Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 143 i History of War

The capitulation of the Wehrmacht’s Heeresgruppe B in the Ruhr heralded the disintegration of organised German resistance in the West. With the Allied armies at the zenith of their power, and the Red Army advancing on all fronts, the British wanted an all-out drive on Berlin to end the war and keep the Soviets as far to the east as possible. But Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force Dwight D Eisenhower had other ideas. Politically naive, he – along with his president – believed Stalin was an ally who could be trusted, and also thought the blood price to take Berlin would be too high. But above all he feared a Nazi bogeyman in the form of the Alpenfestung – the Alpine Fortress, or National Redoubt. First mooted in late 1943,…

NELSON DEPARTS PORTSMOUTH 8 April Having sailed from Spithead in HMS Vanguard on 1 April, Nelson’s ships are forced back by a westerly wind to the Isle of Wight, delaying their departure by a further week. REACHING GIBRALTAR 4 May HMS Vanguard arrives at Gibraltar to find part of the British squadron already making preparations for battle, conducting repairs and taking on stores of food, water and ammunition. Nelson departs Gibraltar on the 8th and two weeks later is some 70 miles (110km) south of Toulon. ANCHORED SAN PIETRO 22 May Having made course towards Sicily, Nelson’s squadron anchor in the Bay of San Pietro, a small island to the west of Sardinia, a Sicilian possession. The weather abates and the ship’s crews are turned to rapidly making repairs to…

Throughout his service in X Troop, Manfred Gans sent letters to his girlfriend and future wife Anita. After moving to the USA, the couple had two children, Daniel and Aviva, and had to decide how much to tell them about the war and Theresienstadt. Aviva remembers that she knew little of the specifics of her father’s service and his Theresienstadt journey until a conversation with her father’s younger brother opened her eyes. Her uncle was telling her about how he had been a go-between for Manfred and Anita’s letters, when the conversation shifted to Manfred’s service. Aviva tells us: “My uncle said: ‘And your father rescued your grandparents from a concentration camp.’ And I said: ‘What?’ My father never told us these things. I went home and asked my father:…

Religion, Rebellion & Reformation A new exhibition at Chichester Cathedral features artefacts exploring the role of faith throughout the centuries, particularly in the military The seat of the Bishop of Chichester relocated from Selsey to Chichester 950 years ago, and the cathedral was built. It covers the Diocese of Chichester, which stretches nearly 100 miles (160km) along England’s south coast. The cathedral is the third-tallest in England and boasts the only spire visible from the sea. To celebrate this anniversary, Chichester Cathedral has created its Chichester950 calendar of events running through 2025. The flagship event is the Religion, Rebellion & Reformation exhibition, bringing together artefacts from the 12th century to the First World War. The artefacts have been selected to invite reflections on the challenges faced by our ancestors and…

Author: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver Publisher: Osprey Publishing Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: 13 March The Italian campaign of 1943-45 was a long, hard slog. Blighted by bad weather, difficult terrain, equipment shortages and low priority for replacements, and even by erupting volcanoes, the Allies were fighting in a country where everything favoured the defenders. The air campaign over Italy, especially from the United States Army Air Forces’ (USAAF) point of view, is a rarely told story. Air power was crucial, from supporting (even saving) the landings at Salerno and Anzio to helping dislodge the formidable German defensive lines through interdiction of their supply lines and direct bombardment. Cleaver is an established name in aviation history and never fails to deliver a good read. Although this volume strays from his signature style…

Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Dwight D Eisenhower had made his decision: the crossing of the River Rhine into the heart of Nazi Germany would be led by Britain’s Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and his 21st Army Group in the north. General Omar Bradley’s US 12th Army Group would advance to the river and support him. But striking forward, the American 83rd Infantry Division almost ruined the plan when it reached Oberkassel on the Rhine on 2 March 1945 and found the bridge there intact – only for it to be blown up right in front of them. Two days later the same near miss happened with the Adolf Hitler bridge at Krefeld. Further south, the 13 divisions of General Courtney Hodges’ US First Army swept east as German resistance…

While researching X Troop and Manfred Gans for this article, History of War spoke with Daniel Huhn, the author of I Will Come Back to You. Huhn began working on his definitive history of Manfred Gans in 2016, collaborating with Manfred’s son and daughter, Daniel and Aviva, and reading over 1,000 pages of letters between Manfred and his partner Anita, sent from 1938-48. Huhn also used Manfred’s calendars and reports of his trip to Theresienstadt. I Will Come Back for You has been translated into English by Rachel Stanyon. We are also grateful to Aviva Gans for speaking with us. Her recollections of her father Manfred and her grandparents Moritz and Else Fraenkel Gans, were invaluable.…

X Troop is a remarkable and unique case of German and Jewish exiles fighting back against the Nazi regime. However, its role was not revealed until James Leasor wrote about it in his 1980 book The Unknown Warrior. Surviving X Troop veterans mostly told their stories in the late 1990s, towards the end of their lives. X Troop continues to be little-known in the landscape of German resistance. Daniel Huhn says: “I think some of the Ritchie Boys [a similar unit in the US Army] are part of the official list in the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (Memorial Museum for the German Resistance) in Berlin. When I looked into this in 2020, I could not find any Three [X] Troop veterans listed.” Many X Troopers also had complex identities that obscured…

OPPOSING FORCES UNION VS CONFEDERATE COMMANDER Ambrose E Burnside TROOPS 123,000 COMMANDER Robert E Lee TROOPS 78,000 By early November 1862, anxious that his administration was rapidly losing public support in the north, an impatient President Abraham Lincoln had grown weary of the Army of the Potomac’s popular commander – Major General George B McClellan – and installed his subordinate and close friend Major General Ambrose Burnside as his reluctant successor. Though a capable corps-level commander, Burnside himself admitted he was not capable of commanding an army in the field. The daunting figure of General Robert E Lee and his victorious Army of Northern Virginia only added to his lack of confidence. Yet Burnside was damned if he would step aside to allow his fellow corps commander, and political intriguer,…

BRATISLAVA-BRNO OFFENSIVE The Red Army, assisted by Romanian and Czechoslovak forces, launched an offensive on 25 March, aiming to capture Bratislava and Brno – the capitals of Slovakia and Moravia respectively. The offensive began with a surprise attack on the Hron River to the east of the two cities, quickly achieving an 11-mile-wide (17km) breakthrough. The advance slowed upon reaching the Low Tatras mountain range in central Slovakia, but by early April the Battle of Bratislava had begun and the Red Army liberated the city on 4 April. Progress towards Brno was slower, following orders for the forces to meet the Red Army on its advance to the city. Liberation finally came to Brno on 26 April. OPERATION CARTHAGE Throughout the Nazi occupation of Denmark, the Gestapo had used the…

Author: Mike Croissant Publisher: August Books Price: £12.99 (Paperback) Released: 27 March Bombing Hitler’s Hometown chronicles the major air raid on the Austrian city of Linz on 25 April 1945. Hitler had planned to fill it with treasures looted from across Europe, as Albert Speer, the Nazi Armaments Minister, recalled: “It was his ambition to transform Linz into a German Budapest.” In late April 1942 Hitler confirmed: “Budapest is by far the most beautiful city on the Danube, but I am determined to make Linz a German town on the Danube which surpasses it.” The following year he stated: “Linz should become the personification of the Reich.” Following a Nazi armaments conference in the city hosted by Hitler, the Allies first bombed Linz in the summer of 1944. By 1945,…

Author: Adam LeBor Publisher: Head of Zeus Price: £27.99 (Hardback) Released: Out now Adam LeBor’s narrative of wartime Budapest reads like an adventure tale, but it’s actually a history based on extensively researched facts. His book begins with an account of the torment suffered by Jews detained by the Nazis one winter night. As they await their fate, which for many will be execution by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascist party that controlled the government in the final years of the war, 14-year-old Robi makes a run for it. “For a moment, the guards’ backs were turned,” the author says. “He started running, faster than he had ever run before.” Did he make good his escape? Miraculously, unlike tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, Robi, his little sister and…

Heeresgruppe B was Nazi Germany’s last sizeable force in western Europe in the spring of 1945. Field Marshal Walter Model, its pugnacious, monocled commander, was a master of defensive warfare and was determined to stop the Western Allies advancing into the heart of Germany. But his 19 divisions were in a desperate state, as his Chief of Staff Carl Wagener lamented: “We had a confused army of stragglers who, when gathered up, only slipped away again.” Having never achieved a decisive envelopment of a German field army, General Omar Bradley planned to do just that by encircling Heeresgruppe B in the Ruhr and annihilating it. In the south the US First Army would break out of its bridgehead at Remagen, while 80 miles (130km) to the north General William Simpson’s…

At the beginning of January 1798, General Napoleon Bonaparte commenced building a substantial expeditionary force of troops supported by an invasion fleet in the port of Toulon, France. His objective was to conquer the Turkish Khedivate of Egypt. This was planned as the initial phase of a campaign to interdict Britain’s trade route with its colony of India; support the French-sponsored ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, Tipu Sultan; and revive French interests on the sub-continent. In London, however, at this early stage it was unclear to the government of William Pitt what the French leader’s goal was and where his designs lay. Nonetheless, the decision was made to activate a Royal Navy squadron, led by Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, to shadow the French forces. In this capacity, Nelson…

It was the afternoon of the third day. Vicious fighting had already consumed the first two days of that hot July, and the fatalities still lay about as grim, blackened reminders of the horrible work at hand. As the artillery fire subsided, 12,000 Confederates in grey and butternut formed quickly under battle flags of crimson and blue. When they advanced, the Confederate regiments marched quietly and confidently, their lines perfectly dressed. “I have never since the war began seen troops enter a fight in such splendid order,” wrote correspondent Jonathan Albertson. Then the Federal artillery opened up on them. Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on 3 July 1863 is arguably the most infamous infantry assault in American military history, the ‘high-water mark of the Confederacy’. That afternoon, Confederate…

Manfred Gans arrived in Aberdyfi as part of an Inter-Allied commando unit for men exiled from mainland Europe, set up by Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten. The latter had the idea to form a German-speaking unit that could prove not all Germans were the enemy. They were initially called X Troop before being renamed to the less conspicuous No 3 Commando. Gans’ biographer Daniel Huhn explains how Churchill and Mountbatten wanted to deploy the men: “They decided that X Troop would not fight as a unit, but be used as experts attached to other units. Usually, three or four of them were attached to another Commando.” These German-speaking X Troopers could act as interpreters during raids into occupied Europe, interrogating captured prisoners and shouting false orders to confuse defenders. The…

TRENTON TO YORKTOWN TURNING POINTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR Author: John R Maass Publisher: Osprey Publishing Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out now A SOLID INTRODUCTION TO THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE THROUGH FIVE KEY EVENTS IN THE CONFLICT The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is looming, and books reassessing the conflict that followed are sure to be released regularly over the next few years. With that in mind, this is just the kind of publication that will be welcomed by historians and enthusiasts of the period. John R Maass, who works at the National Museum of the United States Army, has chosen five battles and events from the American War of Independence that can be identified as turning points: the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, the Saratoga campaign, the…

Authors: Peter Robinson and Milka Ivanova Publisher: Amberley Publishing Price: £15.99 (Paperback) Released: Out Now Britain’s Cold War Heritage by Peter Robinson and Milka Ivanova takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour around the country, looking at the many ways the Cold War left a lasting impression on the nation. The initiative behind the book (www.coldwarnetwork.co.uk) hopes to grow tourism opportunities in this sector, and a comprehensive gazetteer at the end will help readers plan many a road trip. The book starts by setting the scene and describing how the Cold War started and how the threat of nuclear weapons dominated our leaders’ thinking. It then briskly walks the reader through the main topics of interest, from nuclear bunkers and emergency communications systems, to US air bases on British soil.…

Incendiary weapons were an integral part of medieval and post-medieval warfare, particularly at sea, where fire is the enemy of any navy. An incendiary composition inspired by the ancient Byzantine ‘Greek Fire’ was used, usually by combining some of the following: gunpowder, petroleum oil, sulphur oil, ammonia, animal fat, arsenic and resin. The flammable mixture was then applied to a dart or arrow by nailing a linen bag around the shaft, filling it with the substance, binding it with twine and coating it with pitch. Wooden pegs acted as fuses. The darts were propelled by crewmen using yew longbows and highly advanced bronze muzzle-loading guns, and examples of both types of weapon were recovered from the wreck of Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose. Three wooden poles, 4ft (120cm) long,…