Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 121 i History of War

Contrary to popular belief, D-Day was not the largest amphibious Allied invasion of the Second World War. It was actually the Sicilian coast that saw the most Allied soldiers go ashore, on 9 July 1943. During the Normandy landings, 156,000 Allied troops landed on enemy territory but for Sicily over 180,000 soldiers were deployed. The geographical breadth of the Allied invasion was also huge, with the Allies landing on 26 beaches along 105 miles (170km) of coastline. Operation Husky was a truly international undertaking. Led by the Americans and British, the multinational Allied force also included Canadian, Free French, Indian and Australian troops along with some Sicilian partisans. Thousands of ships were also required to ferry the soldiers but the Allies first needed to have control of the air over…

By the beginning of the summer of 1863, the American Civil War in the eastern theatre of Northern Virginia was on a knife edge. Defeat after defeat for the Union forces had driven President Abraham Lincoln to despair and to hire and fire his way through several commanders. The grand plans of Lincoln’s supposedly finest field commander of 1862, General George B McClellan, to take the vast army he had painstakingly rebuilt to occupy the enemy’s capital of Richmond and so bring to battle and smash Confederate forces, had failed. What followed was a series of even bloodier failures and lost opportunities. The failure of McClellan to catch Lee’s divided forces at Antietam was followed by his successor Ambrose Burnside’s tactics of massed assaults which led to the carnage at…

“My great uncle, John Appleby, DFM [Distinguished Flying Medal], from Cwmbran, South Wales, was a flight sergeant wireless operator serving in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. “In the Autumn of 1943, Appleby’s Dakota was deployed to clandestine duties, dropping supplies to assorted resistance movements. Appleby flew in his first such sortie – to Kos, Greece – on 2 October 1943, and another – codenamed Cyanide – on 22 March 1944. By November 1944, Appleby and his crew had carried out 34 clandestine missions. He was not only charged with his normal duties as a wireless operator, but also with burning important paperwork and logbooks, as well as destroying the aircraft and assisting in evading capture, should his aircraft go down over enemy territory. “After the Polish Home Army (AK) recovered a…

Founded shortly after the Glorious Revolution in 1689, the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Ffiwsilwyr Brenhinol Cymreig) was a British Army infantry regiment that existed until 2006. Beginning with its baptism of fire during the Williamite War in Ireland (1689-91), the regiment served in almost every major conflict in modern British history. During its long history, it accumulated dozens of battle honours (including Blenheim, Waterloo, Inkerman, Mons and Normandy) with its soldiers being awarded 14 Victoria Crosses. During the First World War, the regiment also counted the famous war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves among its ranks. North Wales is the traditional home of the Royal Welch, with its regimental museum being housed in two towers of Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd. It has a wealth of original exhibits that are supported by…

THIS FRESH EXAMINATION OF THE BATTLE’S MAJOR DECISIONS CHALLENGES LONG-HELD ASSERTIONS Author: Mark E Stille Publisher: Osprey Publishing Price: £25 (Hardback), £11.38 (Kindle) On Sale: Out now For any Second World War enthusiast, the Battle of Leyte Gulf is of particular interest. The largest sea battle in history, Leyte Gulf was actually a series of smaller engagements between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy that swirled around the invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines, site of the American landings in October 1944, and the promised return of General Douglas MacArthur. Leyte Gulf has been visited and revisited by historians, and the pivotal engagement has been thoroughly explored prior to the publication of Mark E Stille’s Leyte Gulf: A New History of the World’s Largest Sea…

Author: Tom Whipple Publisher: Bantam Price: £20 (Hardback) On Sale: Out now For years, the role played by British boffins during the Second World War went largely ignored. As official documents became increasingly accessible, however, the stories of mavericks like Alan Turing, Barnes Wallace and Solly Zuckerman all gradually came to light. This excellent book by The Times science editor Tom Whipple now makes use of recently released government papers to help tell the story of another wartime scientist: Reginald Jones. Jones was only 28 years old when, in June 1940, he was summoned to Downing Street by Winston Churchill for a meeting with the RAF’s top brass and government ministers. As a scientist, Jones was there to offer some insight into whether the German Luftwaffe could use radio waves…

GAVIN MORTIMER A renowned expert in the history of the British special forces, this issue Gavin recounts how, at the brink of collapse, the SAS was reborn during the fierce fight for Sicily. Starting on page 30, read how the regiment applied its deadly covert skills to spearhead the Allied invasion. DR BEN WHEATLEY Ben is an honorary research fellow at the University of East Anglia’s School of History. Ahead of the publication of his new book The Panzers of Prokhorovka, Ben discusses how, 80 years ago, German and Soviet commanders prepared for the huge armoured offensive (p44). IAIN MACGREGOR Iain is an historian, public speaker and author, with books published on a range of topics from the Battle of Stalingrad to the American Civil War. This issue he recounts…

At the end of the Second World War the Armée de L’Air, like the French nation itself, was deeply damaged and divided. Parts of the Armée de L’Air had gone into exile with the Allies, some serving with the Soviets, but the majority flew with the Free French Forces in Western Europe. More had stayed in France under the Vichy Government, who had initially remained neutral (while defending their air space against Allied intruders) and later fought openly against the Allies in North Africa, Madagascar and the Middle East. The rifts between the different factions were slow to heal. Rapid demobilisation and re-organisation was needed to merge the former factions into a coherent whole, but political instability further undermined reconstruction. The air force would go through more than a dozen…

Although overseen at a distance by Eisenhower, the invasion of Sicily was characterised by the rivalry between Montgomery and General George S Patton. Both veterans of the First World War, Montgomery and Patton saw heavy combat and were wounded during that conflict. These experiences had a significant impact on how they conducted warfare in their later careers. During the Second World War, Montgomery refused to accept high casualty rates on the scale of 1914-18 and was famous for his caution and meticulous planning. He stubbornly refused to attack unless he felt it was necessary but his methodical tactics enabled him to halt and push back the Afrika Korps in North Africa. Like Montgomery, Patton also wanted to avoid high casualties but he believed this would be achieved through relentless advances…

Fought during 5 July – 23 August 1943, the Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history. Beginning with a German offensive called Operation Citadel, the battle would ultimately involve thousands of tanks and aircraft as well as millions of soldiers. Kursk became a famous Soviet victory that gave them the military initiative. From that point on, the Germans were only able to react in a limited way to Soviet advances and were never again able to launch a major offensive on the Eastern Front. To understand why Kursk was such a large battle, it is important to understand the planning that took place beforehand. Speaking ahead of his new book The Panzers of Prokhorovka: The Myth of Hitler’s Greatest Armoured Defeat, Dr Ben Wheatley of the University…

Author: Abdullah Anas Publisher: Hurst Price: £15.99 (Paperback) On sale: Out now Algerian Islamist Abdullah Anas was one of the earliest of the Arabs to join the Afghan Jihad and counted as brothers-in-arms the future leaders of al-Qaeda’s global war, from Abdullah Azzam to Osama bin Laden. His experience in Afghanistan led him to befriend key Afghan resistance leaders, such as Ahmad Shah Massoud. This book, co-authored with investigative journalist Tam Hussein, tells the story of how Anas distanced himself from the extremist trajectories of jihad and eventually came to disagree with their interpretations of political Islam. While Anas remains committed to jihad, he still takes issue with the fanatical trajectories of his one-time companions. The narrative is essentially an intimate portrait of the networks that came into being during…

Author: Peter J. Williamson Publisher: Hurst & Co Price: £30 (Hardback) Released: Out now It would be simplistic to write off Benito Mussolini as the Italian fascist dictator who joined the wrong side in the Second World War and paid for his mistake with his life. This is all true, yet as Peter J Williamson brings to light in his book, there was a great deal more to Il Duce, who ruled his country for nearly a quarter of a century before his capture and summary execution by Italian partisans. Mussolini founded his Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) in 1921 and the following year King Victor Emmanuel III charged him to head an Italian coalition government. Four years later, having swept aside his political opponents, Il Duce proclaimed himself dictator, promising…

By 1943, the Allies were entering what Winston Churchill referred to as the “perhaps, the end of the beginning” of the Second World War. Axis forces had finally been driven out of North Africa and Allied commanders turned their attention to the wider strategy in the Mediterranean. With the Soviet Union fighting a brutal war against the Nazis on the Eastern Front, the Western Allies were expected to open a second front in Europe. The question was: where? It was Churchill who advocated an invasion of Italy. Famously referring to the then-fascist country as the “soft underbelly of Europe”, the British prime minister believed that knocking Italy out of the war had several benefits. Neutral Turkey could potentially join the Allies and Italy would be a useful springboard for Allied…

On 28 January 1943 a message was sent to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the Afrika Korps in North Africa. It was a short, handwritten note and it contained two glaring mistakes. It was Lieutenant Colonel Stirling who had been captured, not ‘Stierling’, as the message indicated, and he did not lead the Long Range Desert Group. David Stirling had raised L Detachment, Special Air Service in the summer of 1941, with the help of his elder brother, Bill, when the pair had been stationed in Cairo. The inaugural raid, Operation Squatter, on the night of 16/17 November 1941 had been a costly failure, with 34 of the 55 men who had parachuted into Libya to attack enemy airfields killed or captured. But the SAS had flourished since then,…

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Living with the Troubles The Imperial War Museum has opened a new exhibition about Northern Ireland’s recent history, 25 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement The Troubles engulfed Northern Ireland in conflict for nearly 30 years. It was – and remains – a contentious period, with roots going back centuries. A ceasefire was signed in 1998 but many aspects of the conflict remain unresolved to this day and are highly contested by those who experienced and participated in it. Opening at IWM London, Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles (26 May 2023 – 7 January 2024) unpacks this complex chapter of our shared history through the multiple perspectives of individuals affected by the conflict. Showcasing recently collected objects and new first-hand testimony, this free exhibition is IWM’s…

PORTA AND SARANTAPOROS The Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) achieved two successes in June 1943 when they defeated Italian and German forces in separate battles. During 8-9 June, around 250 ELAS partisans fought thousands of Italian soldiers at the Battle of Porta. Although the Greeks were forced to withdraw, they inflicted casualties on regular Italian Army forces for the first time in a full-on attack instead of a hit-and-run ambush. On 21 June, ELAS ambushed a German supply column at the Battle of Sarantaporos. Part of the British Special Operations Executive’s Operation Animals sabotage mission, ELAS detonated explosives under German trucks that contained fuel and ammunition. Only five Germans escaped, with dozens more killed or captured. The prisoners were later executed by ELAS. CLOSURE OF BEŁŻEC Operational from March 1942,…

Author: David Stahel Publisher: Cambridge University Press Price: £30 (Hardback) On sale: Out now David Stahel has unearthed unpublished private correspondence of four of Hitler’s Panzer Army generals – Heinz Guderian, Erich Hoepner, Georg-Hans Reinhardt and Rudolf Schmidt – and has used them to offer new insight into pivotal events of the Second World War. This reviewer was initially dreading that it would be written in the dry academic structure of many published PhD theses, but our fears were unfounded. The author is skilled in analysing new facts and presenting them in a fascinating style that introduces historical events and then explores what the generals had to say about them in their private letters. Although the author briefly covers each general’s life before the start of the Second World War,…