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A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Part 1)

by Gerhard L. Weinberg

  1. People / Organizations:

    • Josef Beck - Polish Foreign Minister (pg. 46)

    • Daladier - French Prime Minister (pg. 46)

    • Hans Frank (pg. 58)

    • Count Galeazzo Ciano - Italian Foreign Minister (pg. 74)

    • Joseph Goebbels - German Propaganda Minister (pg. 76)

    • Shiratori Toshio (pg. 83)

    • Yonai Mitsumasa (pg. 83)

    • Jesse Strauss (pg. 84)

    • William Bullitt (pg. 84)

    • Herman Goring - Commander in Chief of German Air Force (pg. 89)

    • General Franz Halder - German Army CoS (pg. 110)

    • General Walther von Brauchitsch (pg. 109)

    • General August von Mackensen (pg. 109)

    • Erich von Manstein (pg. 112)

    • Lord Halifax - British Foreign Secretary

    • General Brooke - Commander of the British II Corps (pg. 131)

    • Marshal Philippe Petain (pg. 139)

    • Pierre Laval (pg. 139)

    • Charles de Gaulle (pg. 139)

    • Henry Stimson - Secretary of War (pg. 153)

    • William Donovan - OSS (pg. 153)

    • Konoe Fumimaro - Japanese Prime Minister (pg. 169)

    • Emperor Hirohito

    • Chiang Kai-shek (pg. 169)

    • Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku (pg. 167)

    • Matsuoka Yosuke (pg. 169)

    • Rudolf Huss (pg. 237)

    • Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov - Russian General (pg. 280)

    • Boris Shaposhnikov (pg. 280)

    • General Vaslilevsky (pg. 280)

    • General Ida Shogin (pg. 320)

    • MG Joseph W. Stilwell (pg. 321)

    • General McArthur (pg. 321)

  2. Quotes:

    • "The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor." - FDR on Italy entering the War. (pg. 132)

    • "Discretion is the better part of valor" - Author (pg. 170)

    • "Nothing more clearly illuminates the world-wide ambitions of the Third Reich than the decision to press forward with a vast program for constructing battleships, aircraft carriers, and other warships at a time when the war that began in September of 1939 was believed to be over." - Author (pg. 176)

    • "For the Sailors as for the Soldiers, war was a combination in which 99 percent boredom and anxiety alternated with 1 percent terror and exhilaration" - Author (pg. 375)

  3. Data Resources:

  4. General Notes (Part I):

    • January 30, 1939 - Hitler announces, in a speech to the German people and the world, his desire for Jewish extermination (pg. 95)

    • September 16, 1939 - cease fire is issued in Nomonhan Incident (pg. 6)

    • "the capacity of the modern state for mass mobilization had drawn human and material resources out of each belligerent to an extent no one had previously imagined, and these human and material resources had been consumed in the furnace of war". (pg. 7)

    • November 11, 1918 - armistice of WWI (pg. 6)

    • "the peace settlement of 1919 was complicated by a series of comprises - four major factors in the situation affected these compromises" (pg. 7) "the terms of the peace imposed on the defeated included international organizational, military, territorial, and financial provisions." (pg. 13-14) "the most traumatic for the Germans was the return to a revived Poland" - territory that acted as a buffer between Germany and Russia (pg. 16)

      • The sooner than expected defeat of the Germans.

      • There was a desperate fear of German might - the fact that it took nearly the entire world to restrain and defeat German ambitions and its government, which was only formed and came to power a short while before the war (the mystique of their rapid rise, so to speak). (pg. 8)

      • Europe should be organized around the principle of nationality (pg. 9)

        • "the new states emerging out of the ruins of the German, Ottoman, Austrian, and Russian empires would have to develop their own independent structures of federative polities as best they could, a process hampered by their national rivalries and great power interference." (pg. 10)

      • The belief that the war had drastically changed the world and that there was a duty to prevent a disaster like WWI from occurring ever again. (pg. 10)

        • "France had borne the greatest burden of the war including the highest proportion of both casualties and destruction." (pg. 18) There was still a great fear of Germany during the interwar years, but the attitude of French diplomacy was that of distaste towards military alliances, which led to a contradictory national strategy. (pg. 19)

        • "Britain believed that the lesson of 1914 was that war in Europe couldn't be localized, [which necessitated the belief] that had to be kept from starting in the first place; which led to the concept of peaceful change as a means of resolving local issues." (pg. 19)

    • Reparations vs. Indemnities (pg. 14)

    • March 15, 1939 - Germany seizes Czechoslovakia (pg. 46)

    • "the international institution created in the peace settlement, the League of Nations, had been crippled at birth by the absence of the U.S. and the exclusion of Russia as well as the defeated powers. When confronted by it's first serious test in Japan's 1931 seizure of Manchuria, it failed over a problem inherent in the concept of collective security. In a world of separate states, the theory of averting the danger of war by the threat of universal or large scale collective action requires for its implementation that countries be willing to go to war if necessary over specific issues that might be of only marginal significance." (pg. 24)

    • August 23, 1939 - Soviet-German secret agreement over the division of Eastern Europe (pg. 25) [Avalon Project - Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 (yale.edu)]

      • There was a disconnect between the hastiness of Germany's attempt to take over Poland and Russia's expectations and alignment with Germany (pg. 54-55)

      • This came to a bit of a shock to Japan, who were still engaged in hostilities with Russia, as it negated the Japanese-German Anti-Comintern Pact (pg. 35)

      • Anti-Comintern Pact & Polish-Germany Relations in 1939 (pg. 32)

    • Lebensraum - German Doctrine of 'living space" (pg. 44)

      • "as Hitler explained to his military commanders on May 23, 1939, the object of war was not Danzig but the expansion of Germany's Lebensraum" (pg. 44)

    • Blitzkrieg - "Lightening War" - fierce but short battles with concentrated mechanized forces that would lead to decisive victory (The Prize, pg. 316)

      • "Once Germany had by her rearmament gained a head start over her neighbors, the sooner she struck, the greater the chances for success" (pg. 29)

      • "The preparations for this war were internal (propaganda) as well as external (rearmament)" (pg. 28)

    • Hitler's Military Machine (pg. 41)

      • "in order to consider an attack in the West safe, Hitler wanted his Eastern border buffered. Czechoslovakia had been effectively subordinated; three other countries bordered Germany on the East: Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary." (pg. 31) "in the context of this revised concept for 1939, the immediate focus of military planning would be an attack on Poland delivered in the fall of 1939, with enough time to defeat that country before the autumn rains softened the unpaved roads and runways". (32) "Since Germany's attack on Poland was from Berlin's perspective the necessary preliminary to an attack on Britain and France and agreement with Moscow would isolate Poland" (pg. 33) "two developments became known in Berlin on August 25 that changed Hitler's plan" (pg. 37)

      • "the German government learned that Italy wasn't willing to join in and that Great Britain had just signed an alliance treaty with Poland" (pg. 37)

    • August 31, 1939 - Hitler ordered a dramatic increase in JU-88 production (pg. 108)

    • September 1, 1939 - Germany Invades Poland (pg. 43)

      • Russia moves in from the east (pg. 52)

      • "this desire for speed not only influenced the German conduct of military operations, but [also] diplomatic maneuvers during the first days of the war." (pg. 52)

        • They looked to Hungary (remained neutral), Lithuania (remained neutral), and Slovakia (sided with Germany) (pg. 52-53)

      • "The Polish Government had faced 4 problems:" (pg. 48)

        • Absence of modern military equipment (pg. 49)

        • What was Poland to defend?

    • In conjunction with the invasion of Poland, "the German Navy began its attack on Allied shipping" in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.(pg. 70)

    • "three critical aspects of the war at sea were already becoming evident in the first months of the war" (pg. 71)

      • The British Navy underestimated the extent and capability of German submarines.

      • The German absence of any effective Naval-Air program.

      • Willingness of British ships to run whatever risks seemed appropriate to combat Germany.

    • September 3, 1939 - France and England declare war on Germany (pg. 65)

      • "although the Allies declared war against Germany, there was little fighting on land until spring of 1940. This lull in hostilities became known as the Phony War" (World War II Map by Map, pg. 41)

    • September 15, 1939 - Soviet-Japanese armistice agreement (pg. 56)

    • "in the first days of the war, as German forces invaded Poland, the army confined itself to a defensive posture in the west to protect itself from a French invasion." (pg. 108)

    • September 8, 1939 - Hitler was discussing a German offensive in the West and was making designs on invading the Low Countries (pg. 108)

      • "the offensive was to concentrate on striking into the Low Countries and into northern France to seize bases for further operations against Britain." (pg. 108)

      • A reason for the delay in execution [initially set for October/November] of this design was to do with a number of factors; but most importantly, "there had been a change in both the goal of the offensive and the means to attain it." (pg. 112)

      • "this reorientation of goals and operational plans was the result of combining the thinking of Hitler and Erich von Manstein." (pg. 112)

      • French and British Strategy for combating a German invasion in the Low Countries (pg. 123)

        • 3 choices:

          • Pre-emptively intervene and moves troops into the region.

          • Do nothing at all and let defend themselves

          • Move troops in once Germany invades (which was the concept settled upon).

        • A key issue was the synchronization of plans and integration of units to support a defense (pg. 124)

    • "closely related to the intended offensive in the west was the project of seizing Norway and Denmark" (pg. 113)

      • "the concept of German's Navy needing bases in Norway for a war with England goes back decades before WWII." (pg. 113)

      • October 10, 1939 - Raeder raises questions of obtaining bases in  Norway with Hitler (pg. 113)

    • November 30, 1939 - Russia attacks Finland (pg. 101)

    • February 11, 1940 - Russo-German Economic Treaty (pg. 63)

    • France's Defensive Fortification System - The Maginot Line (pg. 68)

      • "The French military leaders saw the prospect of victory in a successful defense - a strategy that served them well in WWI" (pg. 68)

    • Economic Importance of Neutrals:

      • "Sweden provided the German economy with a substantial proportion of her iron ore. 40% of Germany's iron ore supply came from Sweden during the period of 1939 - 1940." (pg. 77)

      • "Turkey was important to Germany for it deliveries of chrome." (pg. 78)

      • "Economically important to the German war effort in Southeast Europe were the countries of Yugoslavia (copper) and Romania (oil)." (pg. 78)

    • Geography:

      • Roads:

        • Burma Road (pg. 166, 168) - "The Japanese estimated in June of 1940 that 31% of outside supplies came through the Burma Road." (pg. 166)

      • Railways:

        • Soviet Turk-Sib Railway (pg. 81)

        • Transsiberian Railway (pg. 83, 162)

        • Murmansk Railway (pg. 270) - German-Russian Eastern Front.

        • Thailand to Burman Railway (pg. 391, 638) - was part of the Japanese efforts to create alternative methods of transporting goods and raw materials for the war effort, which cost the lives of tens of thousands of prisoners of war. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" [Burma–Thailand Railway | National Museum of Australia (nma.gov.au)]

    • War Goods:

      • Oil (Romania, pg. 78, 135; Dutch East Indies, pg. 167), Rubber (), Iron Ore (Sweden, pg. 77, 119, 174), Soybeans (Manchuria, pg. 82), Copper (Yugoslavia, pg. 78), Nickel (Finland, pg. 102, 106, 137)

    • U.S. Neutrality Acts of 1930 were a significant point of debate in the early years of the war (pg. 85)

      • [Milestones: 1921–1936 - Office of the Historian (state.gov)]

      • [Neutrality Laws of the United States on JSTOR]

      • "Between 1935 and 1937 Congress passed three "Neutrality Acts" that tried to keep the United States out of war, by making it illegal for Americans to sell or transport arms, or other war materials to belligerent nations. Supporters of neutrality, called "isolationists" by their critics, argued that America should avoid entangling itself in European wars. "Internationalists" rejected the idea that the United States could remain aloof from Europe and held that the nation should aid countries threatened with aggression. In the spring of 1939, as Germany, Japan, and Italy pursued militaristic policies, President Roosevelt wanted more flexibility to meet the Fascist challenge. FDR suggested amending the act to allow warring nations to purchase munitions if they paid cash and transported the goods on non-American ships, a policy that favored Britain and France. Initially, this proposal failed, but after Germany invaded Poland in September, Congress passed the Neutrality Act of 1939 ending the munitions embargo on a "cash and carry" basis. The passage of the 1939 Neutrality Act marked the beginning of a congressional shift away from isolationism. Over the next 2 years, Congress took further steps to oppose fascism. One of the most important was the 1941 approval of Lend-Lease, which allowed the United States to transfer arms to nations vital to the national defense". [Congress, Neutrality, and Lend-Lease (archives.gov)]

    • March 1, 1940 - Hitler issues directive for the invasion of Denmark and Norway. "Operation Weserubung" (pg. 116)

      • April 9, 1940 - Invasion begins (World War II Map by Map, pg. 47)

      • "in the first days of April the German ships were loaded with troops and supplies" (pg. 116)

      • "within a day, Denmark surrendered" (pg. 116)

      • The Battle of Narvik (pg. 117) [The Battle of Narvik: Crippling the Kriegsmarine - Warfare History Network]

        • "in this portion of the campaign the Germans had suffered substantial damage to their naval forces.' (pg. 117) "The Germans, who had employed practically their whole navy in the operation, had lost most of their large surface ships." (pg. 118)

        • "a substantial benefit in the war was assumed to be obtained by the acquisition of those bases on the Norwegian coast. " (pg. 120)

    • March 12, 1940 - Russo-Finnish Peace Treaty (pg. 106)

    • Katyn Forest Massacre (pg. 107) [Records Relating to the Katyn Forest Massacre at the National Archives | National Archives]

    • May 10, 1940 - Germany invades Holland and Belgium (pg. 122)

      • May 14, 1940 - Germans carry out a ruthless bombing attack on the city of Rotterdam (pg. 125)

      • "the decisive German thrust came from Luxembourg and southern Belgium into northern France over roads through the Ardennes." (pg. 126)

      • May 13, 1940 - German forces cross the Meuse River (pg. 126)

      • "Several factors combined to enable the Germans to win not only quickly but easily" (pg. 127)

        • French General Maurice Gamelin had left forces too far behind the Maginot Line.

        • No Allied command structure existed in 1940.

    • Dunkirk & France (pg. 130) (the turning point?)

      • "the real question was, would it be possible to stage a fighting retreat to the coast and ship out troops alongside French forces fighting with them?" (pg. 130)

      • May 24, 1940 - "Hitler and General Gerd von  Rundstedt agreed that armored forces moving north be halted so that they could be repaired and refurbished." (pg. 130)

      • May 26, 1940 - Hitler ordered a renewed push north towards Dunkirk (pg. 131)

      • June 5, 1940 - renewed German offensive through France (pg. 131)

      • June 14, 1940 - Germans occupy Paris, France (pg. 131)

        • France, during this time, was in a major transition of government - moving from the Third Republic to the Vichy Government. There was conflicting ideas about the prospects of France after the German invasion, and subsequent occupation of Paris, in the newly erected Vichy government over whether appeasement or continued attrition was more appropriate (pg. 139)

        • June 16, 1940 - Marshal Philippe Petain becomes Prime Minister of France. (pg. 140)

        • June 17, 1940 - the Petain government asks, through Spain, for an armistice (pg. 140)

        • June 24, 1940 - Franco-Italian and Franco-German armistice agreements take effect (pg. 141, 174)

          • The implication of this led surrounding countries to adopt a similar policy (Belgium) (pg. 140)

          • "What the German government wanted was a temporary truce in the West so that it could turn to the conquest of living space in the East. That mean not bargaining with Belgium or Poland but getting England to follow the example of France by acknowledging the totality of German victory and Allied defeat." (pg. 142)

          • "The British Chiefs of Staff argued that the way to victory would be in combining bombing of Germany and German-controlled Europe with a blockade as vigorous as Britain could make it." (pg. 142)

            • 3 Necessities were required:

              • Defend the British homeland. "that meant that the Navy had to be in a position to defend the U.K. and protect supply routes." (pg. 145)

              • Assistance from the U.S. (pg. 145)

              • The Army had to be rebuilt to fight the Germans. (pg. 145)

      • "beaches were mined and bridges prepared for demolition. The critical question was the ability of Britain to defend herself against the German Ari Force. Bases in the Low Countries and northern France made it far easier to attack Great Britain." (pg. 148) "The critical issue [for Britain] was no longer military man power but equipment. By mid-June, there were rifles for all of the one and a half million regulars but not yet for the newly organized local Defense Volunteers - The Home Guard. Heavy weapons and armored vehicles were of great need [as well] as the British Expeditionary Force had left most of its modern equipment in France." (pg. 147) "Herman Goring - Commander in Chief of the German Air Force - was confident that his planes could crush the Royal Air Force in about 5 weeks." (pg. 149) "when the Germans stepped up the pace in mid-August, losses on both sides increased; but the British were more successful in replacing their losses" (pg. 149)

      • August 24, 1940 - German airplanes bombed London (pg. 149)

    • June 10, 1940 - Italy joins the war (pg. 132)

      • "Hitler promised to support Spain's claim to Gibraltar and asserted that Germany merely had economic interests in Morocco." (pg. 133)

    • July 3, 1940 - British attack French naval ships (pg. 146)

      • "calculated to show the Americans that England intended to fight on." (pg. 158)

    • July 19, 1940 - FDR authorized construction of 1,325,000 tons of warships - this meant doubling the nations fleet (pg. 155)

      • "ironically, [this directive] confronted with a dilemma it chose to resolve by going to war with the U.S. as it went against the Washington Naval Limitations Treaty of 1922, which restricted the number of Japanese ships to 3/5ths that of the U.S." (pg. 155)

      • "the most immediate and difficult problem facing Roosevelt was how much to assist Britain in the summer of 1940. What would the American people say about a President who overruled his military advisors to send weapons to a losing cause?" (pg. 157)

    • "in the great wars against continental opponents in the past, the British had fought by combining a substantial navy with small land forces and extensive financial support for continental allies." (pg. 15)

    • September 27, 1940 - Tripartite Pact is signed between Germany, Italy, and Japan (pg. 182)

      • "the Germans were completely uninterested in having the Soviet Union join the Tripartite Pact and never replied to the Soviet offer [to join]." (pg. 202)

    • Germany and the Soviet Union: (the turning point?)

      • "Initially conceived as an offensive to be launched in the fall of 1940, the campaign was expected to last only a few weeks. The concept of a one-front war always meant one-land front to Hitler, so that the question of whether or not England remained in the war after the defeat of France was initially irrelevant to the timing of an attack in the East. The destruction of Russia would serve as an indirect means of forcing Britain out of the war as well as opening up the agricultural land and raw materials of the Soviet Union for German settlement." (pg. 179) "The limited industrial resources of Germany at their relatively low level of mobilization were not capable of coping simultaneously with the preparations for the new land campaign in the East and construction of the great battleship navy [to challenge England]." (pg. 182) The implications of this redirection of aims was a greater reliance on Japan to fill the void in German navy strength and a reduction in antagonistic efforts directed as U.S. shipping. (pg. 182)

      • "the economic exploitation of the territory to be seized in the east was a critical element in the whole German perception of the campaign against the U.S.S.R." (pg. 190)

      • "The new German policies towards Finland, Turkey, and Romania [in the months leading up to the invasion] were met with unconcealed Soviet grumbling" (pg. 197)

      • "The Soviet Union intended to annex Finland and expected the Germans to adhere to their prior agreement. [However,] the Germans made it clear that they wouldn't stand [for this policy] and would block any further advance [towards the Straits and the Mediterranean]." (pg. 200-201)

      • Finland served as Germany's flanking position in the attack against the Soviet Union (pg. 201)

      • January 10, 1941 - New German-Russo Economic Agreement (pg. 202)

        • "Given the German decision to attack the Soviet Union, it should be easy to understand why Berlin never replied to the political proposals but was happy to sign a new trade agreement [which would help supply the German war economy leading all the way up to the final hour]. From Berlin's perspective, gathering the goods while keeping their diplomatic mouths shut was clearly the smartest policy" (pg. 202)

      • "because many of these moves [Germany occupying Bulgaria and expanding into the Balkans] looked to the Soviet Union as primarily directed against Great Britain, they didn’t see these moves as preparing the flanks for a forthcoming attack. It was certainly obvious that Germany was building up large military forces in Eastern Europe." (pg. 202-203)

      • "Mussolini was very angry to hear to German move into Romania." (pg. 209) "This wasn't the reason Italy had gone to war as Germany's ally." (pg. 208)

      • "Stalin appears to have believed in the basic Marxist perception of National Socialism as a tool of German monopoly capitalism with a central rivalry for markets, raw materials, and investment opportunities with other capitalist states. There would be no sense in attacking Russia in this perception if all Germany needed from her would be made available." (pg. 204)

      • June 22, 1941 - Germany invades Russia (pg. 205, 264)

        • "The whole German Offensive was predicated on the assumption that this campaign would be a short one. No replacements were available or planned for either personnel or equipment after the first weeks, and no one was worried about this situation [back in Germany]". (pg. 266) There were little reserves forces o the eastern front, no anti-aircraft artillery, and the German air force had their eyes set on Britain n the West.

        • "The Germans now how to decide whether to resume the offensive on the Central front [which would illustrate being a penetration of the front lines] or in the North or South [which would entail an envelopment]" (pg. 269). "The forms of maneuver are envelopment, flank attack, frontal attack, infiltration, penetration, and turning movement" (ADP 3-90, pg. 10, [Microsoft Word - ADP_3-90_Final_draft_.docx (army.mil)]) [History WW2 - European Theatre | United States Military Academy West Point]

        • "Whatever they planned to do next, they first had to repair the railways so that these could bear the burden of logistical support for their operations further east. Hitler decided to transfer forces Army Group Center to assist in the attacks toward Leningrad in the North while other were to be detached for an assault into the rear of Soviet forces defending Kiev in the South" (pg. 270)

        • "The major German operation on the Southern part of the main front in the East involved the use of armored formations (which came from Center Group) to drive southward to meet another armored assault northward across the Dnepr river at Kremenchug. [The German Army South ended up] taking most of the Crimea and occupying much of central and eastern Ukraine and advanced along the north shore of the Sea of Azov. This advance culminated in the seizure of Rostov on November 21, 1941, but German offensive strength was at an end. In the following days, the Red Army's counter-attacks not only stopped the invaders but drove them out of Rostov, and thus doomed all German hopes of cutting off the Soviet Union's ability to transport from the Caucasus oil fields to her armies and factories." (pg. 272)

        • "There was some sentiment among the German leadership that it would be best to hold the positions [and go on the defensive] to remedy strained supply and provide exhausted troops with rest" (pg. 273)

        • "Hitler had decided, however, that one last push might win them Moscow, which would deliver a significant psychological blow to the Soviet Union and incapacitate their supply and command systems. It was also thought that the front lines were inadequate for a defensive posture." (pg. 273)

        • "The disaster which overtook the Red Army was compounded by 3 factors:" (pg. 279)

          • Purge of Red Army Officers

          • No defense in depth

          • No coherent response plan against Germany

        • "Japan's turn to offensive against the Western Powers relieved pressure in Russia for holding units in East Asia" (pg. 282)

        • August 21, 1941 - a convoy of supply ships left Iceland for Murmansk, the first of 40 which made the perilous journey during the war through the deadly seas where German submarines, planes, and mines sank almost 100 of the 800 ships." (pg. 284)

        • July 12, 1941 - Britain signs an agreement with Moscow (pg. 284)

        • July 30, 1941 - Soviet signs agreement acknowledging the pre-war Polish government (pg. 285)

        • "careful preparations and shrewd timing characterized a Soviet Offensive operation [against Germany], which also came as a total surprise" (pg. 292)

        • [REAR AREA SECURITY IN RUSSIA (army.mil)]

          • "This study on the problems of rear area security is based on German experiences during the Russian campaign. Particularly striking examples have been selected which show most clearly the. type of disturbances created by the Russians, the German countermeasures taken against them, and the lessons learned from experience. The same, similar, or different circumstances were encountered in other theaters of war. Accordingly, a variety of security measures be-came necessary and many new experiences were gathered. Yet, the fundamental questions remain the same everywhere." [https://history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-16/cmhPub_104-16.pdf]

        • January 1-10, 1942 - Second Russian Offensive (pg. 295)

        • January 10, 1942 - New German directive on the armaments program is issued, which marks German recognition of the fact that the whole concept of Blitzkrieg had failed (pg. 298)

        • "hundreds of thousands of German workers were transferred from industry to the army" (pg. 298)

        • December 22 - January 14, 1941 - Arcadia Conference (pg. 306) 4 major decisions came out of this conference between Britain and the U.S.

          • Need for a German defeat

          • There needed to be a landing in North Africa

          • Raw materials and shipping resources were to be pooled

          • There would be a unified command structure - Combined Chiefs of Staff

      • "There were additional complications affecting any German offensive plans in 1942 [after the setbacks faced on the Russian front]. Casualties among the men and horse in the armies fighting the Soviet Union hadn’t been replaced by replacements. The shortage of horses was doubly serious because of the enormous losses of vehicles in the winter made the infantry divisions even more dependent upon horse-drawn transport." (pg. 408)

      • "the only choice to be made [by Hitler and his staff] was where to strike in the East. Army Group South had managed to hang on to the most coherent defensive line during the winter fighting, and the weather there would be suitable for German offensive operations earlier than further north. A major attack on the southern portion of the front would allow for more time for a summer offensive. A second factor which led the Germans to look to the southern segment of the front was the prospect of very significant material and strategic objectives within reach - oil resources in the Caucasus" (pg. 409-410)

      • "One other operation  appeared to the Germans to be important: the seizure of Leningrad. Such an operation would provide the base for a new effort to cut the connection between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies via Murmansk." (pg. 410)

      • "the German plan for the offensive in the south anticipated several phases. First an attack toward Voronezh, then a southward turn down the Don River to meet an attack headed east from Belgorod. This in turn would be followed by another attack south down the Don River - the theory being that all Soviet forces west of the Don River would be destroyed." (pg. 413)

      • June 28, 1942 - Germans strike toward Voronezh forming a bridgehead across the Don, seizing the city and heading south. (pg. 414) [WWIIEurope23 (westpoint.edu)]

        • "The German armor from the north pushed towards Millerovo" (pg. 414)

        • "The Germans had conquered a large area by the end of July…[following this success,] of the 5 German armies available in the south, one was sent to Leningrad, one towards Stalingrad, and three towards objectives in the Caucasus's" (pg. 415)

      • July 28, 1942 - Stalin issues Order No. 227 calling on the Soldiers not to step back. (pg. 420)

      • "from the Soviet perspective, Stalingrad was important not only as a major industrial center and as a place where the Germans could halt all shipping on the Volga but as a major connecting point to any operations in the Caucasus's" (pg. 422)

      • "the major German effort in the north was to be against Leningrad" (pg. 426)

      • "in the area behind the German front lines, guerillas, generally referred to as partisans, were playing a significant role in organizing resistance." (pg. 427)

      • "the military activity of the partisans was quite limited in 1941 and 1942. they attacked small German outposts, made the occupying forces uneasy by occasional raids on villages, and interfered with the administration of occupied areas" (pg. 430)

      • October 9, 1942 - Red Army decree is issued increasing force strength (pg. 447)

        • "the full mobilization of manpower rebuilt the Red Army to a front line strength of 6.5 million at a time when Germany and its allies fielded about 4 million" (pg. 447)

      • November 19, 1942 - Soviet Winter Offensive [WWIIEurope24 (westpoint.edu)]

        • "the Soviet Plan for Uranus took advantage of the geographic and military advantages on their side and the disadvantages of their enemies. The geographic advantage was that the bulge towards Stalingrad practically invited a pincer attack - it accentuated the fact that on the northern flank the Red Army had retained the bridgeheads across the Don River. The northern pincer of the offensive could begin massing its assault forces across the river. The military advantage of the Soviet was that the units they were facing [mainly Romanian on the Eastern Front] weren't adequately supplied by the Germans." (pg. 448)

        • Germany was completely misled by the intentions of the Soviets - "Germany thought that the main Soviet winter offensive would come on the central portion of the Eastern Front and not on the northern portion." (pg. 449)

        • "The German reacted immediately to the attack on the northern flank by halting the offensive inside Stalingrad and shifting troops toward westward cities. But the big decision that had to be made was whether the 6th Army and portions of the 4th Panzer should fight their way back in a southwesterly direction to envelope Russian forces". (pg. 450)

        • November 25, 1942 - the new Soviet offensive was collapsing the Axis front further in the north (pg. 452)

        • December 12, 1942 - the German relief offensive forced the Russians to divert key units destined for "Koltso" to containing Manstein's thrust - it included all of two understrength Panzer divisions which drove across the 80-mile gap separating their starting positions from their encircled troops. (pg. 452)

        • "in the following weeks, the Red Army battered its way into Stalingrad, splitting the German 6th Army, overrunning the defending forces and eventually ending the fighting on February 2, 1943" (pg. 453)

        • "the Red Army was not only liberating vast areas and important cities like Kursk and Kharkov, but its spearheads were approaching the Dnepr River" (pg. 456)

        • As a result of the Soviet Offensive, Hitler made the following 3 decisions:

          • He authorized a pullback of forces across the lower Don to be utilized in a future counter-offensive. (pg. 456)

          • He made reinforcement to the Eastern Front by redirecting forces from the West. (pg. 456)

          • He decide to pull the 17th Army to establish a perimeter defense in the North Caucasus east of Crimea with its back to the Sea of Azov. (pg. 456)

      • February 19, 1943 - German Counter-Offensive (pg. 458) [WWIIEurope26 (westpoint.edu)]

        • "the possibility of launching a counter-offensive was a result of Red Army inexperience in exploiting it own successes - the initial breakthroughs on the front, north, and south of Stalingrad hadn't been followed up by a determined exploitation" (pg. 458)

      • "the most immediately hard hit of Germany's allies were Romania, Hungary, Italy, and Finland (pg. 461-462)

      • "the constant urgings from Tokyo that a German-Soviet peace could and should be made was emblematic of the worry about the future in Tokyo and the lack of comprehension of German war aims among Japanese leaders" (pg. 463)

      • ""the consolidation of Germany's southern front in the East as a result of the successful Kharkov counter-offensive in March provided Hitler with an opportunity to shake off doubts created by the Stalingrad disaster" (pg. 463)

      • April 8-9, 1944 - "A Soviet offensive struck from the north across the Perekop land bridge into the Crimea and from a bridgehead drove across the Kerch Straits" (pg. 670) [WWIIEurope29 (westpoint.edu)]

        • "it had freed the important ports of Nikolaev and Odessa from German and Romanian occupation" (pg. 671)

      • Hitler's next 3 steps were:

        • Orchestrate a Hungarian coup to keep the country in the war effort (pg. 672)

        • Establish "fortresses" - occupied areas meant to illustrate to the German people a sense of power and accomplishment through the end of the war. (pg. 673)

        • Restructured his command on the southern front on the Eastern Front. (pg. 673)

A World At Arms: A Global History of the WWII: Text

A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Part 2)

  1. General Notes:

    • February 18, 1943 - Joseph Goebbels "Total War" speech (pg. 460) [Goebbels' 1943 Speech on Total War (calvin.edu)]

    • Germany, Italy & the Mediterranian (pg. 205-224)

      • "the humiliating set-backs suffered by Italy's armed forces on the Greek front in November of 1941, accompanied by the Taranto raid, and soon followed by the collapse of North Africa shook the Fascist systems in Italy." (pg. 212)

      • "The reality of Italian defeats opened up a series of dangers from the perspective of Berlin. The defeat in Greece could lead to the opening of a real Balkan front in the war - an intolerable situation for a Germany which wanted to concentrate it land and air forces for an attack against Russia - and might result in the stationing of British planes on Greek air bases from which they could attack the Romanian oil fields" (pg. 213)

      • "In view of these facts, the Germans moved promptly to assist their ally." (pg. 213)

    • April 2, 1941 - pro-Axis elements in Iraq stage a coup which brought Rashid Ali al-Gaylani to power. (pg. 225)

    • May 2, 1941 - Hostilities in Iraq began (pg. 225)

      • June 8, 1941 - a hastily assembled combination of Australian, British, Free French, and Indian troops struck into the Syrian and Lebanese mandates from the south. (pg. 230)

      • June 10, 1941 - British take Beirut (pg. 231)

      • "The British campaign in Syria closed a major path for the Axis into the Near East [and] the conclusion of fighting in Syria in turn freed units for a return to Egypt and their concentration for a renewed offensive against Rommel. The British, now finally able to concentrate their Near Eastern strength on one front, would strike in the Western Desert where Rommel couldn't get major reinforcements at a time when Germany was concentrated on the Eastern Front." (pg. 232)

      • "The leaders of the German navy had long argued that the Mediterranian was a critical theatre [for its supply for German forces in North Africa] in the German war against Great Britain; now they had to commit force to that theatre at precisely the time they least wanted to." (pg. 234)

    • May 20 , 1941 - Germany drops troops in the northwestern part of Crete (pg. 228)

      • World War II Map by Map, pg. 72, 83

        • "Hitler never devoted sufficient resources to the Western Desert Campaign, or the Mediterranian generally, to achieve decisive results" (pg. 72)

        • "Having conquered Yugoslavia, German troops continued south in Greece and Crete in the last of their Blitzkrieg Offensives." (pg. 72)

        • "Despite fierce Allied and local efforts, the German forces captured the Greeks island of Crete after 13 days" (pg. 72)

    • Battle of the Atlantic - Germany's War against Allied supply routes (pg. 235)

      • The most important component of this was the U-Boat Campaign (pg. 235)

    • January 20, 1941 - Churchill directs that any contacts [with the enemy] be met with "absolute silence" (pg. 237)

    • March 11, 1941 - Lend-Lease becomes law (pg. 241)

    • "in lengthy and repeated discussions, high-ranking American, British, and Canadian officers came together to work out the strategic dispositions which they would follow if the initiative of Germany or Japan precipitated them." (pg. 242)

      • War Plan Orange (pg. 255)

      • Tydings-McDuffy Act of 1936 - called for independence of the Philippines and the withdrawal of American troop by 1946 (pg. 255) It was in fact this piece of legislation that drove Japanese decision making regarding U.S.-Japanese relations and Japan's intent on taking Southeast Asia versus engaging in war with the Soviet Union. (pg. 250-254)

    • July, 1941 - FDR freezes Japanese financial assets (pg. 254)

    • October 9, 1941 - FDR pushes forward with the development of the atomic bomb (pg. 244)

    • December 7, 1941 - Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor. “The Pearl Harbor attack proved a strategic and tactical disaster for Japan. The Ships were for the most part raised and repaired [and] most of the crew survived to rebuild the American Navy.” (pg. 261)

      • "The Japanese launching of war in East Asia was designed to secure control of the resources of Southeast Asia as rapidly as possible; the attack on the U.S. being designed to shield the flank of this operation from American interference, as the neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union and the maintenance of substantial forces in Manchuria were to protect its rear from Soviet intervention. The major objective was a rapid seizure of the Philippines and Malaya as a preparatory step for the conquest of the Netherlands East Indies." (pg. 310)

      • "The Japanese plan of attack called first for small landings on the northern shore and southeast corner of Luzon to secure air bases to cover the main landing forces that would seize Manila Bay; in addition, there were smaller landings at Davao and Mindanao and Jolo to cut off Philippine reinforcements. The main landing forces began to go ashore on the eastern coast of Lingayen Gulf north of Manila." (pg. 313)

      • "The first major Japanese attacks on the American-Filipino forces on Bataan in mid-January forced a retreat to the main defensive line across the eastern coasts of Bataan, called the Bagoc-Orion Line" (pg.314) [Triumph in the Philippines (army.mil)]

      • "the main [U.S.] defense point was the naval base at Singapore which would provide a base for a navy to defend the area.. The army faced the preposterous task of defending airfields and naval bases located at opposite ends of 300-mile long peninsula with no tanks or anti-tank weapons." (pg. 316)

      • December 8, 1941 - Japanese began landing; a principal target being Malaya because of access to rubber and tin materials and was well suited as a Japanese naval base. (pg. 316-317)

      • "in a series of short but bloody battles in the second and third weeks of January [of 1942], the Japanese broke the major British defenses [in Malaya and Singapore] in the northern Johore province - the last important line.." (pg. 318)

      • February 15, 1942 - British Commander, General Percival, surrendered about 70,000 Soldiers (pg. 318)

        • Called the greatest disaster in British military history due to "underestimation of the Japanese, lack of aggressive leadership, inadequate armaments, and the constant splitting of divisions and units in battle contributed to defeat" (pg. 318)

      • December 15, 1941 - the Japanese began landing at Borneo; important both because of its location and oil resources. In operations overlapped with the attack at Borneo, the Japanese landed forces at Sumatra, Celebes, and Amboina - the larger islands of the Netherland East Indies. (pg. 319)

      • March 1, 1942 - Japanese land at Java and overrun American, British, Dutch, and Australian forces. (pg. 320)

      • "with the easy occupation of the Gilbert Islands, this series of barely contested victories gave the Japanese the southern and southeastern anchors of their projected perimeter defense. Most Allied reinforcements were being poured into Malaya and Java in hopes of holding off the Japanese onrush." (pg. 320)

      • Rape of Nanking - Japanese Soldiers murdered over 200,000 civilians (pg. 322)

      • "there was no major Japanese invasion in 1942 because the army leadership preferred to keep its main forces in China and in Manchuria; the fixation on the Chinese and possible Soviet theatres of war precluded any major commitment of land forces elsewhere." (pg. 324)

      • "the knowledge gained about Japanese plans and dispositions from cryptanalytic intelligence was essential to the proper disposition of the American Navy at both the Coral Sea and Midway" (pg. 333)

      • "the Japanese were determined to seize Port Moresby to protect their southern perimeter, to control the straits between New Guinea and Australia, and to threaten Australia" (pg. 333)

      • May 3-8, 1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea (pg. 334)

        • "in the first great carrier battle, the tactical advantage was clearly with the Japanese who had traded a light carrier for one of the few American fleet carriers. But the strategic advantage was all with the Americans. As the projected attack on Midway had prevented an adequate allotment of Japanese forces to the Port Moresby operation, the Port Moresby operations reduced the Japanese strength at Midway." (pg. 335)

      • "The Japanese had learned [by February, 1942] that their basic strategy of defending the perimeter of their newly won empire was not working." (pg. 344)

    • "The Germans proposed to the Italians: the Axis would attack in late May and drive to the Libyan-Egyptian border; then would come [the plan 'Hercules']; and finally there would be the invasion into Egypt which could be adequately supplied after the capture of Malta and could therefore be sustained through the Suez Canal. With control of Egypt dangling before Italy, the Germans and Italians skipped executing operation 'Hercules' and put all of their resources into the effort to seize Egypt." (pg. 350) [WWIIEurope35Combined (westpoint.edu)] *an important feature of maneuver to identify on the map below is the highway running in the Northern parts of Libya and Egypt (from West to East) and its implications for moving forces on the battlefield.

      • The Battle of Gazala Line (pg. 350) [Battle of Gazala | World War II Database (ww2db.com)]

      • Tobruk's Surrender (pg. 355) [Allies surrender at Tobruk, Libya - HISTORY]

      • The Battle of Alam el Halfa (pg. 352) [Battle of Alam el Halfa | World War II Database (ww2db.com)]

      • "concerned about the great danger of a complete Axis triumph in the Middle East that would enable the Germans and the Japanese to  cut the Allied supply route across Iran to Russia and across India to China, the Americans order the new bomber force being built up in India to be relocated towards the North African front" (pg. 356)

      • "The Americans argued that the way to defeat Germany was to concentrate the largest possible force as early as possible in England and strike across the Channel at the main German forces, whereas [the British] wanted take advantage of the naval superiority of the Western Powers to wear down the Germans at points where the Germans would be in difficult positions to bring air and land power to the fight" (pg. 353)

      • "the British, more cautious after the defeat in the desert, were now certain in their minds that a cross-channel assault was out of the question that year [1942]" (pg. 357)

      • "the decision agreed upon  was a landing in Northwest Africa later in 1942, to be accompanied by a continual buildup of the American forces in England (operation "Bolero") looking toward a landing in Northwest Europe in 1943 (operation "Roundup"). (pg. 359)

      • October 23, 1942 - the British 8th Army struck a surprised enemy being able to push German forces back beyond the Libyan-Egyptian border to Tripoli by January 23, 1943 (pg. 361) [WWIIEurope38Combined (westpoint.edu)]

      • October 23-24, 1942 - British Eighth Army opens offensive operations in Northwest Africa at El Alamein driving Germans forces back by November 4 (pg. 431)

      • November 8, 1942 - British and American forces carry out Operation Torch (pg. 431)

        • Operation "Torch" - the planned Allied invasion of Northwest Africa (pg. 379) [Operation Torch: Invasion of North Africa (navy.mil)]

          • "the fact that Torch coincided with the month of the heaviest Allied shipping losses can be seen as an illustration of how the shipping problem dominated strategy. One of the major hopes reasons for launching this operation in the first place had been the hope of the opening the Mediterranian to ships so that the long and wasteful route around the Cape of Good Hope wouldn’t be necessary" (pg. 380)

      • "the combination of a Soviet front in the East and the British victory at El Alamein made it impossible for the Germans to get Spain into the war on their side, thus closing of the Mediterranean." (pg. 432)

      • "The hope was that such a success would clear North Africa and pave a way for a landing in Western Europe in late summer of 1943, but a number of obstacles existed. First, there simply wasn't enough shipping available to the Allies in the fall of 1942 to send to Northwest Africa as these were the months when Germans were sinking Allied ships at a terrifying rate." (pg. 434)

      • Allied Campaign in Tunisia (pg. 442) [WWIIEurope40Combined-01.jpg (5100×3300)]

        • "by drawing massive Axis forces into a new theatre at a time of crisis on the Eastern Front, it provided important relief to the Soviet Union." (pg. 436)

      • "The American defeat at Kasserine Pass had important implications - 1) series of personnel changes (the new American commanders were Patton and Bradley); and, 2) the American Army learned tactical lessons" (pg. 444)

    • January 14-23, 1943 - Casablanca Conference (pg. 437)

      • "at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, top priority was assigned to the battle against the U-Boats - the war at sea had the highest priority." (pg. 380)

        • 2 key decisions were made:

          • The British and U.S. air forces were to target German submarine construction yards, followed by the aircraft industry, transportation, oil fields, and other war industry items. However, these attempts proved to be a great failure (pg. 381)

          • The need for continued production of escort vessels (pg. 381)

    • August 19, 1942 - Dieppe Raid (pg. 360)

    • "The fundamental problem facing the Allies [at the end of 1942] in the war with Germany was to protect the shipping the had, and to replace what shipping they had lost. Conversely, the challenge for the Germans was to defeat England, paralyze the U.S., and divide both from the Soviet Union by destroying Allied shipping at a rate greater than replacement was possible." (pg. 367)

      • "by far the greatest losses inflicted by the Axis and suffered by the Allies were the result of submarine action." (pg. 370)

      • The role sonar played in detecting submarines (pg. 371)

      • This submarine warfare had the effect of drawing other countries into the war effort (ex. Brazil) (pg. 372)

      • "airplanes were useful for patrolling but were especially useful in aiding convoys to evade attack because it forced the submarines to submerge - which forced them to change their speed relative to surface ships. The problem was that there weren't enough long-range planes for this duty." (pg. 373)

      • "the single most important measure used by the Allies to protect shipping was the convoy system" (pg. 374)

      • "barrage balloons occasionally helped to keep German planes from low-level and more precise attacks on shipping, and blimps, used for patrol purposes off the coast of North America, provided some assistance; but the main burden of defending the convoys fell on the escort ships" (pg. 375)

      • Huff-Duff - a technological tool leveraged in intelligence to locate Axis submarines and surface ships (pg. 376) [The High Frequency Direction Finder (HF/DF) - Technical pages - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net]

    • "The Axis powers had to supply their forces in North Africa while the Allies hoped to control the Mediterranian to protect their position in the Middle East - the fulcrum was the Island of Malta" (pg. 390)

    • "the major handicap of the Italian navy was its desperate shortage of fuel oil. With the country itself almost completely dependent on oil imports, inadequate supplies from Romania, followed by the failure of the German conquest of Soviet oil fields in 1942, meant that only the most limited missions could be run. The fuel shortage dominated Italian naval strategy in 1942-43." (pg. 390)

    • "if the attack on shipping was one way of striking at the economy of the Axis, the blockade was another" (pg. 394)

      • "Spain was important to Germany as a source of wolfram, needed for the steel-hardening alloy of tungsten, iron ore, and mercury and zinc ore" (pg. 396)

      • "Germany drew from Sweden a substantial volume of high-grade iron ore and a high proportion of her steel ball bearings" (pg. 395)

      • October 1, 1944 - Switzerland embargoed all exports of war materials (pg. 398)

      • Turkish chrome was needed by both Germany and the U.S. (pg. 398)

      • April 20, 1944 - Turkey halts deliveries of chrome to Germany (pg. 399)

      • "Germany needed rubber and vegetable fats from East Asia while Japan needed mercury and industrial technology from Europe" (pg. 400)

    • "There were additional complications affecting any German offensive plans in 1942 [after the setbacks faced on the Russian front]. Casualties among the men and horse in the armies fighting the Soviet Union hadn’t been replaced by replacements. The shortage of horses was doubly serious because of the enormous losses of vehicles in the winter made the infantry divisions even more dependent upon horse-drawn transport." (pg. 408)

    • "The Western Allies had their eyes focused on the follow-up to Tunisia - they would land in Sicily in the summer of 1943 and were continuing preparations for a landing in Western Europe in May 1944" (pg. 469)

    • "in the first year of the war [in Germany], the relatively high level of support payment made to dependents of men in the military had the effect of leading women to withdraw from employment in industry, offices or shops - they could do better living off of their allowances at home." (pg. 471)

    • Hitler's Euthanasia Program (pg. 472) ["Unworthy to Live" | Facing History and Ourselves]

    • "the killing of the infirm among the Germans and any and all Jews they could get their hands on were not the only components of National Socialist racial policy during the war - there was a somewhat similar program for the mass murder of gypsies (the Roma and Sinti)" (pg. 474)

    • "these seven to eight million forced and enslaved workers [from France, Russia, Poland, Italy and other German-occupied parts of Europe] came to play a critical role in the German war economy" (pg. 476)

      • It enabled German women to stay at home since labor was gathered from outside Germany.

      • Germany had a large reserve force to draw on for future conflicts.

    • Authoritarian Anarchy - "a German system of government in which administrative chaos ensued stimulated by ambition and zeal [of various Ministers of government] to gain favor of the Fuhrer" (pg. 477)

    • "under the ambitious leadership of Himmler, the SS was expanding its authority. The SS and police apparatus took over more and more functions from the courts, operated independently in occupied territories, and built up an industrial empire based on concentration camps." (pg. 478)

    • February, 1943 - White Rose (pg. 481) [Sophie Scholl and the White Rose | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)]

      • Except from White Rose Pamphlet: "Our current ‘state’ is the dictatorship of evil. We know that already, I hear you object, and we don’t need you to reproach us for it yet again. But, I ask you, if you know that, then why don’t you act? Why do you tolerate these rulers gradually robbing you, in public and in private, of one right after another, until one day nothing, absolutely nothing, remains but the machinery of the state, under the command of criminals and drunkards?”.

    • "no analysis of Italy's role and her home front in WWII can overlook the basic fat that, in the eyes of the population, the country's entry into the war was a bad idea and that it had picked the wrong side." (pg. 484)

    • "out of a total workforce of about 22 million in 1944-1945, 5 million were serving in the armed forces [in Great Britain]; almost a third of men from 14-64 years of age were in uniform" (pg. 489)

    • "the Canadian economy was greatly stimulated by the massive investment in new factories and means of transportation and communication - the Alaskan Highway being one of them." (pg. 491)

    • "the war had placed very high burdens on Australia and New Zealand, who looked to the United States for defense - the mobilization of manpower interfered with economic development" (pg. 492)

    • "[in the United States] there was a rapid and drastic economic expansion which quickly absorbed the remaining unemployed workers and unused factories still left idle by the depression. It was in this context that the growth of aircraft industries in California and Washington, of shipyards in the latter state and on the gulf coast, and the new air bases in Arizona and Texas altered the demographic and economic landscape of the United States. In a negative way, the anxiety over the war with Japan led to the forced evacuation of Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent from California and western portions of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. It took the threat of a mass march on Washington to produce an executive order banning the discrimination in the employment of blacks in war industries. The military was even slower to accept women." (pg. 494-496)

    • "in occupied China, inflation added to the other woes of a torn country." (pg. 500)

    • [In Russia], the intensity of the fighting on the Eastern Front implied a total mobilization of people and resources into conflict on a scale matched by none of the other major belligerents" (pg. 501)

      • "standardizing on a series of very fine weapons, the Soviet industrial system provided its troops with great volumes of weapons which were often qualitatively superior to the Germans'" (pg. 502)

    • The Simon Commission helped to develop the new home-rule procedures for India which Churchill had fought all during the 1930's (pg. 493) [Simon Report | Making Britain (open.ac.uk)] [India and the Simon commission: The Round Table: Vol 18, No 70 (tandfonline.com)] [GIPE-010124-05.pdf]

    • "no country was affected more dramatically by WWII than Poland" (527)

    • Means of Warfare: (pg. 536) [World War II Equipment | World War II Database (ww2db.com)]

A World At Arms: A Global History of the WWII: Text

A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Part 3)

  1. General Notes:

    • "Italy [in December of 1942 and early 1943], entirely dependent upon Germany, could only try to convince its powerful ally to make peace in the East - something Hitler refused." (pg. 588) "the Japanese saw the situation in Europe in somewhat realistic colors and continued to urge the Germans to make peace with the Soviet Union." (pg. 589) "this meant making whatever concessions might be needed to deal with the current issues on fisheries and other matters in Japanese-Soviet relations." (pg. 590)

    • March 15, 1943 - new U.S.-British war plan called for the defense of the existing perimeter in the South Pacific (pg. 590)

    • April 18, 1943 - Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku dies (pg. 590)

    • "the air offensive against Germany was to be stepped up, and the Tunisian campaign was to be followed by Operation Husky - the invasion of Sicily, which would fully open the Mediterranean, draw German forces from the Eastern Front, and weaken Italy. The U.S. and British air commanders favored reducing Mediterranean operations in order to build up strength for a cross-channel invasion, while land and sea commanders urged continued pressure n the Mediterranean to force Italy out of the war." (pg. 591)

    • "Now that the tide appeared to be shifting, the British were even less willing to contemplate alteration in colonial policy to please either nationalists in the empire of Americans." (pg. 592)

    • "to confuse the Axis and lead them to disperse their forces, Allied intelligence mounted a major series of deception operations designed to give the impression that landings were planned for Sardinia - the most famous project being 'The Man Who Never Was'" (pg. 594) ["Man Who Never Was" Hoax (smu.edu)]

    • July 10, 1943 - U.S. and British landing at Sicily (pg. 594) [WWIIEurope45 (westpoint.edu)] [WWIIEurope43 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "the British forces quickly captured the port of Syracuse, but Montgomery's force began to run into coordinated German resistance on the eastern coast. Montgomery had decided to split his force - the result was that everything went wrong." (pg. 594)

      • "the Allied air force and navy couldn't prevent the Germans from evacuating the bulk of their forces across the Straits of Messina" (pg. 595)

      • "[the effect of this campaign] contributed to the German decision to end all offensive operations on the Eastern Front so that reinforcements of both troops and planes could be sent to Italy and the Balkans" (pg. 595)

      • "As the Allies announced the Italian surrender with the landing at Salerno, Italian Soldiers began surrendering in great numbers." (pg. 598)

    • September 9, 1943 - U.S. 5th Army land at Salerno (pg. 600) [WWIIEurope47 (westpoint.edu)]

    • October 1, 1943 - U.S. forces occupy Naples (pg. 601)

    • July 5, 1943 - German offensive began on the Eastern Front at Kursk (pg. 602) [WWIIEurope27Combined (westpoint.edu)]

    • July 13, 1943 - Hitler calls off Citadel Offensive (pg. 603)

    • "by the time the Soviet advance and German retreat were well under way, the Soviet offensive into the Donets basin had begun" (pg. 604)

    • "with the help of very heavy artillery concentrations, the Soviet broke into the German lines, liberated Belgorod and continued to strike westwards and south" (pg. 605)

    • "a series of Red Army offensives in the second half of August and during September on practically the whole portion of the front drove the German out of the Donets basin, cleared much of the left bank of Dnepr, forced the Germans to abandon their old defensive position on the Mius River and obliged Hitler to order the evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead on September 3, 1943. The Germans had been pushed back an average of 150 miles on the whole 650 miles of the southern front." (pg. 605)

    • "by the end of 1943, a very large part of the Ukraine and the whole Northern Caucasus had been cleared of German troops and a substantial garrison cut off from the Crimea." (pg. 607)

    • Trident Conference of May 1943 (pg. 611) [Trident Conference - May 1943 (jcs.mil)] [Chapter VI: The Trident Conference - New Patterns: May 1943 (army.mil)]

      • A May 1944 cross-channel invasion was set and a commitment made for 7 battle divisions - four American and 3 British - to be transferred from the Mediterranean to the U.K. (pg. 611)

      • "[However,] the constant British emphasis on operations in the central and eastern Mediterranean, voiced by Churchill and Brooke, made the American military leaders, Stimson and Roosevelt, increasingly doubtful about the firmness of Britain's commitment. Churchill constantly went back and forth between a firm endorsement of the cross-channel operation and a concern that the opportunities in the Mediterranean theatre be exploited." (pg. 612) "The British were entirely correct in the belief that opportunities in Italy and in Southeast Europe were being sacrificed to the Americans' adherence to the strategic priorities. The Americans were correct in fearing that any further extension of Mediterranean operations risked indefinite postponement of Operation Overlord" (pg. 626)

    • Quebec Conference (pg. 615) [Foreign Relations of the United States, Conference at Quebec, 1944 - Office of the Historian]

    • Quadrant Conference (pg. 614) [Foreign Relations of the United States, Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943 - Office of the Historian]

    • July 24, 1943 - British and U.S. air force carried out a series of bombings on the city of Hamburg causing enormous damage and over 40,000 deaths (pg. 616)

    • "the Combined Bombing Offensive [of Allied forces] had made a major contribution to the war effort by imposing a terrible rate of attrition on the German air force, by forcing its relocation from land fronts in the east and south to home defense, by making the Germans disperse their aircraft industry thereby reducing its output, and by inflicting substantial damage on some industries and cities." (pg. 618)

    • "all of these plans, however, still included one major project which turned our to be more difficult to implement that expected: keeping China in the war for political reasons and to provide a base for air attacks on Japan and shipping lanes" (pg. 637) (Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945, by Barbara Tuchman)

    • March 24, 1944 - the Japanese 15th Army launch its 'U-Go' offensive towards Imphal and Kohima with the intention of seizing these towns as a base for a subsequent attack to cut the Assam railway at Dimapur. (pg. 641) [ww2%20asia%20map%2041.jpg (1260×970) (westpoint.edu)]

      • "It had been Japan's costliest defeat on land in the whole war." (pg. 642)

    • "The American naval thrust across the Central Pacific had to include the Marshall Islands as the main intermediate objective on the way to the Marianas. From the Marianas, the Americans could strike at the Philippines, the Bonin and Ryukyu Islands, or Formosa; but whatever they might decide, they could use these islands as bases for air raids on the Japanese home islands." (pg. 648) [ww2%20asia%20map%2046.jpg (1260×970) (westpoint.edu)] [ww2%20asia%20map%2025.jpg (1280×970) (westpoint.edu)] [ww2%20asia%20map%2026.jpg (1260×970) (westpoint.edu)] "The plans for a major air offensive against Japan from bases in China increasingly faded from view due to logistical problems on the supply route from Burma and then the collapse of the Chinese resistance in 1944." (pg. 650) "from the Japanese perspective, the centrality of the Marianas was equally obvious. The Japanese could see how important the islands were to the control of their routes to Southeast Asia, their hold of the Philippines, and the defense of the home islands. They accordingly built up garrisons on the islands." (pg. 650)

    • June 15, 1944 - two Marine divisions land at Saipan (pg. 652) [ww2%20asia%20map%2025.jpg (1280×970) (westpoint.edu)]

      • "soon after, Tinian and Guam were taken" (pg. 653)

    • February 29, 1944 - American forces bypass Japanese units in Central New Guinea by going 600 miles up the coast to Hollandia and establishing a major base. (pg. 653)  [ww2%20asia%20map%2025.jpg (1280×970) (westpoint.edu)]

      • "American troops eventually destroyed the Japanese forces on Biak and secured the airfields by June 30. The purpose of the airfields on Biak and Wakde had been to provide air support for the last offensive on New Guinea." (pg. 654)

    • "A major remaining question was whether a major American effort should be made to retake the main island of Luzon in the Philippines or to head to Formosa - current day Taiwan." (pg. 657)

    • January 22, 1944 - Allied forces land at Anzio (pg. 661) [WWIIEurope48 (westpoint.edu)] [WWIIEurope50 (westpoint.edu)]

    • January - February, 1944 - American forces had crushed the defense systems instilled by the Germans [through bombing campaigns] - in February the German air force had lost 1,277 frontline planes in battle. The almost total ability of the British and Americans to read German air force codes helped achieve this victory." (pg. 663)

    • "The basic German strategy of 1944 was to continue to hold the front in Italy as far as possible and to hold as well as they could in the East but to concentrate on defeating the expected Allied invasion in the west." (pg. 665)

    • "During the set of Soviet counter-offensive on the Eastern Front, the greatly increased gasoline consumption imposed a more serious burden on the German than the Soviets" (pg. 667)

    • "The Western Allies had decided to utilize the Italian campaign to help prepare for the invasion in the west in three ways:" (pg. 677)

      • They would bind German forces in that theatre and thus keep them away from both the Eastern Front and the invasion area.

      • The liberation of central Italy would provide them with air bases.

      • The experienced forces in Italy would assist in reinforcing the push into France.

    • June 4, 1944 - Rome is liberated (pg. 677)

    • "The Allies had decided very early that Normandy was the correct place to land - it was more difficult for the Germans to concentrate troops there, it was within land-based fighter range and it could be reached by overnight shipping" (pg. 679) Because it was deliberately offset from Pas de Calais - the narrowest part of the channel - it implied that more than one landing was expected. [WWIIEurope53 (westpoint.edu)] [WWII Europe 54 (westpoint.edu)] [WWIIEurope55 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "the deception operation 'Bodyguard' involved the slow buildup of a complex of imaginary headquarters with radio traffic for the Germans to locate and attempt to analyze and commander who really existed." (pg. 680)

      • "The Germans decided that their key task was to defend the ports. The emphasis in the massive program of fortifying the coast of France and Belgium was therefore on the ports,; this is where the mass of artillery and fortifications was located." (pg. 681)

      • "The Germans were expecting one or more diversionary attacks, most likely including one in Normandy, followed by a main assault in the Calais area." (pg. 681)

      • The landing was orchestrated by Eisenhower (pg. 683)

      • "the weather forecast for June 5 turned out to be horrendous, with strong winds and dark clouds - the invasion had to be postponed. But Allied weather experts detected a coming short interval of good weather, and on this basis, Eisenhower decided that the invasion should go ahead. But the Germans, whose weather stations in Greenland and Canada had been destroyed, whose weather reporting ships had been swept out of the Atlantic, and who could no longer send out long-range airplanes for weather reconnaissance, were ignorant of that fact." (pg. 684)

      • "The Germans suffered not only from shortages of troops and equipment but also from an excess of commanders who could neither agree on what to do nor had the authority to whatever they preferred with speed required by the circumstances." (pg. 686)

      • June 5-6, 1944 - Allied invasion of Normandy (pg. 686)

      • June 6, 1944 - the Allies were ashore and beginning buildup of troops, equipment and supplies - however, they fell short of their D-Day objectives. (pg. 687)

      • German reinforcements arrived slowly as they stilled has disbelief that this was the main (and only) assault. (pg. 688)

      • "The shortage of shipping and the need to bring troops and supplies directly from the United States after the initial landing had led to the decision for the British to take the left and the Americans the right flank in the landing and subsequent campaigns." (pg. 690)

      • "The Allies planned to strike across the Cotentin peninsula to isolate then capture Cherbourg. The attack westward by the American VII Corps (including the 101 Airborne and 82 Airborne Divisions) began on June 10. The American troops drove into the city during the third week of June - the Germans surrender on June 26." (pg. 689) [WWIIEurope58 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "While the Americans were cutting off the Cotentin peninsula, the British 2nd Army was battering its way towards Caen. Montgomery hoped to drive beyond Caen to Falaise in mid-June, but German resistance stalled his drive - the Caen offensive made minimal progress." (pg. 689) [WWIIEurope59 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "The Americans were pushing towards St. Lo in order to secure a good basis for a drive into the open country at the western end pf the Normandy front, but they were held up by two factors - the terrain confined tanks to narrow roads and the infantry to laborious field-by-field advances; the second being strong resistance by the Germans." (pg. 690) [WWIIEurope63 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "Allied control of the air slowed down all German movements, and the earlier attack on the transportation system had reduced its efficiency and recuperative power. The Germans couldn’t sustain the positional warfare which had characterized the first eight weeks of fighting." (pg. 692)

      • August 15, 1944 - American and British forces successfully land on the French Mediterranean coast - Operation Dragoon - and quickly takes ports of Marseilles and Toulon and push northwards." (pg. 695) [WWIIEurope67 (westpoint.edu)]

      • "the question now was what to do next. This question was complicated by two factors - the Allied Command structure (Montgomery wanting a larger role to play) and supply the German had destroyed the harbor of Cherbourg).. The further the Allies advanced, the longer the supply route inland." (pg. 699) "as Allied supply lines lengthened and became strained, the German ones became shorter" (pg. 702)

      • "by mid-September, the Allied drive had been halted by a combination of exhaustion, supply difficulties, and renewed German resistance" (pg. 702)

    • June 10, 1944 - Russian forces attack Finland near Leningrad and Karelian fronts (pg. 703)

    • June 22, 1944 - Soviet Summer Offensive (pg. 704)

    • July 3, 1944 - Russians liberate Minsk (pg. 705)

    • "by mid-July, the Russian had advanced more than 200 miles on the Central Front - they paused to being up supplies by road and railway." (pg. 705)

    • July 20, 1944 - bomb attempt to kill Hitler (pg. 696)

    • September 4, 1944 - Armistice between Finnish government and Soviet Union (pg. 703)

    • August 20, 1944 - Soviet offensive on the Romanian front (pg. 713)

      • "the Red Army occupied practically all of Romania including the Black Sea port of Constanza and the oil refineries on Ploesti." (pg. 714)

    • September 5, 1944 - The Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria (pg. 714)

    • October 10, 1944 - German forces withdrawal from Greece (pg. 717)

    • During the several months following the western invasion of Europe, "the most important single factor holding back the Allies was the supply situation which was accentuated by two inherent difficulties - the use of small ports created bottlenecks and the long supply route tied of materials in route." (pg. 761)

    • "Until major ports, especially Antwerp, were operational and the railway system was functioning at a high level of efficiency, there was no real prospect of a major advance against the stiffening German resistance. The whole system worked poorly and served to accentuate rather than remedy the manpower shortages developing at the battle front." (pg. 762)

    • December 16, 1944 - Battle of the Bulge. "some 200,000 German soldiers and 600 tanks supported by about 1,900 guns attacked a front held by approximately 80,000 American soldiers, 400 tanks, and 400 guns" (pg. 766)

      • "the American lines held in the North, but buckled in the South" (pg. 766)

      • December 17, 1944 - Malmedy Massacre. "A large number of American prisoners of war were murdered by German SS units" (pg. 766)

      • "in spite of skepticism by some, General Patton quickly broke off the offensive his 3rd Army was developing south of the Bulge, swung forces into a new direction, and struck northwards toward Bastogne.

      • The overall impact, however, was "about 80,000 German and 70,000 American soldiers were killed, wounded and missing. Each side lost about 700 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles. The Germans had used up their last reserves while the Americans could replace their losses." (pg. 769)

    • Two major targets of the Allied bombing campaign was German-occupied oil fields and their transportation system. (pg. 773-774)

      • "in the fall of 1944, the German railway system, the main artery of the whole economic structure, was being pounded to bits, with industrial production dropping." (pg. 775)

    • March 5, 1945 - Hitler's 6th SS Panzer Army conducts offensive in Hungary (pg. 799)

    • January 15-20, 1945 - Soviet offensive on the Vistula and Narev bridgeheads quite literally crushed the Germans. (pg. 800)

    • February 4-11, 1945 - The Yalta Conference (pg. 803) [The Yalta Conference at seventy-five: Lessons from history - Atlantic Council] [The Avalon Project : Yalta (Crimea) Conference (yale.edu)]

    • February 9, 1945 - Allies push towards the Rhine (pg. 810) [WWIIEurope76combined (westpoint.edu)]

      • "Over 400,000 British and Canadian, 1.5 million American, and more than 100,000 French soldiers were poised for the assault on Germany." (pg. 811)

    • April 9, 1945 - final Allied offensive into the valley of the Po River (pg. 818)

    • April 16, 1945 - Major Russian offensive towards Berlin (pg. 822)

      • "the process of enveloping and penetrating the city had taken only a few days longer than Stalin had originally specified" (pg. 825)

    • April 28, 1945 - Mussolini is caught trying to escape to Switzerland and shot (pg. 818)

    • April 29, 1945 - Hitler marries his mistress Eva Braun in his HQ bunker. (pg. 825)

    • April 30, 1945 - Hitler and his mistress commit suicide (pg. 825)

    • Potsdam Conference [Milestones: 1937–1945 - Office of the Historian (state.gov)] [Avalon Project - A Decade of American Foreign Policy 1941-1949 - Potsdam Conference (yale.edu)] [Manhattan Project: Potsdam and the Final Decision to Use the Bomb, July 1945 (osti.gov)] [The Potsdam Conference - Shaping Post-War Europe | Imperial War Museums (iwm.org.uk)]

      • "the fate of Germany was the subject of the lengthy discussion at Potsdam" (pg. 838)

    • Costs and Impact of the War (pg. 894)

      • Estimated 60 million deaths (pg. 894)

      • "Germany had lost over 4 million and Japan over 2 million lives in the war" (pg. 894)

      • Soviet Union - estimated 15 million dead (pg. 894)

      • Poland - 6 million. (pg. 894)

      • "millions had been displaced as refugees or deportees" (pg. 895)

      • "no country, except for the defeated, was changed more drastically as a result of the war than Poland" (pg. 902)

    • "The decision of many Arab nationalists to side with Germany in the war influenced the U.N.'s approval of a Jewish state substantially larger than the minute one envisaged by the pre-war British Royal Commission (Peel Commission)." (pg. 909)

  2. Further Readings:

    • Japan’s Road to the Pacific War, by James William Morley

    • The Pacific Strategy (1941-1945) [The Pacific Strategy, 1941-1944 | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)]

    • The Origins of Guerilla Warfare, by Walter Laquuer [The Origins of Guerrilla Doctrine on JSTOR]

    • The Theory of the Partisan, by Carl Schmitt [CR4-3 14 (ufl.edu)]

    • Framework for Counterguerrilla Tactical Doctrine: A Theoretical Approach, by Major Stephen T. Jordan (CGSC)

    • Unconventional Warfare: Pocket Guide (SOC) [Unconventional Warfare Pocket Guide_v1 0_Final_6 April 2016.pdf (soc.mil)]

    • Guerilla Warfare Tactics in Urban Environments, by Major Patrick Marques [StintFile375_200309111058 (fas.org)]

    • World War II: Works in English (1945-65), by Janet Ziegler

    • The Second World War: A Selected Biography of Books in English since 1975

    • A World in Flames: A History of World War II, by Martha Byrd

    • The Diplomacy of Global War (1936-1945), by John Snell

    • War, Economy, and Society (1939-1945), by Alan Milward

    • British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, by Sir Llewellyn Woodward

    • British Intelligence in the Second World War, by Francis Hinsley

    • History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, by Samuel Eliot Morrison

    • The Air Forces in World War II, by Wesley Craven and James L. Cate

    • Germany and the Second World War, by Oxford University Press

    • Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945, by Barbara Tuchman

    • Yalta: The Price of Peace, by Serhii Plokhy

    • Special Forces Berlin: Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956–1990, by James Stejskal

    • OSS: The Secret History Of America's First Central Intelligence Agency, by Richard Harris Smith

    • Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II's OSS, by Patrick K. O'Donnell

    • The Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949, by Keith Jeffery

    • War Plan Orange, by Edward S. Miller

A World At Arms: A Global History of the WWII: Text
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