Description: HMSM VENTURER underway
Date: 18 August 1943
Source: IWMCollections IWM Photo No.: FL 004031
WWII Gallery link: http://wwii.cc/9rKjED
Posts Tagged ‘Britain’
Today in Pictures – August 18
18
Aug
World War II History for July 13
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Jul
Audio Clip: BBC Charles Gardner Reports On Convoy Attack & Dogfight (14 July 1940)
Today in WWII History
World War II History for July 13
13 July 1941 - Britain and the Soviet Union signed a mutual aid pact, that provided the means for Britain to send war material to the Soviet Union.
13 July 1944 - Soviet General Konev establishes a new western border for the USSR
On this day in 1944, General Ivan Konev, one of the Soviet Union’s most outstanding officers, pursues an offensive against 40,000 German soldiers to capture the East Galician city of Lvov. When the battle was over, 30,000 Germans were dead, and the USSR had a new western border.
The Red Army’s “Operation Bagration” was the westward thrust from June to August 1944, which included the First and Second Ukrainian Fronts, was moving swiftly across Ukraine and Poland.
Konev consults with 38th Army Commander Moskalenko
Joseph Stalin had declared that he wanted the western border of the Soviet Union to be pushed back across the River Bug, territory that was part of prewar Poland, but was now occupied German territory. General Konev, who had led the first offensive against the Germans when they invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 (and who had created the “Konev ambush,” a strategy by which troops retreat from the center of a battle area, only to allow troops from the flanks to close into the breach, used to defeat German General Heinz Guderian’s tank offensive against Moscow), led the Red Army’s new attack westward. He encircled 40,000 German soldiers in the town of Brody. After seven days, 30,000 German soldiers were dead, and Lvov was Soviet-occupied territory and would remain a part of the new postwar Soviet map.
General Konev would go on to cross Poland into Germany and, meeting up with U.S. and other Soviet forces, enter Berlin to see the final downfall of the Axis power.
“Soviet General Konev establishes a new western border for the USSR,” History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=6518 (accessed Jul 13, 2009).
WWII History - BBC Charles Gardner On Convoy Attack - Dogfight (14 July 1940) [3:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2627)Glimpse of a WWII POW Camp
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May
From BBC News, a video showing life in a British WWII Prisoner of War Camp.
Rare footage showing life in British prisoner of war camp is going on display at a new exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.
There were over 1000 prisoner of war camps in Britain from World War II, but few moving pictures remain.
The Captured Exhibition opens on 23 May. Archive video courtesy Imperial War Museum .
World War II History for November 14
14
Nov
Today in WW II History
World War II History for November 14
1940 - During World War II, German war planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry when about 500 Luftwaffe bombers attacked.
German bombers devastate the English city of Coventry, demolishing tens of thousands of buildings and killing hundreds of men, women, and children. The verb “Koventrieren” (to Coventrate) passed into the German language, meaning “to annihilate or reduce to rubble.”
On November 8, Adolf Hitler had to move up his scheduled speech in Munich on the anniversary of his 1923 attempted coup in Bavaria because British bombers were on their way to take out a railway yard. Hitler was determined to avenge this audacious offensive. The Fuhrer let his bomber pilots know that he was not “willing to let an attack on the capital of the Nazi movement go unpunished.”
And so, on this day, almost 500 German bombers unleashed some 150,000 incendiary bombs and more than 500 tons of high explosives on the British industrial city, taking out 27 war factories. Of the 568 people killed, more than 400 were burned so badly they could not be identified. Among the more than 60,000 buildings destroyed or severely damaged was St. Michael’s Cathedral.
There have been claims that the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, knew several days in advance that the Germans would attack Coventry but deliberately held back the information.
His intelligence supposedly came from the scientists at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, who, in utmost secrecy, had cracked the Enigma code the Germans used for their military communications.
From an intercepted message, they had discovered that the city was a target.
But warning the city of Coventry and its residents of the imminent threat would have alerted the Germans to the fact that their codes had been cracked and their security breached.
Churchill considered it worth the sacrifice of a whole city and its people to protect his back-door route into Berlin’s secrets.
But is it true? Did it really happen this way? The end of 1940 was a terrible and frightening time in Britain.
World War II History for September 30
30
Sep
Today in WW II History
World War II History for September 30
1938 - The Munich Conference ended with a decision to appease Adolf Hitler. Britain and France allowed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to be annexed by the Nazis.
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.”
Considered by many to be the action that emboldened Hitler into further conquests, this pact and the appeasement by Chamberlain signified the birth of the rift between the Axis and the Allies.
Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term. The terrorized Czech government was eventually forced to surrender the western provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which became a protectorate of Germany) and finally Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. In each of these partitioned regions, Germany set up puppet, pro-Nazi regimes that served the military and political ends of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the nation called “Czechoslovakia” no longer existed.
It was Neville Chamberlain who would be best remembered as the champion of the Munich Pact, having met privately with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the dictator’s mountaintop retreat, before the Munich conference. Chamberlain, convinced that Hitler’s territorial demands were not unreasonable (and that Hitler was a “gentleman”), persuaded the French to join him in pressuring Czechoslovakia to submit to the Fuhrer’s demands. Upon Hitler’s invasion of Poland a year later, Chamberlain was put in the embarrassing situation of announcing that a “state of war” existed between Germany and Britain. By the time Hitler occupied Norway and Denmark, Chamberlain was finished as a credible leader. “Depart, I say, and let us have done with you!” one member of Parliament said to him, quoting Oliver Cromwell. Winston Churchill would succeed him as prime minister soon afterwards.
1946 - An international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes.
World War II History for September 25
25
Sep
Today in WW II History
World War II History for September 25
1942 - British bombers attempted to destroy the local headquarters of the German Gestapo in Norway. The plan failed.
Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, in a stunning blitzkrieg campaign, a response to Britain’s laying of mines in Norwegian waters–which was itself a response to Norway’s iron-ore trade with the Axis power. But in one short month, the British and French troops that had landed in Norway to aid in its defense were chased out, as well as Norway’s royal family, who set up a government-in-exile in London. The Germans immediately established a Reich commissioner to rule the occupied territory. The commissioner outlawed all political parties but one–the pro-Nazi National Unity Party. It was led by Vidkun Quisling, the former Norwegian minister of war. His name would become synonymous with acquiescence and collaboration. Quisling, now a German puppet, ruled as a Nazi wannabe, an overlord who would brook no dissent, even sending thousands of his own countrymen to German concentration camps. A majority of Norwegians despised both Quisling and his German masters. Teachers and clergy resigned their positions in the state-sponsored church in order not to be implicated in the new fascist regime.
One means of keeping defiant locals of newly occupied countries under control was the use of the Gestapo. An office was typically set up in conquered nations to terrorize the populace. On September 25, during a Nazi Party rally in Oslo, British aircraft, aiming to destroy the records of the Norwegian Resistance (kept in Gestapo headquarters, but not as yet acted upon), bombed the building. The bombs missed their target, but surrounding buildings were hit, and four people were killed. The Brits did put a scare into the Nazis, though, who ran from the city, leaving their Party’s rally in ruins.
BBC Gas Mask Drill Clip
19
Sep
Here is a quick audio clip of a BBC broadcast during World War II from 1939 featuring a Gas Mask drill.
World War II History for September 15
15
Sep
Today in WW II History
World War II History for September 15
1935 - The Nuremberg Laws were enacted by Nazi Germany. The act stripped all German Jews of their civil rights and the swasticka was made the official symbol of Nazi Germany.
After Hitler’s accession to the offices of president and chancellor of Germany, he set about the task of remaking his adopted country (Hitler had to pull some strings even to be eligible for office, as he was Austrian by birth) into the dream state he imagined. But his dream was soon to become a nightmare for many. Early on in his reign, the lives of non-Jewish German citizens were barely disrupted. But not so for Hitler’s “enemies.” Hitler’s racist ideology, which elevated those of “pure-blooded” German stock to the level of “masters” of the earth, began working itself out in vicious ways.
Within the first year of Hitler’s rule, German Jews were excluded from a host of high-profile vocations, from public office to journalism, radio, theater, film, and teaching-even farming. The professions of law and medicine were also withdrawn slowly as opportunities. “Jews Not Welcome” signs could be seen on shop and hotel windows, beer gardens, and other public arenas. With the Nuremberg Laws, these discriminatory acts became embedded in the culture by fiat, making them even more far-reaching. Jews were forbidden to marry “Aryans” or engage in extramarital relations with them. Jews could not employ female Aryan servants if they were less than 35 years of age. Jews found it difficult even to buy food, as groceries, bakeries, and dairies would not admit Jewish customers. Even pharmacies refused to sell them medicines or drugs.
What was the outside world’s reaction? Because unemployment had dropped precipitously under Hitler’s early commandeering of the economy, and the average German felt renewed hope and pride, the face of Germany seemed brighter, more at peace with itself. While some foreign visitors, even some political opponents within Germany itself, decried these racist laws and practices, most were beguiled into thinking it was merely a phase, and that Hitler, in the words of former British Prime Minister Lloyd George, was “a great man.”
1940 - The German Luftwaffe suffered the loss of 185 planes in the Battle of Britain. The change in tide forced Hitler to abandon his plans for invading Britain.
Spitfire vs Hurricane
04
Sep
SPITFIRE vs HURRICANE
Contrary to popular belief, it was the Hurricane, not the Spitfire that saved Britain during the dark days of 1940. The turn-around time (re-arm, refuel etc.) for the Spitfire was 26 minutes. That of the Hurricane, only 9 minutes from down to up again. During the Battle of Britain the time spent on the ground was crucial and as one fitter/mechanic of No. 145 Squadron quipped: “If we had nothing but Spits we would have lost the fight in 1940.” The Spitfire was an all metal fighter, slightly faster, had a faster rate of climb and had a higher ceiling, while the Hurricane had a fabric covered fuselage, was quicker to repair and withstood more punishment. With the for and against of both fighters they came out about even.
The majority of German planes shot down during the four month period were destroyed by Hurricanes. For much of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfires went after the German BF 109s at the higher altitudes, while the Hurricanes attacked the bomber formations flying at lower altitudes. This cost the enemy a total of 551 pilots killed or taken prisoner. During the war a total of 14,231 Hurricanes and 20,334 Spitfires were produced. The famous Rolls-Royce ‘Merlin’ engine evolved through 88 separate marks and was fitted in around 70,000 Allied aircraft, including the famous Lancaster bomber, during the six years of war.
In the hectic battles in the sky over southern England many pilots returned to base utterly exhausted and routinely fell asleep as they taxied their plane to a stop. Ground crews often had to help the sleeping pilot from the cockpit after he returned from combat.
World War II History for September 3
03
Sep
Today in WW II History
World War II History for September 3,
1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany.
On this day in 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation, along with Australia and New Zealand, declare war on Germany.
The first casualty of that declaration was not German-but the British ocean liner Athenia, which was sunk by a German U-30 submarine that had assumed the liner was armed and belligerent. There were more than 1,100 passengers on board, 112 of whom lost their lives. Of those, 28 were Americans, but President Roosevelt was unfazed by the tragedy, declaring that no one was to “thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its armies to European fields.” The United States would remain neutral.
As for Britain’s response, it was initially no more than the dropping of anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets-13 tons of them-over Germany. They would begin bombing German ships on September 4, suffering significant losses. They were also working under orders not to harm German civilians. The German military, of course, had no such restrictions. France would begin an offensive against Germany’s western border two weeks later. Their effort was weakened by a narrow 90-mile window leading to the German front, enclosed by the borders of Luxembourg and Belgium-both neutral countries. The Germans mined the passage, stalling the French offensive.
1940 - Adolf Hitler planned Operation Sealion. The plan was for the invasion of Britain.
1943 - Italy was invaded by the Allied forces during World War II.
