Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 84 i History of War

“Where every morn brought forth a noble chance, and every chance brought forth a noble knight.” A matter of weeks following Churchill’s paraphrasing of Tennyson, these ‘knights’ were in the midst of the fight to which the prime minister also alluded. By August 1940, the Luftwaffe’s campaign to destroy the RAF was in full flight, including ‘Adlertag’ (‘Eagle Day’), during which there were 1,485 German sorties alone. To commemorate 80 years since this unparalleled moment in military history, History of War pays tribute not only to the airmen, but also to the thousands on the ground who sealed victory.…

On the night of 5-6 August, 1945, the USAAF 509th Composite Group was tasked with deploying a nuclear weapon over Hiroshima, southern Japan. Aboard the B-29 bomber responsible for delivering the bomb was navigator Theodore Van Kirk, known to everyone as ‘Dutch’. He had been hand-picked for the mission by his former commander, “I flew with Paul Tibbets all the time in England. We flew General Dwight Eisenhower [later to become US president] from Hurn [on the south coast of England] down to Gibraltar, for example, to command the north African invasion. Then we were all separated and doing various things – I was at a navigation school, for example, teaching other navigators. Tibbets was picked to take command of the 509th group and he looked up some of the…

What was their role in Balloon Command? One of the most demanding jobs was in barrage balloon handling because it required using winches and cranes to get them up and down. Unlike many of the other roles, this required a lot of shifting. The WAAFs operated at barrage balloon sites where the balloons had to be filled and there was a lorry with a winch to raise them up and down. They also had to be tied down so that they wouldn’t fly off. It was quite a physical task because the balloons had to be raised when an air raid was coming and then moored. At the time there were some concerns that the WAAFs wouldn’t have the physical strength or stamina to handle the balloons. They were over…

MESSERSCHMITT BF 109E Engine Daimler-Benz 1200hp V12 605D Wingspan 33ft/9.91m Max Speed 343mph/553kmh Armament 30mm Mk108 cannon, two 13mm MG17 machine-guns Range 410m/660km SPITFIRE MK1A Engine Rolls-Royce Merlin 1800hp V12 Mk III Wingspan 36ft 10in/11.23m Max Speed 362mph/582kmh Armament 8 x .303 Browning Mk II machine-guns Range 425m/680km GERMAN AIRCREW 2 LOSSES ,698 GERMAN AIRCRAFT 1 LOSSES ,887 BRITISH AIRCREW LOSSES 544 BRITISH AIRCRAFT 1 LOSSES ,547…

War Thunder is one of the largest free-to-play, online military games in the world, offering players the chance to fly, and fight, in some of history’s most iconic vehicles. With over 1,700 vehicles to choose, ranging from Second World War to Cold War eras, there are also 80 unique environments to explore, replicating real-world battlefields from across the theatres of military history. As well as testing your skills as a fighter pilot in high-speed dogfights with other players, you can also select from a range of specially created scenarios and solo modes. These can challenge you and friends to protect or destroy a convoy of bombers, or to capture or protect an objective against AI players. Though if you’d prefer a more challenging experience, there are also Realistic Battles and…

Author: Nick Lipscombe Publisher: Osprey Price: £50.00 Released: 17 September 2020 The English (or for some historians, the British) Civil Wars encompass a period of incredible change, with an incalculably long-lasting impact across the British Isles and beyond. It is an incredibly complex era, steeped in politics, as well as societal and religious upheaval. For the military historian, it is also a transitional moment in warfare, with firearms firmly at the fore, but lined up alongside thick pike formations and cavalry, resulting in rapidly changing battlefield tactics. Perhaps because of this complexity, the Civil Wars are largely underrepresented on mainstream shelves and broadcast schedules, but here Nick Lipscombe has applied his meticulous touch to the topic. For those unfamiliar with either the era, or the events of the Civil Wars,…

During the war in the Far East, Allied efforts against Imperial Japan were overwhelmingly led by American forces although British campaigns, particularly in Burma, were also substantial. However, Australia was the leading force in the campaign to retake Borneo. This was no easy task because Borneo is the third largest island in the world and covered in tropical rainforests, mangroves and swamps. Before WWII, Borneo had been split between British and Dutch colonial rule. The Dutch East Indies controlled the vast majority of the island but it was swiftly conquered and occupied by the Japanese in early 1942. It would be over three years before the Allies could contemplate retaking Borneo with their plan being codenamed ‘Operation Oboe’. The first objective for Oboe was Tarakan, a small island off Borneo’s…

The Pathfinders arrived first, marking the target area with an immense ‘X’ etched in flame. Then 325 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers came in waves, sowing death and destruction on a scale so massive that it seemed incomprehensible. For three hours during the execution of Operation Meetinghouse, on 9-10 March 1945, the US XXI Bomber Command rained 1,665 tons of M-47 incendiary clusters, napalm and other ordnance on the Japanese capital of Tokyo. Like other cities in Japan, Tokyo was constructed largely of wood and paper, and the resulting hellish conflagration consumed 250,000 buildings while burning 16 square miles of the city to the ground and killing 100,000 civilians. It was the single most destructive air raid in history. The architect of the devastating raid was Major General Curtis LeMay,…

In the summer of 1940, RAF Fighter Command was engaged in a desperate fight for survival against the German Luftwaffe. Fighter Command, under the command of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, was divided into regional Groups. No. 11 Group, under Air Vice Marshal Sir Keith Park, protected the skies of London and the southeast. They were closest to the continent and naturally bore the brunt of the fight. To their west was No. 10 Group under Air Vice Marshal Sir Christopher Quintin Brand, also heavily engaged. To the north of London was No. 12 Group, commanded by Air Vice Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Each Group was split into Sectors which had their own geographical area and assigned squadrons. Dowding had been instrumental in constructing the UK’s Integrated Air Defence…

On 26 September 1943, the quiet town of Launceston was disturbed by a dramatic firefight between black and white American soldiers. Two white military policemen of 115th Infantry Regiment were wounded in the presence of British civilians and servicemen and this small but alarming incident escalated into a newspaper sensation that was mired in controversy. “IT WAS OFTEN BELLIGERENT POLICING BY THE US MILITARY POLICE AND THAT WAS WHAT REALLY RILED THE BRITISH. IT WAS AN EGREGIOUS EXAMPLE OF RACISM” The subsequent court-martial of the African American soldiers from 581st Ordnance Ammunition Company occurred in the seaside town of Paignton, Devon. Labelled by the tabloids as a “Wild West” mutiny, it was a far more serious affair that caused Winston Churchill “grave anxiety”. The Launceston shootout damningly exposed violent racial…

Authors: Dilip Sarkar Publisher: Air World Price: £30.00 This year is the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and is likely to see a mass of new publications on the subject, adding to the hundreds if not thousands already out there. Dilip Sarkar has written more than a few himself, and his name will be familiar to most aviation enthusiasts. Many of these new works will doubtless cover the usual ground in telling the dramatic and historically important story of the battle, but in this book Sarkar has managed to find a fresh and interesting angle. He has selected 23 men and women from a range of nationalities and services who were killed during the Battle of Britain, and uses their lives and deaths to bring out the human…

SQUADRON AIRBORNE Elleston Trevor Squadron Airborne tells the story of Peter Stuyckes, a 19-year-old pilot officer, during one week of his service in a fictional Fighter Command station in 1940. The author, Trever Dudley-Smith, was himself an RAF flight engineer and was most famous for his 1964 novel Flight Of The Phoenix which was made into two Hollywood films. Due for publication on 10 September, Squadron Airborne is the latest in IWM’s Wartime Classics series. This issue, one lucky History of War reader will win a set of eight novels from the series, including Squadron Airborne. Take a look below for the other titles in the set, as well as how you can enter today! For more information visit shop.iwm.org.uk EIGHT HOURS FROM ENGLAND Anthony Quayle A candid account of…

Founded in 1814, the Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) was the military force that maintained Dutch colonial rule in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI). Abbreviated to ‘KNIL’, the army’s remit at the start of WWII was to provide security to an Indonesian archipelago that was home to over 60 million people. The NEI was also materially rich in rubber, tin, quinine and oil. The latter was important to the Japanese who defeated the Dutch during a swift campaign in 1941-42. The KNIL had already been weakened by the German occupation of the Netherlands. At the beginning of the war, its volunteer force consisted of around 85,000 personnel with most of the officers and NCOs being European Dutchmen. Many of these were taken prisoner by the Japanese…

GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR SUPREME COMMANDER SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA, MACARTHUR PRESIDED OVER SURRENDER PROCEEDINGS 1880-1964 UNITED STATES “MACARTHUR RECEIVED THE MEDAL OF HONOR FOR HEROISM DURING THE DEFENCE OF THE PHILIPPINES IN 1941” General Douglas MacArthur was the son of Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur, a recipient of the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War. He was a 1903 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, and served as the academy superintendent from 1919 to 1922. Known for his towering ego and a flair for the dramatic, MacArthur was sometimes the focus of harsh criticism during his 60-year military career. One of his aides, Dwight D. Eisenhower once said of MacArthur, “I studied dramatics under him for five years in Washington and four years in the Philippines.” As…

“TAKING ON ALL MANNER OF GROUND SUPPORT ROLES, INCLUDING RADAR DETECTION AND AIRCRAFT PLOTTING, THE WAAFS OFTEN PERFORMED THEIR DUTIES IN FRONT-LINE CONDITIONS” While the pilots of RAF Fighter Command defended the skies of Britain during the summer of 1940, they were supported by dedicated ground crew who kept them in the air and provided vital assistance. Arguably the most visible element of ‘the Many’ on the ground were the personnel of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Commonly known as ‘WAAFs’, these women experienced the battle first-hand and played a highly active role. Taking on all manner of ground support roles, including radar detection and aircraft plotting, the WAAFs often performed their duties in front-line conditions. They maintained the command and control network that kept the RAF functioning but danger…

OBERLEUTNANT HELMUT WICK BATTLE OF BRITAIN KILLS: 42 Wick was the highest-scoring pilot of the entire Battle of Britain. The 25-year-old became only the fourth member of the German armed forces to be awarded the King’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaf Clusters. He was killed in combat over the Channel in November 1940. MAJOR ADOLF GALLAND BATTLE OF BRITAIN KILLS: 35 Galland would go onto become the youngest general in the German military, attaining the rank of General of the Fighter Arm in 1941. His total number of kills for the war was 104, despite being banned from combat between December 1941 and of the end of 1944 by Hitler himself. HAUPTMAN WALTER OESAU BATTLE OF BRITAIN KILLS: 34 By the time the Battle of Britain started,…

Writer: Stuart Hadaway Publisher: Shire Publications Price: £8.99 Anyone familiar with Shire Publications will know what to expect from this slim volume. British Airfields of the Second World War is the usual tightly focussed, well-illustrated work, which benefits from the strong writing skills of its author. Stuart Hadaway is able to provide a thumbnail sketch of the most important elements of airfield history, using the limited space available to great effect. The reader is quickly taken from the genesis of the air base, during World War I, through the inter-war modifications and on into World War II. We are treated to some highly effective first-hand testimony, well chosen to illustrate a facet of RAF life that is sometimes overlooked in popular histories. This is never more true than in the…

In the Middle Ages, full suits of armour were a status symbol and mostly the preserve of the nobility. Common infantrymen wore some metal protection, which was usually a helmet, but for the most part only improvised pieces of chain mail or even padded leather jerkins offered protection from bladed weapons or missiles. The success of large numbers of skilled Swiss infantrymen in the late 15th century changed perceptions about the value of foot soldiers, who had previously been largely regarded as expendable fodder. Professional standing armies were also now being created in Europe and the Early Modern Period saw the rise of plate armour that could be mass produced to supply protection to large numbers of ordinary soldiers. This was particularly urgent to counter the rise of artillery and…