WWII Through the Lens

Dam Busters

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617 Squadron RAF was formed in March 1943 to attack the Mohne and Sorpe dams, which provided water to the industrial German Ruhr region, and the Eder, which helped keep canals at navigable depth. A special bomb was developed for the mission by Barnes Wallis. Dropped from low level, it bounced on the water before sliding down the dam wall. On the night of May 16-17, the Mohne and Eder dams were both breached, but although loss of life and industrial dislocation were considerable, the damage was short-lived. Above, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, commander of 617 Squadron, is seen boarding his Lancaster. Eight of the nineteen bombers were lost.

The Barnes Wallis 9,250 Ib (4,195 kg) bouncing bomb slung below a British Lancaster bomber.

The breached Mohne dam four hours after the raid.

Guy Gibson, photographed near RAF Scampton on 22 July 1943. Awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award for military valour, Gibson was killed the following year at the age of 26.

The Pacific — 1943

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In early 1943, Australian troops, fighting in dreadful conditions, extinguished the Japanese beachheads of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda Point on New Guinea. The Casablanca conference that January suggested that one-third of Allied resources should be deployed against Japan, but the British felt unable to agree to a fixed formula. The U.S. Joint Chiefs agreed a broad strategy, with MacArthur and Admiral William F. Halsey pushing on through the Solomons and along the New Guinea coast, while Nimitz “island hopped” across the central Pacific towards Japan.

An Australian forward post (above) near Sanananda, less than thirty yards from the Japanese. The robust and reliable .303 Bren was the light automatic weapon in British and Commonwealth infantry sections.

Australian infantry, assisted by a Stuart light tank, during the final assault on Buna.

The battle for Buna sorely tried the U.S. 32nd Infantry Division, which had not been trained for jungle warfare and was poorly equipped: it lost almost ninety per cent of its strength from battle casualties and sicknesses. But it was a disaster for the Japanese: this photograph shows Japanese bodies on the shoreline.

Japanese prisoners were very rare. These, both badly wounded, were taken when Gona fell.

After expelling the Japanese from southern New Guinea, the Australians moved northwards. In September 1943, the Japanese strongholds of Lae and Salamua were taken. Here U.S. paratroops jump into the Markham Valley in an effort to block the Japanese escape from Lae.

New Zealanders had already played a distinguished part in the war in the Western Desert, and added to these laurels in the Pacific. Here, New Zealand troops (in their distinctive "lemon-squeezer" hats) land from U.S. landing craft on Vella Lavella in the Solomons.

Rabual, on the island of New Britain, was a powerful Japanese air base. It was so heavily defended that a decision to capture it was reversed at the Quebec conference in August 1943, and it was so badly hammered from air and sea that the Japanese substantially scaled it down. Here a U.S. aircraft attacks with a white phosphorus incendiary bomb.

On November 1, 1943, the Americans landed on Bougainville, strategically placed between MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s areas of operations. The Japanese held a tiny part of the island to the very end of the war, but most of their positions had been taken in this sort of knock-down drag-out fighting: a flame thrower scorches a Japanese bunker while riflemen give covering fire.

Almost all Japanese preferred suicide to surrender. These infantrymen on Tarawa have shot themselves in the head, using a toe to pull the trigger.

This essence of the war at sea: a Japanese torpedo-bomber is hit by short-range fire from a U.S. carrier, December 4, 1943.

Katyn — 1943

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When Poland was divided between Russia and Germany in 1939, over 180,000 Polish prisoners of war fell into Soviet hands: officers were segregated in special camps. In April 1943, the Germans discovered a mass grave in Katyn forest near Smolensk, later found to contain the remains of 4,400 Polish officers, and accused the Russians of mass murder, summoning an international team of experts to investigate the crime. Although the Russians long blamed the Germans for the atrocity, in 1990 they at last admitted responsibility.

The victims had their hands wired behind their backs (above) and had been shot in the back of the head. This evocative photograph sums up the fate of tens of thousands of victims of mass murder during the war.

The German-sponsored international experts (below, all but one from Axis or occupied countries) examining of the bodies of Katyn. When the London-based Polish government in exile suggested an impartial International Red Cross investigation, the Russians broke off diplomatic relations.

The Battle of the Convoys

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Churchill wrote that the only thing that really worried him was the submarine menace. The Battle of the Atlantic reached its crescendo in 1943, when operations in North Africa drew escorts away from the Atlantic, and Britain depended utterly on the main North Atlantic convoy routes at the very time that German submarines, concentrated in “wolf packs,” redoubled their efforts, paying particular attention to the narrowing gap in mid-Atlantic left uncovered by land-based aircraft. ULTRA proved decisive, enabling escorts to find submarines with accuracy: the Germans lost 47 in May alone. Sinkings continued, but the battle was won by the end of the month.

Above, the Torch convoy at sea, November 1942. The convoy was kept under an air umbrella that reduced the risk of attack, but demands imposed on convoy escorts by the demands of North Africa were to influence the Battle of the Atlantic.

Arctic convoys ferried supplies to Russia. Here the cruiser HMS Belfast is at sea in northern waters, March 1943.

Most British warships relied on multi-barrelled automatic “pom-poms” for close defence against aircraft. This air spotter, binoculars at the ready, watches for hostile aircraft.

The cruiser HMS Sheffield, on the same convoy as the Belfast, has both forward turrets trained to the beam to avoid damage to their canvas blast screens. Nevertheless, one turret roof was torn right off by a wave.

Depth-charges dropped by a Canadian corvette ship. The Canadians, short of modern equipment and adequate destroyers, had a particularly hard war in the Atlantic.

A U-Boat commander at his periscope. German submarine crews had a horrifyingly high casualty rate: 40,900 men served in submarines during the war, and 28,000 perished. Admiral Dönitz, Commander-in-Chief of the German navy, lost both his sailor sons, one in a submarine.

The last moments of a freighter, seen from a submarine. From January to May 1943 Allied shipping loses averaged 450,000 tons per month.

U625 sinking after depth-charge attack by a Sunderland of 422 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, March 10, 1944.

This U-Boat, attacked at periscope depth by a Sunderland, was brought to the surface by depth charges and then sunk.

Merchant seamen scramble aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter.

Firemen “Bonny” Bartell and “Snowy” Foster, both of Canning Town in East London, come up for a breather on a North African Convoy, July 1943.

North Africa — 1943

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The North African campaign had a sting in its tail. In January 1943, Arnim mounted an offensive, catching ill-equipped French divisions off guard and going on to shake the Americans. Rommel, forced steadily westwards by Montgomery's advance, put in an attack of his own, inflicting a sharp defeat on the Americans at the Kasserine Pass in February. The Allies then reorganized their chain of command, forming the 18th Army Group, comprising both armies (Anderson's 1st and Montgomery's 8th) fighting in Tunisia. Axis forces were gradually compressed into a pocket round Tunis, and the last of them surrendered in mid-May, leaving 238,000 prisoners in Allied hands.

The Mareth Line, based on prewar French defenses in southern Tunisia, was held by Rommel's old army, now renamed the 1st Italian army under General Giovanni Messe. Montgomery's first attack, on March 19, failed, but a hook round the desert flank forced Messe to pull back. Here (above) a 4.5-inch medium gun bombards the line.

On March 6, Rommel turned on Montgomery at Medenine, but, using information from ULTRA, Montgomery was ready for him and the attack was easily repulsed. These Gurkhas are using their distinctive weapon, the kukri, near Medenine, but this shot comes from a sequence that suggests that it was staged for the camera.

This, in contrast, is a real photograph of the Medenine battle, showing a German Mk III Special knocked out by 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment Royal Artillery, part of the anti-tank screen deployed by Montgomery as a result of ULTRA.

The end in Tunisia. An American intelligence officer interrogates two prisoners. Two French soldiers, once more on the Allied side, are in the background.

Roosevelt, in North Africa for the Casablanca conference, took the opportunity to visit troops in the field, the first President since Lincoln to do so.

Operation Torch

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Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa, was launched in November under the command of the unknown U.S. Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Allies tried to ensure French co-operation, and in the event resistance was patchy in quality and quantity. Fortuitously, Admiral Darlan, Marshal Petain's deputy, was visiting his sick son in Algiers, and was persuaded to order a ceasefire. The Germans swiftly sent troops to Tunisia, and the Allied advance bogged down with the rains of early winter.

Although the Vichy government repudiated Darlan's ceasefire, Hitler was furious and invaded the Unoccupied Zone of France. A German force had orders to seize the French fleet at Toulon, but the French activated a well-prepared plan and the fleet was scuttled by its crews in the nick of time. Here damaged and sunk cruisers and destroyers can be seen (above) through the smoke of burning heavy cruisers.

American troops, part of the Central Task Force, on their way ashore by landing craft at Oran. It was thought that the French would be less likely to engage the Americans than the British, still mistrusted because of the attack on Mers-el-Kebir and the fighting in the Levant.

With Allied convoys at sea, sailors could be told their destination. Here Rear Admiral Sir Harold Burrough explains forthcoming operations to officers and men aboard his flagship.

Strategic Air Offensive

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In 1942 the strategic bombing offensive against Germany was substantially increased. The 1941 Butt report, which showed just how inaccurate night bombing actually was, encouraged the introduction of area bombing of German cities. Sir Arthur Harris took over as Commander-in-Chief of the RAF's Bomber Command in February. He quickly ordered fire-storm raids on Rostock and Lübeck, and then, in May, mobilized his second line and training aircraft to mount the first thousand-bomber raid, on Cologne. RAF armourers are seen fusing bombs (above) prior to loading them aboard a Short Stirling at RAF Waterbeach, near Cambridge, April 30, 1942.

The caption to this German photograph of the gutted Lübeck cathedral described the raid on the city as “a new crime against civilization.” It helped inspire the German Baedeker raids, so called because the official announcing them declared that the Germans would attack all building marked with three stars in the Baedeker guidebook.

On the night of May 30, the first thousand-bomber raid was launched on Cologne. The top picture shows a rubber factory at Deutz, on the east bank of the Rhine, before the raid, and the lower picture shows it afterwards.

The four-engined Avro Lancaster came into service in early 1942. Although it was generally used at night, this
photograph shows a low-level daylight raid on the Schneider armament works at Le Creusot on October 17.

Another daylight attack, this by Lockheed Venturas, Douglas Bostons and de Havilland Mosquitos on the Philips radio valve works in the Dutch town of Eindhoven, December 6.

German flak and fighters imposed a steady toll on bombers. Here a Vickers Wellington of the Polish 301 (Pomeranian) Squadron, lies in the mud of a Dutch estuary.

The Malta Convoys

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The island of Malta possessed the only British-held harbour between Gibraltar and Alexandria and was crucial to convoys bringing supplies to forces in the Western desert. The Axis hoped to neutralize it by air attack, and Malta was besieged from 1940 until the Axis surrender in North Africa in May 1943. It owed its survival to fighter squadrons based on its airfields and fast convoys that ran the gauntlet to reach the island. In March-April 1942 Malta received twice the tonnage of bombs dropped on London during the Blitz, and in all 1,493 of her citizens were killed and 3,764 wounded.

The aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable (above) almost hidden by near misses from air attack as she helps escort the vital Pedestal convoy to Malta, August 1942.

Tugs bustle round the American tanker Ohio, crippled but still full of fuel, as she enters Valetta harbour, August 1942.

The crew of a pom-pom multiple antiaircraft gun aboard a destroyer escorting the Pedestal convoy enjoying a smoke break between air attacks. The photographer had already been sunk aboard the cruiser HMS Manchester, and transferred to a destroyer “with his camera intact.”

Guadalcanal

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In mid-1942, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized “Operation Watchtower,” an attack on Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon islands, where the Japanese had begun to construct an airfield. The initial American landing, carried out by the U.S. 1st Marine Division, was successful, but the Japanese reacted swiftly, and both sides reinforced, leading to vicious fighting on land, in the air and at sea. The Americans completed the unfinished airfield on Guadalcanal (Henderson Field), and its possession gave them a decisive edge. In mid-November, the three-day naval battle of Guadalcanal, a costly victory for the Americans, marked the climax of the struggle. Japanese survivors were evacuated in January 1943.

Above, U.S. Marines landing on Guadalcanal, August 7. Initial lack of opposition encouraged the original caption to describe a “successful attack against the occupying Japanese.”

In what became known as the Battle of the Tenaru River in late August, a 900-strong Japanese force was literally wiped out.

Raid on Dieppe

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On August 19,1942, the British mounted Operation Jubilee, a large scale raid on the port of Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, France. Some 4,900 Canadian, 1,000 British and 50 U.S. troops left five English ports in a fleet of 237 warships and landing craft. Air support was inadequate and intelligence poor, and despite some minor successes the main assault was a bloody failure, with 3,367 Canadian casualties. The Royal Navy lost a destroyer and several landing craft, and the RAF 106 aircraft to only 48 German. Although useful lessons were learnt from Dieppe, the operation's unjustifiable risks were worsened by its labyrinthine planning. Landing craft run in towards the beach (above) under cover of floating smoke dischargers.

The frontal assault was mounted by The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and The Essex Scottish, with armour from the 14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment (The Calgary Tanks), supported by the Fusiliers Mont-Royal. Twelve tanks were stopped on the beach because shingle jammed their tracks, and the 15 that made their way inland were soon knocked out. Here a German infantryman picks his way among blanketed Canadian dead.

Canadian prisoners are marched through Dieppe.

Propagandists found some crumbs of comfort: No. 4 Commando, seen here after returning to Newhaven, had taken the Varengeville battery. The U.S. Ranger makes the point that this was the first time Americans had been in action on the ground in Europe during the war.

Britain at War, 1942 — Part 2

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Members of the Women's Land Army ploughing in Hertfordshire, March 1942.

Between January 1942 and D-Day in 1944 more than a million and a half U.S. servicemen arrived in Britain. There were complaints that the Americans were “overpaid, oversexed and over here,” but paradoxically most civilians were sympathetic to black G.I.s, victims of colour bars in their own army.

Although women did not fly in direct combat, 166 served in the Air Transport Auxiliary which ferried aircraft from factories to their bases, and servicewomen like this Wren (from WRNS, Women's Royal Naval Service) radio mechanic flew to test radios.

In 1942 the Germans mounted hit and run “Baedeker raids” on historic cities in retaliation for raids on Lübeck and Rostock. Canterbury cathedral was damaged in June.

Many anti-aircraft batteries has male and female personnel. These women of the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) operate a mobile power-plant on an anti-aircraft site in December 1942.

Britain at War, 1942 — Part 1

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Britain was emphatically a nation at war. Food rationing began in January 1940, and that autumn saw the beginning of the London Blitz, with endemic air raids thereafter. A 1940 extension of the 1939 Emergency Powers Act gave the government “complete control over… all persons, rich and poor… and all property.” Britain mobilized a higher proportion of its population than any other combatant: by June 1944, 22% of the working population was in the services and another 33% in war work. Women replaced men in factories, public transport and on the land. Men were not only drafted into the forces, but eventually down the mines as well.

Mrs Minnie Murless of the Wynnstay guest house (above) clips the ration books of her guests. There were weekly forms for butcher and grocer, and every two month the local Food Office required detailed lists of consumption. Fuel and animal food required separate permits.

“Local defense,” reads the original caption, “releases men for overseas offense.” Like most Home Guard units, this one includes those too old or too young for regular service as well as men in some key occupations which spared them regular call-up.

Rail travel was cramped and uncertain. Here a member of the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) and a soldier sit on their luggage in the corridor of a London to Scotland express.

In May 1942 Molotov, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, flew to England to sign a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance. Here he is walking next to Churchill in the garden of No 10 Downing Street. Clement Attlee, Deputy Prime Minister, is shrouded in tobacco smoke in the centre of the photograph, and Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, is just behind Churchill.

Russian ambassador Ivan Maisky accepts the first tank produced under the “Tanks for Russia” scheme. War material was shipped to Russia, often at great cost, in the arctic convoys through the Norwegian and Barents seas.

North Africa — Part 3

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British infantry advance in open order on October 24. The infantry was tasked with “crumbling” Rommel's defences.

An Advanced Dressing Station, October 24. An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps gives a drink to one of the wounded.

German prisoners await transport at El Alamein corner, October 25. Some 30,000 prisoners of war were taken.

General von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps (now an elite minority in the larger German-Italian force in North Africa) introduced to Montgomery after capture, November 4.

Crusader cruiser tanks in pursuit after Alamein.

Cecil Beaton's view of the crew of a Martin Maryland light bomber receiving a last-minute briefing before take-off. Slick co-operation between ground and air forces characterized Montgomery's conduct of the battle in North Africa.

North Africa — Part 2

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The fall of Tobruk on June 21, was a heavy blow to Churchill. Here the first German vehicle to enter the town pauses in front of abandoned vehicles and a sign, couched in Tommy's humour, pointing to a barber shop.

By September 1941 there were nearly 60,000 South African troops in Egypt, 15,000 of them black: all had volunteered to serve outside South Africa, and wore an orange strip on their epaulettes to mark the fact. 1st South African Division was bloodily engaged during Operation Crusader, and the over 10,000 South Africans were captured when Tobruk fell. These South Africans take cover while their truck is bombed, June 4, 1942.

German tanks roll eastwards following British withdrawal from Gazala.

One of a series of photographs taken in July, just after Rommel had been checked at “First Alamein,” showing British guardsmen practising an advance with tanks. At this juncture the “brave but baffled” 8th Army was holding a strong position just west of the little railway halt of El Alamein, but it did not fully find its feet until the arrival of Montgomery in mid-August.

German reinforcements moving up by train to the El Alamein front in October.

Montgomery preferred to let metal, not flesh, do the business of battle. On the night of October 23-24, 882 guns pounded the Axis defences before his men began to break into them.

North Africa — Part 1

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In 1942, Allied fortunes in North Africa ebbed at first, when the German General Erwin Rommel turned the strong defensive line running from Gazala on the coast to Bir Hacheim in the desert, took Tobruk, and went on to cross the Egyptian frontier. There he was checked, initially at First Alamein on July 1, and then at Alam Haifa at the very end of September. In October, British General Montgomery, the newly appointed commander of 8th Army, won the battle of El Alamein. The following month an Allied army landed in French North Africa, catching Axis forces in the theatre in a gigantic pincer which would eventually snap shut in 1943. Above, A Hudson MkVI bomber over the Pyramids, Summer 1942.

A January 1942 photograph of an Italian convoy caught by the RAF on the coast road during Rommel's withdrawal the previous month.

Although this photograph is blurred and undated (though it passed the censor in 1942) it gives a good impression of infantry of the 4th Indian Division moving up with a shell bursting dangerously close.

The British might have won the Gazala battles of May-June 1942, but superior German generalship and all-arms tactics eventually proved too much for them. Neverthrless, the Germans did not have it all their own way. Here a new U.S.-supplied Grant tank, which mounted a 75mm gun in its hull and a 37mm in the turret, passes a burning German tank.

A 25-pounder in action at night, June 2. These weapons were often used in the anti-tank role in the desert, and during the Gazala battles their detachments frequently fought them to a finish as German tanks overran their positions.

The Stuka dive-bomber, so useful for providing close air support, was very vulnerable without fighter support. These Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters aircraft wait at their desert strip while ground crew snatch an alfresco lunch.

The Eastern Front — 1942

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In Russia the Germans survived the crisis of the Russian winter counteroffensive, and in April 1942 Hitler issued orders for Operation Blue, a major offensive in the south aimed at the oilfields of the Caucasus. In June the attack began well, with scenes reminiscent of victories the previous year, and the Germans pushed deep into the Caucasus. But by mid-September the offensive had stalled, and German 6th Army was making heavy weather of its attack on Stalingrad, on the Volga. On November 19, the Russians launched carefully husbanded reserves to began the attack which led to the encirclement of the 6th Army in one of the war's most terrible battles. Above, a Russian heavy machine-gun in the snow, winter 1941-42.

The Russian winter not only caught the Germans without proper clothing but caused serious difficulties for vehicles not designed with this climate in mind. Here a tank drags an assault gun from a snowdrift.

Although the Germans occupied the Crimea in 1941, the naval base of Sevastopol held out. It was eventually taken in July 1942 after heavy bombardments which reduced the city to rubble.

In early August 6th Army destroyed most of a Russian army in the bend of the Don north of Kalach. This is the apocalyptic scene on the river bank in the first week of August.

Operation Edelweiss, initiated when Hitler cancelled Operation Blue in July, sent Army Group A deep into the Caucasus. Here a German anti-tank unit is silhouetted by smoke from burning oilfields at Maikop, fired by their defenders, in the last week of August.

Operation Heron saw Army Group B drive for the Volga with the aim of taking Stalingrad and extending down the river as far as Astrakhan. Here German infantry move up as Stalingrad burns on the horizon.

The bitter fighting at Stalingrad placed overwhelming emphasis on the courage and determination of small groups of men fighting in what soon became a blighted landscape. Here a German machine-gun detachment — the empty ammunition boxes to its rear are evidence of heavy fighting — defends the ruins of suburban cottages.

A German infantry officer, whose decorations include the Iron Cross 1st Class and the infantry assault badge, issues orders. The soldier on the left has equipped himself with a captured Russian sub-machine gun.

After the encirclement of Stalingrad Hitler gave Manstein command of the newly created Army Group Don and ordered him to break into the pocket. Here a German tank hits a Russian mine during an abortive counterattack, December 20.

Friedrich Paulus, commander of 6th Army, was promoted to field-marshal on 30 January in Hitler's expectation that he would commit suicide rather than capitulate. However, he surrendered the following day. These Russian officers — the term was reintroduced by Stalin in 1942 — are still wearing collar rank badges, soon to be replaced by tsarist-style shoulder boards, all part of an attempt to restore the army's morale and efficiency.

The Germans lost some 200,000 men at Stalingrad: most of their prisoners of war did not survive captivity. Here a column of prisoners winds its way across the frozen steppe. Those in white fur hats are Romanians: defeat at Stalingrad struck a chill into Germany's allies.

The Battle of Midway

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The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle widely regarded as the most important of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. It took place between and June 4-7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese navy and seizing the strategic initiative. Above, U.S. Douglas Dauntless planes fly high above a burning Japanese carrier.

The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, aimed to eliminate the United States as a strategic Pacific power, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War on conditions favorable to Japan.

The Japanese plan was designed to lure the United States’ few remaining carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa. The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of American reaction and poor initial dispositions.

The carrier U.S.S. Yorktown at Midway under air attack which damaged her badly, leaving her to be finished off by a submarine on June 7, 1942.

American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk in exchange for one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. The heavy losses, particularly the four fleet carriers and their aircrews, permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan was unable to keep pace with American shipbuilding and pilot training programs in providing replacements.

The Battle for the Pacific

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Japanese strategy in the Pacific was initially successful, and a shortlived ABDA (American-British-Dutch-Australian) Command collapsed before the Japanese advance. But although the Japanese won the battle of the Java Sea in February and hammered the British Admiral Somerville's Far Eastern Fleet on a raid into the Indian Ocean in April, they lost a carrier in the Coral Sea in May. The following month they lost four large carriers at Midway, and with them the prospect of maintaining the initiative in the central Pacific.

Above, the cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall under air attack, April 5 — both were sunk. So great was the superiority shown by Japanese aircraft on the Indian Ocean raid that Somerville sent his elderly battleships to safety in the East African port of Mombasa.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first major naval action in which opposing warships did not sight one another. American aircraft sank the light carrier Shoho, but the USS Lexington — “Lady Lex” — was hit by bombs and torpedoes and sank after a huge internal explosion. Here members of her crew can be seen
jumping from the stricken vessel.

In May the Japanese attacked the island of Midway, then America's most westerly outpost, having first diverted part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet to the north. On June 4, Japanese aircraft attacked Midway, doing widespread damage and killing these servicemen (above).

Bataan

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Although the Philippines had become an autonomous commonwealth in 1935, in 1941 the United States integrated its armed forces into the American military, and General Douglas MacArthur, military adviser to the Philippine government, was recalled to active duty and appointed Far East army commander. The northern Philippines were invaded in December 1941, and, profiting from air and sea superiority, the Japanese soon overran the islands, with the exception of the Bataan Peninsula on Luzon and the island fortress of Corregidor. After brave resistance Bataan fell on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor on May 6. MacArthur himself, on Roosevelt's order, was evacuated in a fast patrol boat. About 78,000 survivors of the fighting on Bataan (above) were herded on a 65-mile (105-km) "death march" on which many of them died from exhaustion or the brutal treatment of their guards.

American victims of the death march (above). In the controversial Far East war crimes trials the Japanese Lieutenant General Homma Masaharu was held responsible for the death march, whose excesses he blamed on officers under his command: he was executed on April 3, 1946.

The Japanese in Burma

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The fall of Malaya and Singapore left the Japanese free to turn their attention to Burma, where the British were to wage their longest Second World War campaign. Yet it was certainly not an exclusively British campaign, for Indian and African troops, along with combatants from many of Burma's indigenous peoples, fought in it, and American aircraft and special forces played their own distinguished part. Invasion proper began on January 19, 1942, the Japanese cut the land route between India and China in April, and by May the surviving defenders, now commanded by Lieutenant General “Bill” Slim, had reached the borders of India after a gruelling retreat. The photograph above, which just predates the Japanese invasion, shows Indian troops, upon whom the defence of Burma largely depended, marching past a pagoda.

The British destroyed much equipment m order to prevent it from falling into Japanese hands. Here the task of demolition goes on.

Although photographs like this were useful for propaganda purposes, this shot of Japanese entry into the southern Burmese town of Tavoy makes the point that many Burmese regarded Japanese invasion as an opportunity to escape British rule.

Japanese Invasion of Singapore

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After landing in Thailand and Malaya on December 8, 1941, the Japanese moved swiftly southwards and on January the causeway linking Singapore island with the mainland was blown by British engineers. On the night of February 8, the Japanese crossed the Johore Strait, and made good progress against a disorganized defense. Although Churchill had ordered that the battle should be fought “to the bitter end,” the loss of much of the city’s water supply persuaded Lieutenant General Arthur Percival to surrender. Churchill called the surrender, of some 85,000 men, “the worst disaster… in British military history.”

Singapore’s coast defense guns, like this one, became the topic of ill-informed postwar criticism. They were designed to engage warships, and so they naturally pointed out to sea — though some could also fire inland. From 1937, British planners recognized that the main threat to Singapore came from landings to it’s North.

Some women, children, and key specialists were evacuated. The decision as to whether wives and children should be evacuated was an agonizing one, and for many families this grim parting in Singapore’s bomb-ravaged docks was the last.

Surrender negotiations began at 11:30 on the morning of Sunday, February 15th, when a ceasefire was arranged. There was a surrender ceremony in the Ford factory at Bukit Timah that afternoon: the British delegation was kept waiting outside before it began.

Japan Advances in Southeast Asia

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The raid on Pearl Harbor was part of a coordinated plan for attack on U.S., British and Dutch bases across a wide area. Japan's opponents were over-extended and ill-prepared, and the Japanese initially met with stunning success, snatching Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong from the British, taking the American commonwealth of the Philippines and swamping the Dutch East Indies.

Indian troops (above) manning a coast defense gun at Hong Kong. Both Hong Kong and Singapore were well-provided with guns to face a naval threat, but lacked the resources to deal with an invasion from inland.

Pearl Harbor

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In mid 1941, America reacted to Japanese occupation of French Indo-China by freezing Japanese assets. In October Prince Konoye's moderate cabinet was replaced by a government headed by General Tojo, and, despite the recognition by several leading figures that she could not win a long war, Japan prepared a devastating strike. On December 7, carrier-borne aircraft struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Surprise was complete, although the Americans had received warnings which should have enabled them to meet the attack. American losses were heavy, but aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the carnage.

Above, Battleship row at Pearl Harbor. From left to right are the USS West Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona. All three, along with the battleships California and Nevada eventually sank, but only Arizona and Oklahoma were total losses.

Anti-aircraft fire bursts among Japanese aircraft attacking the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft.

Small craft rescue survivors from the battleship USS California, sunk by Japanese aircraft. The Americans suffered over 3,000 casualties in the attack.

Roosevelt denounced December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy,” and, here, grim-faced, signs a declaration of war against Japan. Some historians have suggested that the Japanese attack gave him a pretext for action he wished to take in any event, but the extant evidence does not prove his complicity in what may best be seen as “the ultimate intelligence blunder.”

The Siege of Leningrad

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Leningrad, now known by its old name of St Petersburg, was encircled by the advancing Germans, and in the ensuing siege perhaps one million soldiers and citizens died. These civilians have been killed by German shelling.

The Russians kept Leningrad supplied by running trucks across the frozen Lake Ladoga.

The Russian Winter — 1941

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The Russian counterattack of December 1941 used troops trained and equipped to operate in the sub-zero conditions. German commanders were badly shaken, and Hitler assumed personal command of the army, ordering his men to hold on regardless of cost.

A nation at war: members of the Moscow Young Communists digging an anti-tank ditch outside the Russian capital.

German prisoners captured during the Russian winter offensive. It is unlikely that any of the soldiers depicted here survived the war.

Murder in Russia

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This photograph, released by the Russians in January 1942, shows the bodies of civilians shot by the Germans in a schoolyard at Rostov-on-Don.

German occupation was harsh and helped alienate national groups who had initially welcomed the Germans. This undated photograph, attributed by its original caption to a captured German soldier, shows a German officer hanging a prisoner.

Much of the city was reduced to rubble by the German forces who occupied it twice during the Great Patriotic War — in 1941 and 1942. The first occupation was in the autumn 1941. It lasted seven days. In the plans of Hitler's generals Rostov was a city of special importance, a strategic railway junction and a river port, a gateway to the Caucasus, rich in minerals, especially in oil. The city was badly damaged by bombing. The best units of the Nazi tank army were driven out of Rostov. But in summer the 1942, the Nazi army managed to occupy the city for the second time. The second occupation lasted seven months. It took ten years to raise the city from the ruins.

Barbarrosa in the Ukraine

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A German machine gun post (above) covers a street in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, which was taken by Rundstedt's German Army Group South in October 1941.

During World War II, Kharkov was the site of several military engagements. The city was captured by the German Army on October 24, 1941, and its military allies, recaptured by the Red Army, captured a second time by the Germans on May 24,1942; retaken by the Soviets on February 16, 1943, captured for a third time by Germans on March 16, 1943 and then finally liberated on August 23, 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. It is mentioned that Kharkov was the most populous city in the Soviet Union occupied by Nazis, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was the smaller of the two by population.

Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (mostly Jewish) were killed by the Germans. They were laid to rest in a large mass grave that located at Drobitsky Yar.

The Eastern Front — Part II

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In Russia in 1941 the Germans profited, as they had in Poland in 1939 and France and the Low Countries in 1940, from very effective air support. This shot shows a camouflaged Russian airfield under what the original caption terms “a hail of bombs.”

The reality of the advance through Russia, September 1941. Most German soldiers, like their fathers and grandfathers, went into battle on foot, with horse-drawn transport.

The German armoured thrusts into Russia linked to create vast pockets whose occupant defenders were captured: the Germans claimed over 400,000 prisoners by July 11, 1941.

The Eastern Front

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Despite his 1939 rapprochement with Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler never abandoned plans for an attack on Russia, which he planned to reduce to “a German India.” In December 1940 he issued a directive for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. His army was not ready for a long war: many units had French or Czech equipment and were below strength, and operations in the Balkans delayed the attack. Stalin had some warning of invasion, and the disposition of Russian forces, concentrated on the frontier, induces some historians to suggest that he planned an offensive of his own. The attack, on June 22, proved brilliantly successful, but ran out of steam in December, when the Russians launched serious counteroffensives. German tanks (above) form up for the attack on the open terrain that characterized much of the Eastern Front, July 1941.

The cameraman's location and lack of uniformity amongst the gun detachment suggests that this shot of a German anti-tank gun taking on Soviet armour in July is authentic.

The German army remained two-tier, with its panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions representing the tip of a spear whose shaft comprised units which would not have looked out of place a generation earlier. German cavalry crosses a bridge in Russia, summer 1941.

The Sinking of the Bismarck

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Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the German navy, planned a two-pronged sortie into the North Atlantic by the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugenfrom the north and the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenaufrom the French port of Brest. Damage to several vessels reduced this to a single thrust by the Bismarck group under Admiral Günther Lütyens. Although Bismarck and Prinz Eugen broke out into the Atlantic — sinking HMS Hood — Bismarck was caught making for France, damaged by air attack, battered into a hulk by superior British forces and either sunk by Dorsetshire's torpedoes or scuttled by her crew.

Bismarck triumphant: the German battleship (above) engaging the old battlecruiser HMS Hood in the Denmark Strait on May 24. A hit from one of the German warships caused a massive explosion which sank Hood: only three of her complement of 1,421 survived.

Bismarck, on fire in the distance, engaged by the battleship HMS Rodney on May 27. Damage incurred in the Denmark Strait action had forced Bismarck to turn back, and an air-dropped torpedo had damaged her rudder. Although she shot well at the start of her final action, her inability to manoeuvre was a fatal disadvantage.

Survivors from Bismarck are pulled aboard HMS Dorsetshire. There were only 117 survivors from her company of 2,200: Admiral Lütyens was among those lost.

Lend-Lease

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Though President Roosevelt was firmly convinced that an Axis victory would be disastrous, isolationism in Congress and the electorate compelled him to proceed with caution. In December 1940 Churchill told him of the damage done by German submarines, and warned that the time was approaching when Britain would not be able to pay for munitions. The Lend-Lease bill, introduced into Congress in January 1941, empowered the president to transfer any defense material to any nation whose defense he believed vital to United States’ interests. Although isolationists fought hard, the bill became law in March, and proved a key turning-point in US foreign policy.

Although the Thompson sub-machine gun was not an ideal military weapon (above), its American symbolism, arising from prewar gangster films, made it another propaganda coup. The British soon replaced it by the cheaper and lighter Sten, though it remained in limited service.

Hess Attempts Peace

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Rudolf Hess (above) drifted into politics after the First World War and quickly fell under the spell of Hitler, who he regarded as “the incarnation of pure reason.” He became Hitler's deputy in 1933, but thereafter slipped out of the inner circle. On May 10, 1941, he flew to Scotland in an effort, he claimed, to negotiate peace between Britain and Germany, “two related northern states.” Hitler, who almost certainly had no knowledge of the attempt, at once disclaimed him. At Nuremberg he received a life sentence for crimes against peace, and was incarcerated in Berlin's Spandau prison, where he committed suicide in 1987. This image (below) shows RAF personnel posing with the wreckage of Hess's crashed Messerschmitt Bf 110.

More Middle East

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The British maintained a horsed cavalry brigade of one regular and two yeomanry regiments in Palestine. These yeomen (above) ride along the coast road on their way into Syria on the last occasion that British
cavalry went on campaign mounted.

Armistice terms allowed French soldiers to choose between repatriation or service with the Free French. Much to de Gaulle's annoyance, only about 6,000 of Dentz's troops opted for Free France, while over 20,000 were repatriated. This photograph (below) shows French soldiers waiting to register their preferences in Beirut.

The Middle East

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A treaty permitted the stationing of British troops in Iraq, but in May the Iraqis, emboldened by Britain's misfortunes elsewhere, besieged the air base at Habbaniya. Churchill, concerned about the threat of oil supplies and the danger of German build-up, ordered Wavell to send troops from Palestine to relieve it, but when they arrived the siege had been lifted. In Syria and the Lebanon substantial French forces under General Dentz remained loyal to the Vichy regime. When they gave aid to the Iraqis and allowed German aircraft to land, the British decided to take action. Although Free French, as well as Australian, British and Indian units participated in the invasion, which began in June, Vichy troops fought with unexpected determination, and an armistice was not signed till July 14, 1941.

Above, an RAF armoured car from the Habbaniya base enters Fort Rutbah, Iraq, on May 16. There were few Germans and Italians in Iraq, and the pro-Axis elements in Iraq lacked both troops and a cohesive
plan: Baghdad itself fell on May 31.

After the German invasion of Russia, British and Russian troops jointly invaded Iran, where German influence was strong, in August 1941 to secure an overland route to Russia. A captured Iranian officer (below) talks to a British officer, through an interpreter, near an Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refinery at the head of the Gulf.

The Atlantic Charter

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In July 1941, presidential envoy Harry Hopkins told British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that President Roosevelt would like a personal meeting. Churchill grasped the opportunity to draw the U.S. closer to the beleaguered Britain. The meeting took place in early August off Newfoundland. Churchill arrived in the HMS Prince of Wales and Roosevelt in the USS Augusta. Roosevelt suggested a joint declaration of principles, and the Atlantic Charter, agreed on August 12, bound both states to forswear territorial aggrandisement, support self-determination and establish a peace bringing "freedom from want."

Despite its bland tone, the Charter aligned the U.S. — though still technically neutral — firmly against Germany. One of the least-posed of a series of photographs of the meeting (above) shows Roosevelt and Churchill with General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff (over Churchill's left shoulder) and, on Marshall's right, Admiral Ernest J.King, later Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. fleet. The balding civilian in profile is U.S. Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who helped his British opposite number, Sir Alexander Cadogan, to prepare the Charter.

The Balkans and Greece

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The Italians invaded Greece in October 1940, and although the Greeks repelled the attack, the Germans concentrated in Romania for an assault of their own. Churchill, insistent that "the cradle of democracy" should be defended, ordered Wavell, Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, to send troops from North Africa to Greece. More than 50,000 British, Australian, New Zealand and Polish troops were sent, gravely weakening Britain's grip on the Western Desert at just the time that Rommel was making his presence felt. On April 6, the Germans attacked Yugoslavia and Greece: the Yugoslavs surrendered on April 17 and the Greeks on April 24.

On March 1, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact of Germany, Italy and Japan. The caption to this German photograph of the march through Bulgaria (above) recalls “the armed brotherhood of the First World War,” when Bulgaria was a German ally.

Below, German tanks advancing through Greece in April circumvent a destroyed road by using railway tracks.

Stukas Over North Africa

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Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers on their way to attack British tanks at Ghobi, November 23, 1941, during the hard fought but ultimately successful British offensive, codenamed Operation Crusader.

Tobruk

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Port installations burning (above) at Tobruk on January 24, 1941.

The Siege of Tobruk was a lengthy confrontation between Axis and Allied forces in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The siege started on April 10, 1941, when Tobruk was attacked by an Italian-German force under Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel and continued for 240 days, when it was relieved by the Eighth Army during Operation Crusader.

For much of the siege, Tobruk was defended by the reinforced Australian 9th Division under Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead. General Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief of British Middle East Command, instructed Morshead to hold the fortress for eight weeks, but the 9th Australian Division held it for over five months, before being gradually withdrawn during September and replaced by the British 70th Infantry Division, the Polish Carpathian Brigade and Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion (East) under the overall command of Major-General Ronald Scobie. The fresh defenders continued to hold Tobruk until they were able to link with the advancing Eighth Army at the end of November during Operation Crusader.

The Royal Navy played an important role in Tobruk's defence, providing gunfire support, supplies, fresh troops and ferrying out the wounded.

Maintaining control of Tobruk was crucial to the Allied war effort. Other than Benghazi, Tobruk was home to the only other major port on the African coast between Tripoli and Alexandria. Had the Allies lost it, the German and Italian supply lines would have been drastically shortened. Furthermore, Rommel was in no position to attack across the Egyptian border towards Cairo and Alexandria while the Tobruk garrison threatened the lines of supply to his front-line units.

Tobruk marked the first time that the Blitzkrieg of the German Panzers had been successfully brought to a halt. Following Operation Crusader the siege of Tobruk was lifted in December 1941. However in 1942, after defeating allied forces in the Battle of Gazala, Axis forces captured the fortress.

A British 5-inch gun, little changed since the First World War, bombarding German positions from besieged Tobruk, May 1941 (below).

War in the Western Desert

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Italy had entered the war against France and Britain on June 10, 1940, following German successes in the west and she seemed likely to exploit her strong position in the Mediterranean. In September, Italian troops in Libya advanced to the Egyptian frontier, but in December a British attack not only overran Italian frontier positions but took the port of Tobruk and drove deep into Libya. In February 1941, however, German troops began to arrive, and soon, under their aggressive commander, Erwin Rommel, pushed the British back. For more than eighteen months the war in the Western Desert was to ebb and flow between El Agheila and El Alamein. A pile of captured weapons (above) marks the scale of the Italian defeat, January 1941.

A long column of disconsolate Italian prisoners (below) winds its way into captivity.

The “Desert Fox”

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Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel — the “Desert Fox” — was perhaps the most famous German Field Marshal of World War II. He was a highly decorated officer in World War I, being awarded the Pour le Mérite for his exploits on the Italian front. In World War II, he further distinguished himself as the commander of the "Ghost Division" during the 1940 invasion of France. However, it was his masterful leadership of the Deutsches Afrikakorps in the North African campaign that established the legend of the Desert Fox. He is thought by many to have been the most skilled commander of desert warfare in the war. He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion at Normandy.

Rommel is considered to be a chivalrous and humane military officer, in contrast with many other figures of Nazi Germany. His famous Afrikakorps was not accused of any war crimes. Indeed, soldiers captured during his Africa campaign were reported to have been largely treated humanely. Furthermore, orders to kill captured Jewish soldiers and civilians out of hand in all theatres of his command were defiantly ignored.

He was suspected of involvement in the failed July 20 Plot of 1944 to kill Adolf Hitler. Because of his great prestige, he was allowed to commit suicide.

The Italians in North Africa

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The Italians had a quarter of a million men under Marshal Balbo in Libya. Balbo was shot down by his own anti-aircraft guns over Tobruk and his successor, General Graziani, advanced cautiously to the Egyptian frontier where he prepared a line of forts. On December 7, 1940, Major General O'Connor began a large-scale raid on the forts with his Western Desert Force of 31,000 men. On December 9, the forts were taken and the coast road was cut between Sid Barrani and Buq-Buq behind them. O'Connor converted the raid into a sustained advance, overrunning the whole of Cyrenaica and taking some 130,000 prisoners.

The desert was often rocky, and at night its temperature dropped. These British troops (above) in a defensive position at Bardia on December 31, 1940 are wearing greatcoats.

Below, a photo taken December 10, 1940. An Italian strides off into captivity with his dog.

Living with “The Blitz”

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As the nightly German attacks over London continued, the city’s Underground railway stations were used as air raid shelters (above). The authorities disapproved of the practice at first, but then did what they could to make them more comfortable, and life underground soon developed its own culture. These Londoners are sleeping on the escalators in one London tube station.

In a mimicry of death, shop dummies lie on the pavement (above) after a London department store was hit.

At the height of the Blitz, most of the 1,500,000 people serving in the various fire, civil defence, shelter and casualty organizations were part-time volunteers. Here a rescue party (below) — with the double R designation on its steel helmets — removes a Blitz victim from rubble.

The Blitz

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The Blitz — an abbreviation of Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) — was the name given to German attacks on British cities in 1940-41. London was bombed by accident on the night of August 24, and the RAF responded by bombing Berlin the following night. In early September, Goering unwisely shifted the Luftwaffe's main effort from airfields to cities, and “Black Saturday,” September 7, saw the first major raid on London. When the Blitz ended in May 1941, over 43,000 civilians had been killed and great tracts of ancient cities and industrial centres devastated — but popular resolve had not been broken.

The Blitz did not just hit London and major provincial cities like Bristol and Liverpool. Here Churchill inspects bomb damage (above) in little Ramsgate.

On November 13, German bombers struck Coventry in the midlands, destroying not only twelve armaments factories but also part of the city centre and the 14th-Century cathedral (below).

The Luftwaffe Grounded

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Spectators at the wreckage of a Dornier Do 17, shot down in England on August 12, 1940. Between July 10 and October 31, the Luftwaffe lost some 1,294 aircraft to the RAF's approximately 788 aircraft.

Heinkels Over London

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One of the war's classic photographs (above): A Heinkel He 111 over Wapping, England on “Black Saturday,” September 7, 1940 — the first day of the offensive against London. 300 tons of bombs were dropped and about 2,000 civilians killed or seriously injured.

Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Thurz at the controls of a Heinkel He 111 bomber (below).

Hurricanes in Britain

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British R.A.F. pilots relied on hard-working ground crews. Here the wing-mounted machine guns of a Hurricane Mk 1 (above) are re-armed: great care is taken to avoid jam-inducing kinks in the belted ammunition.

Two Hurricanes from 501 Squadron (below) scramble from Hawkinge, August 16, 1940. Although the Hurricane was slower than the more modern Spitfire, it nevertheless played a distinguished part in the battle.

Barrage Balloons in Britain

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In 1938, the British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports and harbours. Balloons were intended to defend against dive bombers flying at heights up to 5,000 feet, forcing them to fly higher and into the range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire — anti-aircraft guns could not traverse fast enough to attack aircraft flying at low altitude and high speed. By the middle of 1940 there were 1,400 balloons, a third of them over the London area.

While dive-bombers were devastatingly effective against undefended targets, such as Guernica and Rotterdam, they were very vulnerable to attack by fighter aircraft, and their use by Germany against Britain with its effective Royal Air Force was rapidly discontinued. Balloons proved to be of little use against the German high-level bombers with which the dive-bombers were replaced, but continued to be manufactured nonetheless, until there were almost 3,000 in 1944. They proved to be mildly effective against the V-1 flying bomb, which usually flew at 2,000 feet or lower but had wire-cutters on its wings to counter balloons. Two hundred and thirty-one V-1s are officially claimed to have been destroyed by balloons.

Many bombers were equipped with devices to cut barrage balloon cables. Britain used large numbers of balloons, so Germany developed the most capable cable-cutters. Their systems consisted of small C-shaped devices attached to the leading edge of the wing. When a cable entered the device after sliding down the wing, it triggered a small explosive charge that drove a blade through the cable. British bombers were also equipped with cable-cutters although the Germans used few barrage balloons.

The British added two refinements to their balloons, "Double Parachute Link" (DPL) and "Double Parachute/Ripping" (DP/R). The former was triggered by the shock of an enemy bomber snagging the cable, causing that section of cable to be explosively released complete with parachutes at either end; the combined weight and drag bringing down the aircraft. The latter was intended to render the balloon safe if it broke free accidentally. The heavy mooring cable would separate at the balloon and fall to the ground under a parachute; at the same time a panel would be ripped away from the balloon causing it to deflate and fall independently to the ground.

Watching the Skies Over Britain

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The Operations Room at RAF Bentley Priory, Fighter Command's headquarters is seen above. Symbols representing squadrons are moved across the map, while senior officers in the gallery above control the battle.

Civilian volunteers of the Royal Observer Corps (below) reported the numbers, direction and type on incoming enemy aircraft. Here an observer plots the height of a German formation.

Preparations for Invasion

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The German invasion of Britain could not succeed without air superiority, and on July 10, 1940, the Luftwaffe began to attack shipping in the English Channel. A week later Hitler issued orders for “Operation Sealion,” and in August, bombers struck airfields of the R.A.F.’s (Royal Air Force) Fighter Command. Both sides consistently over-estimated the number of enemy aircraft destroyed, but the R.A.F. was never as badly weakened as the Germans supposed — and while German pilots who parachuted were captured, their British counterparts could fight on. In early September, German efforts were fatally handicapped by Luftwaffe head Herman Goering’s diversion of resources to bombing cities, and “Sealion” was postponed on September 17th.

A Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) operator in England plots targets (above). Primitive radar was heavily dependent on skilled users.

German preparations for “Operation Sealion” included experiments with amphibious tanks (below).

More British Preparations

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As England prepared for impending invasion by Germany’s armed and naval forces, beach defenses transformed the British coast. These little girls (above) look wistfully at the wired-off sand where they normally would’ve been allowed to play in the peaceful days prior.

When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was asked what should be done with “enemy aliens” — German and Italian citizens in England at the outbreak of war (many of them refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish) — his reply was characteristic: “Collar the lot.” Here on May 29, 1940, women and children (below), escorted by police and officials, board a train which will take them to internment on the Isle of Man.

Britain Prepares

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With the fall of France, Britain stood alone and Churchill presciently informed his countrymen that Hitler would have to “break us in this island or lose the war.” Serious preparations were made to meet an invasion, although, with so much of its equipment lost in France, the army was pitifully weak. The evacuation of children from London and other major cities, begun the previous year but reversed (despite government pleas) as many children returned to the cities when air attacks did not materialize, resumed, and Britain braced itself for a long war.

The battle of France was still being fought when these little evacuees left London (above). A policeman is checking one little tot's label to make sure she boards the right train.

Signposts and other direction indicators (below), which would have helped the invaders to find their way around the country, were taken down.

Government Trouble in France

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On the night of June 16-17, 1940, the French government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain requested an armistice. But not all Frenchmen were prepared to accept it. Charles de Gaulle, a recently-promoted brigadier general who had fought with some success in the campaign, left for England, and on June 18, he broadcast on the BBC, urging his countrymen to continue the fight on, and ten days later the British recognized him as the leader of all free Frenchmen. The relationship between Churchill and de Gaulle was never comfortable, but thanks to de Gaulle the flame of France's national honour was kept alight.

Marshal Petain, head of the French state established at the spa town of Vichy, shaking hands with Hitler (above).

Charles de Gaulle accompanies King George VI (below) in an inspection of Free French troops, summer 1940.

The Occupation of the Channel Islands

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The Channel Islands were the only part of the United Kingdom to be occupied by German forces. The two main islands, Jersey and Guernsey were bombed on June 28, and German troops began unopposed landings two days later. The occupation was in fact harsher than was once suggested, and there is evidence of collaboration by the islands' authorities in round-up and deportation of Jews. This uncomfortable image, with its heavy propaganda message, shows a policeman opening the door for the German commandant of the Channel Islands, whose hotel headquarters on Guernsey still bears the Automobile Association emblem awarded in happier times.

The Führer Conquers Paris

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German leader Adolf Hitler triumphant on his only visit to Paris, June 23, 1940.

Nazis in Paris

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In one of the French campaign's most durable images (note the film truck in the background) German troops parade through Paris, May 1940.

Covering the Armistice

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CBS correspondent William Shirer (center) types his account of the armistice. In the background is the hall which had housed the railway carriage in which the 1918 ceremony was concluded. The carriage was taken to Germany where it was destroyed later in the war in an air raid.

The Fall of France

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The French garrison of Lille fought on while the Dunkirk evacuation proceeded, but with the collapse in the north the Germans regrouped and struck southwards. There was more heavy fighting in the often-neglected part of the campaign. The British 51st Highland Division, a fine Scots Territorial formation which had been fighting under French command, was forced to surrender at St Valery-en-Caux on June 12. The Germans entered Paris on June 14, and on June 22, an armistice was signed at Rethondes, in the Forest of Compiègne — scene of the 1918 armistice negotiations.

German air power was dominant throughout the campaign. The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber (above) with its characteristic gull-winged silhouette, acted as "flying artillery" for advancing German tanks.

Major General Erwin Rommel (below), Commander of 7th Panzer Division, in satisfied mood at St-Valéry, June 12th. A grim-faced Major General Fortune of the 51st Highland Division stands behind him.

The Miracle of Dunkirk

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The Dunkirk evacuation, code named “Operation Dynamo” by the British, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4 1940, when British, French and Canadian troops were cut off by the German army during the Battle of Dunkirk.

In a speech to the House of Commons, which has since come to be known as “We Shall Fight on the Beaches,” Winston Churchill called it the greatest military defeat for many centuries, warning that “the whole root, the core, and brain of the British Army” was stranded in Dunkirk. He hailed their subsequent rescue as a "miracle of deliverance."

On the first day only 7,010 men were evacuated but by the ninth day a total of 338,226 soldiers — 198,229 British and 139,997 French — were rescued by the hastily-assembled fleet of 860 boats. Many of the troops were able to embark from the harbor’s protective mole onto 42 British destroyers and other large ships, while others had to wade from the beaches toward the ships, waiting for hours to board, shoulder-deep in water. Others were ferried from the beaches to the larger ships, and thousands were carried back to England, by the famous "little ships of Dunkirk," a flotilla of around 700 merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboats.

The Innocent Victims of War

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In an image taken near Louvain, French refugees flee the German forces and make their way to safety in May 1940.

War Weary Troops

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French prisoners (above) are seen in a makeshift camp, during the summer of 1940. Exhausted Belgian troops (below) make their way on the Louvain-Brussels road. All European armies except the British used substantial numbers of horses in 1940.

British Help in France; Unfortunate Refugees

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Above, a British field gun is seen in action 30 May 1945. German air superiority in the skies over France made artillery deployed in the open especially vulnerable: this gun enjoys the benefit of some cover.

A member of the German 56th Artillery Regiment, on his way to the Channel coast, took this photograph (below) of French refugees killed in an air attack.

Keeping in Touch — Holland 1940

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The field telephone remained at the heart of communications in 1940. A German NCO mans a telephone exchange in a roadside slit trench.

German Paratroops in Holland

2009-03-09T23:18:00.005-05:00

The Battle of Fort Eben-Emael was a battle between Belgian and German forces that took place between 10 May and 11 May, 1940, and was part of the Battle of the Netherlands during Fall Gelb, the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. An assault force of German Fallschirmjäger were tasked with assaulting and capturing Fort Eben-Emael, a Belgian fortress whose artillery pieces dominated several important bridges over the Albert Canal which German forces intended to use to advance into Belgium. As some of the German airborne troops assaulted the fortress and disabled the garrison and the artillery pieces inside it, others simultaneously captured three bridges over the Canal. Having disabled the fortress, the airborne troops were then ordered to protect the bridges against Belgian counter-attacks until they linked up with ground forces from the German 18th Army.

The battle was a decisive victory for the German forces, with the airborne troops landing on top of the fortress via the use of gliders and using explosives and flamethrowers to disable the outer defences of the fortress. The Fallschirmjäger then entered the fortress, killing a number of defenders and containing the rest in the lower sections of the fortress. Simultaneously, the rest of the German assault force had landed near the three bridges over the Canal, destroyed a number of pillboxes and defensive positions and defeated the Belgian forces guarding the bridges, capturing them and bringing them under German control. The airborne troops suffered heavy casualties during the operation, but succeeded in holding the bridges until the arrival of German ground forces, who then aided the airborne troops in assaulting the fortress a second time and forcing the surrender of the remaining members of the garrison. German forces were then able to utilize the three bridges over the Canal to bypass a number of Belgian defensive positions and advance into Belgium to aid in the invasion of the country.

The Rotterdam Blitz

2009-03-08T23:06:00.003-05:00

Holland refused to give way to a German ultimatum, and was duly invaded. Surrender negotiations were under way on May 14, but news failed to reach the German aircraft that bombed Rotterdam, destroying part of the city centre and killing over 800 civilians.

Churchill Becomes Prime Minister

2009-03-07T23:30:00.006-06:00

Churchill had joined the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty on the outbreak of war, and replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister in the furor that followed the disastrous Norwegian campaign. Here he confers with Gort and his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Pownall. The latter pointed out in his diaries that it was not easy to work with Churchill. “Can nobody prevent him,” he wrote on May 24, “trying to conduct operations himself as a sort of super Commander-in-Chief?” However, Churchill’s energy and resolve had a terrific impact on the British war effort: his flaws, like his strengths, were on a grand scale, but he was the man of the hour. This image was taken in France on November 5, 1939, while Churchill was still First Lord of the Admiralty.

Keeping an Eye on Norwegian Skies

2009-03-06T17:12:00.003-06:00

German air power played a crucial role in the attacks on Norway. This photograph shows a Bofors light anti-aircraft gun defending a Norwegian port: large quantities of ammunition and extemporized defences (fish-boxes filled with rubble) testify to its authenticity.

The German Invasion of Norway

2009-03-04T22:40:00.003-06:00

German soldiers (above) disembarking in Norway on April 9, 1940. They used a variety of warships and civilian vessels and achieved almost total surprise.

German troops landed by sea at Narvik (below) on April 9, but the Royal Navy attacked and in two engagements, on the April 9 and 13, all German warships and supply vessels were sunk or beached.

Eyes Turn to Norway

2009-03-03T22:27:00.003-06:00

Neutral Norway attracted both Allies and Germans. The northern port of Narvik was the only all-weather outlet for Swedish iron ore, important to Germany, and deep-water channels along the coast, known as the Leads, formed a valuable link between Germany and the North Atlantic. The Allies contemplated seizing Narvik, pushing on to the ore-fields and then aiding the Finns, but resolved to mine the Leads instead. No sooner had they begun, on April 8, than it became clear that a major German invasion was under way: neither fierce Norwegian resistance nor a series of botched Allied countermoves could prevent German occupation, completed by early June.

On February 16, 1940, Graf Spee's homeward-bound supply ship Altmark was boarded by men from HMS Cossack in Jössing Fjord, in Norwegian territorial waters. Almost 300 prisoners were freed, but the incident strained Anglo-Norwegian relations and drew Hitler's attention to the area.

The Russian Invasion of Finland

2009-03-02T22:07:00.003-06:00

When Russia invaded Finland on November 30 1939, the Finns fought back hard. Well-trained ski troops, nicknamed "White Death" inflicted enormous casualties on the Russians, but eventually, weight of numbers and machinery told: in February 1940, the Russians breached the Mannerheim Line between Lake Lagoda and the Gulf of Finland, forcing the Finns to come to terms on March 12, 1940. The image above shows Finnish ski troops passing through a small town, December 20, 1939.

The Battle of the River Plate

2009-02-27T22:50:00.006-06:00

The German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee had left port with her supply ship Altmark before war broke out. She sank nine merchant ships before steaming back to Germany for repairs. On the way her captain, Hans Langsdorff, headed for the River Plate to intercept a convoy, but was met by Commodore Henry Harwood's Force G with the light cruisers Ajax and Achillesand the larger Exeter. Although the British warships were damaged, Langsdorff was forced to put into Montevideo in neutral Uruguay. Compelled to leave, he scuttled his ship and later committed suicide.

Above, the Admiral Graf Spee scuttled on the orders of her captain, in flames in the River Plate off Montevideo on December 17, 1939.

British Expeditionary Force

2009-02-26T23:03:00.004-06:00

Leading elements of the BEF arrive in France, September 1939 (above). Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the British Expeditionary Force was sent to the Franco-Belgian border. By May 1940, when the German attack began, it consisted of ten infantry divisions in three corps (I, II, and III), 1st Army Tank Brigade and a RAF detachment of about 500 aircraft, the BEF Air Component. Also in France was a separate long-range RAF force, the Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF). Commanded by General Lord Gort, although constituting only a tenth of the defending Allied force it sustained heavy losses during the German advance and most of the remainder (roughly 330,000 men) were evacuated from Dunkirk between May 26 and June 4, 1940, leaving much of their equipment behind. However, the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division was left behind at Saint-Valery-en-Caux, as it was not trapped by the Germans at the time; it surrendered along with elements of the French 10th Army later in June. The short lived second Expeditionary Force commanded by General Alan Brooke was evacuated from Western France during Operation Ariel.

Although the censor has blacked out details that might give a clue to the location of these railway wagons (below), there are the same "40 men-8 horses" wagons familiar to British soldiers of an earlier war, on the way to the British concentration area around Arras.

France Prepares For War

2009-02-25T22:59:00.004-06:00

France planned to fight a long war, with the Maginot Line safeguarding her from German attack while her war machine gradually built up speed. The French army was a mixture of ancient and modern, with infantry and artillery reminiscent of 1918 and, although it had some good tanks, too many of these were allocated to infantry support. Lord Gort's British Expeditionary Force (BEF) went to France in 1939 and established its headquarters at Arras, in the midst of World War One battlefields remembered by many of its members. French infantry is seen on the march (above), September 1939.

Below, French tanks on manoeuvres, autumn 1939. When the Germans invaded on 10 May 1940, France could field 2,285 tanks on her north-eastern front.

German-Russian Happy Times

2009-02-24T22:37:00.004-06:00

The best of friends? Russian and German officers chat at Brest-Litovsk on September 18, 1939. The Russians show their rank on collar badges: the traditional epaulettes, hated symbol of the tsarist officer class, were to appear after the German invasion. The black-uniformed German is a panzer officer. In less than two years, these men would be trying to kill each other.

The Führer at the Front

2009-02-23T22:31:00.003-06:00

Adolf Hitler made several trips to the Polish front in September 1939. Here he receives the salute of General der Panzertruppen Heinz Guderian, one of the authors of the blitzkrieg that made German victory possible.

Polish Resistance Fails

2009-02-21T14:09:00.006-06:00

The remnants of the garrison of Warsaw, marching out of the city (above) after its surrender, September 27, 1939. Most of the buildings show the damage inflicted by German bombardments and air-raids.

Poland had a large Jewish population, and the invading Germans rapidly set about rounding it up: an aged Jew is detained in Warsaw (below).

German Advance Unit in Poland — 1939

2009-02-20T16:31:00.004-06:00

A German reconnaissance unit in Poland searches a burning village before the rest of their unit, September 1939.

Polish Soldier Off to War — 1939

2009-02-19T14:17:00.004-06:00

Rites of passage and, all too probably, their final meeting: a Polish woman slips something into her husband's knapsack as he leaves for the front, September 1939.

IT’S WAR!!!

2009-02-16T22:18:00.003-06:00

Newspaper placards in London announce the German invasion of Poland, September 1, 1939.

A Friendly Mountaintop Lunch — 1939

2009-02-15T21:13:00.004-06:00

This informal photograph by Nicolaus von Below, Hitler's Luftwaffe adjutant, shows Hitler, Goring, Keitel and foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop lunching on August 22, 1939 at the Berghof, Hitler's retreat above Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps. They have been finalizing the strategy for the invasion of Poland, which was just over a week away.

German Navy Marches into Memel

2009-02-14T14:43:00.004-06:00

Sailors of the German Navy are seen marching into into Memel, Lithuania on March 23, 1939. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop of Nazi Germany delivered an ultimatum to the Lithuanian Foreign Minister on March 20, 1939, demanding the surrender of the Memel region to German control. The British Consul in Danzig, Mr.Shepherd, reported to Viscount Halifax that "it was generally anticipated that on 25th March the Memel Landtag would vote for the immediate return of Memelland to Germany." Ribbentrop is also claimed to have stated that Memel “will be taken by other means if necessary." Lithuania, however, submitted to the ultimatum and, in exchange for the right to use the new harbour facilities as a Free Port, ceded the disputed region to Germany in the late evening of March 22, 1939. Adolf Hitler had awaited this result on a battleship, sailed into the harbour in the morning hours and made a speech from a theatre balcony. This was Hitler's last territorial acquisition prior to World War II.

Memel is now known as Klaipėda, a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Curonian Lagoon where it flows into the Baltic Sea. As Lithuania's only seaport, it has ferry terminal connections to Sweden and Germany.

Nazi Armour Rolls through Prague

2009-02-12T22:04:00.003-06:00

German Mk II tanks are seen in Wenceslas Square, Prague, April 20, 1939. During World War II, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and was divided into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia of the Third Reich and the newly declared Slovak Republic, with small slices (e.g. the Teschen) going to Poland and Hungary.

The German economy, burdened by heavy militarisation, urgently needed foreign currency. Setting up an artificially high exchange rate between the Czechoslovak Koruna and the Reichsmark brought consumer goods to Germans (and soon created shortages in Czech lands).

Czechoslovakia was a major manufacturer of machine guns, tanks, and artillery, most of which were assembled in the Škoda factory and had a modern army of 35 divisions. Many of these factories continued to produce Czech designs until factories were converted for German designs. Czechoslovakia also had other major manufacturing companies. Entire steel and chemical factories were moved from Czechoslovakia and reassembled in Linz, Austria which incidentally remains a heavily industrialized sector of the country.

“Peace In Our Time”

2009-02-11T15:27:00.005-06:00

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain is shown arriving at Heston airport after the Munich Conference in September 1938. He was to declare infamously that the agreement promised “Peace in Our Time.” When Hitler invaded and seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain felt betrayed by the breaking of the Munich Agreement and decided to take a much harder line against the Nazis, declaring war against Germany upon their invasion of Poland.

Hitler and Mussolini — 1937

2009-02-10T21:34:00.003-06:00

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini attended the German Wehrmacht's 1937 manoeuvres. The substantial figure of Hermann Goring is half-hidden between him and Adolf Hitler and Hans Frank, later Governor-General of Poland, is on Mussolini's immediate right. On Frank's right Colonel General von Fritsch, chief of the general staff (who was dismissed the following year after a false accusation of impropriety) is chatting to Lt General Wilhelm Keitel, who was later to run the Armed Forces High Command, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.

Invasion of the Rhineland — 1936

2009-02-09T22:16:00.003-06:00

The Rhineland, located between France and Germany, was demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles, but in March 1936 the German army moved in, to the evident delight of the inhabitants as seen above. Following the First World War of the early 20th century, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, then demilitarized under the Treaty of Versailles. German forces remilitarized the territory in 1936, as part of a diplomatic test of will, three years before the outbreak of the Second World War. The remilitarization of the Rhineland was favoured by some of the local population, because of a resurgence of German nationalism and harboured bitterness over the Allied occupation of the Rhineland until 1930 (Saarland until 1935).

Rally in Nuremburg — 1935

2009-02-07T17:38:00.003-06:00

Nazi Party rallies, such as this one in Nuremberg, Germany in 1935, were emotive displays of group solidarity that also indicated to the world the full strength of Hitler's power.

The Reichstag Burns

2009-02-06T23:09:00.003-06:00

Fireman work on the burning shell of the German parliament building, the Reichstag, February 27, 1933. It was after the burning of the Reichstag, which Adolf Hitler blamed on Bolsheviks and other anti-social elements — and elections on March 5, which the Nazi Party and its nationalist allies won — that Hitler strengthened his grip. On the “Night of the Long Knives,” June 30, 1934, Hitler purged the party and when President Paul Von Hindenburg died, he combined the offices of President and Chancellor in himself as Führer. Germany became a centralized state ruled by one party.

London, 1939 — It’s War!

2009-02-05T22:24:00.004-06:00

Today we begin a mostly chronological overview of the Second World War in photographs from a single source. We see here a London newspaper salesman with the special editions of the English papers declaring that war has been declared on Germany.

Iwo Jima: The Cost, Part II

2009-02-04T21:17:00.006-06:00

A view of the cemetery containing the dead of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th United States Marine Divisions on the island of Iwo Jima. Mount Suribachi is seen in the distance, looking from North to South. Following the war, families could have their loved one’s remains returned to the states for re-burial. All of the Marines buried here in this cemetery were removed and brought home before the island was turned back over to the Japanese government. However, many American remains are still on the island, buried within the underground tunnels and caves where they fell in mortal combat with the enemy.

Iwo Jima: The Cost, Part I

2009-02-03T21:34:00.003-06:00

Four U.S. Marines carry a wounded comrade back to the relative safety of the rear area for medical treatment during the Battle for Iwo Jima.

Marines Take a Break on Iwo Jima

2009-02-02T22:14:00.005-06:00

U.S. Marines are seen taking a meal break behind the wreckage of a downed Japanese aircraft during a lull in their fierce battle on Iwo Jima — February 1945.

The Marines’ Cost on Iwo Jima

2009-01-31T22:00:00.003-06:00

The body of a dead United States Marine, killed during the vicious fighting on Iwo Jima, remains in a fighting position — note bullet hole in helmet. The American casualties for the battle were 6,821 dead and 19,189 wounded.

To the Shores of Iwo Jima — Part 2

2009-01-30T20:22:00.001-06:00

To the Shores of Iwo Jima — Part 1

2009-01-29T22:06:00.004-06:00

“To the Shores of Iwo Jima” is a 1945 Kodachrome color short war film produced by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. It documents the Battle of Iwo Jima, and was the first time that American audiences saw in color the footage of the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima.

The film follows the servicemen through the battle in rough chronological order, from the bombardment of the island by warships and carrier-based airplanes to the final breakdown of resistance — though, after it shows the taking of Suribachi, it then switches to the footage of the second flag raising.

The film ends by acknowledging the 4,000 men who died in the month-long battle, and tells the audience that their deaths weren't in vain, showing a bomber aircraft taking off from the island for a mission over Japan.

Four cameramen, including Bill Genaust, who shot the famous flag raising sequence, died bringing this footage to the public. Ten were wounded. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Beach Unloading — Iwo Jima

2009-01-28T21:53:00.004-06:00

U.S. Marines unload equipment & supplies onto the sands of Iwo Jima from large Coast Guard & Navy landing craft shortly after troops gained a foothold on the strategically important island — February 19, 1945.

Assault Waves on Iwo Jima

2009-01-27T20:37:00.004-06:00

On February 19, 1945, the large armada of U.S. Navy ships bringing American Marines & supplies toward the island beachheads of Iwo Jima is seen during the opening hours of the battle. This is the view looking East to West — Mt. Suribachi is seen at left.

Iwo Jima Blast

2009-01-26T20:52:00.004-06:00

American Marines crouch for cover below a hillside while detonating a large explosive charge. It was intended to destroy part of the cave network connecting Japanese fortifications dug into the ground on the island of Iwo Jima — February 1945.

Hitler Reviews the Troops — 1938

2009-01-25T21:06:00.005-06:00

German Führer and Chancellor Adolf Hitler receives the salute of the Columns in Adolf Hitler Platz during the Reichs Party Congress in Nuremburg, Germany — September 1938.

In the Early Years of the Third Reich

2009-01-20T21:30:00.008-06:00

“One People! One Government! One Leader!” This well-known Nazi rallying cry, popularized by Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda machine, is emblazoned on an army truck engaged in a recruiting drive in Straubing, Bavaria.

The Russian Campaign Bogs Down

2009-01-19T20:35:00.004-06:00

On January 4, 1942, the German Sixth Army meteorologist recorded a temperature of 42 degrees below zero. Severe frost and deep snowdrifts badly hampered the supply lines. Hitler’s vaunted “Blitzkrieg” invasion of the Soviet Union had ground to a halt. Not even the most up-to-date technology could cope with the unusual weather conditions. As a result, horses came into their own once again, and had to be requisitioned throughout the Third Reich. They were not enough, however, to effect any improvement in the terrible transport conditions.

"Howlin' Mad" Smith — 1944

2009-01-18T23:10:00.003-06:00

General Holland McTyeire "Howlin' Mad" Smith (April 20, 1882 – January 12, 1967) served several commands in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He is sometimes called the "father" of modern U.S. amphibious warfare.

On the eve of World War II, General Smith directed extensive Army, Navy, and Marine amphibious training, which was a major factor in successful U.S. landings in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Later, he helped prepare U.S. Army and Canadian troops for the Kiska and Attu landings, then led the V Amphibious Corps in the assaults on the Gilberts, the Marshalls, and Saipan, and Tinian in the Marianas.

During the Marianas operation, besides the V Amphibious Corps, he commanded all Expeditionary Troops, including those which recaptured Guam. After that, he served as the first Commanding General of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, and headed Task Force 56 (Expeditionary Troops) at Iwo Jima, which included all the assault troops in that battle.