German armour burst through the Ardennes region and advanced rapidly. The combined British, French and Belgium forces were rapidly split around Armentieres.

The German forces then swept north to capture Calais, holding a large body of Allied soldiers trapped against the coast on the Franco-Belgian border.

It became clear the battle was lost and the question now became how many Allied soldiers could be removed to the relative safety of England before their resistance was crushed.

From May 22 preparations for the evacuation began, codenamed Operation Dynamo, commanded from Dover by Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay. He called for as many naval vessels as possible as well as every ship capable of carrying 1,000 men within reach.

It initially was intended to recover around 45,000 men of the British Expeditionary Force over two days, this was soon stretched to 120,000 men over five days.

On May 27 a request was placed to civilians to provide all shallow draught vessels of 30 to 100 feet for the operation, that night was the first rescue attempt.

A large number of craft including fishing boats and recreational vessels, together with Merchant Marine and Royal Navy vessels, were gathered at Sheerness and sent to Dunkirk and the surrounding beaches to recover Allied troops.

Due to heavy German fire only 8,000 soldiers were recovered.

Another ten destroyers were recalled for May 28 and attempted rescue operations in the early morning but were unable to closely approach the beaches although several thousand were rescued.

It was decided that smaller vessels would be more useful and boatyards were scoured for suitable craft, gathering them at Sheerness, Chatham and Dover.

The Allied held area was reduced to a 30 sq km block by May 28. Operations over the rest of May 28 were more successful, with a further 16,000 men recovered but German air operations increased and many vessels were sunk or badly damaged, including nine destroyers.

On May 29 there was an unexpected reprieve, the German armour stopped its advance on Dunkirk leaving the operation to the slower infantry, but due to problems only 14,000 men were evacuated that day.

On the evening of May 30 another major group of smaller vessels was dispatched and returned with around 30,000 men.

By May 31 the Allied forces were compressed into a 5 km deep strip from La Panne, through Bray-Dunes to Dunkirk, but on that day over 68,000 troops were evacuated with another 10,000 or so overnight.

On June 1 another 65,000 were rescued and the operations continued until June 4, evacuating a total of 338,226 troops aboard around 700 different vessels.

Operation Overlord

The Battle of Normandy, codenamed Operation Overlord, began with the amphibious Allied landings at Normandy, France, early in the morning of June 6, 1944, and continued into the following weeks with a land campaign to establish, expand, and eventually break out of the Normandy bridgehead. In the English-speaking world, it remains the best-known battle of World War II.

Combined American, British, Canadian, and French forces under the command of General Montgomery landed at several points along the Normandy coastline.

The British and Canadian beaches were to the east, and, from east to west were codenamed: Sword Beach, which extended from Ouistreham at the mouth of the river Orne to Saint Aubin sur Mer, Juno Beach from Saint Aubin sur Mer to La Riviere, and Gold Beach, from La Riviere to a few kilometres west of Longues sur Mer. The American beaches, further to the west, were Omaha Beach and Utah Beach.

The foreshore area had been extensively fortified by the Germans as part of their Atlantic Wall defences. It was manned with a haphazard collection of troops: mainly Germans who (usually for medical reasons) were not considered suitable for active duty on the Eastern Front, and other nationalities (mainly Russians) who had agreed to fight for the Germans rather than endure a prisoner of war camp.

Some of the area immediately behind the coastline had been flooded by the Germans as a precaution against parachute assault.

Prior to the battle, the Allies had carefully mapped and tested the landing area, paying particular attention to weather conditions in the English Channel. The weather conditions at the only time when the landings were practicable (because of tide and moonlight considerations) were particularly severe. The German forces were not expecting the landings to occur because of this.

In addition to the main beachhead assaults, troops were parachute dropped behind enemy lines and these were further supported by troops arriving in gliders at key points. Coordinated activities with the French resistance forces, the Maquis, helped disrupt Axis lines of communications.

Additionally, the Allies made extensive use of deception in a series of complex plans under the overall rubric of Bodyguard. Key to this overarching strategic effort was the local feint using dummy weaponry and forces to simulate a landing further east in the Pas de Calais, Operation Fortitude.

This drew the best German tank and infantry divisions in the west away from Normandy. Also in the Allies favor, much of the German command had been called back to (Paris?) for wargames and thus were not present on the critical first day, when the allies could have most easily been thrown off the beaches.

Once the beachhead was established, two artificial Mulberry Harbours were towed across the English Channel in segments. One was constructed at Arromanches, the other at Omaha Beach. For a short while, this facilitated the landing of heavy weaponry and materials, but they were soon lost to storms, and by far the major part of the Allied materiel came over the beaches.

Chronology

• June 5th/6th US 82nd Airborne Division (Operation Detroit) and 101st Airborne Division (Operation Chicago) and British units (Operation Tonga) are parachuted into the area surrounding Ste Mere Eglise.
• June 6th - D-Day landings
• June 25th - 29th Operation Epsom, an offensive to the west of Caen, repulsed by the German defenders.
• July 7th - Caen finally captured.
• July 17th - Erwin Rommel severely injured when his car was strafed by an Allied aircraft.
• July 18th - 20th - Operation Goodwood initiated.
• August 3rd - 9th - Operation Totalize, a trap to capture retreating German armour starts.
• August 16th - Operation Dragoon, a joint American/French landing on the French Riviera, begins.

Political Considerations

The Normandy landings were long foreshadowed by a considerable amount of political manoeuvring amongst the allies. There was much disagreement about timing, appointments of command, and where exactly the landings were to take place.

The opening of a second front had been long postponed (it had been initially mooted in 1942), and had been a particular source of strain between the allies. Churchill in particular was concerned to land and advance in Europe before the Soviet forces rolled up and gained control over swathes of territory.

The appointment of Montgomery was questioned by some Americans, who would have preferred the urbane General Alexander to have commanded the land forces. Montgomery himself had doubts about the appointment of Eisenhower because Eisenhower had very little field experience. (In the event, however, Montgomery and Eisenhower cooperated to excellent effect in Normandy: their well-known disagrements came much later.)

Normandy presented serious logistical problems, not the least of which being that the only viable port in the area, Cherbourg, was heavily defended and many among the higher echelons of command argued that the Pas de Calais would make a more suitable landing area on these grounds alone.

Strategic Appraisal

Although ultimately successful, the Normandy landings were extremely costly in terms of men and material. The failure of the 3rd Division to take Caen, an overly ambitious target, on the first day was to have serious repercussions on the conduct of the war for well over a month, seriously delaying any forward progress.

The fortuitous capture of Villers-Bocage followed by the failure to reinforce it, and its subsequent recapture by the Germans, was again to hamper any attempt to extend the Caen bridgehead and push on. By D+11, June 17th, the Allies worst fears had materialised: the assault had stagnated.

A lot of the problem came down to the nature of the terrain in which much of the post-landing fighting took place, the bocages. These were essentially small fields separated by high earth banks covered in dense shrubbery, which were eminently defensible.

Aftermath

The toehold that the allies established at Normandy was vital for the Western Allies (the British Commonwealth and the US) to bring the war to Germany's front door.

It has been pointed out that Soviets alone had the capacity to crush Germany by this time, and that this battle was unnecessary for the purpose of defeating the German Reich. By the time of D-Day, the Red Army was steadily advancing towards Germany and four fifths of the German forces were in the East.

In France, the Allies faced only about 20% of the German army in France. Yet given the Soviet's claim over Eastern Europe, one could ask if the result would have been a complete occupation of Europe by communist forces. American and British presence helped define the extent that communism would spread, and ensure that democracy would be safe in Western Europe.

Thus the battle of Normandy needs to be understood both within the context of WWII and in that of the Cold War that would follow.

Battle of Stalingrad

The first major military setback for the Third Reich occurred on the outskirts of Moscow at the end of 1941. Left in poor defensive positions, the Soviet Union counter-attacked and drove the Germans back.

The reasons for the scale of the defeat included the Germans' lack of preparation for the harshness of the Russian winter, the overextension of their supply lines across their newly-captured areas, and Hitler's unwillingness to consider retreat.

As the winter continued the situation for the Germans improved as more attention was put on equipping them. Meanwhile newly formed units were being sent forward from Germany, and by the early spring the army should be back in fighting condition. Everyone, the Soviets included, expected them to launch a summer offensive with another massive attack towards Moscow by the German Army Group Center.

However the German generals were aware of their weakness after the losses in front of Moscow, and demanded a more modest offensive. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) developed a plan involving Army Group South in an attack into the Caucasus, cutting Russia in two and capturing the majority of Soviet oil fields and grain producing regions.

This sort of surprise attack over great distances was the hallmark of the Blitzkrieg attack, which sought to avoid direct battle by attacking where least expected and then advancing as fast as possible so the enemy had no chance to plan a defence.

Operation Blue

Their plan, Operation Blue, split Army Group South into two groups. Army Group A consisted of two armies, commanded by Erich von Manstein and von Kleist, who were to attack south towards Rostov, and then fan out through the Transcaucasus heading for the Caspian Sea while taking the oil-fields at Maikop.

Army Group B included Friedrich von Paulus's 6th Army and Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, who would sweep through the corridor between the Don and Volga rivers to arrive on the Volga just north of Stalingrad (known today as Volgograd). Their primary task was to provide a strong northern flank along the Don, while cutting the vital Soviet freight traffic on the Volga.

While the plans were finallized, there was the little detail of the lingering Soviet presense at Sevastopol in the Crimean. The siege of this important city had been dragging on for four months at this point, the the Soviets still had 150,000 men in and around the city. Eventually Operation Blue was suspended to provide more troops for the siege, and the original launch date in May was cancelled.

Manstein was sent south with a number of fresh German and Romanian units under Operation Sturgeon, forming up for action by early June. By the end of the month the siege was over, the Soviets losing all 150,000, but 35,000 on the German/Romanian side as well. The battle was largely over by the 25th, and Operation Blue was released.

Commencing on June 28, 1942, the attack started off well. So well in fact that Hitler felt that the 4th Panzer Army was not needed with Army Group B, and sent them south to join Army Group A. By this point they had passed the 6th Army (as was expected, they were motorized) and had to cross the 6th's path of march on their way south.

The resulting traffic jam took several days to clear. This confusion, along with provisions originally intended for the 6th being given to the 4th instead, slowed the advance towards Stalingrad by almost two weeks. With the advance now delayed, Hitler then changed his mind again and ordered the 4th to rejoin the original line of march.

This delay would prove critical. The slow advance made the target of Army Group B clear to the Soviets, and gave Red Army General Andrei Yeremenko time to consolidate what forces he had into a new line on the eastern bank of the Volga to block them.

He ordered the troops reeling back from the Germans on the western side to head for Stalingrad, leaving the field to the Germans. This did not go unnoticed, von Weichs, in overall command of Army Group B, realised that the Soviets had figured out what was going on. Hitler instead chose to consider the same reports as proof of absolute victory.

By the end of August Army Group B had finally reached the Volga to the north of Stalingrad, before many of the Red Army troops to their south had. von Paulus asked for permission to turn south and take the city as soon as possible, but Hitler refused to allow this until his infantry had caught up to form a defensive line.

This delay would also prove critical, as it allowed the Soviet forces to pour into the city over the next few days, dramatically strengthening its defences.

Rattenkrieg

Units of the Red Army in Stalingrad were quickly organized into the new 62nd Army, under the command of General Lopatin. When Lopatin expressed his fears about the upcoming battle, Yeremenko immediately replaced him with Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov, who had previously fought around Stalingrad against the White Army.

Yeremenko directed Chuikov to hold the city at all costs, and issued an order similar to Stalin's own, "Not another step back". Countersigned by Nikita Krushchev, this order was backed up with instructions for the NKVD to shoot anyone who failed to comply.

By September 1st Stalingrad was completely surrounded by the German 6th Army. Chuikov refused to meet the Germans outside the city, and had instead set up a huge number of strongpoints in the houses and factories inside. The Germans found themselves facing dug-in troops, and the battle quickly developed into what the Germans referred to as Rattenkrieg, rat-war.

With both sides promoting a no-retreat, no-surrender policy, intense street fighting ensued — often descending into hand-to-hand bayonet contests — and parts of the city changed hands as many as three or four times a day.

German tactics during the battle increasingly relied on air power to block re-enforcements being sent in from the east side of the river. A running battle started between the Luftwaffe and the VVS and Soviet anti-aircraft guns.

Although German losses were high, they won control of the river. The re-enforcement operations simply switched to moving during the night, thereby eliminating the air threat. Meanwhile attempts were made to start the ground fight moving with increasingly heavy artillery barrages, eventually culiminating in the delivery of several gigantic 600mm mortars, but as time would prove, the Soviets were quick to take up positions in the resulting rubble.

Although losses were heavy, the 6th Army slowly pushed the 62nd back to the Volga. Eventually the Soviet forces were split in two and Chuikov lost communications with the other half. After another two weeks the 62nd Army consisted of less than a division's worth of men in a small sliver of land on the southern end of town, but continued to fight on as much as ever.

The strain on both commanders was immense, von Paulus developed an uncontrollable tic in his eye, and Chuikov was experiencing an outbreak of eczema that required him to bandage his hands completely.

In Berlin, the situation frustrated Hitler. He became increasingly convinced that the battle in the city represented the end of the war itself, and the ability to claim that they had captured "Stalin's City" was a victory worth more than the original battle plan.

With grave concerns over the exposed left flank, Franz Halder, chief of the OKW, continued to express his misgivings to Hitler. In mid-October 1942, with no immediate end to the battle in sight, Halder and Hitler quarrelled for the last time. Hitler dismissed Halder, replacing him with the more tractable General Kurt Zeitzler.

Meanwhile the rest of the line was being ignored. While the possibility of a counterattack along the long northern flank on the Don had been discussed on several occasions, Hitler's increasingly irrational orders meant no defensive work could be carried out.

On one particular stretch the line did not actually run on the Don, leaving the Red Army several beachheads directly in front of the Romanian 3rd Army. The 3rd had proven itself in combat at Sevastopol that summer, but were now stretched out along 150 km of the front after taking over from German and Italian units.

The Romanian commander had asked for tanks to clear out the pocket on several occasions, but in vain. His requests for bulldozers to cut through the frozen ground and make defensive works were also refused.

In early November Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights started showing a massive buildup of Red Army units just north of the Romanian 3rd Army, preparing for an offensive on the beachhead.

Increasingly desperate messages dispatched to the OKW from the 6th Army HQ were ignored, or returned with admonishment about getting on with the task at hand. von Paulus eventually gave up asking and moved the 22nd Panzer Division into position south of the Romanians.

However they arrived in terrible condition with only 50 serviceable tanks, but were nevertheless formed up with the only Romanian tank division to form the newly-named 48th Armoured Corps.

Operation Uranus

On November 19, 1942 the Red Army unleashed Operation Uranus. General Vatutin's attacking units consisted of three complete armies, the 1st Guard, 5th Tank and 21st Army, including a total of 18 infantry divisions, eight tank brigades, two motorised brigades, six cavalry divisions and one antitank brigade. The vast majority of these units were sent against two points in the Romanian lines.

The Romanian troops conducted an almost miraculous defence and managed to hold the line for one day. The situation was hopeless however, they were outnumbered some 3 to 1 (almost 7 to 1 in tanks), and had little modern equipment to face the fresh units being sent in against them. On the 20th their line had been breached and huge numbers of Red Army divisions started streaming south.

Also on the 20th a second attack was launched to the south of the city against points held by the Romanian 4th Army, made up primarily of cavalry, and this army collapsed almost immediately.

The Soviet attackers met in a pincer movement near Kalach two days later, trapping 300,000 Wehrmacht soldiers of the 6th Army and about half of the 4th Panzer Army in and around Stalingrad, and shattering both Romanian armies in the process.

Hermann Göring promised that all the necessary supplies for the 6th Army could be delivered by the Luftwaffe. This would allow them to fight on while a ground force was assembled to re-open the line.

If this worked, the tables could be turned, with the Red Army units on the "far side" of the Don suddenly surrounded by troops in the city and newly arriving units from the west.

This strategy had been used to great effect the year before, but on a much smaller scale and during the summer.

Supplying the 6th Army would require 300 tonnes to be delivered each day, and by any count the number of planes needed to achieve this was clearly not available. However the claim, once stated, could not be withdrawn, and Adolf Hitler backed Göring's plan and re-iterated his order of "no surrender" to his trapped armies.

The supply mission failed almost immediately. The winter weather offerred few occasions when the planes could be flown in, with one or both ends of the flight-path covered in clouds and snow. On days with good weather about 280 tonnes would arrive, but there were only two of these over the next two months. In general only 1/10th of the needed supplies were able to be delivered.

By this point the Red Army had had enough time to set up defences of their own, so any hope of a forced breakout by the 6th Army was now futile.

Meanwhile the forces that had not been trapped were desperately setting up a defensive line along the Don and Chir rivers about 40 miles to the west of the city, organised into the new Army Group Don with von Manstein in command.

Although they were under constant attack by various Red Army units, the Soviets did not exploit this opportunity and focused entirely on taking the city.

By early December 1942 a battlegroup had been formed up southwest of the city from troops withdrawn from the Caucasus. Although these were excellent troops with an excellent commander, by this point they were tired and badly in need of rest and refit.

Moreover the majority of the troops in the Caucasus were left where they were in order to guard their hard-won advances in the months prior. Facing this newly-reinforced 4th Panzer Army was the 2nd Guards Army, one of the Soviet Union's better units.

On 12 December 1942 the Panzers launched their attack towards Stalingrad, but the attack ran out of momentum and stalled some 25 kilometers from the city and was called off on the 23rd. At this point any hope of rescue was dashed.

Operation Neptune

In January the Red Army launched Operation Neptune, another massive attack from the nothern flank, this time against the Italian 8th Army located just to the west of the former Romanian positions. Their aim this time was to drive to Rostov on the Black Sea, thereby cutting off all of Army Group South.

Hitler continued to make repeated "no retreat" demands to the troops, and von Manstein grew so tired of these he eventually demanded to either be left alone or replaced. Hitler relented, and von Manstein started a mobile defence using Panzers as "fire brigades" that would be ordered into holes in the line.

The defence was considerably more successful than might have been expected given the state of the troops, and the Red Army was unable to get anywhere near Rostov. Nevertheless their advance did drive the German lines back further, and now Stalingrad was some 250 km away.

The Battle Ends

Realizing all hope was lost, Friedrich von Paulus, in command of what remained of the 6th Army, started forming plans for surrender. Realising this, and hoping to rescue something of the battle, Hitler promoted him to Field-Marshal on January 30th, 1943. No German Field-Marshall had ever been taken alive in war, and it was hoped this would force him to fight on, or take his own life.

Instead von Paulus saw this as yet another example of Hilter's increasing irrationality. On January 31, 1943 von Paulus ordered the 6th Army to surrender on February 2.

A force of 300,000 was now reduced to only 91,000 tired and starved men. The Soviets force-marched them to detention camps, many dying of starvation on the way. Only some 5,000 would return to Germany after the end of the war.

The historian William L. Shirer, in his history of World War II, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, summarised the importance of the Battle of Stalingrad with these words:

Coupled with El Alamein and the British-American landings in North Africa it marked the great turning point in World War II. The high tide of Nazi conquest which had rolled over most of Europe to the frontier of Asia on the Volga and in Africa almost to the Nile had now begun to ebb and it would never flow back again.

The time of the great Nazi blitz offensives, with thousands of tanks and planes spreading terror in the ranks of the enemy armies and cutting them to pieces, had come to an end.

El Alamein I

The Allied Eighth Army under General Claude Auchinleck had retreated from Mersa Matruh to the Alamein Line, a forty mile gap between El Alamein and the Qattara Depression, in Egypt.

On July 1 the German-Italian Afrika Korps led by Erwin Rommel attacked. The Allied line near El Alamein was not overrun until the evening and this hold up stalled the Axis advance.

On July 2 Rommel concentrated his forces in the north, intending to break through around El Alamein. Auchinleck ordered a counter-attack at the centre of the Axis line but the attack failed.

The Allies also attacked in the south and were more successful against the Italians. As a result of the Allied resistance, Rommel decided to regroup and defend the line reached.

Auchinleck attacked again on July 10 at Tel el Eisa in the north and over one thousand prisoners were taken. Rommel's counter at Tel el Eisa achieved little.

Auchinleck then attacked again in the centre at the Ruweisat Ridge in two battles - the First and Second Battles of Ruweisat on July 14 and July 21.

Neither battle was succcessful and the failure of armour to reach the infantry in time at the Second Battle led to the loss of 700 men. Despite this another two attacks were launched on July 27.

One in the north at Tel el Eisa was a moderate failure. The other at Miteiriya was more calametous, as the minefields were not cleared and the infantry was left without armour support when faced with a German counter-attack.

The Eighth Army was exhausted, and by July 31 Auchinleck ordered an end to offensive operations and the strengthening of the defences to meet a major counter-offensive.

The battle was a stalemate, but the Axis advance on Alexandria (and then Cairo) was halted.

El Alamein II

Following the First Battle of El Alamein which had stalled the Axis advance British general Bernard Montgomery took command of the Eighth Army from Claude Auchinleck in August 1942. Success in the battle turned the tide in the North African campaign.

The British Plan

With Operation Lightfoot, following a massive build-up of forces, Montgomery hoped to cut two corridors through the Axis minefields in the north. Armour would then pass through and defeat the German armour. diversionary attacks in the south would keep the rest of the Axis forces from moving northwards. Montgomery expected a twelve-day battle in three stages - "The break-in, the dog-fight and the final break of the enemy."

The British practised a number of deceptions in the months prior to the battle to wrong-foot the Axis command not only as to the exact whereabouts of the forthcoming battle, but as to when the battle was likely to occur. This operation was codenamed "Operation Bertram".

A dummy pipeline was built, stage by stage, the construction of which would lead the Axis to believe the attack would occur much later than it in fact did, and much further south.

To further the illusion, dummy tanks made of plywood frames placed over jeeps were constructed and deployed in the south. In a reverse feint, the tanks for battle in the north were disguised as supply lorries by placing a removable plywood superstructure over them.

The Axis were dug-in along two lines, called by the Allies the Oxalic Line and the Pierson Line. They had laid around half a million mines, mainly anti-tank.

The Battle

The battle opened at 2140 hours on October 23 with an sustained artillery barrage. The initial objective was the Oxalic Line with the armour intending to advance over this and on to the Pierson Line. However the minefields were not yet fully cleared when the assault began.

On the first day the assault to create the northern corridor fell three miles short of the Pierson line. While further south they had made better progress but were stalled at the Miteirya Ridge.

On October 24 the Axis commander General Stumme died of a heart-attack and General Ritta von Thoma took command of the Axis forces, while Rommel was ordered to return to Africa, arriving on October 25.

For the Allies in the south, after another abortive assault on the Miteirya Ridge, the attack was abandoned. Montgomery switched the focus of the attack to the north.

There was a successful night attack over the 25-26th. The Axis counter-attack failed. The Allies had lost 6,200 men against Axis losses of 2,500, but while Rommel had only 370 tanks fit for action Montgomery still had over 900.

Montgomery felt the the offensive was losing momentum and decided to regroup. There were a number of small actions but by October 29 the Axis line was still intact.

Montgomery was still confident and prepared his forces for Operation Supercharge. The endless small operations and the attrition by the Allied airforce had by then reduced Rommel's effective tank strength to only 102.

The second major Allied offensive of the battle was along the coast, initially to capture the Rahman Track and then take the high ground at Tel el Aqqaqir.

The attack began on November 2 1942. By the 3rd Rommel had only 35 tanks fit for action. Despite containing the British advance, the pressure on his forces made a retreat necessary.

However the same day Rommel received a "Victory or Death" message from Adolf Hitler, halting the withdrawal. But the Allied pressure was too great, and the German forces had to withdraw on the night of November 3-4.

By November 6 the Axis forces were in full retreat and over 30,000 soldiers had surrendered.

The battle was Montgomery's greatest triumph. He took the name "Lord Montgomery of Alamein" when he was raised to the peerage.

The success of his plan led Montgomery to prefer overwhelming superiority in all his subsequent battles, leading to a reputation, with some, for being overcautious.

The Torch landings in Morocco later that month marked the effective end of the Axis threat in north Africa.

Operation Market Garden

Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation in World War II, which took place in September of 1944. It was an attempt to take bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands, enabling the Allies to advance into Germany without any remaining major obstacles.

The operation was successful up to the capture of the Rhine bridge at Nijmegen, but was overall a failure as the final bridge at Arnhem was not held, resulting in the destruction of the British 1st Airborne division.

Background

After the breakout from the Normandy beachheads in August, the Allied forces had pushed back the German army hundreds of miles over a period of only a few weeks.

By the end of August enough Allied troops were on land to form several armies. To the east, on the right, the US had two complete armies, the 1st under Hodges and the 3rd under Patton, in a line running north-south near the German frontier.

To their left the British 2nd Army under Bernard Montgomery held the north-east corner in a line running from Antwerp to the US lines roughly along the northern border of Belgium. On their left, on the Atlantic coast, was the Canadian 1st army who had recently advanced to a line just south of the British.

At this point the offensive halted as supplies ran low. The only source of supplies in Allied hands were the shallow docks built on the original invasion beaches, and the nearby deep-water port of Cherbourg at the tip of the Cotentin.

Both of these were of limited use, as the D-Day pre-invasion "softening up" air strikes had effectively destroyed all railroad transportation in the area. The massive port of Antwerp lay in British hands, but the river estuary leading inland to this port (the Westerschelde) in front of the Canadians was still in German control.

Clearly the primary concern for the Allies should have been the advance of the Canadian army to remove the remaining German forces from the area and open Antwerp. However the Canadians had little "pull" compared to the two prima-donna generals, Patton and Montgomery.

Both consistently asked for all available supplies to be given to them for quick advances, but Eisenhower refused, and maintained a strategy of broad attack across the entire front. As the offensive faltered both Montgomery and Patton argued anew for thrusting attacks, and Eisenhower eventually asked both for their plans.

Patton favoured an attack east from his current positions to take the city of Metz, and then into the industrial area of the Saar. However this required passing the Siegfried Line of defenses at the German border, and left them in front of the equally heavily defended Rhine.

As a defensive maneuver it was an excellent plan, as it would leave the Allies in control of the easily defended west bank of the Rhine. But as an offensive plan it did little other than take more land, and left them in an only slightly better position to assault Germany.

Montgomery instead suggested an attack north to Arnhem, deep inside the Netherlands, which would bypass the Siegfried Line (which stopped about 20km south of there), cross the Rhine, and capture the entire German 15th army behind their lines between Arnhem and the shores of the IJsselmeer. This would also have the side effect of cutting off the V-2 launch sites, which were bombarding London at this time.

Eisenhower continued to dither, as he was most interested in the opening of Antwerp to supplies. Both generals continued to pester him, and political infighting was common. Montgomery pointed out that his plan ringed the entire Antwerp area well behind Allied lines, allowing it to be easily opened once the attack was completed.

The final straw was the addition of the newly-formed 1st Allied Airborne Army into the mix. This consisted of three US and two British airborne divisions, and an additional Polish brigade, which had formed up in England after the removal of the airborne forces from France after the Normandy breakout.

Eisenhower had been under intense pressure from the US to use these forces as soon as possible, so Montgomery changed his plan to use the 1st to capture three important bridges, opening the entire attack route to a very rapid advance by the 2nd Army.

The Plan

The plan of action consisted of two coordinated operations, Market which was the use of the airborne troops, and Garden consisting of the British 2nd Army moving north along highway 69, spearheaded by 30 Corp.

Market

Market would employ three of the five divisions of the 1st Airborne army. The US 101st Airborne Division would drop in two locations just north of the 30 Corp to take the bridges northwest of Eindhoven at Son (mun. Son en Breugel) and Veghel.

The 82nd Airborne Division would drop quite a bit northeast of them to take the bridges at Grave and Nijmegen, and finally the British 1st would drop at the extreme north end of the route, to take the road and rail bridges at Arnhem.

Market would be the largest airborne operation in history, delivering 30,000 men of the 101st, 82nd, 1st and the Polish Airborne brigade in a series of three huge operations known as "lifts". Commander of the 1st Army, Browning, added his own HQ to the first lift so that he could command from the front.

Garden

Garden consisted primarly of 30 Corp., the core of the 2nd Army. They were expected to arrive at the south end of the 101st's area on the launch day, the 82nd by the second day, and the 1st by the third or fourth day at the latest. They would also deliver several additional infantry divisions to take over the defensive operations from the airborne, freeing them for other operations as soon as possible.

Still, four days is a long time for an airborne force to fight unsupplied, and they are lightly armed to start with. But it seemed that the German resistance at this point was even lighter. Most of the German 15th Army in the area appeared to be fleeing the field from in front of the Canadians, and they were known to have no Panzer gruppen.

30 Corp would therefore be facing very limited resistance on their route up highway 69, and little armor. Meanwhile the German defenders would be spread out over 100km trying to contain the pockets of airborne forces, from the British 2nd Army in the south, to Arnhem in the north.

German Forces

All was not what it seemed. In fact the rout of 15th army had largely ended with the arrival of Gerd von Rundstedt in early September. Rundstedt, generally detested by Hitler, was well liked by his troops, who he had back in fighting condition within the week.

The rout ended with most of the men escaping out from the pocket between the Canadian 1st and the Westerschelde, adding 80,000 men to the area just to the northwest of the attack route.

Much more alarming was an unrelated event taking place nearby. When discussing the Allied plan of attack, Rundstedt and his generals agreed that Eisenhower would favour Patton. The troops of the 9SS and 10SS Panzer divisions from the 17th Army in front of Patton were in no condition to fight, so they were ordered to rest and refit in the rear.

A suitable quiet spot was selected, which happened to be Arnhem. This meant another 9,000 troops in the area, all of them elite armored forces with heavy weapons.

Problems

Several reports started leaking out from the Netherlands reporting on the German movements, but by this time the planning was in late stages and the reports were basically ignored.

When a recce flight was sent in on behalf of the 1st Airborne Army, it returned with pictures clearly showing tanks deployed just to the northeast of Arnhem, perhaps only 15km from where the British would be dropping. These were dismissed out of hand, with the claim that they probably couldn't run and were broken down.

Worse, RAF Transport Command reported that they were desperately short of aircraft and would be barely able to support the operation. Any losses or bad weather would upset this ability. The problem was so acute that they flatly refused to drop the British to the north of their target bridge because it would put them in range of flak guns just to the north at Deelen (mun. Ede).

Another suitable drop zone just to the south of the bridge was also rejected because it was thought to be marshy, and thus unsuitable for dropping the gliders containing the force's heavier equipment. Instead they demanded a drop zone 15km away from the bridge, which would have to be taken and held overnight until the 3rd lift — the force would have to be split in half for over a day.

Realizing the seriousness of the problem, the plan was then hastily changed to add a small force of machine-gun equipped jeeps to the first lift. These would race forward from the drop zone to the bridge as soon as possible, holding it until the infantry could arrive. Three brigades would follow on foot, with the fourth and all the glider pilots holding the drop zones while they waited for the next two lifts.

The Battle

In a staggeringly short period of one week, everything was ready.

Day 1, Sunday September 17, 1944

Operation Market/Garden opened with successes all around. The first lift was in daylight for accuracy, and almost all of the troops arrived on top of their target drop zones without incident. This contrasted strongly with previous operations where night drops resulted in the units being scattered by up to 20km in some cases.

In the south the 101st met little resistance and easily captured the small bridge at Veghel. However the similar bridge at Son was blown up as they approached it, after being delayed by a short engagement with German anti-tank guns. Later that day several small attacks by units of the 15th Army were beat off, while small units of the 101st had moved south of Son.

To their north the 82nd arrived, and the small group dropped near Grave took the bridge intact in a rush. However the main force of the 82nd found their task of securing the Groesbeek Heights to the east of Nijmegen much harder than they expected, and they continued to try for the rest of the day. One force tasked with taking the bridge made their attempt, but due to miscommunication they didn't start until late in the day and never made it. This left the Nijmegen bridge in German hands.

Meanwhile the 1st Airborne landed almost without a hitch, with the exception that the Land Rover force lost over half its vehicles on landing, and the rest were ambushed on their way into Arnhem. Thus the only hope of capturing the bridge was on foot.

This too proved very difficult. Two of the three brigades found themselves slowed down by small German units of a training battalion rushing to hem them in. Luckily one of the three, led by Col. Frost, found their route largely undefended, and arrived at the bridge in the afternoon and set up defensive positions.

Continued attempts by the other two brigades were meeting increased resistance, so eventually the decision was made to wait for the second lift and try again tomorrow.

This is of vital importance. Unlike any of the bridges to the south, which were over smaller rivers and canals and could be bridged by engineering units, the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges crossed two arms of the Rhine, and there was no possibility of bridging either.

To make matters worse, the British airborne were on the far side of their bridge. If either Nijmegen or Arnhem bridges were not captured and held, there was absolutely no way for 30 Corp to reach them. Yet at the end of Day 1, only a small force held Arnhem, and Nijmegen was German.

To makes matters worse, the British radios didn't work. Their long-range VFH sets were delivered with the wrong crystals, thus operating on a frequency no-one was listening to. Meanwhile the shorter range sets for use between the brigades didn't work for no obvious reason (at the time) and the various brigades were completely cut off from each other.

30 Corp didn't start their advance until 2pm, although the reasons for this planned delay are unclear. Soon after starting they ran into a force of anti-tank units dug in on the road, and it took several hours for them to be cleared, along with the loss of several of the elite Guards Armored's tanks.

By the time the light started giving out at 5pm they were still 15km south of Eindhoven and they camped in Valkenswaard. The operation was already behind schedule.

On the German side things were not much better, largely because it wasn't clear at the start what was going on. Model, in direct command of the forces in the area, was completely confused by the British dropping in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere, and concluded they were commandos attempting to kidnap him.

Meanwhile Bittrich, commander of the 9th and 10th (collectively the 2nd SS Panzer Corp), had a clearer head and immediately sent a recce squadron of the 9th to Nijmegen to reinforce the bridge defense there.

Day 2, Monday the 18th

Early in the day the force of the 9th Panzer sent south the day before concluded they were not needed in Nijmegen, and attempted to return to Arnhem. They were aware of the British troops at the bridge, but attempted to cross by force anyway and were beaten back with staggering losses. Meanwhile the attempt to move the other two British brigades into the bridge area were both easily beat off by the newly arrived forces of the 10th SS. Lift two arrived late due to fog in England, but put down successfully in the afternoon.

To their south the 82nd was having troubles of its own. Grave was well protected, but German forces contined to press on the 82nd deployed to the east of Nijmegen on the heights. In the morning they took one of their landing zones, target for the second lift which was to arrive at 1pm. Troops from the entire area, even as far as the town itself, rushed to the drop zone and by 3pm it was back in their control. Luckily, due to the delay in England the second lift didn't arrive until 3:30.

The 101st, faced with the loss of the bridge at Son, attempted to take the similar bridge a few kilometers away at Best. However they found their approach heavily blocked, and eventually gave up. Other units continued moving to the south and eventually reached the northern end of Eindhoven. At about noon they were met by recce units from 30 Corp. At 4pm they made radio contact with the main force to the south and told them about the Son bridge, asking for a Bailey Bridge to be brought forward.

30 Corp soon arrived in Eindhoven, and by that night were camped out south of Son while they waited for the Royal Engineers to erect the new bridge. Thus ended Day 2, with the operation already 36 hours behind schedule and both primary bridges still in German control.

Day 3, Tuesday the 19th

By this point most of the 1st Airborne was in place, and only the Polish brigade was yet to arrive in the 3rd lift later that day. Yet another attempt was made to reinforce Frost at the bridge, and this time resistance was even stronger. It appeared that there was no longer any hope of reaching the bridge, and the isolated units then retreated to set up strong lines to the west of the town, in Oosterbeek (mun. Renkum). Meanwhile at the bridge German tanks were arriving to take up the fight, which was becoming desperate.

At 5pm a small part of the Polish units in the third lift finally arrived, but fell directly into the waiting guns of the Germans camped out arround the area – with the radios not working they still had no way to tell the HQ that the landing zone was taken and many of the Polish troops were killed. At the same time several of the supply drop points were also in German hands, and the 1st retrieved only 10% of the supplies dropped to them.

Things were going somewhat better for the 82nd, who found advanced units of 30 Corp arriving that morning. With the support of tanks they were able to quickly beat off the Germans in the area, at which point they decided to make a combined effort to take the bridge; the Guards Armored and 505th (part of the 82nd) would attack from the south while the 504th would cross the river in boats and take the north. The boats were called for to make the attempt in the late afternoon, but due to huge traffic problems to the south, they never arrived. Once again 30 Corp was held up in front of a bridge.

To their south the units of the 101st sent to take Best the day before found themselves facing a renewed attack that morning and gave ground. However as more British tanks arrived the Germans were beaten off by late afternoon. Later a small force of Panthers arrived at Son, seemingly out of nowhere, and started firing on the Bailey bridge. These too were beaten back by anti-tank guns that recently landed, and the bridge was secured.

Day 4, Wednesday the 20th

Frost's force at the bridge continued to hold out. Around noon the radios started working and they learned that the rest of the division had no hopes of relieving them, and that 30 Corp was stuck to their south in front of Nijmegen bridge. By the afternoon the Germans had complete control of the Arnhem bridge and started lighting fire to the houses the British were defending. The rest of the division had now set up defensive positions in Oosterbeek to the west of Arnhem, waiting for the arrival of 30 Corp.

In Nijmegen the boats still hadn't arrived during the night, so the troops continued to wait. They didn't arrive until the afternoon, but time was so short they decided to do the crossing in daylight. In what is generally considered to be one of the bravest actions in military history, they made the crossing in 26 rowboats into well defended positions. They took the banks and pressed to the bridge, which caused the Germans to pull back from their positions on the southern side. That freed the Guards Armored, who rushed across the bridge and met the airborne troops. Nijmegen bridge was now in Allied hands after four long days.

Meanwhile the Germans organized another attack on the heights on the east side of town, this time making significant progess. Eventually the only remaining bridge suitable for tanks fell to the Germans, but was retaken by forces of the 82nd and Coldstream Guards.

To the south the running battles between the 101st and various German units continued, eventually with several Panthers once again rushing in and cutting off the roads, only leaving when they ran low on ammo.

Day 5, Thursday the 21th

Although hard pressed, things were looking up for Market/Garden this morning. 30 Corp was across the Nijmegen bridge and less than an hour's drive from the ongoing battle at the foot on Arnhem bridge. But it was too late, Frost's force was down to two houses, a handful of men, and had used up every bullet they had. With a last radio message "out of ammo, god save the king", his remaining force surrendered.

At the same time the rest of the Polish brigade, now two days late due to weather, arrived. The situation north of the river was obviously too hostile to land, so a new drop zone on the south side across from the 1st was selected. The landings went well, but the ferry they planned to use to reach the British had been sunk. Their force was largely wasted as a result.

Meanwhile the lead elements of Guards Armored sat still. Their commander refused to move them forward while Nijmegen to their south was still under constant threat, and radioed back along to the line for the 43rd infantry division to move up to take over the town. However by this point there was a 30 mile long traffic jam behind them, and the 43rd didn't arrive until the next day. But the GA were close enough by this point that they were in radio contact with the units in Oosterbeek, and starting shelling any German units who attempted to approach them.

German attacks continued all along the route, but by this point the Allied forces had clearly started to gain the upper hand. Not only were the Germans attacks stalled, the British and 101st continued to take more and more area.

Day 6, Friday the 22nd, Black Friday

The Poles continued to sit and watch the battle from the sidelines, with British artillery flying overhead from Nijmegen. That afternoon two British airborne soldiers swam the Rhine and informed them of the desperate situation, asking for any help they could give. The Poles were equipped only with inflatable rubber rafts, but promised to try a crossing that night. This operation was opposed, and only 52 soldiers made it across.

By this point much of the battle area was now in allied hands, and it appeared all of the problem was at the north end of the line with 30 Corp. As soon as the 43rd arrived things would be in better shape, and the Guards Armored could attempt to retake the Arnhem bridge.

However the Germans had other ideas, and during the previous night had organized two mixed armored divisions on either side of highway 69 at about the middle of the line between Veghel and Grave. They attacked and only one side was stopped, while the other made it to the highway and cut the line. Any advance on Arnhem was now impossible.

Day 7, Saturday the 23rd

The Germans had figured out what the Poles were attempting to do, and spent the rest of the day trying to cut the British off from the riverside. The British managed to hold on, and both sides suffered heavy losses. The Germans also attacked the Poles on the south side in order to tie them down, but several tanks arrived from 30 Corp and they were beaten off. Boats and engineers from the Canadian army arrived that day, and another river crossing that night landed another 150 troops.

To the south several more German attacks from their road crossing were stopped, but the road was still cut. 30 Corp then sent a unit of the Guards Armored south the 20km and re-took the road. The rest of the force to the north continued to wait for infantry to move up, still only a few kilometers from Arnhem.

Day 8, Sunday the 24th

Yet another German force attacked the road, this time to the south of Veghel. Several units were in the area, but were unable to stop them, and the Germans quickly set up defensive positions for the night.

It was not clear to the Allies at this point how much of a danger these actions represented. But it was on this day that the operation was essentially stopped and the decision made to go over to the defense. The 1st Airborne, or what remained of them, would be withdrawn that night. The lines would then be solidified where they were, with the new front line in Nijmegen.

Day 9, Monday the 25th

At 10pm the withdrawal of the remains of the 1st begins, as British and Canadian engineer units start ferrying the troops across the Rhine. By early the next morning they had withdrawn some 2000 of them, but another 300 were still on the north at first light when German fire stopped the effort. They surrendered. Of the 10,000 troops of the 1st Airborne Division, only 2,000 escaped.

To the south the newly-arrived 50th Infantry attacked the Germans holding the highway. By the next day they had been surrounded and their resistance ended. The corridor was now secure, but with nowhere to go.

Conclusions

It's always easy to second-guess a battle, and it's likely the case that this is even more true of Market/Garden than any other battle in modern history.

One certain problem with the plan was that the entire operation required both bridges over the Rhine to be captured and held. Had the Nijmegen bridge been destroyed or remained in German hands, the British would be cut off kilometers to the north with no hope whatsoever.

Even with Nijmegen successfully taken, things would be little better if Arnhem bridge fell.

This would require a forced crossing of the Rhine to relieve the airborne, and there was no planning to allow for this very possible eventuality.

Given this, it's astounding in retrospect that the plans placed so little effort on capturing the important bridges immediately with forces dropped right on them. In the case of Veghel and Grave, where this was done, the bridges were captured with only a few shots being fired.

There seems little reason to suspect the same wouldn't have been true of Arnhem and Nijmegen, but with the troops over an hour's march away, or told to do other things, there was little hope of their success.

This is even more confusing when you consider the 1st para-landing troops. They were to land along with the glider-landing forces to secure the drop zone. This makes little sense considering that it was up to the glider forces to hold the zone, and the paratroops were going to pick up and walk off immediately anyway. There's simply no reason they couldn't have been dropped right on the south side of the bridge.

Just as baffling is the end-game actions on the part of 30 Corp. Although Frost's force was likely lost under any circumstance, Arnhem was not the only available bridge. At a minimum had they pushed north they would have arrived at the south end and secured it, leaving the way open for another crossing to the north at some other point. There was the smaller possibility of arriving with Frost's force intact. This "lack of guts" on the part of the GA is odd.

The commander of 30 Corp asked for another course of action. About 25km to the west of the action was another bridge similar to Arnhem, at Rhenen, which he predicted was undefended due to all efforts being directed on Oosterbeek.

In fact this was the case, and had the GA dashed over, it is almost certain they would have crossed unopposed and fell onto the rear of the German lines on the west of Oosterbeek. However by this time it appears Montgomery was spooked by the continued resistance of the German forces and refused to take the chance.

In the end Montgomery still called Market Garden 90% successful and said:

In my prejudiced view, if the operation had been properly backed from its inception, and given the aircraft, ground forces, and administrative resources necessary for the job, it would have succeeded in spite of my mistakes, or the adverse weather, or the presence of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps in the Arnhem area. I remain Market Garden's unrepentant advocate.

The story of Operation Market Garden is, among others, told in the Cornelius Ryan novel A Bridge Too Far and its subsequent film adaptation by Richard Attenborough.

Monte Cassino

The Battle of Monte Cassino was, in fact, a desperate and costly series of battles fought by the Allies during January and February of 1944 with the intention of liberating and linking up with allies contained within the Anzio pocket.

The first battle started on January 4, 1944 and the monastery atop the hill was destroyed by Allied bombing on February 15. Allies aircraft heavily bombed the ruins of the monastery and staged an assault on March 15.

The eventual connection of the forces was to lead to the capture of Rome on June 4th 1944 just days before the invasion in Normandy.

But the battle at Monte Cassino waged on until May 18 when exhausted Germans evacuated the stronghold and Allied forces moved in. At least 20,000 soldiers were killed in the battle.

Battle of the Bulge

The Ardennes Offensive, popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge, was the last major German offensive on the Western Front in World War 2.

Unsuccessful in its goals, it nevertheless tied down huge Allied resources and a slow response to the resulting gap in their lines erased months from their timetable.

Background

After the failure of Operation Market Garden, the Canadian 1st Army was finally supplied and moved forward, clearing the Westerschelde and opening Antwerp to shipping.

This stabilized the lines once again, this time some 125km to the north of where they had been in early September, and the terrible supply problems the Allies had been having started to ease.

At about this time the massive Soviet summer 1944 offensive burnt itself out in eastern Poland, and the war paused. Taking advantage of this, Hitler called for ideas to re-open the front in the west. Several ideas were submitted, two rising to the top.

One called for a pincer attack on the US 1st Army under Hodges, which was overextended and would be easy to surround. An entire army would be cut off in territory that would be fairly easy to defend from counterattack.

However this plan would do little to address the overall situation. While removing 1/4 of the Allied fighting force would certainly have an effect, the remaining 3/4s would be more than enough to win the war alone.

Beginning on December 16, 1944, the German forces attacked through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. The German Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine) plan for the "Von Rundstedt Offensive" was to split the Allied advance and then cut nortwards to seize Antwerp.

The territory was heavily forested and mountainous, there appeared little chance of an armoured assault in this sector. The battle started in very poor weather; this grounded Allied aircraft and greatly aided the German advance.

The first few days were vital, and although many American troops were over-run or surrendered, unexpectedly strong resistance in certain areas greatly slowed the German advance.

On December 21 the German forces had completely surrounded Bastogne, defended by the 101st Airborne Division. When General Anthony McAuliffe was awakened by a German invitation to surrender, he gave a one-syllable reply that has been variously reported and was probably unprintable.

However, there is no disagreement as to what he wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: "NUTS!" That reply had to be explained both to the Germans and to non-American Allies.

By December 24 the German advance was effectively stalled short of the Meuse River, they had outrun their supply lines, and shortages of fuel and ammunition were becoming critical. Improving weather brought the massive Allied air superiority back into play. The Germans retreated from Bastogne on January 13.

The battle officially ended on January 27, 1945.

The Americans lost 75,522 men (killed, wounded, missing or captured), the British lost 1,408 and the Germans lost 67,675 men.

The German losses were critical in reducing the length of the war, vital and irreplaceable men and equipment had been wasted in a few weeks.

Battle of Britain

A major conflict of World War II, the Battle of Britain covers the attempts of the German Luftwaffe to gain control of British airspace and destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF), and, later to demoralise the British population in the hope of either obtaining neutrality or, if that did not occur, make possible the invasion of Britain through the English Channel.

The Luftwaffe began to hit British convoys in the English Channel on July 10, 1940 but the Battle of Britain proper began in August 1940.

After the French collapsed under the Blitzkrieg and surrendered in June, the Germans were not exactly sure what to do next. Adolf Hitler (and the German people) believed the war was over and the Britons would come to terms very soon. Patriotic myth states that stubborn Albion refused to give in. In reality there was a considerable section of the public and politicians who believed it was time to negotiate with Hitler.

Winston Churchill, however, was the master of the Cabinet and would not countenance peace, putting Lord Halifax (one of the pro-peace members of the Cabinet) on the air to reject Hitler's terms.

More direct measures were thought of, but it was not until July that an invasion plan was prepared by the OKW (Armed Forces High Command). The operation, code-named Seelöwe (Sea-Lion), planned for an invasion sometime in mid-September. The plan called for landings in the Dover area, first with two airborne divisions, and then with another nine delivered by sea. All preparations were supposed to be made by mid-June to late-August.

Much of the plan relied on makeshift solutions, including the use of river barges as troop transports, and using discarded aircraft engines for motorizing them. Others were better thought out, like swimming tanks or using snorkels on the heavier tanks so they could be landed further out on sea and march to land on the seabed.

Hindsight suggests that the entire operation was not seriously planned with actual execution in mind, especially when compared to the careful planning of Operation Barbarossa.

Regardless it was patently impossible to prepare for the invasaion in two months. Indeed Churchill did not take the invasion threat seriously, sending troops to Africa in the summer of 1940, but he was concerned over the potential air threat and energetic in securing resources for the RAF.

But before Seelöwe could begin the Luftwaffe had to destroy the British RAF -- otherwise the ships for the sea invasion would have been destroyed by British aircraft.

Thus a plan was hatched to directly attack the RAF airfields and aircraft production centers, Hermann Göring called his plans Adlerangriff (Eagle Attack), beginning on August 11 with Adlertag (Eagle Day). But even before this there was to be a month of attacks on Channel convoys and the RAF out over the water. This period of fighting was called Kanalkampf by the Germans.

The British were fully aware of the German goals, strategy, and often even tactics due to their ability to read the German Enigma cypher, which was used for most high-security German military radio communications. This fact, not revealed until the 1970s, was crucial in forming British tactics. They had also killed or turned all German agents in Britain.

The Germans didn't keep using any single strategy, even when it was on the verge of defeating the RAF largely because they didn't have any real idea of its success, but also because Hitler's style encouraged competing interests in the High Command to try their pet theories in tactics.

The Battle can be crudely divided into four sections:

• July - August 11: Kanalkampf
• August 12 - August 24: Adlerangriff
• August 25 - September 6: German's attack RAF planes and airfields almost exclusively. The critical period of the battle
• September 7 onwards: London and other major cities are bombed.

Adlertag began with the Luftwaffe bombing ports, airfields, aircraft industries, radar installations, etc. Over the course of the next weeks, they flew 12,039 sorties and dropped over 11,000 tons of high explosive bombs and over 616 tons of incendiary bombs.

At first, the main targets for the German Luftwaffe were radar installations and airports, in an attempt to destroy (either on the ground, or in the air defending the ground targets) or render useless the British fighter planes.

The attacks against the radar installations were not seen as very successful, and appears that Göring continued to underestimate the value of the radar to the RAF, and so eventually called off attacks on the stations. In fact the radar was absolutely vital to the RAF and the attacks were generally succeeding -- a fact the RAF masked with a successful deception campaign.

Attacks on the airbases and factories were also successful, but it was largely impossible for the Luftwaffe to assess the damage on these inland targets.

Thanks to radar and the intelligence from the decoded Enigma messages the RAF reacted very effectively to the German raids. Hugh Dowding's communications and infrastructure linking radar and other information sources to the decision makers was arguably as important as radar.

Rather than sending up large numbers of fighters to meet German raids (and thus running the risk of of having all the planes on the ground for refueling and repairs when another raid arrives), British commanders (such as Keith Park of 11 Group) ordered that only a very few fighters up to meet each raid, harassing the German bombers enough to make accurate bombing very difficult and causing far more British losses than German.

Despite the success of Dowding's measured response, soon after the Battle of Britain some proponents of the Big Wing theory would complain that large numbers of RAF fighters should have been gathered together to strike German attacks with greater force.

Because the reasons behind their strategy, the Enigma decrypts, were still secret, Dowding and Park could not defend their actions as they needed to, and were given much lower positions, Keith Park eventually climbing back to lead Malta's air strategy.

Both sides suffered horribly, but British pilot losses were smaller since most of the fights were fought over British soil, whereas every German crew that had to bail out was lost to the German war effort. Also R.J. Mitchell had designed the Spitfire with a lot of thought for pilot safety when attacked.

Thanks to the seemingly endless numbers of planes the Germans had at their disposal, the Fighter Command began to lose this battle of attrition. This remained largely unknown to the Luftwaffe, which was growing desperate to deliver on the original timetable.

What they could see is that for some reason the RAF always had at least a small number of planes to attack with, no matter how many times they sent in a raids. Something needed to be done to force the RAF to commit all of their planes -- or so they thought.

One thing that was sure to force their hand would be to attack a large, very public target. That target was London. The first such raid on 7th of September was intended as revenge for the British attack on Berlin on 25th/26th August, which in turn was a response to a German bomber accidentally dropping bombs on London. Although the docks of London were the main target attacked, the British suffered 448 dead and more than 1,300 wounded.

Together with the change of targets came a change in strategy. The success in the Battle of Britain was no longer seen as prerequisite for Seelöwe, but was meant to be decisive in itself. Göring believed that the British would surrender as soon as the RAF was beaten.

On 16th of September the Germans estimated British fighter strength to be no more than 300 planes, when they actually had 572 Spitfires and Hurricanes. What was even less clear was that switching off of the airfields would allow the RAF to work on their aircraft and allow their pilots rest.

But without a doubt the most damaging aspect of the switch to London was the ranges involved. By the time the German fighters arrived over the city, they were already so low on fuel as to have to turn home. This left all too many raids completely undefended as their fighters turned for home after minor combat on the way to target.

The result was a series of disastrous raids. On September 19th Operation Seelöwe was postponed indefinitely. But the battle of Britain was not over.

From October 1940 until the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, almost 40,000 additional sorties were flown and more than 38,000 tons of high explosive bombs and more than 3,500 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped.

Between August and September the RAF stated German losses at 1600 aircraft destroyed and over 500 probables, however despite most of the fighting occurring over land only 315 wrecks were identified. British Fighter Command lost between 900 and 1900 Hurricanes and Spitfires (depending on which figures you care to believe).

Overall the Battle of Britain was a British victory, although on a small scale compared to later battles it was significant, especially in increasing American anti-Nazi opinion.

Although the Germans came very close to beating the RAF and thus setting the prerequisites for Seelöwe, the switch to terror strategy allowed the RAF to recuperate and to defend against the attacks. The terror strategy in itself could not force the British to surrender.

Even though the Germans launched some spectacular attacks against important British industries, they could not destroy the British industrial potential.

Total British civilian losses from July to December 1940 were 23,002 dead and 32,138 wounded with one of the largest single raids occurring on December 29, 1940 in which almost 3000 civilians died.

Battle of Hurtgen Forest

Battle of Hurtgen Forest is name given to series of battles fought in the Hurtgen Forest, afterwards known to both Americans and Germans simply as the Hurtgenwald.

The American High Command was flush with success after the breakout at Normandy and the race to Germany, and therefore overconfident.

The battles took place between September 13, 1944, through February 10, 1945, in a corridor barely 50 square miles on the border of Germany.

They were characterized by the American High Command not recognizing the true objectives of the forest, the dams that controlled the height of the Roer River, until December.

Had the Germans blown the dams, they could have flooded a region far to the south, delaying American advances. Multiple divisions were sent in, only to be wrecked and replaced by still more divisions.

Air, artillery, and armor, all advantages of the Americans at this time were nullified because of the terrain, and the Germans were happy to delay the much stronger force using smaller numbers and good defensive positions.

Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk was a decisive battle of World War II. It remains the largest armored battle of all time, and included the most costly single day of aerial warfare in history. Although originally planned as a German offensive, the Soviet defense was so successful that they were able to turn it into a rout.

Background

The German Army relied on armored forces to push through enemy lines at high-speed, the famous Blitzkrieg tactic. This meant they were only able to assume the offense during the summer when the Russian summer had dried out the ground enough for the tanks to be highly mobile.

The Eastern Front had thus developed into a series of German advances in the summer, followed by Soviet counterattacks in the winter.

In the winter of 1942 the Soviets won conclusively during the Battle of Stalingrad. One complete German army had been lost, along with about 300,000 men, seriously depleting German strength in the east.

With an Allied invasion of Europe clearly looming, Hitler realized that an outright defeat of the Soviets before the western Allies arrived was unlikely, and decided to force the Soviets to a draw.

In 1918 the Germans had built the famous Hindenburg line on the western front, shortening their lines and thereby increasing their defensive strength.

They planned on repeating this strategy in Russia and started construction of a massive series of defensive works known as the Panther-Wotan line.

Late in 1943 they would retreat to the line, and proceed to bleed the Soviets white against it while their forces were able to mend.

In February and March 1943 Erich von Manstein had completed a brilliant offensive during the Second Battle of Kharkov, leaving the front line running roughly from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. In the middle was a large 200 km wide and 150 km deep salient (bulge) in the lines between German forward positions near Orel in the north, and Manstein's recently captured Kharkov in the south.

German Plans

Manstein pressed for a new offensive based on the same successful lines he had just pursued at Kharkov, when he cut off an overextended Soviet offensive. He suggested tricking the Soviets into attacking in the south against the desperately re-forming 6th Army, leading them into the Donets Basin in the eastern Ukraine.

He would then turn south from Kharkov on the eastern side of the Donets River towards Rostov and trap the entire southern wing of the Red Army against the Sea of Azov.

OKW did not approve the plan, and instead turned their attention to the obvious bulge in the lines between Orel and Kharkov. There were three complete armies in and around the salient, and pinching it off would trap almost a fifth of the Red Army's manpower.

It would also result in a much straighter and shorter line, and capture the strategically useful railway town of Kursk located on the main north-south railway line running from Rostov to Moscow.

In March the plans were settled. Walther Model's 9th Army would attack south from Orel while Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf under the overall command of Manstein would attack north from Kharkov. They were to meet near Kursk, but if the offensive went well they were allowed to continue forward on their own initiative, with a general plan to create a new line on the Don River far to the east.

Unlike recent efforts, Hitler gave the General Staff considerable control over the planning of the battle. Over the next few weeks they continued to increase the scope of the forces attached to the front, stripping the entire German line of practically anything remotely useful in the upcoming battle. The battle was first set for May 4, but then delayed until June 12, and finally July 4 in order to allow more time for new weapons to arrive from Germany.

It is worth discussing this plan in terms of the traditional, and successful, blitzkrieg tactic used up to this point. Blitzkrieg depended on massing all available troops at a single point on the enemy line, breaking through, and then running as fast as possible to cut off the front line troops from supply and information.

Direct combat was to be avoided at all costs, there is no point in attacking a strongpoint if the same ends can be had by instead attacking the trucks supplying them.

The best place for Blitzkrieg was the least expected, which is why they had attacked through the Ardennes in 1940, and towards Stalingrad in 1942.

OKW's Operation Citadel was the antithesis of this concept. The point of attack was painfully obvious to anyone with a map, and reflected World War I thinking more than the Blitzkrieg. A number of German commanders questioned the idea, notably Heinz Guderian who asked Hitler Was it really necessary to attack Kursk, and indeed in the east that year at all? Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is?. Perhaps more surprisingly Hitler replied I know. The thought of it turns my stomach.

Simply put, it was an uninspired plan.

Soviet Plans

The Red Army was also planning for their own upcoming summer offensives, and had settled on a plan that was a mirror of the Germans. Attacks in front of Orel and Kharkov would flatten out the line, and potentially lead to a breakout near the Pripet Marshes. However there was considerable concern over the German plans.

All previous German attacks had left the Soviets guessing where it would come from, and in this case Kursk seemed too obvious for the Germans to attack. However they were then tipped of the German plans through a spy ring in Switzerland.

Stalin and a handful of the Red Army General Staff wanted to strike first. They felt that history had demonstrated that they were unable to stand up to German offensives, while action during the winter showed their own offensives were now working well. However the overwhelming advice of the General Staff, notably Georgi Zhukov, was to wait for the Germans to exhaust themselves in their attack first. His opinion swayed the argument.

The German delay in launching their offensive gave the Soviets four months in which to prepare, and with every passing day they turned the salient into one of the most heavily defended points on earth. The Red Army laid over 400,000 mines and dug about 5,000 kilometers of trenches, with positions as far back as 175km.

In addition they massed a huge army of their own, including some 1,300,000 men, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft. It was still unclear whether or not it would help, in the past the Germans had overrun their lines with seeming ease.

The Germans were well aware of the Soviet defenses. Why they did not then switch targets remains a mystery.

Operation Citadel

It took four months before the Germans felt ready, by which time they had collected 200 of the new Panther tanks, 90 Elefant tank destroyers, every flyable Henschel Hs 129 ground attack aircraft, as well as a host of Tiger Is and late model Panzer IVs. In total they assembled some 2,700 tanks and assault guns, 1,800 aircraft and 900,000 men. It was the greatest concentration of German fighting power ever put together. Even so, Hitler expressed doubts about its adequacy.

Preliminary fighting started on the 4th of July. In the afternoon Junkers Ju 87 Stukas bombed a two mile wide gap in the front lines on the north in a short period of 10 minutes, and then turned for home while the German artillery opened up to continue the pounding. Hoth's armored spearhead, the 3rd Panzer Korps, then advanced on the Soviet positions around Savidovka.

At the same time the Großdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Regiment attacked Butovo in torrential rain, and the high ground around Butovo was taken by 11th Panzer Division. To the west of Butovo the going proved tougher for Großdeutschland and 3rd Panzer Division who met stiff Soviet resistance and did not secure their objectives until midnight.

In the south the 2nd SS Panzer Korps were launching their preliminary attacks to secure observation posts, and again were met with stiff resistance until assault troops equipped with flame-throwers cleared the bunkers and outposts.

At 22:30 the Soviets hit back with a artillery bombardment which, aided by the torrential rain, slowed the German advance.

By this time Zhukov had been briefed on the information about the start of the offensive gained by the German prisoners and decided to launch a pre-emptive artillery bombardment on the German positions.

The real battle opened on 5 July 1943. The Soviets, now aware even of the exact time, commenced a massive artillery bombardment of the German lines 10 minutes prior.

This was soon followed by a massive attack by the VVS on the Luftwaffe airbases in the area, in an attempt to reverse the tables on the old German "trick" of wiping out local air support within the first hour of battle. The next few hours turned into what is likely the largest air battle to ever be fought.

The 9th Panzer Army in the north found itself almost unable to move. Within only minutes of starting forward they were trapped in the huge defensive minefields, and needed engineering units to come up and clear them under artillery fire.

After a week they had moved only 10km into the lines, and on the 12th the Soviets launched their northern arm against the 2nd Army at Orel. The 9th had to be withdrawn and their part in the offensive was a massive and costly failure.

In the south things went somewhat better. The armored spearhead of the Hoth's 4th Panzer Army slowly forced their way forward, and by the 6th were some 30km behind the lines at the small town Prokhorovka. Their flank, however, was unprotected as Kempf's divisions were stalled by 7th Guards Army after crossing the River Donets.

The 5th Guards Tank Army were situated to the east of Prokhorovka and were preparing a counterattack of their own when II SS Panzer Korps arrived and an intense struggle ensued.

The Soviets managed to halt the SS - but only just. There was now little to stop the 4th Panzer Army, and it looked like a breakout was a very real possibility. The Soviets decided to deploy the rest of the 5th Guards.

On 12 July the Luftwaffe and artillery units bombed the Soviet positions as the SS divisions formed up. Their advance started and they were astonished to see masses of Soviet armor advancing towards them.

What followed was to go down history as the largest tank engagement ever, with over 1,500 tanks in close contact. The air forces of both countries flew overhead, but they were unable to see anything through the dust and smoke pouring out from destroyed tanks.

On the ground, commanders were unable to keep track of developments and the battle rapidly degenerated into an immense number of confused and bitter small-unit actions, often at close quarters. The fighting raged on all day, and by evening the last shots were being fired as the two sides disengaged. German losses amounted to over 300 tanks with the Soviets losing a similar number.

The overall battle still hung in the balance. German forces on the southern wing were exhausted and heavily attrited, but at the same time faced equally weak defenses and were in excellent position, clear of the defensive works and with no forces between them and Kursk. Relief forces were being held ready for just this moment, the battle could still be won.

And then, everything changed.

On 11 July, in the midst of Citadel, US and British forces landed on Sicily during Operation Husky. Hitler called von Kluge and Manstein to his headquarters in Poland and declared that he was calling Citadel off. Manstein was furious, and argued that one final effort and the battle could be won. Hitler would have none of it, particularly as the Soviets had launched their counteroffensive in the north.

Soviet counteroffensive

Although unaware of the change in Hitler's plans, the attacks near Kursk were obviously ending. The Soviets immediately put their pre-Citadel plans into action. On 15 July the attacks on Orel were opened with the release of the entire Soviet Central Front.

The Germans withdrew to the partly prepared Hagen line at the base of the salient. To the south the Russians re-grouped and opened their counterattack on 3 August, taking von Manstein's hard-won Belgorod, and then reaching Kharkov on the 11th. On the 20th all German forces in the area had to withdraw.

End of the Battle

On the 22nd both forces were utterly exhausted and fighting (officially) drew to a close. By this point overall German casualties may have been as high as 500,000 killed or wounded. The Soviet casualty figures were not released until the end of the communist regime, and comprised 250,000 killed and 600,000 wounded. They also lost 50% of their tank strength during the Kursk offensive.

Although the battle was not a clear-cut victory for the Soviets, the Germans suffered a clear defeat. Their plans for 1943 were now in serious disarray, and a new front had opened in Italy. Both sides had taken severe losses, but only the Soviets had the manpower and the industrial production to recover fully. The Germans never regained the initiative after Kursk.

Moreover the loss convinced Hitler of the incompetence of his General Staff. When given the chance, his generals selected a poor plan, and he decided to make sure this would not happen again. The opposite was true of Stalin, however. After seeing his generals' intuition justified on the battlefield, he stepped back from the strategic planning and left that entirely to the military.

The results for both sides were predictable: the German army went from loss to loss as Hitler attempted to personally micromanage the day-to-day operations of what was soon a three-front war, while the Soviet army gained more freedom and became more and more fluid as the war continued.

Battle of Leyte

The World War II Battle of Leyte involved the reconquest of Leyte by American and Allied forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur between October 20 and December 10, 1944.

Under the protection of massed naval forces (see Battle of Leyte Gulf) General Walter Krueger's United States Sixth Army and supporting forces made amphibious landings on the east coast and, after heavy fighting, were able to secure the island. The US Army suffered over 3,500 casualties, the defending Japanese more than 55,000.

Battle of Peleliu

Like the bloody World War II island campaigns before it, the battle of Peleliu was a fight to capture an airstrip on a speck of coral in the western Pacific. And, as with previous island battles, the Americans would prevail, but at a higher cost than anticipated, against the determined resistance of the Japanese forces.

By the summer of 1944 victories in the Southwest and Central Pacific had brought the war even closer to Japan, with American bombers now able to strike at the Japanese homeland itself.

But there was disagreement by the U.S. Joint Chiefs over two proposed strategies to crush the Japanese Empire.

One strategy proposed by General Douglas MacArthur called for the recapture of the Philippines, followed by the capture of Okinawa then Formosa for an attack at the Chinese mainland.

From there, the eventual invasion of Japan would come. Admiral Chester Nimitz, on the other hand, favored a more direct strategy of bypassing the Philippines, but seizing Okinawa and Formosa as staging areas for the future invasion of Japan's southernmost islands.

As for Peleliu, both commanders' strategies included the invasion of this island, but for different reasons, and the 1st Marine Division had already been chosen to make the assault.

To settle this dispute, President Franklin Roosevelt traveled to Pearl Harbor to meet personally with both commanders and hear their respective arguments. After a review of both positions, MacArthur's strategy was chosen.

However, before MacArthur could retake the Philippines, the Palau Islands - Peleliu specifically, would have to be neutralized to protect his right flank. What followed would be a ferocious battle lasting more than two months and costing over 12,000 lives.

Battle of Iwo Jima

On February 19, 1945 about 30,000 United States Marines of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, under V Amphibious Corps, landed on Iwo Jima and a battle for the island commenced. The landing was called Operation Detachment.

Following the American victory, a group of US Marines reached the top of Mount Suribachi on February 23, 1945 and raised the American flag. They were persuaded to re-enact the event shortly afterwards by AP photographer Joe Rosenthal. The photo later won a Pulitzer Prize and is the subject of the USMC War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

The battle ended on March 16, 1945 but small pockets of Japanese resistance persisted.

"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue" -- Admiral Chester W. Nimitz

Background of the Battle

In the opening days of 1945, Japan faced the prospect of invasion by the Allied Forces. Daily bomber raids from the Marianas hit the mainland in an operation called Scavenger. Fighters and Kamikazi at Iwo Jima provided a measure of defense. Eventually the Allies would have to take Iwo Jima, part of the Japanese homeland for over 600 years. The Japanese were ready. The island was garrisoned by 22,000 soldiers and fortified in a network of underground bunkers.

The defense of Iwo Jima was to exact such a price on Allied Forces as to discourage invasion of the mainland. Each defender was expected to die in defense of the homeland, taking 10 enemy soldiers in the process.

The Allies, led by the United States of America, wanted Iwo Jima not only to neutralize threats to its bombers and shipping, but to use its airfields for fighter escort and emergency bomber landings. On February 16, 1945, they commenced a three-day air and gun assault on the island with unprecidented ferocity, but little effect on the sheltered garrison of Japanese troops.

Invasion of Iwo Jima

At 2 AM on the morning of February 19, battleship guns signaled the commencement of D-Day. Soon 100 bombers attacked the island, followed by another volley from the naval guns. At 8:30, Marines disembarked toward the shores of Iwo Jima. Their objective -- Suribachi Mountain, at the south of the island, which guarded the beaches.

The Marines faced heavy fire from Suribachi and inhospitable terrain, rough volcanic ash which allowed neither secure footing or the digging of a foxhole. They were sitting ducks. Still, by that evening, the mountain had been surrounded and 30,000 Marines had landed. About 40,000 more would follow.

The climb up Suribachi was fought by the yard. Gunfire was ineffective against the Japanese, but flame throwers and grenades cleared the bunkers. Finally, on February 23, the summit had been reached. The erection of the American flag that day proved an inspiration not only to the combatants but to a grateful nation for years to come.

Securing the Island

With the landing area secure, more Marines and heavy equipment were landed and the invasion proceeded north to capture the airfields and the remainder of the island. Iwo Jima was declared secure on March 26. As commanded, the Japanese defended the homeland to the death. Of over 20,000 defenders, only 1,000 were taken prisoner.

The Allied Forces suffered 25,000 casualties, with nearly 7,000 dead. Over 1/4 of the Medals of Honor awarded Marines in World War II were given for conduct in the invasion of Iwo Jima.

Battle of Okinawa

The Battle of Okinawa, fought on the island of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands (south of the four big islands of Japan) was the largest amphibious assault during the Pacific campaign of World War II. It was the largest sea-land-air battle in history, running from April through June, 1945.

No one on either side expected it to be the last major battle of the war, which it was. The Americans were planning Operation Downfall, the invasion of the main islands, which never happened due to the controversial decision to use the atomic bomb.

The reference by Feifer (below) has much to say of Okinawa and how it influenced the end of the war — and the decision to use "The Bomb."

At some battles such as Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population, and the civilian loss in the Typhoon of Steel was at least 130,000. American losses were were over 72,000 casualties, of whom 12,000 were killed or missing, over twice Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined.

About a quarter of the civilian, and Japanese and American populations about the island in spring 1945 were killed. There were about 100,000 Japanese killed or captured; many preferred suicide to the disgrace of capture.

The battle has landed in a strange black hole, as far as the United States in concerned. The war was over (or nearly over at the outset) in Europe; the end in Japan was in sight, and American's were returning to peacetime pursuits; president Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, the end of an era. The horrific carnage often draws blank stares from Americans.

The land campaign was controlled by 10th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner.

The army had two corps under its command, III Amphibious Corps, consisting of 1st and 6th Marine Divisions, with 2nd Marine Division as an afloat reserve, and XXIV Corps, consisting of the 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions.

At the very end of the campaign, Buckner was killed by ricocheting shell fragments, becoming one of the most senior US casualties in the entire war.

Before this battle, an evacuation ship called Tsushima-maru was sunk by a U.S. submarine and many schoolchildren were killed.

Shortly before the battle, the Japanese warship the Yamato, the mightiest warship ever built, was sunk by American air power on her trip to Okinawa. Widespread rumors that the ship was only given enough fuel for a one-way trip are false; Feifer debunks this (references).

The battle took place over about 82 days after April 1, 1945. The American's wept across the thin part of the south-central part of the island with little difficulty, soon taking the entire north, and Kadena Air Base, which at present writing (August, 2003) is still the largest American air base in Asia.

For truly detailed information on the battle, and detailed discussions of bloodbaths like Sugar Loaf Hill, one must consult deeper references. Fighting in the south was hardest, the skillful Japanese soldiers hiding in caves, but the American advance was inexorable.

The island fell on about June 21, though some Japanese continued fighting, including the future governer of Okinawa Prefecture, Masahide Ota.

Battle of Crete

The British had occupied the island of Crete when the Italians had invaded Greece on October 28, 1940. After the German intervention in Greece, the 57.000 allied troops in that country were chased from the mainland of Greece.

The Royal Navy evacuated many of them, some to Crete to bolster its 14,000-man garrison. By May 1941, the defense consisted of 10.000 men in 11 Greek militia battalions.

The British expanded their defense to 30,000 men, though in many cases the men lacked heavy equipment. Because of constant bombings from mainland Greece, the R.A.F. withdrew its planes to Egypt. leaving the Luftwaffe with air superiority.

New Zealand General Bernard Freyberg was appointed commander of the British, Greek, Australian and New Zealand forces on the isle of Crete on April 30.

Possession of the island provided the Royal Navy with excellent harbors in the eastern Mediterranean. From Crete, the Romanian airfields were within range. Also, with Crete in British hands, the Axis south eastern position would never be safe, a vital necessity before starting Operation Barbarossa.On April 25 Adolf Hitler signed the directive No.28 ordering to take Crete.

The Battle

On the morning of May 20, German paratroopers landed at 08.00 near Maleme and Chania to take the vital airfields. The next wave landed at Rethimnon and Heraklion.

The landings were preceded by 3 hours of heavy bombing, which put most anti aircraft guns our of action. German landings were hampered by heavy losses. At Maleme, the paratroopers jumped into heavy infantry fire.

The German paratroopers were unable to recover their heavy weapons, which had landed with separate parachutes. At Cania the Germans suffered many jump casualties due to the very rocky terrain.

The next wave of the airborne landing took place at about 16.00 at Rethimnon and Heraklion. Its purpose was to seize the local airfields. These groups ran into even heavier infantry fire than the group at Maleme.

General Freyberg refused to commit his reserves. Towards the evening of May 20, the Germans at Maleme were slowly pushing back the British from Hill 107, which overlooked the all important airfield.

In the following night, Royal Navy vassals penetrated into the waters north of Crete, forcing back the first German naval convoy. But on May 21, Axis planes scored several hits on the British ships.

Nevertheless, British vessels intercepted the axis convoy at 23.00 hour around Cape Spaha, sinking several vessels. But on May 22, an all out attack by the Luftwaffe drove away the British ships.

On May 22, the Germans landed additional troops on the beaches of Maleme and west of its airfield. At 16.00, enough control had been established to enable parts of the 5th Mountain Division to land at the airfield.

To this end the Luftwaffe provided the paras with continuous close air support. From that point on, the Germans were able to constantly fly in additional weapons and troops.

The Germans captured the island in 10 days, but at heavy cost. 6,600 German soldiers, including one in four paratroopers, lay dead on the battlefield.

The Allied soldiers were evacuated by the Royal Navy during four desperately dangerous consecutive nights between 28 and 31 May. About 17,000 escaped; probably more were killed, captured or went missing.

Conclusion

The invasion got known as the first airborne invasion in history, but that honor goes to the German paratroop assault on the Hague on May 10, 1940. Hitler was so shocked by German losses, that he never approved of a third large airborne operation again.

Ironically, the allies took up the lessons and put them to good use at the Normandy invasion.

Battle of Lugou Bridge

Japan had occupied Manchuria in 1931 and had created an nominally independent state of Manchukuo with Henry Pu-yi, the last monarch of the Qing Dynasty, as its sovereign.

That state is widely regarded to have been a puppet government with real power concentrated in the hands of the Japanese, which constituted the only significant military forces in Manchuria. Although the Kuomintang and the international community refused to recognize the legality of the Japanese occupation, a truce had been negotiated in 1931.

At the end of 1932, Japanese Guandong Army invaded Chahar Province. (The Kuomintang's 29th Army, lead by General Song Zhe Yuan and armed only with spears and obsolete rifles, resisted the attack, resulting in the War of Resistance at the Great Wall. The province fell to the Japanese after the predictable victory therefore areas to the west of Beijing fell to the Japanese.

In 1933, Japan annexed Rehe Province using the security of Manzhouguo as a pretext. Consequently all areas north of the Great Wall and hence north of Beijing fell to Japan. In 1935, Japan annexed eastern portion of Hebei Province and established yet another puppet government, Eastern Ji Anticommunist Automated Government.

Later that year, Ho Yinqin and Mijiro Umemura signed an agreement, known as the Ho-Umemura Agreement by which the Japanese could deploy troops around Beijing at will. As a result at the start of 1937, areas occupied by Japanese surrounded Beijing at north, west and east.

Japanese installations of various puppet governments were deliberate attempts to annex whole country of China by nibbling. The puppet government at Nanjing with Wang Jingwei as head was another obvious example.

The Battle

Phase I

Beginning late June 1937, the Japanese army (several hundreds) deployed at the west end of the bridge was practising while Kuomintang forces, garrisoned in Wanping Town, watched closely.

At dawn of July 7, the Japanese army telegraphed the KMT forces saying that a soldier was missing and believed to be hiding inside the town. The Japanese demanded that its army should enter the town to search for the missing soldier, who was later found unharmed.

There are some disputes among historians over the incident with some historians believing that this was an unintentional accident while others believing that the entire incident was fabricated by the Kwantung Army in order to provide a pretext for the invasion of central China.

Colonel Ji denied the request backed by his superior, General Song. In the evening of July 7, Matsui gave Ji an ultimatum that KMT troops must let Japanese troops enter the town within the next hour or the town will be fired. THe Japanese artillery had already aimed at the town when the ultimatum was sent. At midnight July 8, Japanese artillery units started bombarding the town while the infantry with tanks matched across the bridge at dawn. With order from Song, Ji led the KMT forces of about 1000 to defend at all cost.

The Japanese army partially overran the bridge and vicinity in the afternoon. KMT forces, after reinforcement from nearby units, outnumbered the Japanese and retook it completely next day. Japanese army then halted the attack and offered negotiation, marking the end of Phase I. Nevertheless Japanese army still concentrated at the west end of the bridge.

Phase II

During the meeting of all senior KMT officers of the 24th Army in Beijing on July 12, Qin insisted that KMT forces must remain defending and resisted any temptation of negotiating with the Japanese whom he did not trust.

Zhang in turn argued the incident on July 7 could still be settled by negotiation. Song then sent Zhang as KMT representative to Tianjin to meet General Hashimoto, the commander of all Japanese forces around the cities of Beijing and Tianjin and in Chahar and Rehe Provinces.

At the beginning Hashimoto told Zhang that the Japanese hoped the incident on July 7 to be settled peacefully. Zhang was encouraged by his friendly gesture and telegraphed Song that any increased Kuomintang (KMT) forces concentration around Beijing would be viewed as an escalation and angered the Japanese.

However Song thought Hashimoto was only buying time since he received various reconnaissance reports indicating increasing accumulation of Japanese forces from Manchuria and Korea around Beijing.

As the recent Chinese victory relied on outnumbering the opponent, he transferred Zhao's 132th accompanied by Qin to station at Nanwan Town which was between the bridge and Beijing to keep up the pressure from concentration of Japanese forces.

Similar to most KMT and Communist Party of China (CPC), 29th Army was under equipped with only rifles and just enough mortars and heavy machine guns with respect to better armed, trained and commanded Japanese troops whose tanks the Chinese armies still did not have any weapon capable of destroying them.

On July 31(?) (end of the month), Japanese promised not to invade Beijing and Tianjin upon agreement of all following terms:

• KMT must wipe out all anti-Japanese organizations and halt all anti-Japanese activities inside the cities.
• KMT must take all responsibilities of the incident on July 7.
• Song, not any other inferior personnel of 29th Army, must apologize.

Zhang accepted the first term and the commander of the battalion under Ji's command will be relieved as an agreement to the second. However Zhang told Hashimoto that he could not decide on behalf of Song, thus cannot agree on the third term at the time. He then returned to Beijing.

Hashimoto also hinted that the Japanese would prefer Zhang as the commander of KMT troops around the city. As soon as Zhang's departure, the Japanese launched full-scale attack on Beijing.

On August 10(?), three days after Zhang heading for the city, the bridge and Wanping Town fell to the Japanese. Nanwan Town fell on next day with both divisions (37th and 132th) shattered. Zhao was mortally wounded on battlefield and Qin retreated with the remnants back to the city.

In the evening after the fall of Nanwan Town, Zhang finally arrived (As he had to pass through enemy lines to reach the city.).

Several days after, Song relieved himself of all non-military posts and appointed Zhang to take his posts and Mayor of Beijing. Qin and Song then led 29th Army out of the city, which was going to be encircled within hours and left Zhang with virtually no troops.

Japanese armies enter the city on August 18 without much resistance and installed Zhang as mayor. However Zhang felt he was betrayed and left the city secretly a week later.

Aftermath

With the fall of Beijing on August 18 and Tianjin on 21st, the North China Plain was helpless against Japanese mechanized divisions who occupied it by the end of the year. Chinese armies (KMT and CPC) were on constant retreat until the hard fought Chinese victory at Tai er zhuang.

There are some disputes among historians over KMT handling of Japanese troops approaching Beijing with some historians believing that Zhang and Song intentionally cooperate secretly with Zhang appointment of non-military posts in Beijing.

Song and Qin can then safely retreat from the city to retain the fighting ability of 29th Army. Others believed that the Japanese completely sold Zhang out as the Japanese still invaded the cities even though KMG agreed all terms.

Zhang was vilified relentlessly by the Chinese media, some of which (like the Shanghai media) reviled him as the traitor of the country.

Upon arrival at Nanjing he apologized publicly. Since he later died fighting against the Japanese, KMT pardoned Zhang's activities in Beijing.

Battle of Changsha

Most historians place the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War on the Battle of Lugou Bridge (also known as the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident") on July 7, 1937. However, Chinese historians place the starting point at the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931. Following the Mukden Incident, the Japanese Guandong army occupied Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo (February 1932).

Japan pressured China into recognising the independence of Manchukuo. China and Japan did not formally declare war against each other until after the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

Following the Battle of Lugou Bridge in 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai, Nanjing and Northern Shanxi as part of campaigns involving approximately 200,000 Japanese soldiers, and considerably more Chinese soldiers. After the fall of Nanjing, it is estimated that as many as 300,000 people died in the Nanjing Massacre.

While by 1940 Japan held most of the eastern coastal areas of China, guerrilla fighting continued in the conquered areas.

The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek struggled on from a provisional capital at Chongqing City; however, realizing that he also faced a threat from communist forces of Mao Zedong, he largely tried to preserve the strength of his army, avoiding heavy battle with the Japanese, in the hopes of defeating the Communists once the Japanese left.

Moreover Chiang could not risk an all-out campaign given the well under-trained, equipped, organized Chinese armies and opposition against his leadership within and outside the Kuomintang.

Most military analysts predicted that the Chinese could not keep up the fighting with most of the war factories located in the prosperous areas either under or near Japanese control.

Other global powers were reluctant to provide any support unless securing some clandestine purpose because in their opinion the Chinese would eventually lose the war. They expected any support given to China might worsen their own relationship with the Japanese, who taunted the Kuomintang with the prospect of conquest within 3 months.

Germany and the Soviet Union did provide support to the Chinese before the war escalated to the Asian theatre of World War II. The Soviet Union was exploiting the Kuomintang government to hinder the Japanese from invading Siberia, thus saving herself from a two-front war.

Furthermore, the Soviets expected any major conflict between the Japanese and the Chinese to hamper any Kuomintang effort to remove the Communist Party of China (CCP) opposition or, in the best scenario, hoped to install a friendly Communist government surreptitiously after the dwindling of Kuomintang authority.

Soviet technicians upgraded and handled some of the Chinese war-supply transport. Military supplies and advisors arrived - one Russian named Zhukov witnessed the battle of Tai er zhuang.

Because of Chiang Kai-shek's anti-communist policy and hopes of defeating the CCP, Germany provided the largest proportion of Chinese arms imports. German military advisors modernized and trained the Chinese armies; Chinese officers (including Chiang's second son) were educated in and served in the German army before World War 2.

Nevertheless the proposed 30 new divisions equipped with all German arms did not materialize as the Germans sided with the Japanese later in World War II.

Other prominent powers, including the United States of America, Britain and France, only assisted in war supply contracts until the attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941.

Chiang Kai-shek received some supplies from the United States once they entered the war, and he was appointed Commander-in-chief of the China war zone by the Allies in 1942.

The notorious relationship between Colonel Joseph Stilwell and Chiang led to Stilwell's devious criticism and his minimizing of the Chinese contribution in World War II in the American media and to President Franklin Roosevelt. The Allies thus underestimated the Chinese need for supplies and for trained personnel.

Stilwell also incited power struggles within the Kuomintang which eventually contributed to the rise of the CCP.

Both sides fought to a stalemate after 1941, mainly owing to the dispersion of Japanese forces through vast areas of China: hence Japan could not concentrate its superior armor and firepower. Guerilla activities behind the frontlines also meant constantly deploying stationary Japanese forces in major cities and at road and rail junctions. Control over the countryside village swung towards the CCP and Kuomintang.

Japan invaded the Pacific and Southeast Asia (1941) to secure more war supplies (especially the oil resources in Dutch East Indies) but ended up bringing the United States of America into the conflict.

Japan capitulated to the allies on August 14, 1945. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on September 9, 1945 and by the provisions of the Cairo Conference of 1943 the lands of Manchuria, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands reverted to China. However the Ryukyu islands have never regained their independence.

Battle of Hundred Regiments

The Battle of Hundred Regiments also known as the Hundred Regiments Offensive was a major engagement of the Communist Party of China's Red Army commanded by Peng Dehuai against the Japanese Imperial Army in Central China in August and September, 1940.