Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 149 i History of War

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, eighty years ago this month, remains one of the most important events in history. The terrible, destructive weapon kept secret for so long was unleashed, marked a turning point for the world. However, as Iain MacGregor points out in this issue, the atomic bomb was just the catastrophic conclusion of an increasingly brutal war. An example he gives of the escalating destruction, is in the first six months of 1945, in the Pacific, the US took more casualties than in the previous three years combined. Through USAAF’s bombing of the Home Islands, this bloodshed was more than repaid. The firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945 saw over 100,000 people killed and wounded, and the city devastated. Like the atomic attack launched months later, the…

Vladyslav Morozov wakes in eastern Ukraine. In the orange and deep purple dawn light, he spots the armoured troop carriers of a Russian convoy advancing through the outskirts of his town. It’s heading to the frontline, where artillery rumbles day and night. After discreetly taking pictures on his smartphone, Morozov shares the intelligence with his country’s military through the eVorog app. Others have done the same, allowing intelligence services to track the convoy’s journey towards the frontline. Ukrainian military planners receive the data. Within hours, Ukrainian HIMARS rocket artillery strikes the convoy and causes havoc among the Russian ranks. The civilian in this imagined scenario has taken part in a kill chain, which is how a military force identifies and engages enemy targets. Kill chain models vary among militaries, but…

Theodore Van Kirk, known to everyone as ‘Dutch’, was having trouble sleeping. It was a common affliction among servicemen before a mission, but then again Dutch and his 11 crewmates stationed on the tiny Pacific island of Tinian had more reason than most to be suffering from insomnia that night. The date was 5 August 1945 and tomorrow morning they were to drop the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. To pass the time, some of the crew – including navigator Dutch, bombardier Tom Ferebee and pilot Paul Tibbets – played poker. In a matter of hours they would be gambling again, but this time with much higher stakes. Sure, the United States had successfully detonated the first nuclear device the previous month during the Trinity test in New Mexico,…

ACCESS OVER 80 ISSUES! FULL DIGITAL ACCESS SUBSCRIBE NOW Visit www.magazinesdirect.com/WAR for more information Terms and Conditions: Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue (up to eight weeks overseas). *Access to the digital library will end with your subscription. For full terms and conditions, visit www.magazinesdirect.com/terms. For enquiries please call: +44 (0) 330 333 1113. Lines are open Monday-Friday 8:30am-7pm, and Saturday 10am-3pm UK time (excluding Bank Holidays) or email: help@magazinesdirect.com. Calls to 0330 numbers will be charged at no more than a national landline call, and may be included in your phone provider’s call bundle.…

JAPANESE INSTRUMENT OF SURRENDER SIGNED The signing of a formal agreement aboard the USS Missouri, the last battleship commissioned by the US, brought an end to the Second World War. During a 23-minute ceremony, which was broadcast worldwide, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the surrender on behalf of the emperor and his government. General Yoshijirō Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff, signed it on behalf of the Imperial General Headquarters. General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender, flanked by General Jonathan Wainwright and Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, both of whom had been Japanese prisoners of war. Several representatives of other Allied powers, including the United Kingdom’s Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, then signed the document. BERLIN VICTORY PARADE The Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom and France held a victory parade…

IAIN MACGREGOR Iain is an author, publisher and historian with a number of best-selling books. His latest, The Hiroshima Men, recounts the stories of the people behind the nuclear bomb. He spoke with Louis Hardiman (page 26). STUART HADAWAY A little-known mission that took place in the weeks after the end of WWII – Task Force Gremlin – saw a group of Japanese airmen seconded into RAF service in Indochina. Starting on page 44, Stuart unpacks how this intriguing story unfolded. MATTHEW FORD The mobile phone has not just transformed society, but also the battlefield. In this issue’s Frontline Matthew explains how smartphones have now become an essential tool of war in Ukraine, and will continue to shape future military tactics (p.18).…

The first successful static test of a British atomic bomb, in October 1952, was conducted underwater, but it was always intended that the final weapons would be air-dropped by the Royal Air Force. In October 1956, a Vickers Valiant dropped an atomic weapon, and less than a year later a Valiant dropped a hydrogen, or nuclear, bomb during Operation Grapple. By this time the development of a fleet of bombers (the so-called ‘V Bombers’ – Valiant, Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor) and suitable stand-off delivery systems were all well under way. These aircraft and their nuclear weapons became ‘V Force’: Britain’s nuclear deterrent. They were intended to provide a reactive wave of attacks on the Soviet Union (or other enemies) who had already launched an attack on Britain or…

We all know that human intelligence (HUMINT) collection isn’t where it needs to be,” Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe told the US Senate in his January 2025 confirmation hearing. Signals intelligence (SIGINT), information from intercepted digital communications, currently contributes to 60 percent of the US president’s daily briefings and has overtaken human intelligence. At the centre of efforts to improve Western HUMINT capabilities is the need to understand China’s threats against Taiwan, Russia’s operations in Ukraine and Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weaponry. “HUMINT is romantic. That’s what spy movies are about,” says Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director in the CIA and author of Vigilance is Not Enough. HUMINT can penetrate areas inaccessible to SIGINT, confirm fragmentary information and aid in understanding leaders’ intentions. Even after Nazi communications…

“The bomber will always get through; the T only defence is offence,” Stanley Baldwin told the British Parliament in 1932. Five years later during the Spanish Civil War, Hitler’s Condor Legion devastated Guernica with high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, Coventry and other European cities followed in the Second World War. The destructive power of aerial bombardment was also unleashed in the Pacific Theatre: hundreds of thousands died in Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and more when incendiary bombs ignited wooden homes into unstoppable firestorms. The crescendo of this devastating strategy came when the atomic bombs Fat Man and Little Boy fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the outset of the Second World War President Franklin D Roosevelt implored the belligerents to avoid civilian casualties when bombing. Yet even as he…

By the summer of 1944 the triumphant Red Army was deep inside eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was well on the way to creating a massive European security buffer with the creation of Communist satellite states. Never again would Germany launch a surprise attack on Mother Russia. In the Soviet Far East, Stalin planned to create a similar buffer to permanently keep the Japanese away from the Soviet border. Stalin, although not at war with Japan, had little reason to trust the Japanese. They had attacked the Imperial Russian fleet at Port Arthur in 1904, seizing the latter and gaining Russia’s concessions in the southern part of Chinese Manchuria. Six years later Japan annexed Korea and the Japanese proceeded to colonise the country, suppressing Korean culture and language. It…

16 JULY 1945 5.29AM FIRST DETONATION US scientists successfully detonate the first nuclear device at the Trinity test site 28 JULY Japanese government rejects surrender terms put forward by the Allies in the Potsdam Declaration 5 AUGUST 2PM Having been told they have the go-ahead to drop the atomic bomb, Van Kirk and the rest of the crew try to get some sleep 3PM The Little Boy bomb is loaded onto the Enola Gay 6PM Struggling to sleep, Van Kirk, Ferebee, Tibbets and others play poker 10PM The crew gets up to prepare for the flight to Hiroshima and eat breakfast 6 AUGUST 12AM After a final briefing Van Kirk and the crew make their way to the Enola Gay 1.37AM WEATHER REPORT The three weather planes leave North Field…

APPOMATTOX COUNTY, VIRGINIA 9 APRIL 1865 “THOUSANDS OF HUNGRY AND WAR-WEARY CONFEDERATES STEELED THEMSELVES FOR ONE MORE ATTACK” It was daybreak of Palm Sunday, 9 April 1865. At Appomattox Court House, 95 miles (153km) west of Richmond – the former Confederate capital, now in Union hands – thousands of hungry and war-weary Confederates steeled themselves for one more attack. When they set off, the regimental fragments were so small that their red and blue battle flags crowded together in the rush to meet the enemy. The distinctive Rebel yell pierced the air for the last time. The name Appomattox Court House conjures up familiar scenes: the immaculately dressed Confederate General Robert E Lee greeting Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S Grant in his mud-spattered field uniform; the two chatting briefly before…

Sir Barney White-Spunner KCB CBE served for over 30 years in the British Army, including as Commander of the Field Army, before retiring in 2011. Since then he has become an acclaimed historian, with publications ranging on topics from the Household Cavalry (his former regiment), and Indian Partition. His latest book, Nations in Arms, explores the purpose and makeup of successful armies through five historical case studies. From the forces of Emperor Constantine to the US Army of 1941, White-Spunner recounts how and why these armies were successful, threading the core principles that across decades have prevailed. He spoke with History of War about his approach to the book, and how his conclusions could shape armies of the future. What event prompted you to write this book? I think it was…

Author: Andrew Lambert Publisher: Yale University Press Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out now Our pick of the latest military history books Andrew Lambert has produced a fascinating account of British maritime strategy in the long nineteenth century (1789 – 1914). His broader argument rests on two key concepts. The first is ‘ordering’ – the maintenance of a balance of power in Europe through effective diplomacy, preventing one major power dominating the continent. The second, ‘offshore balancing’, is a focus on a strong navy to provide a deterrent to any threat. Lambert argues persuasively that when this approach was followed it deterred any attack from a major power for almost a century after the Battle of Waterloo, and more provocatively, that a neglect of these principles contributed to the onset of…

Author: Jonathan Glancey Publisher: Atlantic Books Price: £22 (Hardback) Released: Out now The aircraft of Britain’s V-Force are icons of aviation and marvels of engineering. The Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor were some of the most advanced and capable bombers of their day, or any day. The Valiant was the first British aircraft to drop both an atomic bomb and a nuclear bomb, and was also the first to retire. After a change of doctrine in 1962 from extreme high-altitude to very low altitude infiltration of Soviet defences bought on by advances in surface-to-air missiles, the Valient began to suffer from severe metal fatigue issues and was withdrawn from service. The other two adapted readily, however. Even after the withdrawal of the nuclear role from V-Force in…

Author: Iain MacGregor Publisher: Constable Price: £25 (Hardback) On sale: Out now Iain MacGregor, author of acclaimed histories of Cold War Berlin and the Battle of Stalingrad, returns with a thought-provoking account of the race for the atomic bomb through the eyes of American and Japanese participants. He guides us from the corridors of Berkeley and the White House to the New Mexico desert and the Trinity Test site. On the other side of the world, Japanese infantrymen desperately hold on in the brutal Pacific War, fire storms engulf Japanese cities and, with shocking finality, thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are vapourised in nuclear blasts brighter than the Sun. History of War readers will already be familiar with much in MacGregor’s book, yet he finds space to break new ground.…

Author: David Monger Publisher: Bloomsbury Price: £26.99 (Paperback) Released: Out now Historian David Monger has produced a well-researched and entertaining account of how propaganda efforts in the Great War were conceived and their impact on the British public and the wider world. This was a defining moment in the use of European wartime propaganda, a time when public opinion could no longer be ignored by governments, with civilian volunteers actively involved in combat. Several of the examples the author highlights could not fail to rouse an angered populace. For instance, the poster of nine eager pigs crowded around a bound female body in white, blood running from her corpse. The pigs wear spiked helmets, one sports a monocle and another has the German Iron Cross hanging from its tail. Thrown…

Two years after his promotion to captain in the 4th Light Dragoons, Thomas Everard Hutton rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War (1853-56). During the attack on 25 October 1854 he was hit in the right thigh by Russian fire. According to his commanding officer, Lord George Paget, Hutton exclaimed: “Low, I am wounded; what shall I do?” His squadron leader replied: “If you can sit on your horse, you had better come with us; there’s no use going back now; you’ll only be killed.” Hutton continued in the assault, striking down several enemy troops, before a second Russian shot struck his left thigh. His horse came off even worse: it received 11 wounds in the battle and had to…

Having preserved its independence at the cost of an economic stranglehold by the British Empire and its unstoppable merchant fleet, the kingdom of Siam spent decades refashioning itself into a modern state. Aiding the process were treaties with England and France that agreed on lasting borders. Having cobbled together Indo-China from the mid-19th century onward, France wrangled distant Siamese provinces with treaties in 1904 and 1907. Similar arrangements were settled with the British in 1909, and these were blessings in disguise: at long last Malay incursions from the peninsula and Burmese invasions from the northwest were deterred for good. After renaming itself Thailand in 1939, modernisation progressed with the usual characteristics of Southeast Asian countries – foreign investment and centralised government – helped along by the country’s location. Its capital…

Throughout the Cold War, NATO considered Russia’s submarine fleet to be inferior in most respects to those used by the West. Their technology fell behind that of the US and UK, and it was common for Russian submarines to be detected, tracked and monitored by the Royal Navy (RN) and US Navy (USN). It was an undersea intelligence war in which the West maintained the advantage during the 1970s and 1980s. The surge in Russian technology, when it took place within Russia’s submarine fleet, was often a result of spies within the USN exchanging secret technology and operating procedures for cash from Moscow. Spies such as Ronald Pelton, with the National Security Agency (NSA), who supplied secret signals intelligence to Russia from 1980-85, and John Anthony Walker, a USN warrant…

8 FEBRUARY At Yalta President Roosevelt offers Stalin Japanese territory in return for joining the war against Japan. 26 JULY Allies issue the Potsdam Declaration calling for Japan’s unconditional surrender or face utter destruction. Japan refuses. 6 AUGUST America drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Still Japan refuses to surrender. 8 AUGUST Stalin declares war on Japan. 9 AUGUST America drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki and the Red Army invades Japanese controlled Manchuria from the east and west. 10 AUGUST Japan signals it is willing to consider the Potsdam Declaration. Fighting continues. 15 AUGUST Emperor Hirohito broadcasts to his people that Japan will end the war. 16 AUGUST General Yamada in Manchuria orders his divisions to cease resisting. Not all obey. 18 AUGUST Red Army conducts amphibious landings in northern Korea,…

In August 1945, the war in the Far East came to a sudden and unexpected end. The atomic bombs had been closely guarded secrets, and the Allied forces and commanders on the ground were taken as much by surprise as the Japanese. Across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, forces were still engaged in heavy fighting in China, the Philippines and on Okinawa while preparing for the liberation of Malaya and Singapore and the invasion of Japan itself. Invasion forces had to be retasked, split up and thrown piecemeal into ad hoc operations to secure Japanese garrisons spread across the entire region. At the insistence of the Supreme Commander in the theatre, General Douglas McArthur, no forces were to accept local Japanese surrenders before the main, carefully choreographed surrender in Tokyo…

UNTOLD New museum to explore Irish heritage in the British Army Plans have been unveiled for a £13.6 million project to open a state-of-the-art museum with two sites: Belfast and Enniskillen. These galleries will commemorate 350 years of Irish soldiers serving in the British Army, including their participation in the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte famously described the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot as “the most obstinate mules I ever saw”; 108 years later, on 23 November 1918, the 2nd Leinsters became the first British Army Regiment to march across the Waterloo battlefield since Napoleon’s defeat. The Untold collection will include artefacts from The Inniskillings Museum, The Royal Ulster Rifles Museum, The Royal Irish Fusiliers Museum, The Royal Irish Regiment Museum, The Collections and Archives of The Royal Irish Regiment…