Unable to range freely on the surface the wolf packs were beaten. ibid.
No country, no people, suffered so terribly in the War as the Soviet Union ... The German invasion brought about a catastrophe. The World at War 11/26: Red Star
After the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had cause to celebrate. Fighter Command had shown how difficult it was for bombers to destroy a country that could defend its own air space. The World at War 12/26: Whirlwind
The first electronic aid to navigation now came into service. ibid.
But now the RAF was not alone. ibid.
The effect of the bombing combined with the summer heatwave was to create a man-made tornado of flame: a fire-storm. ibid.
The Afrika Korps was far too well equipped and experienced for the lightly armoured and under-powered American tanks. The World at War 13/26: Tough Old Gut
Monsoon in Burma. Five months in every year. War in Burma made up in ferocity for what it lacked in scale. The World at War 14/26: It’s a Lovely Day Tomorrow
Burma: jagged mountains and foetid swamp, clothed in jungle and scored by steep river valleys ... Every type of disease: malaria, dysentery, scrub typhus, dengue fever, prickly heat, particularly in monsoon. Mud: It might have been Flanders in the First World War. ibid.
The British retreated in confusion. ibid.
The Japanese despised those who surrendered. ibid.
Mountbatten arrives as Supreme Commander. ibid.
But the Germans never used gas against British civilians. Hitler’s weapon against British civilians was bombs. Over two million homes were damaged. The World at War 15/26: Home Fires
The first provincial city they hit hard was Coventry. ibid.
Soap and clothes were rationed as well as most essential food-stuffs. ibid.
The black market snaked silently through Britain. ibid.
Desperate for labour late in 1943 Bevan called up boys not for the forces but for the mines. ibid.
And so the people’s hopes for a better peace fixed themselves on Sir William Beveridge who had been commissioned by the government to draw up plans for a welfare state. ibid.
Democracy was safe however for the fascist leader Mosley to be released. He had been interned since 1940. The government said that he was ill but very few people believed it. This caused the greatest public uproar of the war years. ibid.
A bomb with no pilot – a new kind of weapon. A new kind of war. ibid.
Berlin the summer of 1940 welcomed victory beyond belief. The soldiers of the Third Reich came home after only a year of war. They had conquered France, central and northern Europe had fallen too. Crowds were delirious with exhortation and relief. They turned to their Fuhrer in a frenzy of gratitude. The World at War 16/26: Inside the Reich
The pram was the tank of the home-front. ibid.
Stalingrad was still cut off and deep down the nation sensed what was to happen ... This was the turning point. This was a tragedy that could not be hidden. ibid.
For the Jews there was deportation to Eastern ghettos and then the gas chambers of the SS. The official word was Resettlement. Most Germans preferred to believe it meant no more than that. ibid.
150,000 Germans suffered prison or worst for political resistance. ibid.
Normandy had several advantages over the Pas-de-Calais. Though further from England it was less strongly fortified. The World at War 17/26: Morning
By now the number of Americans in Britain approached one and a half million. ibid.
A hundred miles across the channel in Normandy these landing areas comprised five beaches. From west and east Utah and Omaha waited for the Americans, Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadians. All now depended on the weather. ibid.
The run-in to the beaches: 6.30 for the Americans, 7.30 for the British and Canadians. After all the waiting, the training, the toughening, this was it. ibid.
D+1 saw the first laying of the Mulberry Harbours. ibid.
By 12th June the five beachheads had been linked to give a lodgement up to sixty miles long and up to twenty miles deep. ibid.
The people of Holland had lived under Nazi occupation for four long years. The World at War 18/26: Occupation
On May 10th 1940 without a declaration of war Germany struck against neutral Holland. ibid.
More than three hundred Dutchmen mainly Jews preferred to commit suicide. ibid.
For the Dutch Nazi movement – the NSB – this was a moment of jubilation as they gathered to welcome the invaders. ibid.
The Germans introduced a racial questionnaire. ibid.
In Amsterdam black-shirted NSB men marched into a working-class area, pulled Jews out of pubs and beat them up in the streets. ibid.
There were 140,000 Jews in Holland. ibid.
Shops ran out of food. Prices soared on the black market. People kept alive by eating tulip bulbs. ibid.
Hitler now stripped Holland bare. ibid.
At winter 16,000 Dutch men, women and children died of hunger. ibid.
Still the liberators did not come. ibid.
1944: Paris was liberated. That same day to the East, Romania changed sides. The World at War 19/26: Pincers
That autumn of 1944 the Allies in the West had closed up to the German border. ibid.
The German war machine began to disintegrate. ibid.
Himmler it is who refines the philosophy of Nazism – its ideas on politics and on race. The World at War 20/26: Genocide
The SS were Hitler’s instrument of terror in the creation of the new order. It was only logical they should run the camps. ibid.
Not many countries opened their doors to the Jews. ibid.
It was decided that all the Jews in Europe would be gassed. ibid.
On the platform to greet them an SS reception committee. New arrivals were divided into two columns: a quick medical inspection by the camp doctor – those fits to work were put to one side. In the other column all the rest. ibid.
Dresden. A great beautiful historical city so far barely touched by the war ... A severe case of over bombing ... 100,000 died. Dresden was another monument to total war. The World at War 21/26: Nemesis
The Great Third Reich was shrinking. Germans were coming home. ibid.
Germany was an ant-heap some giant had kicked to pieces. ibid.
‘I went into Hitler’s workroom with the former Reichsleiter Bormann. And this picture presented itself to us: Hitler was sitting on the left of the sofa with his face bent slightly forward and hanging down to the right. With the 7.65 he had shot himself in the right temple. The blood had run down on to the carpet; and from this pool of blood a splash had got on to the sofa. Eva Braun was sitting on his right. Eva Braun had drawn both her legs up on to the sofa and was sitting there with crampt lips so that immediately it became clear to us that she had taken cyanide. I took Hitler by his neck, behind me were two other officers, his bodyguard, and so we took Hitler’s body and proceeded with it into the park. In the park we laid the bodies together next to each other and poured the available petrol over them. In the Reich-Chancellery Park there was fire all around ... I threw the taper on to the bodies and in an instant the corpses were on light.’ ibid. interview
It was the ordinary Germans who paid. ibid.
There was still Japan. The World at War 22/26: Japan
Many had heard the news of the Pearl Harbor attack soberly. Even apprehensively. But then came victory after victory. ibid.
War had been with the Japanese people for ten years. Since 1931 their armies had been fighting an endlessly frustrating war in China. ibid.
The worship of Buddha had coexisted in Japan for centuries with the ancient Shinto worship of spirits and ancestors. ibid.
The main function of Japanese women was to bear sons. ibid.
Sacrifice was necessary for victory. And in final victory belief was still unshakable. None knew that by June 1942 the battle had already become one of simple survival. ibid.
The war had been fought to secure raw materials for a land where they were scarce, particularly oil. ibid.
The Americans invaded Okinawa. ibid.
Virtually unopposed they laid Japanese cities waste. ibid.