but Corregidor was at last back in
Allied hands. In this unique collection of images, the full story
Corregidor's part in the Second World War is dramatically revealed.
The ships, the aircraft, the guns, the fortifications and the men
themselves, are shown here, portraying the harsh, almost
unendurable, realities of war.
By early 1944, offensives undertaken by the United States armed
forces had driven the Japanese from many of their conquests in the
south and central Pacific. The next American move was to sever
Tokyo's communications with the remaining Japanese garrisons and
interdict the supplies of raw materials essential to Japan's war
effort. Before this could be achieved it was considered essential
to eliminate the land-based air forces in the Philippines which
were regarded as too powerful to by-pass. The American plan was to
land on the eastern Philippine island of Leyte and, once fully
established there, to move against the island of Mindoro. At this
point, US forces would then launch their main assault upon Luzon
and the Philippine capital, Manila. On 20 October 1944, the US
Sixth Army began landing on Leyte's eastern coast, supported by the
US Navy's 3rd and 7th fleets, which were assisted by ships from the
Royal Australian Navy. The Japanese were aware that the Americans
were poised to attack the Philippines and planned to draw the
American warships into one last great battle to try and stave off
the otherwise inevitable defeat. Over the course of the following
three days, the two naval forces engaged in four separate
engagements. Involving more than 360 ships and 200,000 naval
personnel, the battle was the greatest naval encounter of the
Second World War and possibly the largest naval battle in history.
The result was disastrous for the Japanese who lost three
battleships, four aircraft carriers, ten cruisers and eleven
destroyers, along with almost 300 aircraft - the greatest loss of
ships and crew the Japanese had ever experienced. In _Battle of
Leyte Gulf_, the actions of the warships as well as the
accompanying amphibious landings on Leyte by the US Sixth Army are
vividly revealed through a dramatic collection of photographs
depicting the ships, sailors, airmen and soldiers who made history.
Despatches in this volume include that on the first and second
battles of Narvik in 1940; the despatch on operations in central
Norway 1940, by Lieutenant General H.R.S. Massy,
Commander-in-Chief, North West Expeditionary Force; Despatch on
operations in Northern Norway between April and June 1940; the
despatch on carrier-borne aircraft attacks on Kirkenes (Norway) and
Petsamo (Finland) in 1941, by Admiral Sir John C. Tovey; the
despatch on the raid on military and economic objectives in the
Lofoten Islands (Norway) in March 1941, by Admiral Sir John C.
Tovey, Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet; and the despatch on the raid
on military and economic objectives in the vicinity of Vaagso
Island (Norway) in December 1941, by Admiral Sir John C. Tovey.
This unique collection of original documents will prove to be an
invaluable resource for historians, students and all those
interested in what was one of the most significant periods in
British military history.
The miracle' of Dunkirk is one of the most inspiring stories of all
time. The British Expeditionary Force had been all but surrounded,
and, with the French armies collapsing on all sides, it appeared
that Britain was about to suffer the heaviest defeat in its
history. When Winston Churchill's War Cabinet finally accepted that
the Battle of France had been lost, preparations were made to try
and rescue as many soldiers as possible from one of the few ports
left open to the British Expeditionary Force - Dunkirk. So rushed
and chaotic was the retreat to the Channel coast, with thousands of
guns, vehicles and tanks being abandoned, there was little time for
soldiers to consider taking photographs of the shocking scenes of
death and destruction which surrounded them. Yet images do exist of
the ships and boats of all descriptions which braved the bombs and
guns of the German Air Force to rescue Britain's only field army
from the clutches of Hitler's panzer divisions. One man in
particular, Sub-Lieutenant John Rutherford Crosby, a member of the
crew of the minesweeper, and converted Clyde paddle steamer, HMS
Oriole, left a legacy of dramatic images. These include the
never-to-be-forgotten scenes of long lines of tired and anxious
troops stretching into the sea and of bombs exploding on the packed
beaches - all with his own personal little camera. Other images in
this book paint a vivid and memorable picture, as no words ever
could, of the greatest evacuation of troops under fire.
Having all but swept the Japanese Imperial Navy from the vast
expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the Allied forces stood on the brink
of invading the Japanese Home Islands. The launching pad for the
invasion was to be the island of Okinawa. Amid the terrible
slaughter and the shocking casualty statistics of the US Tenth Army
and the US Marines, as well as the unrelenting defiance of the
Japanese defenders so often detailed in the many books on the
battle, the vital part played by the Allied navies in transporting,
landing and supporting the ground offensive is all too often
overlooked. The naval forces involved included the US Task Force 58
and the British Pacific Fleet composed of ships from the Royal
Australian Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal New Zealand
Navy which together with those of the Royal Navy constituted the
most powerful fleet Britain had ever put together. The total
firepower of the Allied force was staggering, consisting of 18
battleships, 27 cruisers, 177 destroyers/destroyer escorts, 11
fleet carriers, 6 light carriers and 22 escort carriers and various
support and troop transport ships. Pitted against this formidable
array was the Japanese Combined Fleet, with just one super
battleship, one light cruiser and eight destroyers. But the
Japanese had one other fearful weapon - the kamikaze. The resultant
battle saw the Japanese fleet wiped out, but the Allies lost
twenty-four support vessels and a further 386 ships were damaged -
many at the hands of the kamikaze pilots. After the fighting the
Admiralty called for a summary of the battle to be written for
internal Royal Navy consumption. It is that secret report, which it
was never intended would be seen by the general public, that is
published here for the first time.
The fate of the free world hung in the balance. Stalin's Soviet
Union sought to drive the Western democracies from Germany to
continue the communist advance across Europe. The first step in
Stalin's scheme was to bring Berlin under Soviet control. Berlin
was situated deep inside the Soviet-occupied region of the country,
but the German capital had been divided into two halves, one of
which was occupied by the Soviet Union, the other, in separate
sectors, by Britain, France and the USA. Stalin decided to make the
Allied hold on West Berlin untenable by shutting down all the
overland routes used to keep the city supplied. The choice faced by
the Allies was a stark one - let Berlin fall, or risk war with the
Soviets by breaking the Soviet stranglehold. In a remarkably
visionary move, the Allies decided that they could keep Berlin
supplied by flying over the Soviet blockade, thus avoiding armed
conflict with the USSR. On 26 June 1948, the Berlin Airlift began.
Throughout the following thirteen months, more than 266,600 flights
were undertaken by the men and aircraft from the US, France,
Britain and across the Commonwealth, which delivered in excess of
2,223,000 tons of food, fuel and supplies in the greatest airlift
in history. The air-bridge eventually became so effective that more
supplies were delivered to Berlin than had previously been shipped
overland and Stalin saw that his bid to seize control of the German
capital could never succeed. At one minute after midnight on 12 May
1949, the Soviet blockade was lifted, and the Soviet advance into
Western Europe was brought to a shuddering halt.
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands on 7
December 1941, had severely damaged the United States Pacific Fleet
but had not destroyed it, for the fleet's aircraft carrier force
had been at sea when the Japanese struck. This meant that, despite
the overwhelming success of Japanese military forces across the
Pacific, US carrier-based aircraft could still attack Japanese
targets. After the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942, in
which both sides had lost one carrier, the commander of the
Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, calculated that
the US had only two serviceable carriers left. If those remaining
carriers could be lured into a battle with the Combined Fleet and
destroyed, nothing could stop the Japanese achieving complete
control of the South Pacific. It would take the United States many
months, even with its massive industrial muscle, to rebuild its
carried fleet if it was destroyed, by which time Japan would be
able to secure the raw materials needed to keep its war machine
functioning and to build all the bases it required across the
Pacific, which would enable its aircraft to dominate the entire
region. Aware of the sensitivity of the Americans towards Hawaii
after the Battle of Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto believed that if he
attacked there again, the US commander, Admiral Nimitz would be
certain to commit all his strength to its defence. Yamamoto
selected the furthest point of the Hawaiian Islands, the Naval Air
Station on the Midway Atoll, for his attack, which was beyond the
range of most US land-based aircraft. Yamamoto launched his attack
on 4 June 1942\. But the US had intercepted and deciphered Japanese
signals and Nimitz, with three not two aircraft carriers, knew
exactly Yamamoto's plans. Yamamoto had hoped to draw the US
carriers into his trap but instead he sailed into an ambush. The
four-day battle resulted in the loss of all four Japanese aircraft
carriers, the US losing only one. The Japanese were never able to
recover from these losses, and it was the Americans who were able
to take control of the Pacific. The Battle of Midway,
unquestionably, marked the turning point in the war against Japan.
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