World War II: Book of Lists E-Book

Chris MARTIN

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 212

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

If you're interested in the story behind the deadliest conflict in human history, then this is the book for you. In this easy-to-read and fascinating compilation, the Second World War is broken down into an array of topics, revealing such statistics as who were the best fighter aces, what were the top ten military blunders during the war, and which were the biggest battleships and the best tanks. There are lists of the various escape attempts from Colditz, the code names used for military operations and even which actors have played Hitler on screen. Many major events and dates in the war are covered in detail, with equal emphasis placed on the human experience of combat in the field and on the home front. Often poignant and always revealing, World War II: Book of Lists offers a unique insight into those tumultuous years.

Leseprobe

To my Dad, who knows more aboutthis subject that I ever will.

Cover illustration: 1940s USA army supplies poster. (The Advertising Archives)

First published 2011

This edition first published 2025

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© Chris Martin, 2011, 2025

The right of Chris Martin to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

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ISBN 978-0-75246-704-7

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Book of Lists

The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Sir Winston Churchill

The Second World War was the first truly modern conflict – a total war in which few were left untouched. It saw the deaths of between 50 and 70 million people worldwide, and remains the largest and most destructive conflict our planet has ever seen.

Unlike the First World War, which had been largely contained by brutal trench warfare in northern Europe, the Second World War was an intensely mobile affair which was played out over a vast area. From the jungles of Borneo to the icy wastes of the Russian steppes, advances in mechanisation, transport and communications allowed men to fight on land, sea and air, and in all weather conditions. In addition to the movement of military forces, long-range bombing raids and lightning-fast invasions brought death and destruction to peoples’ doorsteps, seeing a blurring of the lines between combatants and civilians that was unprecedented.

To give an idea of the huge scope of the war: in the six years between 1939 and 1945 ninety-two countries would become involved, to some degree or another, in the fighting. While a few of these did manage to remain untouched by the mayhem, many would end up engaging the bulk of their military and industrial might in a concerted effort to destroy their enemies.

This book does not aim to be a comprehensive history of those tumultuous years, instead it gathers together facts, figures, quotations and stories to create a snapshot of the life during the war. Here we have collected a selection of the key military events of those dramatic years, as well as the weapons and vehicles that were used in the field, and stories of exceptional valour among combatants on all sides. There are details of some of the incredible scientific and technological advances involved in the struggle for dominance: from complex code machines and life-saving medical procedures to sophisticated weapons and the dawn of the atomic age. You will also find some of the minutiae from the everyday lives of those involved: what was worn into battle, what was eaten at home and even the entertainment that provided a welcome distraction from the carnage.

Finally, if this book has one purpose, it is to once again draw attention to the debt of gratitude we all owe to the grit, resilience and courage of those who lived and died, both at home and abroad, to make our world a better, more peaceful place.

Squaring Up – The Allies and Axis Forces

The Second World War had two primary opposing forces – the Allies and the Axis:

The Allies – Led by the ‘Big Three’ superpowers: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, or the Soviet Union), the United States of America and Great Britain. Those countries which formed Great Britain’s empire entered the war with them as Crown colonies (for example, India), whereas other semi-independent members of the British Commonwealth, known as the Dominions, declared war on Germany separately (for example Australia, Canada and South Africa). The Allies were also aligned with France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico and China.

The Axis – Also known as the Axis Alliance, Axis nations or Axis countries, it consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. The Axis was formed by two key treaties which united their military ambitions: the ‘Pact of Steel’ between Germany and Italy in 1939, and the ‘Tripartite Pact’ between Germany, Italy and Japan in 1940. The Axis was also aligned with Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Finland. During the course of the war the Axis powers created puppet or collaborating states in the countries they invaded (for example Vichy France) who also declared war on the Allies.

Across the course of the war the combatants fought in four major areas:

A trio of regions in the West loosely grouped as the European Theatre, consisting of the Western Front (which covered Western Europe), the Eastern Front (which covered Eastern Europe and Russia) and the Mediterranean (which included North Africa). The European Theatre was an area of heavy fighting from 1 September 1939 through to 8 May 1945.

In the East the conflict spread across most of the Pacific. The Pacific Theatre consisted of Asia, Japan and the Pacific islands. This area saw heavy conflict between 1942 and 1945 and spread across most of the Pacific, but excluded some key territories in the area such as Australia and the Dutch East Indies.

Declarations of War

The history books record that the war began with British opposition to the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. In fact, this was just the touch paper for a global explosion of long-held territorial and ideological conflicts, which then spread uncontrollably across the world. In the ensuing chaos, even those nations who were not disposed to fight were drawn into the mayhem, either by their alliances, the need to defend themselves, or invasion. Here are the declarations by year:

1939

3 September

Great Britain declares war on Germany.

6 September

The Union of South Africa declares war on Germany.

10 September

Canada declares war on Germany.

1940

8 April

Germany invades Norway.

10 June

Italy declares war on Great Britain and France.

11 June

France declares war on Italy.

1941

6 April

Italy declares war on Yugoslavia.

24 June

Bulgaria declares war on Greece, Hungary and Yugoslavia.

25 June

Finland declares war on the Soviet Union.

27 June

Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union.

5 December

Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

7 December

Canada declares war on Finland, Hungary, Japan and Romania.

Panama declares war on Japan.

7 December

Japan declares war on the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa.

8 December

Great Britain declares war on Japan.

The United States declares war on Japan.

The Union of South Africa declares war on Finland, Hungary, Japan and Romania.

Australia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Nicaragua declare war on Japan.

Manchukuo declares war on the United States.

9 December

China declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

Cuba and Guatemala declare war on Japan.

11 December

The United States declares war on Germany and Italy.

Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Nicaragua declare war on Germany.

Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

The Netherlands declares war on Italy.

Poland declares war on Japan.

12 December

Romania declares war on the United States.

13 December

Great Britain, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa declare war on Bulgaria.

Honduras declares war on Germany and Italy.

Italy declares war on Cuba and Guatemala.

14 December

Croatia declares war on the United States.

16 December

Czechoslovakia government in exile declares war on all countries at war with the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

17 December

Albania declares war on the United States.

19 December

Nicaragua declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

20 December

Belgium declares war on Japan.

24 December

Haiti declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

1942

6 January

Australia declares war on Bulgaria.

11 January

Japan declares war on the Netherlands.

25 January

Thailand declares war on the United States and Great Britain.

2 March

Australia declares war on Thailand.

22 May

Mexico declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

5 June

The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.

22 August

Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.

14 December

Ethiopia declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

1943

17 January

Iraq declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

7 April

Bolivia declares war on the Axis powers.

1 August

Burma declares war on Great Britain and the United States.

9 September

Iran declares war on Germany.

13 October

Italy declares war on Germany.

1944

27 January

Liberia declares war on Germany and Japan.

27 March

Argentina declares war on Germany and Japan.

25 August

Romania declares war on Germany.

5 September

The Soviet Union declares war on Bulgaria.

7 September

Hungary declares war on Romania.

Romania declares war on Hungary.

21 September

San Marino declares war on Germany.

31 December

Hungary declares war on Germany.

1945

7 February

Paraguay declares war on Germany and Japan.

23 February

Turkey declares war on Germany and Japan.

24 February

Egypt declares war on Germany and Japan.

26 February

Syria declares war on Germany and Japan.

27 February

Lebanon declares war on Germany and Japan.

1 March

Iran declares war on Japan.

Saudi Arabia declares war on Japan.

3 March

Finland declares war on Germany.

7 March

Romania declares war on Japan.

11 April

Chile declares war on Japan.

7 June

Brazil declares war on Japan.

9 July

Norway announces that it declared war on Japan on 7 December 1941.

14 July

Italy declares war on Japan.

8 August

The Soviet Union declares war on Japan.

9 August

Mongolia declares war on Japan.

Feeding the Forces – Red Cross Food Parcels

By the end of the war, over 20 million food parcels had been sent to British prisoners of war by the Joint War Organisation of the British Red Cross and Order of St John of Jerusalem. The contents of these parcels were carefully chosen to supplement the food and personal supplies available to those incarcerated in prison camps, and were usually sent at the rate of one per man per week. They contained the following items:

¼lb packet of tea

1 tin of cocoa powder

1 bar of milk or plain chocolate

1 tinned pudding

1 tin of meat roll

1 tin of processed cheese

1 tin of condensed milk

1 tin of dried eggs

1 tin of sardines or herrings

1 tin of preserves

1 tin of margarine

1 tin of sugar

1 tin of vegetables

1 tin of biscuits

1 bar of soap

1 tin of 50 cigarettes or tobacco (sent separately)

Top Ten Flying Aces – Chocs Away

The ultimate measure of a wartime pilot’s courage and skill was the number of confirmed kills he could claim. The opportunity to engage the enemy, the performance of the aircraft he flew and the quality of his opposition were all contributing factors to his final total. In the age before computer-assisted flying, often it was just down to a pilot’s guts and expertise behind the joystick. Boosted by their massacre of the woefully unprepared and antiquated Soviet Air Force in 1941, it is perhaps not that surprising that Germany leads the pack by some considerable way when we tot up the scores:

Top Ten German Aces

Erich ‘Bubi’ Hartmann, Luftwaffe

352

Gerhard Barkhorn, Luftwaffe

301

Günther Rall, Luftwaffe

275

Otto Kittel, Luftwaffe

267

Walter ‘Nowi’ Nowotny, Luftwaffe

258

Wilhelm Batz, Luftwaffe

237

Erich Rudorffer, Luftwaffe

222

Heinz Bär, Luftwaffe

220

Hermann Graf, Luftwaffe

212

Heinrich Ehrler, Luftwaffe

208

Top Ten Soviet Aces

Ivan Kozhedub, Soviet Air Force

62

Aleksandr Ivanovich Pokryshkin, Soviet Air Force

59

Grigory Rechkalov, Soviet Air Force

58

Nikolai Gulayev, Soviet Air Force

57

Kirill Yevstigneyev, Soviet Air Force

53

Dmitry Glinka, Soviet Air Force

50

Alexandru Şerbănescu, Romanian Air Force

47

Arseny Vorozheykin, Soviet Air Force

46

Aleksandr Koldunov, Soviet Air Force

46

Nikolai Skomorohov, Soviet Air Force

46

Top Ten RAF Aces

Marmaduke ‘Pat’ Pattle, RAF (South Africa)

40–60

James Edgar ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, RAF

38

Brendan Eamon Fergus ‘Paddy’ Finucane, RAF (Ireland)

32

Adolph ‘Sailor’ Malan, RAF (South Africa)

32

George F. Beurling, RAF (Canada)

31

William Vale, RAF

30+ (6 shared)

Robert Roland Stanford Tuck, RAF

29

Bob Braham, RAF

29

‘Ginger’ Lacey, RAF

28

Colin Falkland Gray, RAF (New Zealand)

27.5

Top Ten US Aces

Richard I. Bong, US Army Air Forces

40

Thomas B. McGuire, US Army Air Forces

38

David McCampbell, US Navy

34

Francis ‘Gabby’ Gabreski, US Army Air Forces

28

(+2.5 ground, +6.5 Korea)

Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington, US Marine Corps

28

(counting 6 with the AVG)

Robert S. Johnson, US Army Air Forces

27

Charles H. MacDonald, US Army Air Forces

27

George E. Preddy, Jnr, US Army Air Forces

26.83

(+5 ground)

Joseph J. Foss, US Marine Corps

26

John C. Meyer, US Army Air Forces

24

(+13 ground, +2 Korea)

Top Ten Japanese Aces

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, Imperial Japanese Navy

87

Tetsuzo Iwamoto, Imperial Japanese Navy

80–7

Ryotaro Jobou, Imperial Japanese Army

76

Shoichi Sugita, Imperial Japanese Navy

70

Saburo Sakai, Imperial Japanese Navy

64+

Hiromichi Shinohara, Imperial Japanese Army

58

Takeo Okumura, Imperial Japanese Navy

54

Satoru Anabuki, Imperial Japanese Navy

51

Yasuhiko Kuroe, Imperial Japanese Army

51

Iyozo Hujita, Imperial Japanese Navy

39

Wartime Lingo – Quotations from General George S. Patton

Of all the larger-than-life characters found in the annals of the war, none looms larger than the controversial and outspoken figure of George S. Patton. Forthright in conversation and audacious in battle, Patton was a career soldier who became a legend in his own wartime. Patton’s frank demeanour was combined with pearl-handled pistols, riding breeches and outsized insignia, creating an image that made it clear he intended to lead his troops from the front all the way to Berlin.

As one United Press International (UPI) writer noted at the time: ‘This absolute faith in himself as a strategist and master of daring infected his entire army, men of the second American corps in Africa, and later the third army in France, believed they could not be defeated under his leadership.’ Below are just some of the quotes in which Patton summed up his hard-nosed attitude to warfare:

‘No one ever won a war by dying for his country … you win a war by making the other poor son of a bitch die for his.’

‘I’d rather have the German army ahead of me than the French army behind me.’

‘May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.’

‘Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.’

‘The test of success is not what you do when you’re on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.’

‘Never in history has the navy landed an army at the planned time and place. But if you land us anywhere within 50 miles of Fedala and within 1 week of D-Day, I’ll go ahead and win.’

‘Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it.’

‘We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them.’

‘Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.’

‘Compared to war all other forms of human endeavour shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so!’

Fleeing the Storm – Neutral States

Throughout the war, several states remained neutral during the conflict. A neutral power is a sovereign state that declares itself to be neutral towards those other countries in conflict; a move designed to avoid invasion or to conform with a wider policy of neutrality in all diplomatic affairs. The following countries were assigned as neutral from the outbreak of fighting in 1939 and the end of hostilities in 1945:

Afghanistan

Tibet & Bhutan

Liechtenstein

Monaco & Andorra

North Yemen

Ireland (Eire)

Portugal

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

Vatican City

In many cases, such a declaration did not mean the country was demilitarised. On the contrary, many of the nations which declared themselves neutral during the war did increase their armed forces in case they were required to defend their borders. A precaution which was amply supported by the German invasions of Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands, all of whom had declared themselves neutral at the start of hostilities.

Actors Who Have Played Winston Churchill

Before he led the country to victory, Winston Churchill had already led an amazing life as an aristocrat, politician, journalist and soldier. The larger than life character of the man and his extraordinary deeds have meant that actors have queued up to play the great man on the big and small screens ever since. Here are just ten of them:

Peter Sellers

The Man Who Never Was (1956)

Richard Burton

Winston Church: The Valiant Years (TV, 1961)

Simon Ward

Young Winston (1971)

Robert Hardy

Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981)

Donald Pleasance

Moi, General de Gaulle (1990)

Bob Hoskins

World War II: When Lions Roared (TV, 1994)

Albert Finney

The Gathering Storm (TV, 2002)

Christian Slater

Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)

John Lithgow

The Crown (TV, 2016)

Gary Oldman

Darkest Hour (2017)

Special Units – Merrill’s Marauders

Led by Brigadier General Frank Merrill, Merrill’s Marauders was the unofficial name given the 5307th Composite Unit, a long-range Special Forces unit which fought behind enemy lines in the Burma Campaign. The unit became famous for its deep-penetration missions against the Japanese; always outnumbered by hostile enemy forces and often trekking huge distances through some of the toughest terrain known to man. Here are a few facts about the unit:

The Marauders were organised as light infantry assault units, with mule transport for their 60mm mortars, bazookas, ammunition, communications gear and supplies.

Designed to strike behind enemy lines where they were least expected, officers and men were trained to survive in the jungle and received instruction on scouting and patrolling, stream crossings, camouflage and the then innovative technique of supply by air-drop.

Their training and the mental toughness it instilled paid off when, on 17 May 1944, after a gruelling 65-mile march over the 6,000ft Kumon mountain range fighting meagre rations and disease, approximately 1,300 Marauders successfully attacked an unsuspecting Japanese airfield at the Myitkyina.

The men of the Merrill’s Marauders have enjoyed the rare distinction of seeing every soldier who served with the unit awarded the Bronze Star.

In June 1944, Merrill’s Marauders were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation. The report read: ‘The unit must display such gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps in accomplishing its mission under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions as to set it apart and above other units participating in the same campaign.’

Five Greatest Tanks of the War

T-34

The first T-34s rolled off the assembly line the KhPZ factory in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1940. Hardy and versatile, the Russian T-34 was the most produced tank of the war, and remains the second most produced tank of all time. The T-34 had a well-armoured shell, a good gun and was well served by its excellent cross-country mobility. But it is the sheer numbers in which it was produced that made it the tank that won the war on the Eastern Front. The simplicity and versatility of the design meant that in the Soviet Union’s darkest years, these war machines could even be produced in makeshift workshops in the besieged Stalingrad.

Though T-34s were rugged, fast and reliable in the field, they did suffer from the economies taken to build them: the commander had to double as a gunner, while Soviet shortages meant crews were seldom well trained, and often went into action without basic provisions and essential items such as radios.

M4 Sherman

Named following the American practice of christening their tanks after famous Civil War generals, the M4 Sherman was the backbone of almost all US army ground offensives from 1942. As well as the tens of thousands of M4s used by US forces, thousands more were distributed to the Allies on the Western and Eastern Fronts via the Lend-Lease programme.

The Sherman evolved from the Grant and Lee medium tanks, and it retained much of their mechanical design. However, the success of the Soviet T-34 on the Eastern Front ensured that the Sherman’s designers aimed to create a machine that shared the Russian tank’s mechanical reliability and ease of production – the Sherman even used standardised parts and ammunition to aid maintenance in the field. One notable addition was a hefty 75mm gun mounted on a fully traversing gyrostabilised turret, which enabled its crew to fire while the tank was on the move.

The Sherman’s reliability, and the fact that it could be easily adapted to carry a variety of different weapons, made it superior in many regards to the German light and medium tanks of the blitzkrieg. Yet the Sherman did have a fatal flaw: it caught fire easily. It was this deadly trait that gave the Sherman a second nickname: the ‘Ronson’.

Panther

The Sd.Kfz. 171, more commonly known as the Panther, was a German medium tank in service from mid-1943 to the close of the European Theatre in 1945. Its combination of firepower, mobility and solid armour mean that it is regarded as one of the best tank designs of the war. The Panther was born from the recommendations of a special Panzerkommision, despatched to the Eastern Front to assess the success of the nimble T-34. As such, the Panther stole many of its strongest features from its rival: including rounded turret design, wide tracks to aid mobility over soft ground and sloping front armour to increase defence against shell penetration – indeed, the Panther had the same front armour as Tiger I.

This balance of armour and firepower was undermined by the German commitment to technological advance. The tank was full of new and often complex engineering that made it difficult to maintain in the field, notably its interleaved suspension and a hydraulics system which could be set on fire if hit. Regardless of these drawbacks, it remains one of the best individual feats of engineering in the war.

Tiger/King Tiger

Though only a handful of them survive in museums worldwide, if most people were asked to name a single tank from the war they would say the fearsome Tiger. Tiger I was the common name given to the heavy tank designated by the Wehrmacht as the ‘Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E’. Deployed in 1942, it was developed as an answer to the unexpected strength of Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of Operation Barbarossa, particularly the T-34 and the KV-1. To counter this threat, the Tiger I gave the German forces their first tank mounted with a massive, tank-busting 88mm gun. Usually deployed in an independent tank battalion, the Tiger I saw combat – and struck fear into its enemies – on all German battlefronts during the course of the war. As a machine it was immensely heavy at 50 metric tons – the price for the 3.9ins of armour protecting its crew – and possessed the kind of sheer firepower that could prove decisive with a single shell.

Like many German tanks it was over-engineered as a vehicle. Expensive and time-consuming to produce, just 1,347 Tigers were built between August 1942 and August 1944. Furthermore, the Tiger, like the Panther, was prone to track failures which left these mighty beasts immobile, while its interlocking wheels made it complicated to transport without damaging it. In 1944 production was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.

PzKfW Mk. IV Panzer

The Mk. IV Panzer tank was introduced in 1937 and was used with devastating effectiveness in the German blitzkrieg attacks on Poland, France, the Low Countries and the Soviet Union. Weighing in at 17.6 tons with a fast-firing, short-barrelled 75mm gun, the Mk. IV was ideal for supporting infantry while its hull and turret-mounted machine guns could also destroy approaching infantry. Initially, the frontal armour of the tank was just 30mm thick, which soon proved ineffective against the second generation Allied armour. As a result, later versions of the Mk. IV were produced with 50mm and 80mm armour. By far the most prolifically used German tank of the war between 1940 and 1945; some 9,000 of them rolled out of German factories.

Hollywood Goes to War – Movie Stars Who Served in Battle

Following the outbreak of war, many stars of the silver screen joined ordinary Joes to enlist in the Allied forces and serve their country. Well-known names like Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney and Carl Reiner were, by choice, for medical reasons or by the wisdom of their superiors, assigned to the production of propaganda documentaries and inspiring films to entertain the troops; some even found themselves right in the heart of the action. Here is our list of the Hollywood hard men who played their part in combat during the war:

Ernest Borgnine – Served in the US navy for ten years and aboard the destroyer USS Lamberton