THE USA AND THE WORLD IN THE TIME OF FDR
From the Invasion of Poland to Pearl Harbor
By Mike Donovan
WAR BEGINS 9.1.39
Germany invaded Poland on the first of September, 1939. Two days later, to Hitler's utter surprise, England and France declared war on Germany. World War II was under way.
In order to create a diplomatic and propaganda cover story to justify his invasion of Poland, Hitler created a transparent cover story. Several men from German prisons were forced to dress up in the uniforms of the Polish Army. Then they were shot. Then their bodies were placed all around a German radio station near the border with Poland. The word went out all over Germany and the world that the Poles had started a war by attacking a German radio station. The station broadcast the sounds of gunfire. Photos of the dead Polish attackers were disseminated to the world press.
Germany then claimed that in retaliation for this unprovoked attack on peaceful Germany, the Fuhrer sent the might of the Nazi armed forces crashing into Poland.
It was state of the art tank divisions, and Goering's Luftwaffe versus antique cannons pulled by frightened horses. That's oversimplified of course but nevertheless, in one month the overmatched forces of the Polish Army, Navy and Air Force were defeated, captured or scattered into the countryside. Some made it into other countries. By the end of the month Poland ceased to exist. Poland was to suffer six years of terror and genocide. It makes me sometimes wish I wasn’t half German.
Just as the Germans were beginning mop-operations in a complete victory, the Soviet Union shocked the world by invading Poland from the east. The two devils had agreed in advance to dismember and swallow Poland. The Germans got their ‘living space’ to their east, while the Russians got their security zone to their west, a buffer state of occupied Poland. The two invaders, diametrically opposed in political philosophy (at least in theory) collaborated fully, two muggers dividing the dead guy's wallet fair and square. These were the same Soviet Russian invaders who would be our allies later in the war.
When on September 3, 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany, Hitler was a both surprised and disappointed. He was the only educated person on earth stupid enough not to realize that this meant a world war. Adolph knew that these two nations had a treaty to protect Poland in case of attack but he did not think they would honor it. England and France had been appeasing him for so long that he did not anticipate any defiance this time around either. Hitler had bought his own publicity, always the ultimate mistake. Adolph did not understand that behavioral patterns in nations, just as with people, are subject to change without notice. Even wimpy democracies have their limits. France and Britain had reached theirs. What's more dangerous than a guy with no criminal record who gets fired a week after his divorce, gets his paycheck seized by the IRS, and just got a machine gun in the mail?
Adolph had long accepted that he would probably have to fight France sooner or later, but was blindly naive about England. He definitely did not want to go to war with Britian.
This mistaken analysis existed in large part because Hitler thought the English were his racial brothers and sisters. Hitler hated the Communists, the Jews, the Slavs, the Rich, the Gypsies and the Bremen Soccer Club. But he had never hated the British. Hitler had studied British history and was, if anything, an admiring fan.
He was a fool. So what if they were of the same racial stock. Fortunately for the planet Hitler always had a streak of pinhead to match his genius.
Britain believed in democracy and freedom, not totalitarianism and mass murder. A God-fearing democracy's first racial loyalty is to the human race, a point he could not grasp since he thought he was God.
GOERING THE PEACENICK
In the last weeks leading up the war, Herman Goering actually tried to convince Hitler to not go to war against Poland. Herman monster swung at Neuremberg, and I'm not saying he shouldn't have. He was the number 2 man in the genocidal evil Reich, and his part in mass murder once the war began spoke for itself. But few books cover the point that Goering was deeply disturbed that Hitler was planning as real war. HG thought that the UK would not sit back and watch, but he could not convince his boss. Goering was happy that the German Reich had swallowed Austria and Czechovslovakia, and that it had defied the victors of Versailles by re-arming. He was happy that Germany had re-occupied the Rhineland, and insulted the French in doing so. But Goering had seen air combat in World War I and was a hedonist. He wanted to enjoy the spoils of all the achievements of the late 30's. He wanted to eat, drink and be merry with Mary, and maybe do some hard drugs here and there. He thought that a world war at this time would constitute a real buzz-kill.
On the other hand Foreign Minister von Ribbentropp was always trying to encourage Hitler to launch the war against Poland. Not that it was Ribbentropp's idea. It was the Fuhrer's idea, to be sure, but Hitler did listen a little bit to his closest pals and if everyone had told him no way, don't do it, maybe, just maybe, Hitler would have backed off.
Von Ribbentropp was one of the worst human beings that ever walked the planet. The Nurenburg trial was not fair to him. He should have been beaten to death the day they arrested him. He should not even have been allowed to hang around for a few bonus months. The history of the pre-war years is the story of von Ribbentropp bullying enemy diplomats and leaders in a style and substance that probably cannot be matched in all of human history. He was a scum.
When the word finally reached Goering that the war against Poland had begun, Herman called Ribbentropp on the phone and screamed a profanity riddled tirade against him paraphrased here as,
“Are you happy now you no good bum? You wanted war! You couldn't sleep unless you had war. Now you've got your war, you swine!”
Then Goering slammed the phone down.
I'd say the Mt. Rushmore of Nazi scums were Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and von Ribbentropp. They're right now still locked in a tiny dark room in hell with ten thousand hungry rats and they never get to die.
FRENCH FREEZE
The French declared war on Hitler but did not attack Germany from the west. An attack from the French army in the west was Hitler's biggest fear. If the French had attacked from behind while Hitler was still engaged in Poland the entire Second World War might have been won for the good guys by the end of 1939. The German military in September 1939 was not strong enough to fight on two great fronts and win. The French could have marched on Berlin like a hot knife through butter.
Instead the French Army stood pat behind their impregnable “Maginot Line” the series of mighty armed forts that stretched from the Belgian frontier to the Swiss Alps.
The two democracies sat still while officially at war with Germany. They might have been hoping for a negotiated settlement. The Royal Air Force was instructed to attack German ships at sea but not to try to sink them if they were in German ports. They didn't want major incidents with civilian casualties jeopardizing the chance for a negotiated settlement by raising the emotional stakes. Some war. The war took on the snide nickname “Sitzkreig,” or, “The Phoney War.”
In America it was called the “Phony Peace”
AMERICA FIRST
From September 1, 1939 to December 7 1941 America stayed out of World War II even though our closest international allies were directly threatened.
Isolationism USA was easy when our European allies were only indirectly threatened in the years from the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 to the attack on Poland in 1939. Isolationism became a bit more controversial after 9.3.39 when our allies were actually at war with Italy and Germany.
Some U.S. politicians didn't even think the United States was threatened indirectly when Poland, not even in the long term. They still believed that the two oceans were a giant moat protecting the Yankee Castle. They didn't even support the idea that we should at least build up our military might with haste, just in case.
FDR thought the two oceans were not moats but rather a pair of highways leading right up to our front door. The German and/or Japanese navy might use these protective oceans as a red carpet for a million man march on Washington.
Slightly wiser 'stay out of the war' politicians and thinkers developed a “fortress America” concept. This approach admitted that, yes, we should frantically build up our military. But the new build-up was never supposed to go overseas to help Poland, France or Britian. Their idea was to build a defensive minded fortress America so strong that neither Germany nor Japan would dare attack us. It was ‘peace through strength,' but a peace through strength while the houses of our friends were burning.
Many famous Americans favored fortress America, including two lame Charlies, the quasi-socialist historian (and bore) Charles Beard and the never boring aviation hero Charles Lindbergh.
For the next two years and three months the USA tried to have it both ways. Uncle Sam shook his fist defiantly at Hitler and Japan with warlike posturing and some cautious gestures to help our friends, while actually doing nothing to commit ourselves to the fight. These non-intervention interventionist moves were dragging the US slowly but surely into the conflict we were officially so determined to avoid.
Polls taken when the Poles fell showed that a full 30% of Americans favored absolute isolationism. That is, we shouldn't even take a side and try to help the western democracies with arms sales on a “cash and carry” basis. About 35% favored official neutrality but with some active aid short of war on the side of the democracies. Only 2.5% favored outright intervention on the side of France and England.
Roosevelt feared throughout the Phony Peace that Britain and France might agree to a negotiated peace with Hitler, a second Munich. Nothing would have pleased Hitler more. He needed the time to regroup, exploit his conquered territories, and build up his navy and air force for the next rounds. A negotiated peace would have enabled the Nazis to build up a fleet of submarines that would have threatened the world. The Nazis had only 21 U-boats in September of 1939.
Roosevelt was completely certain that with the a separate peace, Hitler would retool the machine and eventually attack the western hemisphere. The Germans would probably establish conquests in Latin America, transport massive military supplies to the Americas, and then plan to strangle if not actually invade the United States.
Churchill, not yet in power, corresponded frequently with POTUS, his acronym for the President of the United States, and the P.M. tried to reassure Franklin that Great Britian would never agree to another negotiated peace along the lines of Munich.
POLAND IN THE FIRESIDE CHAT SEPTEMBER 3 1939
On the same day that England and France declared war on Germany, Roosevelt gave a radio address to the nation from in front of his Hyde Park fireplace. The nation needed to know if the United States was going to stay out of this second Great War. The President gave them a luke-warm assurance on that one,
“I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it
will.”
Translation;
'Hey boss, can I have a raise?'
'It's possible. I hope so.'
FD went on to warn that the events overseas directly affected the United States. The earth was too small to hide out in one corner and expect to avoid trouble. Franklin warned,
“Passionately though we may desire detachment, we are forced to
realize that every word that comes through the air, every ship that
sails the sea. every battle that is fought, does affect the American
future.”
Roosevelt's speechwriters were surprised (but not displeased) with a statement that Roosevelt inserted at the last moment that although the American people were being asked to remain neutral in fact, they were not being asked to remain neutral in thought.
REPEAL OF STRICT NEUTRALITY LAWS
In 1935 the Congress had passed a rather strict neutrality law, and Roosevelt had signed it. The United States had tied its industrial hands behind its back for conducting an activist foreign policy. Its was an arms dumbargo that would have made Jefferson proud. The USA couldn't sell arms to a belligerent under any circumstances. The Neutrality Law was asking the United States leadership to remain neutral in thought just when FDR had just told the citizens of the country that no longer had to. The Neutrality law of 1935 was by 1939-40 hampering American efforts to aid the democracies in their fight against Hitler, and our efforts to assist China in it's war with Japan.
In the fall of 39 Roosevelt proposed immediate changes in the neutrality laws. But it wouldn't be easy. There was still a stubborn Republican isolationist block in Congress led by Joseph Martin, the minority leader in the lower chamber.
But how could the President appeal to the people and the Congress to repeal a law that he had personally supported and signed without suffering political damage? The Brains Trust tried to figure a way to rationalize the inconsistency and avoid the back-lash of back-tracking.
Roosevelt came up with a great idea.
“I've got it! How about if I admit that I was wrong!.”
His sycophant aides gasped in horror, “No! Not that! Anything but that!.”
FDR in late September 1939 called Congress into extraordinary session and told the two Houses that it was time to repeal the Neutrality laws of 1935. Before the hecklers could call him hypocrite, he added, “I regret that the Congress passed that Act. I regret equally that I signed that Act.”
Franklin believed in the Al Davis philosophy that it is more important to be right at the moment than it is to be consistent.
Roosevelt consulted with Republican leaders after the show, and made it clear that from this moment on he was not going to pull a Wilson and leave the opposition party out of the decision making process when it came to war and peace. Whatever decisions he made would be arrived at through open bi-partisan debate. For the most part, he kept his word on this, partly by including Republicans in the War Cabinet, and partly because Republican isolationism came to a near halt with the fall of Poland, and to a complete halt with the Fall of France. Roosevelt didn't have to compromise very much with Republican obstructionists, because they disappeared from the field, not to re-appear again until Truman's post-war presidency. The spirit of Henry Lodge was at long last as almost as cold as his body in Mt Auburn Cemetery.
UNDECLARED WAR IN THE ATLANTIC
GERMAN NAVAL STRATEGY
The second Neutrality Act, passed in 1937 forbade sale of US weapons to active belligerents in time of war, but allowed the sale of raw materials to make weapons. The USA could ship steel to make guns but we couldn’t ship guns to belligerents.
The interventionist crowd realized that these laws were hurting our friends and helping our enemies. England had the great navy and merchant marine, not Germany. How much were we hurting a Germany that didn’t have the capability of buying our war materials even if they wanted to? The UK wanted the materials, had the capability of picking the stuff up, and furthermore was a friend to freedom, our economy, and our country.
The Neutrality Act of 37 had already helped fascism to win the Spanish Civil War. Something had to be done to change these laws so that we could help England and France in their time of troubles.
So a new and improved Neutrality Act was passed in late 1939. By its terms the US could sell weapons to anyone it chose to, provided the purchaser paid in cash and picked up the stuff in their own ships. This was so obviously an affront to Germany that Roosevelt included the new restriction on American shipping as a compromise to Germany. The President wanted to help Britian but didn’t want a war with Germany, at least not at this time.
The Neutrality Act of 1939 set up a zone around the British Isles and the Northwestern coast of Europe. In that zone US ships were forbidden by their own government to enter for any reason. The US was not going to be sucked into this war and the best way to prevent it was to avoid incidents in which German U-boats accidentally sank American ships. If President Wilson had enacted a similar law, the USA probably would never have fought in the First World War. So in terms of avoiding incidents it was wise, but historians generally do not speak well of this zone policy. It was one of the most self-restricting laws ever passed, and it didn’t help the American economy very much to kill all our direct sea trade with the British Isles.
U-BOATS
A few words now about the menace of the Nazi U-boats. It is fairly well known that the best German naval weapon of the First as well as the Second World War was the submarine. There were times in 1941, 2 and 3 when it looked like the Germans might win the war by sinking Allied ships as a faster rate than they were being built, and that was scary.
It was widely believed throughout the war that German naval strategy between the wars was centered on U-boats and the devastation they brought proved that Hitler and Raeder (commander of the German navy) were military masters.
But the U-boat campaign did not begin in earnest until well after the war had begun. On the day that Hitler invaded Poland, Germany had only 21 first class U-boats operational! There were 25 others that were old and small. Even this combined total of less than 50 seems tiny in retrospect.
The fact of the matter is that Hitler was not a big believer in submarine warfare. His toy soldier mentality led him to worship big ships. He wanted to revive the big battleship navy that Germany had so proudly possessed in WWI. Hitler also worshipped planes far more than ships. The Luftwaffe got most of the money to build with. The German Navy got much less. Most of the navy money went into surface raiders, not submarines. It was a strategic blunder. If Hitler had built up his U-boat fleet before the war began he might have won the war or at least made it much more difficult for the Allies to win.
Hitler’s grand strategy for victory was a continental view of the coming war. The Fuhrer never expected England to go to war to defend Poland so he really wasn’t that concerned about the superiority of the British Navy. Addie thought he could conquer all of continental Europe without British interference. With new Russian oil (he always knew he was going to attack Russia) and vast manpower resources under forced labor, he felt he could rebuild the German Navy later, not now, and then if England tried to defy him later he could stand up to John Bull with his new navy, the fruit of victory on the continent.
But when England surprisingly did declare war over Poland Hitler was left holding the raider bag. These little German battleships were no match for even a small portion of the giant British navy, while his U-boats if he had produced more, could have harassed the British Imperial Navy and merchant fleet to holy hell. Instead Germany had to face a naval war with England that it had not prepared for. If Hitler had not underestimated British pluck he probably would have built five hundred U-boats. Instead he was stuck with his handful of Raeder’s surface raiders. There weren’t enough of them to conduct offensive warfare with Britain. These toys would have to be confined to protecting the German coast and harassing merchant ships. It was only after the shooting started with the UK that the Nazis hastily converted naval construction efforts from capital ships (not abandoned entirely as it probably should have been) to concentrating primarily on making U-boats.
Hitler had a land mentality partly because of his service in the First World War. If he had served in the German navy in WWI instead of the army then his mindset might have included a wise and vivid recollection of the almost amazing efficiency of the German U-boats in that conflict. Instead he daydreamed of armies, planes and battleships. U-boat sinkings to him were like poison gas, barbaric unmilitary tactics without any of the glory of war that he lusted for.
The Army and the Air Force were the fuhrer’s pets. German navy men made cynical jokes throughout the war about how they were the forgotten branch of the 3rd Reich.
Hitler’s Italian ally was of little help. Italy entered the war in 1940. The Romans did have a fine little navy, better than Germany’s, but Mussolini spent the war trying to protect it rather than employ it. Churchill cracked that the Italian Navy apparently had built to run away. I was born in the generation just after WWII and there was a joke in my neighborhood as a boy that went ”What food product was named after the Italian Navy? – A: Chicken of the Sea.” Mussolini was never any more prepared to risk an open battle with the Royal Navy than Hitler was, and he had more to fight with.
As for aircraft carriers, Hitler never believed in them very much. So much for his military genius. The Germans tried to build only one. The construction site was bombed by the English every time it seemed that it was shaping up and the Sauerkraut never made it out of the yard.
ATHENIA DOWN 9.4.39
Ten hours after Britain declared war on Germany the U-30 hit a British passenger liner the Athenia with two torpedoes off the coast of Ireland. 112 people died in the sea, 26 of them Americans. No warning had been given and no effort was made to spare the lives of the passengers, either before or after the attack, as required by the London Naval Agreement of 1930, a treaty Germany had signed. Part of that treaty was that in exchange for pre-agreed mercy for passengers, merchant and passenger ships could not mount big guns of any kind so if a sub surfaced to pick up people either before or after the attack, the civilian ship could not reveal guns and smash the sub.
England responded by announcing that from now on it would arm its civilian ships as best it could. Within a day Hitler claimed that the British had deliberately sunk the Athenia with a mine in order to draw the USA into the war, the lying scum. Adolph proclaimed that from now on all ships were fair game for his U-boats.
Doenitz went one further. He ordered his U-boat captains to machine gun the people in lifeboats so they could not help in the war effort later. This order was admirably disobeyed quite often throughout the war but was obeyed often enough. Tactics like this, employed just days into the war, are worth remembering when the revisionists now largely blame the Allies for the savagery of WWII. It certainly was one reason why Doenitz was on the dock at Nuremberg in 1946 as a war criminal.
America’s 1939 Neutrality Act now helped the U-boats do their dirty work. The U-boat commanders could sink anything they wanted in the zone around the British Isles that the US had barred to US vessels. The Nazi captains didn’t have to worry in this area that they might accidentally sink an American ship and start an international incident.
It was directly in response to the sinking of the Athenia that Churchill decided that merchant freighters could and would now carry defensive guns. Yet some historians make it seem that Britian was the aggressor for arming the boats. Armed freighters made it impossible for the U-boat commanders to conduct the war with a modicum of humanity. But what other course was there for the British in the face of the Athenia incident? If Hitler had only admitted that the sinking of the Athenia was a matter of human error by the captain who didn’t realize that he was torpedoing an unarmed passenger liner (as the captain claimed after the war), then Churchill might not have ordered the Royal Navy and the British merchant marine to take a new aggressive approach to the rules of international commerce in wartime. Yet we have this account of things by Thomas Bailey who states without preface that,
“Winston Churchill, again First Lord of the
Admiralty, began arming all merchant ships
after the outbreak of war in 1939 and issued
orders for active resistance.”
Athenia was sunk 10 hours after the war began. Churchill could hardly have issued these directives as an instigator unless he did it the instant he heard that German troops had crossed into Polish territory. Churchill responded to terror at sea, he didn’t start it.
Then with the war a month or two under way we get this Bailey judgment in defense of the apparently decent Nazis,
“… several of the German U-boats had chivalrously
given “good warning” and had helped the orphaned
crews to safety. This kind of sportsmanship soon
became rare or nonexistent, largely because
Britain’s defensive-offensive measures made a
gentlemanly submarine war impossible.”
Blame the Allies First, eh Tom?
AMERICA DISCOVERS COLUMBUS FOR THE BRITISH - 1939
German passenger liners all over there world had to scramble to get back to the Fatherland safely when the war broke out. One such ship was the Columbus (33,000 tons,) a German ship with an English name that was named after an Italian who had sailed out of Portugal under the Spanish flag.
Columbus had already disembarked from NYC when the shooting started and most of it’s paid guests were Americans. The captain of Columbus reluctantly agreed to the collective request of the naturally scared passengers to be dropped off in Havana, Cuba. Columbus then proceeded to Vera Cruz in Mexico where there was a large colony of German expatriates.
In November the liner decided to chance it and make a break for Germany. From the moment it cleared Mexican international waters, Columbus was tailed by US warships. The Americans were sending information to the British on the location of the enemy vessel in ‘plain English’ meaning there was little or no attempt to hide these transmissions for any curious listeners. Once the Columbus had reached the outer edge of the Panama safety belt (agreed to at the earlier foreign ministers conference in Panama City,) the British could then pick up the trail and have their way with the big ship.
The captain of Columbus however thought that the US warships were friendly. He thought they were escorting him safely out to sea, as if we were a big brother shielding his liner from the British. He even signaled individual US warships “Godspeed and Merry Christmas” when they dropped off and let another US ship take over the escort. But the Americans were stalking the Columbus, not protecting it.
340 miles east of New Jersey, the Columbus was still within US insincere protection, but the captain thought he was not. He thought he was now a target for British warships. One of these, a destroyer named Hyperion, confronted Columbus by firing two warning shots across her bow in classic naval fashion. The captain thought he was doomed, so he scuttled his ship. Columbus sank and burned in a Waco style suicide by fire. The German captain probably wanted to make sure that his ship was not taken alive to be used by the enemy. An American destroyer, the Tuscaloosa, was close enough by to observe these actions with a pair of binocs. Tuscy quickly steamed to the tragic site and rescued 500 of the crew of Columbus and took them to New York City for internment. The captain thanked the Americans profusely for all their help, the idiot. After the US entered the war in late 1941 the crew of the Columbus became official POW’s and lived out the war in the relative safety of the USA.
Hitler gave a speech in mid-1941 in which he specifically cited the case of the Columbus as a pre-war act of hostility by the United States against Germany.
DECLARATION OF PANAMA OCTOBER 3, 1939/ END OF THE GRAF SPEE DECEMBER 14-17, 39
The US enlisted the support of all its good neighbor amigos in Central and South America in October of 1939. The combined Americans declared a safe zone around the two continents. The belligerents on the eastern side of the sea were warned not to engage in any naval gunplay in this zone which reached far beyond any known concept of national waters. German subs and surface raiders were told not to dare attack enemy ships in this zone and the British were warned not to attack German surface raiders and subs there as well. In some places the zone was almost a thousand miles off the coast of the country concerned. The idea was to keep the war at arm’s length from the nations in the western hemisphere still at peace.
The Declaration of Panama was basically unenforceable from the start. The pursuit of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee (pronounced ‘spay’) proved it.
I built a plastic model of the Graf Spee in 1968, a lovely compact battleship with three turrets of twin 14 inch guns. Spee was used almost exclusively as a surface raider. Its mission was not to slug it out with other battleships like Old Ironsides vs. Guerrierre, but rather to comb the Atlantic and beyond for helpless isolated merchant freighters. Graf Spee by December 1939 had sunk 10 such merchantmen while being hunted at the same time by the superior British Navy.
The GS had to put into port at Montevideo, the capitol of neutral Uruguay. The ship needed repairs to continue the fight. But Uruguay did not want the Spee to stay. Uruguay was a charter signer of the Declaration of Panama too. The battleship had worn out its welcome the moment it docked.
A small British task force learned the whereabouts of the raider and formed an impenetrable barrier outside the gates of the River Platte. Spee’s guns had longer range than any of the British cruisers and destroyers, but at close range the superior range was no advantage and the British had the numbers. Graf Spee had to leave Uruguay and face certain death. If the Declaration of Panama had teeth the British wouldn’t be able to shoot up the Spee when it left Montevideo, nor would they have been allowed to bottle up the GS there in the first place.
As the Spee steamed slowly out towards the open Atlantic, a cloud of dark smoke erupted mid-ship. Explosions followed and the ship sank in the River Platte. The captain had scuttled his ship and killed himself. Neither he, not the British cruisers had given a thought to the Declaration of Panama. Its false teeth were sitting in a glass somewhere.
The Graf Spee and the Columbus episodes happened almost simultaneously. The difference in British actions showed that the UK respected the Declaration of Panama only on a selfish selective basis. The Spee was more of a threat to British lives than the Columbus, so the Declaration of Panama was respected for Columbus, in deference to the US, while in the case of the Graf Spee the Declaration was about as effective as a screen door on a U-boat.
As for my model, it sat on my dresser for a few months but then a few pieces broke off. There was only one thing left to do, a thing quite traditional in the neighborhood. I took it into my back yard and there, with the solemn observance of a few other young model-builders I forced a firecracker into the hull and then started a fire under the foreward bridge. We all enjoyed the last ten minutes of my Graf Spee.
SO LONG CAPTAIN FLINT
Another ship of history with a role in the undeclared war was the Captain Flint. This American freighter had been one of the ships that had rescued survivors from the downed Athenia in the first week of September. Flint dropped off the traumatized civilians from Athenia in New York and then headed east for England with a load of cargo that included oil, which made it a legitimate prize for seizure by German warships. Sure enough on October 9, 1939 it was cornered and captured on the high Atlantic seas by the pocket battleship Deutschland. The 20 American crewmen were taken on board the battleship where they kept company with 37 Brits who were already prisoners. Deutschland had sunk their UK freighter a few days earlier.
Flint was now manned by a German crew and was flying the Nazi flag. It was too dangerous to take the prisoners to Germany through the English Channel so the Captain went north around the UK where he hoped to then make his way down the Norwegian coast to Germany. The commander hoped to snake his way south through the three miles of Norwegian waters off the coast that were immune from international attack. This was illegal but had been done by other Nazi ships successfully. The Captain Flint put into port near the Arctic circle in the Norway town of Tromso.
International law of the sea is more complex than law on land. It changes drastically every ten years or so and it is often vague, elastic, unenforceable or easily defied. Laws on prizes, belligerency, blockades, searches, seizures and other issues are a kaleidoscope of confusion and an invitation to selfish interpretation. Laws made 40 or 100 years ago are expected to be obeyed by nations that are at war, which is an almost ridiculous concept. “In the clash of arms the laws are silent,” as the Romans used to say, and the Romans were humane compared to the Nazis. The Romans didn’t kill their slaves, they used them. The Nazis at war had about as much respect for laws as they had for rabbis (rabbi means lawyer by the way.)
In this situation according to international law, the Norwegian government was supposed to deny any help to the Captain Flint. Norway was a neutral and while a belligerent was free to take any prize at sea that carried war supplies, it absolutely could not take that prize into a neutral port, not even for rest and repairs. Moreover, if a prize was taken into a neutral port, the neutral state was supposed to seize the ship, intern its crew, free the prisoners and hold the ship until it could be picked by its original owners. This was a tall order for Norway in the face of a Nazi belligerent that was the menace of the continent. The Tromsonian officials didn’t take the ship and intern the crew, as required by law, but they did boot the pirates out of port with nothing for victuals but a little fresh water. They also denied the Germans the charts necessary to make it safely down the Norwegian coast within national waters. Norway gets a B minus for its stance in Tromso.
So the Captain Flint had to head north and then east to Murmansk in Russia.
Stalin was Hitler’s cautious ally but not a belligerent. Soviet Russia was a neutral and the same laws that applied to Norway applied to the USSR. The Nazi commander of the CF had high hopes that the Soviets would look the other way on international law. He was not to be disappointed, and that is most of the reason the entire Flint saga is told here. It demonstrates how much Russia was not our friend and lends a spotlighted contrast to the war US propaganda later on that shouted proud that it was.
Flint checked in to Murmansk on October 23, 1939 and was treated rather nicely. Secretary of State Hull sent a sharp note to Moscow protesting the failure of the Russians to take the proper measures under international law. Only a prize ship in severs physical distress could land with immunity in a neutral port and Captain Flint was in good working order. Moscow would not allow the US to make a telephone call to the imprisoned crew and when Ambassador to the USSR Malcom Steinhardt tried to fly to Murmansk but was denied a ticket. The Russians cabled Washington claiming that the Flint was badly damaged which was a lie. The Soviets coaxed the Flint gently back out to sea but with the German crew still in control and this time with charts to make it down the Norwegian coast.
The conclusion in Washington was that the Russians weren’t trying to be nasty for the sake of being nasty, rather they did not want to provoke the Germans who were a lot closer to them than America was. Ticking off the United States at the time was a lot safer than ticking off Hitler, who could lose his temper because a bird looked at him the wrong way. And Addie had 30 or so divisions on the Russian border. That is why the US reluctantly tolerated the shabby way the Russians treated Captain Flint. We sort of understood their situation, caught between a rock and boulder.
The Flint made its way to the port of Narvik in Norway. This time the Norwegians interned the ship and the German crew, showing considerable courage in the action. The Americans and Brits were free. The Flint made its way back to the United States safely. The Germans could have sunk it on the way out but Hitler wanted no more trouble with the US at this time and besides, the forbidden zone for US ships had just been set up by Roosevelt and the Congress and this was a bigger prize than one merchant ship. The US had volunteered to keep its ships out of the war zone and there was no need to shake up that equation.
RUSSO-FINNISH WAR BEGINS 1939
It was called the “Winter War.” It was fought in Northern Russia and Finland in the dead of winter and lasted almost four months. There was heavy fighting. It was full-scale war.
After the division and elimination of Poland the Soviets had intimidated the Baltic states into accepting Soviet troops on their soil, which was tantamount of course to a loss of independence. Stalin’s diplomats were surprised when Finland did not follow suit. Finland refused to be bullied.
All right, said the Soviets, if you won’t let us station Russian troops on your soil, then you must let us have most of the Karelian Isthmus. Your border is within artillery range of Leningrad. This cannot stand. What if you make an evil pact with Hitler some night and all of a sudden we wake up one morning and Leningrad is being shelled and has to be evacuated. Russia offered a larger slice of Russian territory north of Lake Lagoda to Finland in exchange, which was like offering 100 square miles northern Alaska as a trade for 60 square miles in Long Island. Russia also demanded two islands just south of Helsinki, which if granted would have given the Finns the right to complain that Helsinki was now in artillery range of Russian guns.
Finland had once been part of the Tsarist Russian empire. Surely it knew it was time to come back into the fold. But the Soviet emissary demanding territory and troops was rebuffed in a most certain manner. He wasn’t going to give the Finns the Ribbentrop treatment and get away with it. He wagged his finger at the Finns as he headed off for the airport and said “Stalin’s not gonna like this.” It was like a scene in a mob movie.
The Russians had been secretly building roads in the northern wilderness leading up to the Finnish border. They concentrated several divisions along the length of the Finnish border, even as far north as Petsamo. The bulk of the Soviet forces were set to go at the Karelian Isthmus.
Stalin and the Russians were confident that a large percentage of the socialism-loving Finnish population would support his invading armies. A lot of fifth column brigades of loyal Finnish socialists were going to be formed, making the invasion that much easier. This never happened. It was a foolish opinion and widely held in the USSR. Apparently they bought their own publicity and thought they were not evil totalitarians, but mankind’s vanguard of progress. In reality the only person that bought that line outside the Russian borders was FDR.
The Finns had won their independence in the time of World War One, but only after a terrible Civil War between the left and right, the left supported by the Soviets. The Kaiser had helped the right in Finland win the civil war and declare independence. The Finns then viewed the rise of Nazi Germany with less alarm than most of Europe. A strong Germany might be a deterrent to Soviet aggression against Finland. The Finnish people knew of course, that Russia had long wanted it’s old property back. The shadow of the bear had hung over Finnish independence for two precarious decades.
In the same transparent style that Hitler had used when he dressed up dead prisoners as Polish solders, the Russians staged a lame shooting incident, blamed a Finnish guy in an international statement, and used that as a reason to take Finland back into the Russian Empire by armed force.
On November 30 1939 twenty-seven Red Army divisions crashed into neutral Finland. Since the western front was so silent in these months as to be called the “phony war,” the world’s attention was riveted on Finland every day of the conflict. The “Winter War” was the only action story on the board. It was perhaps the only time in the history of the world when Finland was definitely center stage.
Opinion in England and France was strongly pro-Finn and anti-Rus. But nowhere in the foreign world was the outrage against the action of the USSR more pronounced and widespread as it was in the USA. These brave Finns were our brothers, our heroes. Finland was already popular here for being the only nation that had paid back it’s war loans from WWI. It was easy to get on their side in this one. Soviet Russia on the other hand was clearly the aggressor, was atheist, had promoted the destruction of all capitalist societies for 22 years, had made the pact with Hitler, and had stabbed Poland in the back. So it was hoo-ray Finland and boo Russia. Three years later Russia would be our best pal and Finnish pilots would be flying fighter planes supplied by Nazi Germany!
The Red Army was confident. All units were instructed to not violate the Swedish border. This meant that Stalin presumed that the Russian army would clear its way across the length of Finland like a hot knife through butter. The problem was that the butter was ice cold, hard as a rock, and the knife was dull and in disrepair.
The Russian army advanced at a snails pace and took heavy losses. The world was astonished by the resistance of the Finnish military forces. They had more to fight for and were better prepared for winter fighting. Thousands more Russian troops died from the cold than Finns did. The Finns attacked down mountains on ski’s, shooting up Russian units with their rifles at 20 mph, tossing hand-grenades and making spin moves on skis. I’ve seen a couple of movies that re-created these ski-scraps. The Finns wore white for camouflage while the Russians had gray uniforms for easier targeting. The Helsinki Ski-warriors were the Cinderella team on page one of the sports page that everyone cheered for.
Finland Draws a Line in the Snow - 11.39
On the above map the lighter red line to the right is the international border between Finland and the USSR on the eve of the war.
The final outcome of the war for Finland would be the complete loss of the Karelian Isthmus to the Soviet Union, plus the loss of access to the White Sea in the north.
The main military objective for the Russians on the Karelian front was Summa. This was where the bulk of the Finnish fighting forces were stationed. The rail and road lines to Helsinki ran through Summa. It was the roadblock on the path to Helsinki and victory. The Soviets attacked the Finnish left at Taipale with weaker forces which were stopped by the Finns. But that side of the line was not important to the Red Army.
The map below (from The Winter War by Richard Condon) shows the proximity of Leningrad to Finland. The Germans, those old friends of the Finns, had 88’s that could reach downtown Leningrad from Finnish territory. But Stalin was probably not as fearful of this as he claimed. Did the USSR seriously think that Finland had plans to invade its superpower neighbor?
Stalin probably just wanted Finland back for mother Russia and used defense as a pretext for offense. This entire Finnish affair was an early example of what was later termed “pre-emptive war.”
The Soviets set up a new capital of Finland at Terijoke
The Mannerheim Line was no Maginot Line. It is sometimes mistakenly described by historians as a ‘series of forts’. The ‘Heim Line’ was little more than a series of tank traps that ran from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Lagoda. It was also an undermanned Mannerheim line. The Finnish divisions deployed along it were few in number, small in size, and lacked any serious artillery power.
I know my old ink-note is hard to read on the above map from the Ballantine book The Winter War. It says ‘Capitol of Democratic Republic of Finland.’ The tiny city of Terijoke is semi-circled. The Soviets were inventing their own special style of colonialism as they fought, a style they would repeat later on several times. It went like this; Set up a new government as soon as the sound of front-line artillery is sounding distant. Then give the country a new name and for Peter the Greats’ sake, make sure you get the word ‘Democratic’ in it. What good is a sham democracy without a fancy sign?
The Finns fought well, but the Russian made steady advances up the Kareilain peninsula.
Winter War North of Lake Lagoda – Dec 1939
On December 14, 1939 The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations for its invasion of Finland.
By the end of 1939, north of Lagoda, and also in central Finland, the Russians fell short of their goals. They advanced in some spots, failed to advance in others, and actually were pushed back in one combat zone. But the war was to be decided in Karelia and there it was a slow but steady story of victory, although won at heavy cost.
The Russians were under-equipped and poorly led at the strategic level (until hero Timoshenko arrived later.) But they had the numbers and the will to use them. The Russians lost 200,000 killed in the war and the Finns only 25,000. Yet the Russians won the war. It was an Asian offensive against a European defense. The Russian Army just kept coming while Finnish machine gunners kept mowing them down. Russian soldiers did not retreat. They were almost as afraid of their own political officers as they were of the enemy. Advance meant probable death, retreat meant certain death. Russian officers were equally afraid to the make bold gambles sometimes needed to win battles for fear of Stalin’s unforgiving hatchet.
The main edge for the Russians was in tanks. The tank was still new to most Finnish troops in 1939 and terrorized many a soldier. The Russians had hundreds and the Finns had 25 or so. The Finnish Army was not well supplied with anti-tank weapons either. The now world famous ‘Molotov cocktail’ was invented by the Finns as an anti-tank weapon in a desperate situation. It was a bottle filled with kerosene and some other choice combustibles stuffed with an oily rag for a fuse. It went on to become the weapon of choice of political lunatics for decades (that and interrupting.) The Molotov cocktail set many Russian tanks on fire but it was rarely used in daylight. The daredevil with the Molo had to get close to the tank to make the firebomb work. The tank’s vision and infantry protection precluded that in daylight.
The Winter War was fought in sub-zero temperatures. In the central and northern theatres, there were battles fought with the temperatures 30 below zero in the daylight. Thousands of soldiers died from cold and their bodies were lost in the deep snow.
The Soviets used more than 800 military planes in the Winter War as opposed to less than 100 for the Finns. The Finns used antiquated planes for the most part.
The Soviets Sent Up Modern Planes to Meet the Fokkers
The above sample form the Finnish Air Force is a ‘bi’ plane. It was a fighter as well as a reconnaissance aircraft. Note the swastika on the fuselage. This does not mean that the Finns were flying Nazi planes in the Winter War. The swastika was considered a good luck emblem for many flyers in Europe, and was especially in vogue in the First World War. Many British warplanes sported the swastika during and after World War One. I saw a swastika on an Asian food product when I was in China last year and I’m sure it had nothing to do with the Nazis. The founder of the Finnish Air Force in WWI adopted the crooked cross for the Finnish Air Force when Hitler was still in an anonymous patient in the hospital at Pasewalk. It was only a coincidence that the Nazis later actually did lend some of their planes to Finland.
The Winter War was the first to see strategic bombing, or an attempt at it. Long before Hitler bombed Rotterdam, Stalin bombed Helsinki. Stalin thought he could terrorize the Finns into surrender by bombing several of their cities. Little care was taken to concentrate on military targets. The bombing only solidified the morale of the Helsinkians.
As for this failure of strategic bombing, it wasn’t that the concept was flawed. A citizenry could be terrorized by the air, but it would take a few thousands times more clout to make it effective. Perhaps the 250 pound bombs did scare some Finns. Who knows? Anyway, citizen morale became irrelevant when the Russian breakthrough came in 1940.
WWII IN 1940
WINTER WAR CONTINUES
On the first of January 1940 the Finns launched a major attack on two Russian divisions in the central part of Finland. The Red Army was trying to cut Finland in half at the belt. The effort climaxed in the Battle of Suomussalmi, and it resulted in a great victory for Finland.
The Russians were strung out in long columns over many miles on the only major road through the snow. The Finns with much smaller forces hit them on skis from all direction and created pockets of Russian troops, each out of communication with the other, and each feeling cold and surrounded. A couple of battalions of Finnish troops destroyed two Russian divisions completely. It was one of the most impressive Davey and Goliath upsets in military history. In one scene thousands of Russians were fleeing across a frozen lake being chased and gunned down by Finns on skis.
South of Suomussalmi, still on the central front in the area of the town of Khumo another Russian force invaded central Finland only to meet defeat at the hands of the enemy in January 1940. This time the Soviets thought they had learned the lesson of Suomussalmi and sent in thousands of Russian troops into battle on skis. This time they would fight snow with snow. But the Red Army units were once again outmaneuvered, decimated and entrapped. These Soviet battalions only extricated themselves by way of the treaty that ended the war. The answer to the Russian failure at Khumo lies in part with inferior equipment. Russian rifles consistently failed to fire from the cold, and as for Russian skis, they were of such poor quality that of the thousands captured from the dead and the prisoners, none were used by the Finns. They were burned for firewood.
But Finnish victories in the snowy wilderness could not compensate for the gradual deterioration of the Karelian front far to the south. Both theatres saw a lot of action, but Karelia was where the booty was.
The British, especially Churchill, wanted to send British troops to help the Finns fight the Russians. The proposal was for 100,000 British troops and 25,000 French troops to go over and mix it up with the Russian Army. Maybe this was the scrap with Communism that Churchill had always thought it had to come down to sooner or later. But the only way across to Finland was through two neutrals, Sweden and Norway. Neither would grant permission for transit so the plan came to nothing. They had their reasons. Sweden traded heavily with Germany and Norway was afraid of a Nazi retaliatory invasion.
Some historians believe that the real reason that Churchill wanted to send British and French troops across Sweden and Norway was so that the French and English could take over the iron mines of Sweden, and that this was the real reason that Norway and Sweden denied passage. Sweden was sympathetic towards the Finns in this fight but was a major trading partner with Nazi Germany, supplying the Fuhrer with a steady and critical supply of iron ore. It would have placed Sweden in a delicate position to let the British Army cross Sweden.
Proposed Allied Intervention in Winter War
The dotted line is the route that the French and British troops were to take to fight the Soviet Army. It is politically significant in light of the future alliance between the UK and USSR, that army groups from the two countries almost engaged in full-scale combat in early 1940, and would have if the Swedes and Norwegians had done their part. How would the rest of the war have been different if a large battle had gone on for many months between Finland, the UK and France on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other? More incredibly, what would have happened if the France and the UK were fighting the Soviets in Finland at the time Hitler invaded Russia? The axiom that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ would have been put to the ultimate test. What a mess of political and military conflicts of interest would have presented itself on the northern front.
The Finns signed a humiliating armistice on March 12, 1940. Finland ceded all the territory that Russia had demanded before the shooting started, plus it wasn’t going to get any Russian land in return. That’s what the Finns get for being stubborn and not listening to reason.
The Finns lost plenty. Note the access to the sea in the North for Finland at Petsamo. The Finns had built an Arctic Highway (marked in black) from The Arctic Sea to the Gulf of Bothnia. After the war that area was taken by the USSR and Finland was squeezed out of Arctic ocean access forever, a pretty big loss from the Winter War. All of Karelia still belongs to Russia today.
Finland was not through with the war however. When Germany attacked Russia in 1941, Finland joined up with Hitler and attacked Russia too. At the end of the war Finland had clearly made the wrong call.
When the Germans invaded Russia, the Finns did not sit by and watch as neutrals. They allied themselves with the Nazis. Finland attacked Russia while Russia was reeling from the nazi invasion. Hitler even made a secret flight to Finland in the middle of the war to meet with the Finnish war leader Emil von Mannerheim, the man whose name was on the Karelian defensive line. The enemy of the Finns enemy was now their friend. When Russia won World War II Finland knew it had made the wrong call.
The ping-pong war saga of Finland is a sad one. She ran with the wrong crowd for some understandable reasons and ended up alone in the end, a victim of circumstances.
The Winter War gave Hitler a false confidence that the Soviet Army was now proven to be a paper tiger. If the Red Army could barely beat Finland, how could Germany not make the next bold move and take the bear down?
But Russia had gained much practical military experience and had learned some valuable lessons while Hitler went to sleep on one of these lessons. In the Winter War it was Russian troops that were under-clothed for the harsh weather and froze to death. Later, when Germany fought Russia, it would be the Germans, not the Russians who forgot their mittens.
WELLS VISITS HITLER 1940
Hitler was so obviously planning to attack in the west that the world was fearful and alarmed. In early 1940 FDR sent an emissary to Berlin to meet
with Hitler and sound out the possibility of a negotiated peace in Europe. FDR had never read Mein Kampf.
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles met with Hitler and at first was surprised at the Fuhrer’s normalcy, and his graceful speech and manner. Addie was charming while ranting about general philosophical things. But Hitler changed when Welles finally asked him bluntly if there was any chance there would be a negotiated settlement between Germany and Britain. A furious fuhrer hit the roof and began yelling that he did not want this war. It had been forced upon him. “My life should have been spent constructing and not destroying!”
Then he added, “I believe that German might is such as to make the triumph of Germany inevitable but if not, we will all go down together.”
Sumner Welles staggered out of Hitler’s office numbed. He stared out the limo window in a snowstorm thinking how FDR and the American people did not know what they were up against. Everything they feared about Hitler was true except for one important thing. It was even worse than feared. Once Welles reported back to FDR it was for sure that Franklin knew that he had to be %100 hawk from here on in even if he had to deceive the American public along the way.
The survival of Britain was crucial to the survival of America. FDR considered the idea of a German victory over both France and Britain to be completely unacceptable from a standpoint of national security. The threat of Hitler moving on to conquer the world was not too far from anyone’s mind but even if he did not attempt this, Germany in control all of Europe would be in a position to intimidate the United States politically, and could attempt to strangle the American economy with considerable hope of success.
BUDGET BUREAU GESTAPO
One of the measures the Roosevelt took to take the reins of American industry more permanently in his hands was to reorganize the Bureau of the Budget. This spending monitoring agency was long a part of Henry Morganthau's Treasury Department.
But Roosevelt didn't want a penny spent without his knowledge or permission and he couldn't control the Treasury from the other side of town.
Roosevelt proclaimed a limited national emergency and wrote and Executive Order which took the Bureau of the Budget from Treasury and reassigned it to the Executive Office of the President. Now al spending would emanate from the White House instead of the Treasury Department. From now on, not only would all spending be determined by Roosevelt personally, he would also have an army of spies reporting to him on every dime being spent on war preparedness. Critics said this gave Roosevelt too much power and that the Bureau of the Budget had become “his own private gestapo.”
THERE'S SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK - NAZIS
Before he attacked France, Hitler expanded his empire against smaller nations.
Denmark fell in one afternoon. Norway didn’t last long although it inflicted more casualties on the Germans than the passive Danes. France takes all the heat for copping out in the war but the French record is better than the Danes who never get called on it. A few Nazi paratroopers landed in downtown Copenhagen and it was all over.
Denmark waited until mid-1943 before it got around to serious resistance. Prior to 1943 they were not great Danes.
NORWAY
Many history books describe the invasion of Norway as though it was just another place Hitler wanted to swallow up on his road to glory but the story is more complicated.
Hitler did not wish to lose much of his armed force to the conquest and occupation and of Norway, but it had come to his attention that the British were planning on establishing bases there. Churchill had convinced the British government that the British should occupy key points on the Norwegian coast (with or without Norwegian permission) from which Britain could be better defended and Germany better harassed. Hitler decided that he had to beat the British to the punch and many of his generals concurred. Norway was invaded by the Germans to prevent it from being strategically occupied by the British.
After the Nazis occupied parts of Norway, the west reacted. British and French troops were landed on several spots in Norway. They were riding high in April, thinking they could recapture Trondheim and Narvik. But they were shot down in May, the entire Allied mission being an abject failure.
Behind the lines a native Norwegian named Quisling helped the German invaders. This Norwegian was rewarded with a high government post under German occupied Norway. Quisling was one of the most hated men in the world for his national disloyalty and rank opportunism. His deed was so vile that the name Quisling was given a small g and is in the English dictionary today meaning a person who betrays his country by taking up with the invader. Many Iraqi quislings are working with the American occupational forces in Iraq today.
LOWLIFE ATTACK ON THE LOW COUNTRIES MAY 10 1940
The news of May 9 in Europe was dominated by the impending changing of the guard in Great Britian. Chamberlain was the whipping boy for all the failures up to this point, and a vote of confidence in him in Parliament was obviously going to go against him. On the morning of May 10, news flashed across the world that the new Prime Minister was Winston Churchill. But that wasn't the lead story.
The lead story of May 10 was that Guderian, Rommel and company had attacked France, Holland and Belgium, and Luxembourg simultaneously. The UK reacted slowly to the invasion because it was “preoccupied” with the change of Prime Ministers. At least one historian thinks so.
NAZI DUTCH MASTERS
Paratroopers were used extensively in the attack on Holland. They were very effective in preventing the defensive demolition of certain bridges and dykes and in securing the control of select airfields.
Holland lasted less than one week. The Belgians certainly made a better show of things than the Dutch.
THE NAZI WAR PLAN
Hitler so far had conquered many weak countries one at a time, but that didn't mean his Nazi hoards could overrun France backed by Britain. Few analysts in the United States or anywhere else for that matter expected France to fall in one month. They thought that France could lose, but if it did it would be only after a long World War I struggle of many months at the very least. After all, this was France backed up by the armies of the UK and the low countries too. 135 divisions of troops.
Hitler had wanted to attack France in the late fall of 1939, just after swallowing Poland. His generals, combined with especially bad weather talked him out of it. They tried to explain to him that the army and air force needed time to reorganize and replace losses effectively.
The weather did more of the talking than the generals. As things turned out, Hitler was glad he waited. The 1939 plan of attack (“Plan Orange”) had the thrust through the Ardennes as a diversionary attack while the bulk of his armies would march to the sea and try to force a decisive battle with the Allied forces. Many German Generals liked the plan okay, but felt that the winning battle might take up to two years of old-fashioned slugging it out warfare. By the spring of 1940 the assigned roles in the attack plan were reversed. The attack in the north was large but essentially diversionary. It was the central attack through the Ardennes that would be the central axis for all German operations.
One other reason that the Nazis dropped the 1939 war plan with the Ardennes as the large feint was that a German officer with the plan in his pocket was forced to make an emergency landing in Belgium on January 9, 1940. Emil Hegrich was frisked and the plans were captured, and the orange strategy was compromised permanently. Hitler was already beginning to drop the idea of the 1939 plan On January 16th he officially dropped “Plan Orange.”
The new plan to kill France was called “Operation Yellow.”
By May 1 1940 was fairly obvious to the world that Hitler was going to attack France. Everyone knew that World War One would soon pick up where it had left off. Hitler attacked as expected. As expected he repeated the old Schleiffen plan to swing through neutral Holland and Belgium. But it was combined with the surprise attack in force through the Ardennes.
Between the wars, the British and French begged Belgium and Holland to allow them to help build their up national defenses, especially defensive fortifications. But Belgium and Holland believed that Hitler would respect their neutrality and that neutrality was better protection than hostility. The diked duo felt that allowing the Brits to come in and build forts all over their countries was provocative and might invite an invasion by Germany more than it would deter it.
Every few years Hitler gave very formal assurances that he would never violate, and would always respect, the sacred neutrality of Belgium and Holland. In 1937 Adolph gave his formal word of honor that not only was he not going to attack Holland or Belgium, if someone else attacked them he would come to their defense! Belgium and Holland took him seriously, out of wishful thinking.
Both nations would pay a heavy price for this naivete.
Since Belgium would not build up its defense, another plan had to be devised by France to protect itself from the Belgian trap door. France wasn't about to extend the Maginot fort system the length of its frontier with Belgium. Yet if Germany won a quick victory in Belgium, it could find itself with an undefended opening into the heart of France, thus outflanking the Maginot Line.
The idea was that the Meuse river and a couple of other geographical markers in the center of Belgium was a better place to try and stop the Germans than at the Belgian- French border.
This plan was in effect before the war started. Once Hitler attacked Poland the British and French had asked Belgium if they could occupy forward positions in Belgium and prepare for a stand there. But Belgium wanted to demonstrate strict neutrality and said no, even going so far as to station as many divisions of the Belgian army on the French border as on the German. As if France was an equal threat! So the British and French planned to rush into the western half of Belgium, but only if and when the Germans invaded from the east presumably with the approval of the Belgian King. But if the King refused right of transit, the British and French would probably advance anyway. Their national survival was at stake.
The Germans knew of the Allied plan to race into Belgium to meet the German attack at a more foreward position along the Dyle and Meuse Rivers. The new German plan incorporated the Allied plan into its own. Two German Armies would be attacking Holland and Belgium to draw the Allies into Belgium as the Allies planned. Now, with the Allied Armies committed ahead of its lines of communication, the Germans main thrust through the Ardennes would seal off a great Allied Corps. If Guderian's Panzer Groups could crash the Ardennes force and race to the sea, it would be the jackpot. The Allied Northern Armies would be trapped. This is what happened.
If the Allied Armies had waited back at the fortified Franco-Belgian border, where it was when the battle started, then that force could retreat in orderly fashion and become stronger as its perimeter shrank and it fell in with other retreating French armies. By lunging foreward (the Gamelin plan), the Allies lost the chess game in the battle of France.
THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS NOT ALWAYS A STRAIGHT MAGINOT LINE
The Maginot Line was a series of excellent forts manned by strong French Army units with modern guns and elaborate tunnels. It was the pride of France. Maginot began near the Swiss border and continued north to the Ardennes Forest. Here is stopped for a bit, on the presumption that the Ardennes was impassible for an armored division.
The Ardennes was indeed impassible during World War One. France did not have to spend a fortune on that sector of the line. North of the Ardennes, the Maginot forts continued to the point where Belgium France and Germany come together.
There were three major things wrong with the Maginot Line. The first is the hole in the line at the Ardennes. It was a military blunder just waiting to happen. Warfare was developing faster than the stodgy military scientists could digest. Few in the west realized the ability of a modern tank division to crash through a forest.
The second thing was that it prevented France from taking the offense. When Hitler was busy conquering Poland, France cold have and should have attacked Germany from the west. Hitler could not have stopped a French attack in the middle of September 1939.
But an offensive by the French would leave the French without it's heavy artillery. They couldn't take the Maginot line with them. It's strength was its weakness. Its impregnability deprived it of maneuverability.
The third huge problem for the Maginot line was related to the second. In the event of a German breakthrough at any one point in the line, the entire line becomes completely negated as a strategic asset. The Maginot Line couldn't fall back any more than it could attack. ML was a good deterrent in peacetime, but rather useless once a war broke out, unless the entire 1,000 mile line held and then stalemated indefinitely. If the Germans could penetrate the Ardennes and then cross the Meuse with armor then the Maginot Line could even be threatened from the rear and its garrisons would have to flee in panic, as they ultimately did.
Much has been made of the impassable Ardennes and the military genius involved in proving the experts wrong. Less is made of getting armor across the Muese, but that was considered almost as impossible as getting Panzer divisions through the Ardennes. There were two strokes of military brilliance in the actual evolution of the battle. The French fought hard at the Meuse but the river crossing was secured and a bridge set up in less than two days. German tanks began rolling over the Meuse and France at once was mincemeat.
So here was where the German Army attacked. German armored units made high-speed attacks, running far ahead of their logistical support and defying traditional ideas about mechanized warfare.
In a repeat of World War I, the German army did the end-around though neutral Belgium, this time taking Holland too.
THE FRENCH CAST
Lets take a quick look at the main actors for France in the upcoming drama. This is easier than trying to keep track of them as they are introduced to the action.
Le Brun – Pepe Le Brun is the President of France but he was a PINO, a President in name only. His name comes up here and there but Le Brun is not the center of the decision making process. The President of the French Republic serves a single term of seven years, but the real power lies with the Premier and the parliament. The French feared Bonapartism, so they curbed the powers of their President to a fault.
Reynaud – Paul Reynaud is the acting Premier of France as it falls to the hoards of invaders. He is a staunch patriot from one end of the crisis to the other, always in favor of resistance. It was he and De Gaulle against the defeatists at crunch time. Reynaud comes out of this story smelling like roses.
De Gaulle – Charles de Gaulle is the most famous today of all the actors, but at the time he was a relatively unknown Undersecretary for War. By the end of the war he was the hero and savior of France. He led France for two decades after the war. De Gaulle did not want France to surrender to the Germans and opposed the Vichy regime.
Gamelin – General Gamelin was in charge of the French General staff until he was replaced when the sky began to fall. He gets a lot of the blame for the poor strategy that led to German victory in the west.
Weygand – General Weygand was a conservative patriotic general of France who turned defeatist in the end and opposed the forming of government in exile. As head of the Army, Weygand had enormous political clout and his opinion and decisions counted more than those of the President of France, LeBrun.
Weygand was no defeatist until France was clearly defeated. The very fact that in the beginning of the Battle for France he MW was the defiant optimist against all reports, lent more terror to his telling the French leaders that its all over at the Chateau de Cangne. Weygan's opinions had as much political clout as the Premier's, and this was a problem as Weygand thought it should be that way and Reynaud did not.
Weygand blamed the British for the defeat of France in 1040, a cheap and untenable stand.
Max Weygand was tried after the war as a traitor and was acquitted.
Petain – Marshall Petain is the villain of Vichy. He was such an illustrious military hero to France from his World War One days, that when he came out actively in favor of making a deal with the Nazis it meant a lot to the cause.
Petain was tried after the war as a traitor.
Petain doesn't hate the Nazis all that much because he considers them by far the lesser of two evils compared to the threat of communism. Petain didn't like the idea of surrendering to the Germans but at least with a negotiated deal, the French Army would remain intact to maintain internal order and prevent a repeat of the Commune of 1871 when military defeat led to left wing revolution in the streets.
Pierre Laval – This guy was Time magazine's man of the year in 1931 and was executed after the war as a traitor to France. Laval was Prime Minister of france several times before the war. When Marshall Petain formed a government in search of an Armistice in June 1940, Laval was named the new Foreign Secretary. He collaborated with the Nazis throughout the war and was a big name in the Vichy Government.
Darlan – Admiral Darlan was in charge of the French Navy, the big prize in the Battle for France.
The French Army may have been proven behind the times in technical quality, but the French Navy was not.
Darlan would collaborate with the Vichy regime and his relations with the United States over the next two years would be very complicated and controversial. As the Germans overran France, the status of the captured French Navy was a grave concern of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. A combination of the German, Italian and French Navy might tip the balance of sea power against Britain for the first time in 260 years, and at the worst possible moment in 260 years.
Leon Blum – Socialist leader between the wars, Blum was not in charge when the Nazis invaded, but he was arrested by the Vichy regime and spent the war years in prison.
STRATEGY
It would take only six weeks to defeat France, considered a virtual equal in military might to Germany or anyone else. France had perhaps the proudest military heritage in the world in May of 1940. French forces were deployed primarily in fortified and immobile positions stretched across a great defensive line. The Germans concentrated all their firepower on a handful of key spots. The Germans sought out French forces, rather than French land. The breakthroughs were made, breathtaking and unanticipated. This opponent was not the Polish army. This wasn’t going to happen in the west.
The Germans were stealing the ideas of an English military historian, Basil Liddell Hart, who had preached this lightning warfare to his own England. But the home audience would not listen and apply the lesson. Hitler did. The Germans made major breakthroughs at breakneck speed through Belgium and northern France. The Germans were soon behind the defenses of the French as well as in front of it, causing panic and retreat. It was a complete breakthrough.
On paper, the Germans had some advantages, but few in the west thought it was enough to win, and certainly not enough advantage to win fast.
The French/British/Belgian/Dutch army was equal in numbers (135 divisions) and had roughly equal artillery power. But for the French we include in artillery power the impenetrable and immovable Maginot Line.
TANKS A LOT
I have read so many conflicting accounts and opinions about relative tank strength and qualities between the two opposing forces that I don't know what to believe anymore. The traditional belief is that the Germans had superior tanks. The revisionist opinion is that in fact, the Allied tanks, especially the French, were superior to the German.
Other analysts split the difference. They say that the French and British had a and a lot of superior guns attached to inferior tanks. In any case one thing is certain. The Germans did not have a numerical superiority in tanks.
The French and British had just as many tanks as the Germans, and the western tanks generally had better armor. That is, the armor plating protecting the French tanks was thicker and stronger than the armor protecting the German tanks.
German tanks were more modern and fast. The newest German tank the Mark IV had better guns with better pop and accuracy. But these were a minority of the German tanks. The vast majority of German tanks were very old Mark I and Mark II's. The mark I's had only two machine guns for firepower. The Mark II's had one machine gun and one 20 millimeter cannon in the turret. Compare these to the French B1's with a 75 millimeter gun and a 47 millimeter anti-tank gun. The French had more than 300 of these.
The German tank advantage was in training, morale, deployment, and strategy. The crews were high on life. War isn't so bad when you're smacking down everything in your path. German's captured in these early years of the war were almost universally arrogant and defiant about the coming German victory. The innocent German soldier who hated the nazis and wanted no part of this fight was largely invented after the war by Germans who understood the meaning of slick expedience.
The German tanks beat the French by always attacking with all guns blazing, even without definite targets in sight. This caused retreat, panic, and intimidation. 'The Germans must have us in their sights otherwise they wouldn't be firing. Let's get out of here!'
Most importantly, the French and British tanks were spread out evenly (and thinly) across the length of the continent, while the German tanks were bunched in large groups at key attack points. The implications of this discrepancy should be obvious.
Because the French and British tanks were almost always in retreat, the inferior armor of the German tanks never entered in as a factor.
The best German tanks were the Mark III and aforementioned Mark IV, plus two model T's made in Czechoslovakia. These Czech 38-T's had the best tank guns on the planet and could run down the autobahn at 27 mph (a little faster than the Marks.) On the downside, a kid with a slingshot could penetrate the 38-T's paper thin armor.
AIR FORCES
Again, what is a student supposed to believe when ten different books tell me ten different things. If we are to believe Churchill, the British Hurricanes shot down everything they even got close to. They so outclassed the ME-109 that if only there were a hundred more on hand, the battle would have turned the other way.
If we are to believe Cajjus Bekker, the Luftwaffe was always outnumbered but did a fantastic job in spite of terrible odds.
If we are to believe Basil Liddell Hart, and several other sources too, the Luftwaffe had a 4,000 to 2,000 advantage in the air at all times. The Hurricanes fought well enough but made little difference in the face of such overwhelming odds. The ME 109's were a match for the Hurricanes, and the Germans had a devastating advantage in medium fighter-bombers and dive bombers. The Stuka was slow and vulnerable, but the Allies had nothing to match it, and in tactical ground support, it played a decisive role in the Nazi victory.
But William L. Shirer seems to have done more homework on this subject than anyone else and he tells a different story. He concludes, after studying the research of other serious European scholars and participants of importance, that the situation in the air was one of basic equality, at least in numbers. Both sides had approximately 3,000 warplanes to work with. The Allies had an advantage in fighter aircraft (both in numbers and quality – the French fighters being grossly underrated by history) – while the Germans had a clear advantage overall in bombers (light and medium all - neither side possessing or deploying heavy bombers at this time.)
So why was it that all the French air commanders contradicted this evidence by insisting during post-war investigations that at no time did they have more than 500 warplanes on the Northern front? Apparently the French Air Force was foolishly deployed in scattered spots all over France. While France fought for its life, French fighters and bombers sat idly at airports in a dozen locations, playing protection reserve force when soon there would be no nation left to protect.
COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN
One of the most important reasons for the Allied disaster in the west was the poor communications system of the good guys and the very good communications system of the bad guys. The French had not kept up with the developments in communications technology between the wars and it cost them dearly in 1940.
Telephone lines were in bad shape once the fighting started, and a French General had the sam chance of getting a call through as a Paris hobo at a phone booth. Messages from the high command generally had to be sent by, are you ready for this? ... Bicycle! That's right. And the couriers were often run off the road by peasant carts, cars or military vehicles with less important missions than the guy on the bike. One commander decided to resort to carrier pigeon and was told that the only one they had left had flown off! It was common for crucial orders to the front line from the CP (command post) to take two days. T-w-o .... d-a-y-s. Is this any way to run a war? You want to know why France fell? T-w-o ... d-a-y-s. This helps explain why more than half the French Air Force was never deployed in active combat areas.
Even at the highest level communications in the French army were worse than pathetic. CIC General Gamelin, every time he wanted to speak with his operational commander General Georges, had to drive 35 miles to see him in person!
The Germans communications system on the other hand operated on the cutting edge of modern technology. Every big Panzer tank was equipped with a two way radio. By todays standards, this is a primitive toy that a child wouldn't want for Christmas, but in 1940 it was big time stuff.
The entire concept of new age tank warfare, discussed by military eggheads between the wars, and tried for the first time by the Nazis, could never have worked without the two-way radio. For the first time in warfare, verbal orders could be sent in to men and tanks in the hottest spots in battle from CP's way behind the line.
Panzer commanders controlled their tank battalions in maintained groups like they were items in a mastered video game, while French Hotchkiss and Souma tanks, fine fighting machines per se, were wandering around the battlefield as hapless individuals with no battle plan.
The French communications system was Indian smoke signals versus German high tech pioneers. This factor was at least as important as any other in the big story.
HITLER'S PLAN
It's painful to admit it, but Hitler as a military tactician deserves much of the credit for the stunning victory in the Battle of France. Historians hesitate to say this, but Hitler's generals all confirm it, even those who later criticized his other war moves. Both Keitel and Rommel state clearly that the entire invasion plan for the west, down to the brigade level and on all fronts was Hitler's individual plan. It was all his idea and the Generals either liked it and went along or disliked it and went along. But they all of course went along.
Hitler's drastic defeat of France and the low countries was the greatest military victory of all time according to several historians. It certainly was up to that time. The re-conquest of Europe in 1944-5 perhaps topped the record, but that was done sluggishly on a long careful drawn up front with the clearly superior force using attrition more than breakthroughs to win the war. That front in 1944 was deliberately devoid of strategic spearheads outracing the mass of Army. That front was played safe.
Hitler and the Nazis in 1940 took an underdog army with weak countries in its bag, and attacked a great power backed by another great power and two small countries and threw the four of them out of the ring before the first round bell sounded.
WEEK ONE – THE FALL OF HOLLAND AND THE ARDENNES
On May 10, 1940 the attack began in force in two places.
The defense of Holland was centered on certain obstacles and fortresses that had put up a hell of a fight in World War One, and were expected to do the same job in World War II. But these weren't your father' s Huns. The Nazis had studied war between the wars while the west had generally decided that they weren't gonna study war no more. One side had a big advantage in the two approaches.
FORT EBAN EMAEL
The two main Holland blockers were the Albert Canal fortress Eban Emael, which stood guard over it. The Allies didn't think that these two could hold out forever in the face of the might of the German armed forces, but they thought they could hold out for a couple of weeks at least. In that breathing spell, the Allied Gamelin plan to move up into Belgium and establish a forward position on the Dyle could be implemented with excellence. If these two did not hold, then the divisions moving forward for the Gamelin plan would not have time to dig in. They could make it to the place where they were supposed to dig in, but they wouldn't be able to dig in and the whole idea would collapse. The forward position would be un-fortified and far more disastrously vulnerable that the original line at the Franco-Belgian border.
The guns at Fort Emael overlooked the key points in the center of the Albert Canal. FE was thought to be the toughest spot to take in all of Europe. But is fell like a scarecrow in a hurricane when the time came, not because it was weak, but because it had an achilles heel, and a heel which, sadly again, Adolph Hitler alone appreciated.
The fort had plenty of firepower against outside attack, but there were no contingency plans from an internal attack. In studying the fort between the wars, Hitler correctly concluded that if a parachute drop could land a small force of armed commandos on the roof, the entire fort would be vulnerable to capture in short order, its guns and protective walls both rendered irrelevant.
If the Germans could seize Fort Ebam and by proxy the Albert Canal, the road to the conquest of Holland and Belgium would be completely opened. The operation proposed by Hitler was called “Capture Prince Albert in a Packet.” The key weapon was not Panzer Tanks or Stuka dive bombers, but rather the peaceful glider, and here the restrictions placed by the victorious allies after World War One actually played into Hitlers evil hands.
The Luftwaffe was limited to only a handful of warplanes, so there was only one type of plane the Germans could legally produce in large numbers (before Hitler defied the League of Nations and the treaty of Versailles later on.) That plane was the glider, a harmless, silent, motor-less aircraft that I want a ride on in western Massachusetts for Chritams next year. The Allies did not build more than a handful after World War One, but the Germans built an impressive fleet.
It helped Hitler that during the construction of Fort Eban Emael, a time of “peace,” German contractors were employed. The fox was helping to build the henhouse and was taking the blueprints back to Germany after the job was completed. The construction and destruction of FEE were coagulating peacefully as the fort shaped up.
At dawn of May 10 a fleet of gliders pulled by JU-88's quietly dropped 80 German paratroopers onto the roof of Ebam Emael. Before the 800 defenders had started to make their morning coffee they were forced to surrender at rifle-point. The guns of Emael were spiked and blow up by special explosives. The keeper of the gate for the Gamelin plan of defense was knocked out of he war before the first artillery duel woke up the first Flemish peasant.
ARDENNES OFFENSIVE BEGINS
A few hours after the paratroopers were seizing Fort Emael the Nazis attacked in force (some might argue that the Wermacht were not “Nazis” but that's my call on it) in the Ardennes. In two days they had reached the Meuse River. During that time they had to travel on winding roads and were very vulnerable to air attack. A few selective air ops could have bogged down the Panzer divisions for two weeks. But the Allies thought that the Ardennes was the feint and the real attack was coming upon Holland.
French air attacks were concentrated on the germans attacking the low countries while the real might of the Germans was left unmolested as it moved quickly through the Ardennes.
The French sent two divisions into the Ardennes from the Meuse as a reconnaissance in force. For more than 24 hours they made no contact with the enemy, but when they finally did they were beaten back badly and reported that this is no feint. But General Georges still believed that the real German attack was in the North. He was wrong and France would pay.
Gamelin Georges and company were not especially worried about a Nazi thrust through the Ardennes for more reason than the allegedly impenetrable Ardennes. They also thought that the Meuse River was virtually uncrossable as long as they blew up all the bridges which (contrary to a popular rumor throughout the war) they successfully did. On top of that the little city of Sedan was well garrisoned and there were plenty of anti-tank obstacles, pillboxes, and natural cliff barriers along the River to completely discourage and major tank crossings. Most of all, they were unanimous in the belief that the German attack in the Sedan area, now fully reported, was a feint in force designed to make the French believe that the attack in the North was a feint in force, when in fact it was the main thrust. In actuality of course, the feint in force was in the north and the main attack was in the Ardennes/Sedan highway.
It was easy to think that the attack on Holland was the real deal because it was as large a feint in force as had ever been employed in history, and until January 1940, it was supposed to be the main attack.
From May 10-12 the Germans moved through the forest and come out the other side to the beautiful Meuse River. Across the River the French divisions had hardly ben reinforced over these 48 critical hours, even though French air reconnaissance had spotted huge formations of German machines rolling through the hills with headlights on. When the pilots landed and reported what they saw, the info was never passed on to higher authorities for reasons only the intelligence officers at Pearl Harbor a year later could explain.
The French were also certain that German tanks could never cross the meuse unless they took out the French battalions at the water's edge on the other side. As long as these units held their ground, the Germans could never set up pontoon bridges to get the Marks across. But the French turned poodle under the threat of the German shepherd.
SEDAN
For such a small place, Sedan had already earned itself a prominent place in French military history, none of it good. During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 the Germans had won the decisive battle at Sedan. In WWI the Germans crashed through the French lines at Sedan on their way to threatening Paris. Now the Nazis were going to drive the Sedan home one more time.
The garrison at Sedan fled at the sound of the first cannon. These were not the best troops in all of France to begin with. Between-war planners had not figured on any significant attack through the Ardennes, so the grade B reservist divisions were deployed where the best divisions were needed most. These were the older men who never expected to see combat in their wildest senile dreams. They were poorly trained, and no more interested in fighting to the death than I am in my home right now at the age of 53, which is not at all.
Along the Meuse both north and south of Sedan there were some decent French divisions, and if they had held their ground it would have been most difficult for the Panzers to get across. The French high command was still confident that the Germans could be stopped, even after the strength of the nazi attack was beginning to become clear. There were military and natural obstacles that could be exploited, provided that the defenders showed some spirit.
The Germans wore down these defensive strong points not with tactics or superior firepower, but essentially with terror. The chief instrument of this terror was the Stuka dive bomber, a model of which I built as a boy, with its ugly crooked wings possessing a strange beauty.
The Stukas kept up a non-stop aerial attack on key French positions above and below Sedan on the 12th and 13th. The actual damage they wrought was not decisive, but their screeching siren as they dropped their bombs terrorized and neutralized the Frenchmen. The French garrisons needed to keep their guns firing to keep the Nazis on the east side of the Meuse. The Pierres had more cards in their hand than they realized. But they got psyched out by the Stukas, a plane that later on would be exposed as such a clumsy and weak machine that it couldn't beat John Denver in a dogfight. But to the French troops in 1940 (as with the Poles in 1939) the Stuka might as well have been the F-22 Raptor. The French men dropped down in fear and prayed for the nightmare to end. The Stukas didn't destroy the French guns, but rather they convinced the French soldiers to stop using them for several hours at a pop a time during which the Nazis made their move on the Meuse.
As for Allied air support, it was the same old story. The French high command thought that if they called in air support they would be falling into the German trap. They thought that the Nazi attack along the Meuse was a ruse trying to siphon off Allied strength from the real front in the north. And you know by now that the opposite was the case. It was a fatal error. It was the fatal error.
HURRICANES CAN'T STOP THE HURRICANE
Over the entire course of the “six weeks war,” the French repeatedly asked (more like begged) the British for more fighter planes. The RAF at first sent four squadrons (about 30 planes to a squadron.) Churchill then had to go to the Parliament to persuade it to authorize the sending of six more squadrons.
The Brits would have liked to send over every available Hurricane, but were afraid that if they lost too many fighters in France, there wouldn't be enough left over to protect Britain. The RAF estimated that it needed at least 25 squadrons for home defense if the nation wanted to survive. After that the German bombers might be able to put British aircraft factories out of business, and if that happened the Battle of Britian would be lost.
Great Britian always kept more than half of the RAF safe at home and this caused much bitterness during and after the Fall of France. Weygand claimed that the RAF could have saved France, but I doubt it. It might have led to the fall of both France and Britain, which would have meant that Britian never could have returned to help restore France in 1944.
WEEK TWO
The second week of the war for France, May 17-24, was even worse than the first. The Northern Allied Army of combined French, British, Dutch and Belgian troops was cut off from the rest of the French Army.
CHURCHILL PLAYS THE SHAMROCK CARD 5-40
On May 15 1940 with the Battle for France in the balance, Churchill sent Roosevelt a long telegram pleading for help. Win wanted to win with American support above and beyond what the American people would have supported.
Churchill knew how important the Irish-American voting block was to FDR so he tried to play his green card. Churchill warned Roosevelt that Britain had good intelligence that any day now the Germans were going to make large parachute drops all over Ireland. We can only wonder if he actually believed this or if there was ever any real intelligence to suggest this.
Winston was blowing cigar smoke up FDR's cigarette holder in all probability. He firstly wanted the US to lend Britian 50 old destroyers (this would come a bit later,) and had another creative suggestion. WC heartily suggested that the US Navy make a “visit” to Ireland in strength. All the Yanks had to do was take a pleasure holiday to a couple of port cities in Ireland and stay a week or two. This would send the Germans a clear message to keep their blackshirts off the Irish green.
This tactic had worked well in the days of McKinley when Bill sent the Great White Fleet around the world on a pleasure cruise and advertised American Naval strength in the process. But Nazi Germany was not so easily scared, and The United States wasn't going to do it anyway.
It was a good try by Churchill in theory. But US potato-heads were several million strong who hated Britain and were cheerfully against intervention. And they always registered to vote in key cities in key battleground states.
If FDR had sent the Navy to Ireland at Churchill's request it would have called off any German invasion plans for Ireland. But since there were probably no such plans, Churchill was really just trying tot trick the United States, through the race card, into making a powerful interventionist gesture. If anything Churchill should have welcomed the parachute drop on Ireland he was warning of. It would have turned the Irish Americans on a shilling, and led to a hue and cry between beer burps for US intervention.
Germany did launch a massive air raid on Belfast in 1941 causing a catastrophe, but no invasion oriented parachute drops, were ever attempted.
THE GALL OF SOME PEOPLE
The tall fellow with the prissy air was only a colonel, but early in 1940 he was given command of the 4th French armored division. It was a new division and just as it began to take shape the Germans attacked. Charles de Gaulle was ordered to use the 4th to try to defend Paris after the Northern Armies were cut off by the Nazi huns.
When Poland fell, De Gaulle was brought briefly into the French cabinet and was appalled by the appeasement mentality prevalent. Except for Reynaud, the ministers seemed to be focused only on how to negotiate an end to this stupid war, not with how to defeat the Nazi scums.
Some French leaders proposed during this interim the making of an offer to Mussolini of some of French colonial territory in North Africa if Italy would sign a non-aggression pact with France. They righty feared that of Germany got around to attacking France Italy would pile on.
CDG is not beloved in the memory of the United States, and you can't blame us for that, but the man is certainly beloved in the memory of France, and you can't blame them for that.
No matter how stubborn, selfish, obdurate, pompous, difficult, diffident, imperial, conceited, and uncooperative De Gaulle may have been in his dealings with the USA from 1940 to 1970, he was undeniably one of the only French leaders who bravely stood up to the Nazis when the chips were on the line. Charlie D was a major war hero of his time, and he stood even taller than he appears in his photos. Anyone can be a nice guy. The measure of a person is how they behave in a crisis. Many a grouchy jerk jumps in the fire to save the burning baby, while the super friendly chap runs away to call 911 (I would be the grouch that runs away to call 911, redeeming myself on neither angle.)
One of the few French counterattacks in the losing battle for France was led by de Gaulle's 4th Armored, although at least one historian says it is bunk. Even if the battle performance of De Gaulle is a myth, his political performance during the spring fall of France is above reproach.
A secret Nazi plenipotentiary approached De Gaulle at one point seeking an armistice and De Gaulle yelled at him, “fiche moi la pais!”
Don't you hate it when writers drop untranslated French phrases, showing off the fact that they are bilingual? I know so little French that I have to show off what little I know to try and impress you, so I won't translate this one. But let me tell you this much. I met a pretty woman on a train who said she was from France. We had a nice chat and I told her I only knew a few phrases in French. She asked me to try one out on her to see if my pronunciation was correct. I said, “fiche moi la pais,” and she punched me in the arm.
CHURCHILL SHUTTLE
Churchill flew to France several times and met with French leaders while government documents were burning in bonfires out in the courtyard. The men all stood around at a conference table. No one would sit. France was losing the war.
Churchill tried to stiffen the resolve of the defeatist and dejected French leaders. He told them to stand and “fight like men and stop these Huns!” They just looked at him and said, “You don't get it do you? It's over. We lost.”
Churchill told them he could not accept that the alliance had been defeated. So what if the Germans have crashed through the Ardennes and are making headway on the Northern Front and threatening to cut off several Allied Armies there. We had all been through this before in World War One. Just send the reserves into the spots where the dyke had sprang a leak and we can get on with another long struggle like World War One. When it was pointed out that the French Army had no strategic reserve, Churchill staggered to a seat, the first man to sit down in almost two hours. He couldn't believe it. What military staff plan is drawn up without a mobile strategic reserve to counter-attack just as the other side's breakthrough begins to slow down? It was as fundamental as ABC in Army games all over the world. Where was it in French war planning?
Weygand and Gamelin both claimed after the war that Churchill was exaggerating French military incompetence. What they say they really said was “Our reserves are gone. They have been destroyed.” It makes sense. Are we really supposed to believe that Churchill was such a superior military brain and that the French general staff had not the slightest concept of the need for strategic reserves? Nevertheless, most history books that tell the story in any detain include the probably inaccurate Churchill version. As Voltaire said, “History is fables agreed upon.”
So in other words, with the Maginot line cancelled out, and no strategic reserves, the French Army and the B.E.F. were a large fighting force spread out in an ineffective line across a continent, while the German Army was concentrated in force and racing towards pay-dirt at important points.
THE TWENTY-SECOND OF MAY
On May 22 Churchill again met with French leaders in Paris. General Weygand was full of spit and vinegar. He was all in favor of the double-sided counterattack. A tall guy named De Gaulle caught the attention of Churchill, although the future of France did not say much.
Weygand of France proposed a counter-attack idea that was all music to Churchill's ears. Two lightly armored infantry divisions and one heavily armored brigade would attack south from Arras and try to sever the German salient. At the same time a newly formed French Army (the seventh) would attack the German Army group from the south. The combined counterattack at the german bulge was classic military maneuvering, and on paper it had merit. The fact that both ends of the attack force would be three to one disadvantaged to the force they were attacking while the axiom of war is that the offense needs a three to one advantage to succeed was not enough to deter Weygand and Churchill.
The BEF Army in the Arras theatre was commanded by General Frank Howard, and so his 2.1 division Army Group was called “Frankforce.” It had men and rifles but precious little armor.
On May 21 Frankforce surprised the Germans and attacked. The Germans fell back for a few miles then regrouped and counterattacked with a vengeance. There really was a brief panic in the German high command but it all settled down fast. By the morning of the May 22 Frankforce was frankfurter.
In the meantime from the South the melting pot Seventh French Army started their attack, thinking there was a chance to close the pincers and link up with Frankforce. If the northern attack were succeeding, the Seventh might face a lessened German force and could win the day.
Dream on, chumps. The French Seventh came up against the heart of the German Panzer force and was soundly whacked. The Allied defense had already been divided. Now it was being conquered.
Churchill's memoirs claims that Weygand made proposal personally that the two armies smash through and link up.
After the war General Weygand claimed that he had never discussed linking up from the south with the BEF led attack from the North. Max claimed that if Winston writes that he was promised this, then the Prime Minister of England was mistaken. Weygand says that at this time he did not have any foolish hope of breaking through the German Panzer divisions, and that if Churchill remembers it this way then there was a miscommunication at the strategy meeting.
NEVER SURRENDER! ALWAYS ATTACK!
The Arras counter-attack did about as much for the Allies as the Avranches counter-attack did for the Germans in 1944. It spent the best crucial defensive armor in a wasted offensive thrust.
Tactical retreat would have made more use of the force on hand for the Allies. But counter-attack feels better to the commanders egos. Churchill never let a single soldier surrender or retreat throughout the war. It was always, “stand and fight!” “Counterattack-now!.” “This is my third telegram! Why have you not counter-attacked.?” What the hell is wrong with tis guy?
Why are we not attacking? Answer? Because we're here and you're not.
Millions of Americans have Churchill's six volume history of the War at home, bet few read them because they are daunting and often boring too. 700 pages times six with long long telegrams quoted every two pages. I have made it through half of them and I can't believe how consistently every order form this guy to every commander is “Never surrender! Stand and fight to the last man! Attack! Only attack! Never retreat! That is an order form your Prime Minister!.”
Many an angry telegram comes back the other direction. They speak in polite official language, but what the local commanders are essentially writing back is, “How dare you order me to die from your Chequers fireplace!”
One day Churchill was touring a bombed out London neighborhood
and he saw a group of women standing nearby. He raised his fist to them and gave them a reassuring smile and said, “We can take it!”
The women responded with angry cries of, “Easy for you to say, mate!” “We're the one's taking it you sanctimonious twit!” There might have even been a “bloody” thrown in there by one of the younger ladies. Churchill dropped his smile and walked away to the chilling echoes of his fading hecklers. This story comes from an old man interviewed for the BBC documentary The World at War.
In the middle of the Battle for Arras (May 21-22 1940) the French lost one of its best Generals to fate. General Billotte was driving south from a meeting near Calais and he got into a crash and died. Why couldn't his friends have at least made up a story that he was strafed to death by a Stuka?
BELGIUM WAFFLES MAY 28 1940
On May 27 King Leopold of Belgium decided that all was lost. He wanted to stop the bloodshed so he sent his emissaries out to meet the Nazis and ask for surrender terms. The King and Queen decided to remain in Belgium and surrender themselves too.
Churchill was against this. The British P.M. wanted the King to flee on the next speedboat over to England where he could help to lead a Belgium in Exile. Several divisions of Belgian troops could be formed and trained in England for a return trip someday.
Most of the Belgian Parliament did flee to England and formed an Exile Administration. They disowned their King, for the time being.
More important to the British than the political and psychological damage from Belgian surrender was the face value loss of the Belgian flank to the the east of General Gort's northern command. On May 28 it was made official. Belgium surrendered the the Germans, the Belgian Army laid down its rifles, and the King turned his crown over to the Nazi dirtbags.
Now the British Expeditionary Force had an open flank to the east that had been held down by the Belgians. They had to dispatch three or four division to plug the hole, and obviously weakened their center and left flanks in the process.
The surrender of Belgium forced the Allies to shrink the Dunkirk perimeter that much more and further isolated those pockets that were still holding out, especially at Lille and Calais.
CHURCHILL IN CHURCH
On May 28 1940 Churchill went to church at Westminster Abbey. It was a special service asking for God's help in this crisis. The British don't wear their emotions on their sleeves, but on this occasion Churchill could feel the intense passions and fear going through the congregation. To Churchill these Brits were not terrorized at the thought of death or destruction. They were terrorized by the thought that Britain, and all the democracy decency, and freedom it stood for, would die. That's why there were tears in the crowd.
After High Tension Mass Churchill solicited his Ministers, excluding War Ministers for a meeting in his private office. He had been meeting with, calling, and telegraphing War Ministers often enough. Now, in between flights to and from France, Churchill wanted a chance to brief the rest of his Government administrators about the critical situation.
27 Minsters crowded into the office, some sitting around a big polished table, others having to stand, while outside the window, the crowd could still be heard filing out from the service.
Churchill began a matter-of-fact talk about the current war situation. Belgium had surrendered. France was falling down. Dunkirk was being evacuated. Then he mentioned with no particular emphasis in the most matter of fact manner that “No matter what happens at Dunkirk we shall never surrender.”
Churchill was about to start the next sentence but could not, because everyone in the room broke into a spontaneous outburst of joy and emotion. They broke from their seats and lunged at Churchill, slapping him on the back, praising his name and roughing him up with love like he had just scored the wining goal. People walking politely out in the courtyard heard the noise through the open window on the third floor. They probably thought it was a bunch of college boys enjoying a joke.
JUNE 4 - BULLITT REPORTS FROM FRANCE
The U.S. Ambassador to France was Billy Bullet, a chap with a disposition tougher than his name. Bullitt reported on June 4, 1940 to Roosevelt of his talks with Marshall Petain. The French leader was sure that Britian would not come to the rescue of France. The last 25 fighter squadrons would stay safe at home, and the British were not going to land four infantry divisions on the Brittany peninsula, as was suggested. Petain furthermore believed that after France fell, the British after a token fight to save face, would treat with the Nazis and agree to a negotiated settlement. The war would end with Germany in control of the continent, and Britian reduced in power but still intact. Roosevelt envisioned no such world and was very much upset by the Bullit report.
June 4 was also the day that Churchill made a speech in which he asked openly for help from the United States for the first time. It was a dramatic speech and needs to be quoted, for it showed that pitiful Petain was wrong about English will,
“We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall
fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, in the hills and even in
the night clubs; we shall never surrender.”
Churchill went on to say that even if the island were conquered, the British government would carry on from some other place and,
“carry on the struggle, until, in Gods good time, the New World
with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue.”
The New World, of course, meant the United States of America with a little help from Canada.
With the battle for France still in the balance, Churchill made a trip to Tours for talks with the hawkish Weygand, and his feisty Undersecretary for War, Chuck de Gaulle. These guys were the antidote to the compromising Petain, the bad guy of the story. Churchill hoped that his personal presence would inspire the French to fight to the finish.
But France by this time was only a few days from capitulation. Churchill at one point in the talks broke down and cried, “like a three year old girl who crashed on a bicycle.” Winnie pounded his fists on the table and said he hoped that Hitler would turn to attack England instead, thereby enabling France to hold on. But it didn't happen. Hitler at this stage of the war was smart enough to try and destroy one enemy at a time.
In fact, Hitler and his generals chose at a critical junction not even to attack Paris, even though there was a wide open road to the Eiffel Tower. It was no less than two days drive right into Paris by advance Panzer units. But the object of war is to destroy the enemy fighting forces, not to occupy territory or capitol cities. The German General Staff knew this and taught this at war school. Now it was time to practice what they preached.
Instead of sending the glacial sized spearhead into Paris, it wheeled northwest to the coast, thereby cutting off the northern and southern Allied armies off from each other.
When the Germans captured Abbeville on May 20, the the game was essentially over. There was always hope for a comeback, but that was the key moment when France lost the battle of France.
THE MIRACLE OF DUMBKOFF
It is known as the “Miracle at Dunkirk.” Allied propaganda turned a complete defeat into a famous victory. The German Army had completely routed the British, French-Dutch-Belgian troops and they were trapped on a beach at the port city of Dunkirk. The MAD saved the day.
German forces were very close to completely annihilating this force of almost 400,000 men. Then in a miraculous effort the British requisitioned every ship that could float and many a large boat too to cross the Channel and save the Army, the BEF, and Allied troops of other countries. Royal Warships crossed the channel side by side with private yachts to save the men from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk. It was the national duty of every English boatman or woman to get his craft in order and cross the channel. It was the English version of the French taxicab fleet that saved paris in 1914.
This flotilla did its job, and in 10 days managed to take 339,000 troops from the beaches of Dunkirk safely back to England to fight another day. It is true that they left most of their equipment behind, but machines could be replaced while trained and seasoned troops could not. These guys would be needed to defend England from invasion. They could not afford to be killed or captured defending a beach in a lost cause.
Allied propaganda celebrated the Miracle of Dunkirk as if the British had won a smashing victory. It was something to feel good abo .. no, check that, it was something to feel great about. Never mind that the Battle of france was lost, and that the Nazis had won the greatest military victory in the history of the world up to that time, the conquest of continental Europe, a goal sought by kings for the last thousand years. No, that wasn't the headlines. Instead of “France Falls, Britian Threatened” the headlines were all about celebrating the Miracle of Dunkirk.
I remember reading about the MAD as a boy and finding it annoying at the age of 12. No one had to tell me that this was just a “spin” put on a bad story by the BBC newsroom. I used to scratch my head and wonder why this was being sold to me, the reader 22 years after the war ended as a wonderful miracle. At the time the British were basically kissing themselves for morale, not moral, purposes, and I can understand that, but now that the war is long over, why does history continue the same lying spin? It really was the “Disaster at Dunkirk,” or the “Ignominious Retreat at Dunkirk.”
The British did make the very best of a bad situation but its time to stop giving so much credit to the British for the miracle. There were two factors completely outside the scope of British lion courage, that enabled the Miracle of Dunkirk.
The first was the weather. If the War was a poker game, than the weather at Dunkirk was a royal flush for the Royal Navy. It was just calm enough for the smaller craft to make the trip across the channel and back. This part if often cited. The weather thank God held out and was nice enough to enable the rescue.
The part that is less often cited (because it looks the good guys look more brave to fail to mention it) is that the weather, while nice enough, was very cloudy almost every day. This prevented the Luftwaffe from destroying the BEF on the beach and from destroying half of the ships on the rescue beat.
You gotta give credit where credit it due. Fate or God saved the BEF not the BEF or the beer pub boatsmen chugging across the channel in the moving human interest story.
For the entire operation from the German point of view was based tactically upon letting the Luftwaffe destroy the British and French on the beach while preserving the armored forces for the coming fight for the rest of France.
Here we come to the other outside factor that saved the BEF, the real source of the MAD (Miracle at Dunkirk.) Hitler made the idiotic decision to order his Armies to halt just when they had the British surrounded. Historians have a great time with this one. They love the “what ifs” of history and they love to debunk the alleged greatness of Hitler, especially his alleged military genius.
It was like this. The Germans had done all this work to put themselves in a position where the heart of the Allied fighting forces were trapped on a beach. It was classic military war gamesmanship executed to the perfection of a dream. All the between the war planning and build-up had reached a successful climax. They had won the match, now all they had to do was tap in the winning putt. The German Army could attack now and destroy the entire Northern Army before any help could save them.
But wait. The Fuhrer for some inexplicable reason ordered the German Panzer groups to halt. For two weeks they sat there, hawk on a perch watching a helpless prey, while the rescue operation was completed.
Herman Goering had promised Hitler that his air power alone could knock out the stranded whales on Dunkirk. A saner leader than Hitler might have accepted Goering's assurances but at the same time told the Air Marshall that, sorry, the ground forces would be sent in anyway. (Another account by a German general says that Hitler ordered Goering to do the job alone by air power, that it was not an idea that originated from the fat man, and that Goering thought it was a rather odd order considering the power of the German land forces in position to attack.)
Up to this time, the Luftwaffe had been used in exclusively in tactical ground support and had never been assigned to do anything else. In fact this conservative faith that the day of strategic bombing was still in the future was one of the reasons for the tremendous German success so far. It was only in the west that the premature fantasy of strategic air power was taken so seriously as to be a primary part of the game plan ( a confidence that did more harm than good for the Allies overall in the entire war.) Hitler should have known that the Luftwaffe alone was not capable of a strategic operation like the annihilation of 12 divisions trapped on a beach. Vienna's homeless post-card painter should have sent the German Army in to do a smashing job, which it surely would have done. Then history would have remembered the “Slaughter at Dunkirk.”
But no, Hitler held his shot while his Generals were punching holes through their war maps in frustration. All this work to set up a winning three-inch putt and the boss chip shots the ball back into the sandbar for no logical reason.
Military historians tell us that Hitler conferred with his Generals before Dunkirk and took this strange decision based on a fear of losing too many tanks. The shore near Belgium was low country and who knows how many tanks would be lost in flooded dykes and other wet obstacle courses. If the weather was good, the tanks would be too vulnerable to cross channel air attacks from the RAF. Hitler loved his tanks like a boy playing with his toys, and he suddenly got paranoid about losing too many, even in a major victory. It was like buying a new table for the house and never using it because it might get scratched.
So paranoid fear of tank losses, combined with Goering's false promises, combined with miraculously bad weather (from the German viewpoint,) all came together to save the 339,000 men trapped on Dunkirk.
Churchill disputes this standard judgement of history that Hitler was the 'Dumkoff of Dunkirk.' He says that it was not Hitler, but General “Rundy” Rundstedt that made the decision to halt on the outskirts of Dunkirk for no sane reason. The operation chief of the German Army was General Brauchitsch, a tough name to spell. On May 25 he gave the order to march on Dunkirk to Rundy, but Rundy chose to ignore it and stay put. And why did Rundy ignore the order? Because Rundy had been at the meetings with Hitler and knew how Hitler felt about possibly losing too many tanks. Rundstedt probably felt that if the attack proved too costly, he might find himself in front of firing squad in about two weeks. Hitler was like that, you know.
So even if Churchill's version is on the money, and technically speaking it was Rundy who ordered the miraculous halt outside of Dunkirk, it was still Hitler's flash of stupidity that was at the root of the matter, and it is still proper to refer to it as the “Miracle of Dumkoff.”
Professor Wilmott says that the reason the German Army stopped at the gates of Dunkirk was so the infantry divisions could catch up to the armored divisions and then the two of them could finish the Allies in the north off. When the Luftwaffe failed to destroy the beachhead as promised and the evacuation was in full swing the Germans realized their error but by then it was too late and the defensive perimeter had been reinforced in the meantime so that a German attack would not be such a simple matter anymore anyway.
The failure of the German eagle to slay the stranded rabbits on the Dunkirk beach is one of the most controversial decisions of the war. It was undoubtedly Germany's first major blunder. There may well have been political reasons for making this mistake. It is possible even, that Hitler made this mistake on purpose!
There are two theories, both backed by cited evidence, that Hitler may have deliberately let the BEF get away!
It is an established fact that Hitler never wanted to go to war with Britian. If Germany destroyed the BEF in a brutal slaughter on the beaches of Dunkirk, it would also slaughter any chance for a negotiated peace with England. How could the British people go back to their daily lives in peace and dignity if they had taken 200,000 casualties in Belgium and France? They couldn't if everyone on the island knew someone who lost a loved one at Dunkirk. Better to let the BEF get home to England and begin talks with the King, than to smash them up and begin war with Churchill. One step back, two steps forward. There is some evidence of this line of thinking in what Hitler said at the crucial hour of Dunkirk. There is even better evidence in Hitler's words when France surrendered. More than one German general wrote after the war that he was astonished after the Fall of France to hear Hitler begin to speak in glowing terms of the British Empire and how it was imperative that some sort of amicable solution must be found to stop the war between these two old friends. Hitler had shown genius in his war plan for France, but naiveté in his assessment of the situation with England. It it worth noting that the London Blitz didn't begin until three full months after France capitulated.
The other quite possible explanation for the Fuhrer's order to halt the attack on Dunkirk was just as political, but this time internal.
Since the Beer Hall Putsch of the 1920's Hitler had a political problem with the Army. The German General Staff was as much a political force in German history as all the German politicians. This militarist nation had the highest regard for generals and the lowest regard for politicians. Hitler had to appease the generals before he could make it to the top in Germany in the 1930's, and it should be noted that most of the assassination attempts on his life came from military men who hated him, not resistance fighters from the ranks of occupied peasants. It was no easy matter for the German General Staff to defer to this man in his rise to power. Most of them saw him as a foolish amateur who was getting lucky on one bluff after another, and a few were wise enough to predict that this lucky run would come to a halt sooner or later, and that it would mean disaster for Germany in the long run. Many generals were happy enough to have taken down Poland and France, but few approved of his well known goal of invading Russia. These guys would love to see Hitler take down a few traditional enemies on Germany's borders and then disappear form the political scene.
The point is this. Goering was whispering in Hitler's ear that if we let the Army destroy the BEF at Dunkirk, it would potentially set up his political downfall. Victory in the field could restore the political supremacy of the Army and could inspire an army coup against him. If Hitler had any reservations about Goering's boastful (and as it turned out false) promise that his Luftwaffe could destroy the BEF without any help from the Army, these doubts were assuaged by the factor of denying the Army a chance to restore its traditionally predominant political influence.
During the Mexican-American war, James Polk denied one of the American generals a chance for certain victory because he did not want to set up a hero to defeat him in the next election. There was more at stake and more scale in the Dunkirk situation but the principle is the same.
THE FRENCH AT DUNKIRK
Churchill made it clear that French troops would be given equal priority to British in evacuations from Dunkirk. But the majority of French troops who were manning the defensive perimeter valiantly refused the offer and held their ground while the British evacuated the BEF. Quite a few thousand frenchmen did get away, but not as many as were offered the escape. In fact, many thousands simply preferred to stay at home even when all was lost and the boats had a space for them to England.
Even more hard to believe, but in fact a fact, is that a significant number of French troops who were evacuated to England chose to return home to France even after the armistice that established Vichy France.
How can this be explained? Maybe it was a rank and file version of the dispute between Reynaud and Weygand over the armistice, when Reynaud told Weygand that 'you think this guy Hitler is Kaiser Wilhelm, when he is really Ghengis Kahn.'
The German troops that had crashed through the Maginot line were noteworthy in their lack of ruthlessness towards defeated French troops. They were waving to French disarmed troops and smiling at them a lot. These victorious Germans weren't machine gunning peasants off the side of the road. There had been many cases when the Germans told surrendered French troops, with the battle still joined that they could just go home if they would lay down their arms and give their word not to fight again. It was too much of a drain on German logistics to maintain the care of countless thousands of French PW's, and they were clogging the roads as bad as the civilian refugees. So the Germans yelled from their tank-tops to the French troops who surrendered to just go home. It was a shock and the French took them up on it.
Stories like these were all about and this probably led to the refusal of thousand of French troops to leave Dunkirk, and the amazing choice of so many to return to France. They were expecting the same kind of mercy they saw in the Battle of France to apply afterwards. But the German generosity was the temporary expedience of war-making and the German army was not the Gestapo and the SS that would come in later to administer the fallen French nation.
This wasn't the Polish front in 1944, this was France in 1940 and this may sort of thing may have lulled the French troops into thinking that life under Nazi France might not be so bad compared to exile in England.
The French troops who came back and refused to go were all put in Nazi prisons for the next four years where many of them died, and there probably wasn't more than three or four who did not regret their call in the spring of 1940.
THE STRIKE SOUTH
The Nazis could have taken Paris any time after May 20 but smartly chose the destruction of the Northern Armies instead. Now that the Dunkirk miracle was over, the Wermacht turned it full power to points south and the city of lights. “Operation V” was the final battle for France
This phase of the war has sometimes been called “The Battle of the Somme,” but it was more of a rout than a battle. It could hardly have ben less like the Battle of the Somme in World War One when countless thousands were slaughtered on a virtually stationary battlefield.
Actually in the first 24 hours of V the Germans encountered fierce resistance that stopped them dead in their tracks. But in this spirited initial defense the french expended all their remaining assets. They might have been better off falling back to a stronger defensive perimeter closer to Paris. One day after the proud stand, the French Army collapsed. The Nazis broke through and it was nothing but panic, surrender and defeat.
DEFEATED BY DEFEATISM
Defeat was humiliating enough, but defeatism was the bigger problem. The French armed forces from top to bottom, from the Generals to the cooks, had little faith in their Army. Hitler had been bullying everyone in Europe for three or four years now, and the French had a defeatist mindset. Once the Germans made the big breakthrough the French Army began surrendering en masse. The accounts of one battle after another was consistently the shameful lack of a battle. Of course there were exceptions, but they proved the rule.
It's hard to believe, even though I have read of it a hundred times, but the French right-wing generally preferred Hitler to French socialism and in many instances practically welcomed the Nazi invaders. And there were a lot of right-wingers in the French Army. They didn't like Germans in a racial and nationalist sense, but they liked fascism ok. The big issue between world wars in French politics wasn't France versus Germany, but left versus right; socialism or its extreme form, communism versus conservatism or its extreme form, fascism. French righties didn't necessarily like Hitler, but to a dangerous extent they liked what he stood for. They just thought it was unfortunately that his fine ideals had to be tied in to their soccer rivals. All of this had a lot to do with the poor showing of France on the battlefield.
And it was indeed poor. France was a great power. Between the wars, France, not Germany was generally considered to posses the greatest Army not only in Europe, but in the world. It's easy to forget that in light of all that happened.
The United States Army by the way, between the wars was ranked 19th in the world, right behind Portugal, which held the 18th spot.
CAPITAL TOURS
On June 9 1940 the French Government forgot Paris.
The French “leadership” fled from chateau to chateau and then from city to city as the Nazis invaded. First it went to the Chateau de Cagne where some key moments in world history went down. The French government held a meeting at Chateau de Lashue but had to leave due to rats.
They couldn't stay long at the Chateau so they debated where to go next. Some said Brittany, the western peninsula close to the UK where there was still a faint hope of holding on there in a stubborn defense, or to Bordeaux where at least they could drown their sorrows in some the world finest red wines. They settled on Tours as an in-between alternative. Tours was where Charlie Martel had defeated the Moors, heroically driving the Moslems out of Europe. There would be no repeat performance by Weygand at Tours. He was ready to ask for an armistice, and had been from the moment the Germans bottled up the Allied Northern Army. It was the French who sought out the Nazis for an armistice, not the other way around.
Reynaud and de Gaulle proposed that the French government flee to North Africa and carry the fight from there. French colonies were still a part of Greater France so the nation in theory would still live.
The British all the while, naturally, wanted the French to fight on. At the same hour that the last men were being rescued from the beach of Dunkirk, the British were planning a new BEF to be sent over to Brittany. Some advance units were actually landed there on June the fifth. Who knows what kind of Bataan like struggle to the end could have ben carried out on the Brittany-Breton redoubt, but it never happened. How such a last ditch battle could have altered the course of the war we will also never know. It might have caused far less reaction in the United States than did the complete overrunning of the west, so in a sick way it may have helped that France died so shamefully and thoroughly.
Reynaud and Weygand continued to argue for days over the North Africa idea. Weygand wanted to surrender. He thought that the French people would suffer needlessly from further fighting in a hopeless cause and he hoped that the French Army could carry on intact in the hope of a better time and place where it could re-emerge. Max felt that having the French Army torn to bits in desperate suicidal fighting would hurt France in the long run. At least that was the story he was selling.
FRANCO-BRITISH UNION PROPOSAL
On the 16th of June 1940 Winston Churchill offered an astounding proposal to the French. Churchill said that France and England right now should unite and officially become one country under one flag. He thought that this might inspire both nations to new heroic efforts to save the day. The French parliament debated the union proposal and voted it down by a comfortable margin. Its hard to imagine that such a union would have survived one week past the end of the fighting, no matter who won or how long it took.
STATUE OF LIBERTY UNMOVED – REYNAUD QUITS
Paul Reynaud was furious that the French leaders would not fight it out. He had just sent a telegram to FDR promising him that every French soldier would fight it out to the end, and that Paris would be defended down to the last bullet-riddled coffee shop. Now Reynaud was embarrassed that he had even sent it. Paul didn't realize that the French were going to live up to the name of “Plan Yellow.” He was committing his word on behalf of a defiant fighting France that didn't exist. It just took him too long to realize it. The argument ended when Reynaud resigned. Weygand took over the government. Paul's resignation letter was short, “You want France, Max? You got it!”
THE BACKSTABBER OF MILAN
On June 10, 1940 Italy declared war on France. On June 20 Italian forces invaded the Riviera region. The boxer France was getting slugged in the arena and he is about to fall down for the count when a guy comes out of the stands and hits him in the back of the legs with a crowbar. That was the Italian invasion of France in June of 1940.
“SURRENDER”
Technically, France did not surrender in World War II. France agreed to a humiliating armistice with some consolation prizes.
It is a paradox that during the debates among the French leaders in the days of decision, it was those who wanted to fight on who were advocating surrender. Those who wold be tried after the war as traitors were saying, “No! We should not surrender.”
The die-hards, Reynaud, De Gaulle and a majority of his ministers wanted to continue the war from North Africa. The Armies of France that were trapped by the Germans were to surrender. They would turn in their weapons, and Nazi Germany would have to administer France from top to bottom without the help of the French people. The Germans could expect resistance after surrender. Most of the French Army would be lost. But what was left of it, plus what was left of the French Air Force (not much), plus what was left of the French Navy (a great deal), plus the French government, could flee to North Africa and carry on the war from the rear sanctuary of the French colonial empire.
So surrender paradoxically meant resistance.
On the other side, Maxime Weygand and Petain wanted to avoid the humiliation of formal surrender, and wanted to spare the French people any further suffering in a lost battle. If France co-operated with the Nazis, it would spare Hitler the incredibly taxing task of administering a great nation. The Fuhrer could husband his resources for the invasion of England or Russia.
But the Nazis had to offer something big in return. They offered three biggies.
One, part of France would be virtually unoccupied. This would be Vichy France, a fraction of the France of 1938, a new second rated France tucked away in the south.
Two: The French could keep their armed forces intact. The French Army and Navy did not have to formally surrender. More than a million French soldiers became POW's anyway, after all was said and done. But the Navy was left alone.
Three, The French could administer their own country. Except for helping the Gestapo round up the Jews, the French people, even outside of Vichy would be allowed (in theory) to go about their daily lives as they did before.
For the United States the big concern in these days was the status of the French Navy. France had a world class battle-fleet and the French had island possessions in North America. Were the Nazis going to threaten the United States from the Caribbean with a squadron of BB's in Martinique? It was a real concern for the FDR team.
The Nazis were demanding the surrender of the French Navy as a precondition to an armistice. In the meantime Churchill was asking France to deliver its Navy over to England. Petain, in one of the few intrepid moments of his WWI record called Hitler's bluff and said he would not and could not turn over the French Fleet to the Germans. That would be surrender and the whole point of making this deal for collaboration was to avoid that. The Germans put the deal back on the table and the war was over for the French people, at least for now. The French Navy would sit out the war interned in several ports.
The first cease-fire was signed between Italy and France on the 24th of June. The Armistice with Germany that ended the Battle of France was put into effect on June 25 at 1:30 in the morning.
The Armistice as a euphemism for surrender ceremonies took place at Compiegne, the same town where Germany surrendered to France and the Allies in 1918. Hitler forced the French to sign the surrender document in the same railroad car in which the Germans had surrendered to the Allies in 1918. The railroad car was later transported to Berlin and was destroyed in an Allied air raid. Don't tell that to the tourists who go to the site today and walk through a replica..
So France posed officially as an ally of Germany to prevent more mass murder of French civilians. This odd political situation actually led later on to naval gunfights between French cruisers and American/British ships, with substantial casualties. There would also be fighting in the Middle East between Allied forces and Vichy French troops. The French political situation throughout the war was complicated and disturbing to the Allied war effort.
As for the rest of France outside of Vichy it was all now part of Nazi Germany.
THE DIRTY DEVIL GOES TO PARIS FOR SIGHTSEEING
Hitler spent one day in Paris as a tourist. He visited the Arch de Triumph, Sacre C’our, Napoleon’s Tomb at Invalides (where as he stared at Napoleon’s coffin and missed the chance to appreciate the mistake Napoleon had made in invading Russia), saw the Opera House (where he tried to tip a French attendant who brusquely turned it down), and the Eiffel Tower. One fearless old peasant woman recognized him on his walking tour of the Tower area and heckled him with a cry in broken German of “you dirty devil!” There is no account of what happened to her. Imagine if she survived the war, and the pride she must have had to her dying day in that moment. Surely no one believed her story.
Hitler caught the next flight out of Paris after a four-hour tour and got back to work on plans for the continued conquest of the world. While leaving he told a shocked subordinate that after thinking it over he had changed his mind. He would not destroy Paris. The subordinate was shocked because it was the first he, or anyone else, had had heard of the Fuhrer's sadistic plan to destroy Paris. It was like a fired Post Office worker going in for his last check and telling everyone he has changed his mind and is not going to gun them all down next Friday.
The new France made its slimy capitol at Vichy (map.) Jews in Vichy were turned over to the Nazis. The spineless years of Vichy France are a stain on the history of a great country. I love Paris, too. But it would have been rebuilt as beautiful as ever (and maybe a little more modern) if half of it had fallen in heroic house to house combat. Churchill had tried to impress this on Marshall Petain.
Paris and Petain remained pure while French honor was decimated. It would have been better to have had the reverse.
It was bad enough that the Petain team collaborated at all. But the handstands they did to perpetuate the idea that life was pretty darned good under the Nazis was amazingly bad. See the film, The Eye of Vichy to see French made Nazi propaganda. This movie is worth a thousand words and should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
US INTERVENTION - NOT
Throughout the Battle of France, the leaders of Britain and France reached out for a US life-saver, but FDR would not and could not enter the war to try and save France.
President Reynaud wrote several desperate pleas to FDR to intervene, and he got a long and supportive letters back from Roosevelt, but no actual help.
In the final days of the Third Republic Paul sent a particularly desperate letter to Roosevelt saying that France was drowning and now turned its eyes to the Statue of Liberty one last time before it sinks beneath the waves. FDR was moved but did not move.
Churchill backed Reynaud in his efforts to turn the Statue. Winston wrote to FDR and asked the United States to declare war on Germany. He told his American pen pal on June 15 that only American intervention could save France. At about the same time the American Charge d’ Affaires in Germany wrote to boss Franklin and asked for a US Declaration of War. The Australian Foreign Minister requested a word with the President in Washington and asked the same thing. But these four guys did not count for much compared to the mass millions of Americans who were dead set against American intervention. Only 7 percent the US population supported a declaration of war against Germany in June of 1941. The feeling was that we're still sore cause these frogs hadn’t even made an honest attempt to pay back our loans from the first war. Now we were supposed to die by the thousands to save them in a second one? No, thanks, Pierre.
UNGRATEFUL FROGS!
A post war myth has developed, still believed by most people I know, that “we saved their hides in World War II.” Yes we did but was it heroic and noble? Was it something we should pat ourselves on the back for? Where was the USA when France and England were battling for their lives? In May of 1940 we wouldn’t even sell guns to France, let alone come to the rescue in person! Americans want the French to be forever grateful.
We were not dear and moralist friends in carrying out the liberation of France in 1944. France just happened to be in the way on the road to Berlin. If some Communist country that had never dreamed of democracy or friendship was in the path to Berlin we would liberated them with the same ferocity and courage. We pounded French villages from the air and killed plenty of women and children before we liberated. Saving France wasn’t the primary goal of the 1944-1945 campaign in Western Europe. A true friend would have helped the French stand up to Hitler in 1940 in the first place.
STALIN “INTERVENES”
On June 14-15 The Russian bear took advantage of the situation and occupied the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Hitler slammed his fist on the table when he heard about it, but was in no position to formally protest to Stalin, nor was AH in a position to stop it from happening. Hitler was tied down in the west and he was pretending to still be Stalin's ally.
That wasn't enough for Stalin. On June 28th the Russian Army occupied a major portion of Romania (Bessarabia and Bukovina.) Hitler was furious, as usual (imagine getting a dollar for every time an historian or narrator says “Hitler was furious”) but there was nothing he could do about Romania either.
The United States denounced the occupation of the Baltic states and refused to recognize the Soviet suzerainty. This continued to be official United States policy until 1991, when the USSR granted independence to the Baltic states in the wake of the August Coup in the Crimea (a fake coup, but that is another story.)
SEEDS OF VICTORY PLANTED IN DEFEAT
France was defeated. Britain stood alone against tough odds. The Second World War was going to end in a complete win for the bad guys.
That's certainly how it looked to many observers. There was a powerful element in the United States that felt that way. But the fall of France planted in defeat, the seeds of ultimate victory.
First and foremost it woke up the sleeping arsenal of democracy, the USA. When Hitler took Poland, the man in the street in Peoria didn't miss a wink of sleep. But when France fell, even the man in Peoria got a wake-up call. Maybe we should get involved, maybe we shouldn't, but when france fell, no reasonable American could seriously think or say that this wasn't deadly serious. It would take two years plus Pearl Harbor for the arsenal to really retool and get to work producing mass arms, but the delivery order was written up when France fell, not when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Overnight FDR ordered the size of the US armed forces doubled. Thats doubled. Congress backed him up.
The fall of France opened a trap door for the United States in the form of French colonial possessions. French Indo-China suddenly became an untenable colony, just waiting for someone to grab it. And we know who that grabber would be. Japan could not resist the temptation of Vietnam, and in moving into Indochina, provoked the United States to take stern measures against Japan which began the collision course to war and December 7. So by taking France, the Germans brought the United States into war with Japan, which brought the United States into the war against Germany. It was in the short run a fantastic victory. In the long run it was the end of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany.
If Hitler had never attacked France and only attacked Russia, the United States might never have entered World War II. But Hitler's strategy was to divide and conquer. He never wanted to see a repeat of World War I where Germany could have taken either front singularly, but could not sustain a successful war on two opposite gigantic fronts. So he had to neutralize Russia first (the Nazi Soviet Pact of August 1938 successfully did this,) then conquer France. Only after he took the western front out of the equation would he be ready to attack Russia. But in his calculations, he never fully appreciated the problem on his western front of a defiant Great Britian that he could kick off the continent but could not conquer. Add to this the aroused support for the UK by the USA and Hitler had anything but a free single-front in Russia when that time came. He was always dogged in the rear by a resolute UK gathering support and arms from the new world.
And he had his hands full in North Africa and the Balkans as well. But he had his mind set on the Russian invasion and no facts could defer him from trying to fulfill his pre-war fantasies.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON THE BATTLE OF FRANCE
All of the jokes that have been made about the French performance in World War II are deserved. The mass surrender at the first sight of battle that swept the countryside is inexcusable, even is it is somehow explainable. It's hard to read about professional army men fighting that way.
Perhaps the most disgraceful detail about the Battle of France is that the idea for Vichy France came from France. It was Petain and the compromisers who sought out the Nazis and proposed an Armistice with conditions, not the other way around. Hitler was planning to give France an old fashioned shellacking. The French traitors at worst, or wimps at best proposed an armistice whereby Hitler could conserve his resources to attack someone else. He took them up on a great idea. The Vichy regime was not a diabolical invention of the Nazis, it was the diabolical invention of the French.
I love Paul Reynaud. He is one of the real heroes of World War II and world history.
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH COUNCIL – THE A-BOMB GANG
At about the exact time that France surrendered, a man was meeting with Harry Hopkins regarding the establishment of a pool of scientific research to develop new and advanced weapons. The goal was to bolster, through science, long range national security in the face of the long tern Nazi threat.
The man was certain Dr. Bush, the president of the Carnegie Institute in Washington. He had been writing back and forth with several like minded academics from the top universities. All were on the same page. They felt that the Nazis had their act together when it came to using science to develop new and better weapons, and it was the duty of the American scientific community to get on their horse and match German weapons developments.
James Conant of Harvard was another one of the leaders of this movement and they proposed an organization called the National Defense Research Council. They knew exactly what they wanted. All they needed next was the president's ear.
Since Dr. Bush was in D.C. at the time, and Conant was not, he was chosen to approach the President with the advanced weapons brains trust idea. Bush couldn't get in to see FDR but he managed to get some time with Hopkins.
“ Hopkins was immediately impressed with Bush's proposal, and with Bush himself. ... He had prepared a succinct memorandum outlining his proposals. Hopkins read it with approval, and then arranged for an appointment for Bush to talk with the President about it. When Bush went to the White House he was prepared to answer all kinds of questions and meet probable objections, but he found that Roosevelt had already studied the memorandum ... after uttering a pleasantry or two, he wrote on it, “O.K. - F.D.R. - and Bush was out of the President's office a few moments after he had entered it. ...
Such was the authorization to Vannevar Bush to go ahead with ... the establishment of the organizations which was responsible for the invention of the atomic bomb.”
Vannevar Bush was not the father and grandfather of two future Presidents of the United States. One nitwit once tried to tell me in a Las Vegas dressing room that Vannevar is the founder of the Bush political dynasty. I tried to tell him that he was getting mixed up with a man named Prescott Bush. He got mad and called me a “know-it-all.”
REPUBLICANS IN THE CABINET JUNE 1940
F.D.R. made two bold moves in in June of 1940 when he named Frank Knox to the post of the Navy, and Henry L. Stimson to the post of Secretary of War. Both were famous Republicans.
The move was opposed for obvious reasons by both Parties. The Democrats felt that these jobs were supposed to go to Democrats. The Republicans were angry with the two men for accepting the jobs. Some Republicans suggested that Knox and Stimson be read out of the party like John Tyler.
The move was a signal to the American people that the time for uniting in a bipartisan spirit to answer the fascist threat was now, not later. The President was showing a true patriotic spirit especially when one considers that he made this move in an election year and on the eve of the Republican Convention in Philadelphia.
CDAAA
The counter organization to the isolationist America First Committee was called the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. It's fearless leader was Kansas editor and political activist William Allen White. No one could accuse this organization of being a big lackey of Franklin Roosevelt. White was a Republican.
This organization had originally been formed in 1939 under the windy title of “Non Partisan Committee for Peace Through Revision of the Neutrality Law.” Their purpose was to convince the government to repeal the anachronistic law left over from World War One which forbade the United States from aiding any faction in a foreign war that was ostensibly none of our business.
When that law was repealed, the NPCPTRNL had no reason for existing, but it's base obviously still had work to do and plenty of backing. So in 1940 it disbanded for about ten minutes and revived itself under a new title and with a broader purpose. The CDAAA now promoted a general preparedness movement. CDAAA argued for the draft, the lend-lease, and the stimulation of mass production of warplanes. The future was dark.
CDAAA felt that if the British Isles went down, the United States would adopt what was left of the British Navy, and at that point would have about two years at the most to prepare for the attack on the Western Hemisphere that Hitler was sure to launch.
Demagogues and isolationists who weren't necessarily demagogues both attacked the committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. The super-jerk super-demagogue Father Coughlin said publicly that the members of the CDAAA were “the most dangerous fifth column that ever set foot on neutral soil. They are the Quislings of America. They are the Judas Iscariots ... of our nation ... snakes in the grass who dare not stand upright and speak like men face to face.”
On June 10 a full page ad from CDAAA appeared in several national newspapers under the banner, “Stop Hitler Now!” Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels read the ad in a Berlin speech and taunted, “Stop Hitler? With what?”
US NAVAL STRATEGY 1940
The fall of France marked a sea change, literally and figuratively for U.S. naval strategy. Since the end of World War One the strategy had always been one of defense. The Navy was there to protect America from a foreign threat or combination of them. After France fell the new strategy was one of offense. No longer could America sit complacently while Europe’s states fought among themselves. Britain had to survive as our minimalist goal.
But stabilizing Britain was only the beginning. Nazi control of all of Europe could not stand. A world so dominated by Hitler was unthinkable for Roosevelt, Hopkins and Hull, to name three. The counterattack might take time but from the fall of France the thinking at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave was victory, not defense. By the summer of 1940 Germany was a clear and present menace to freedom, democracy, God, and the USA.
FDR did not tell the people that the US was planning an offensive strategy in 1940 any more than Bush did in late 1990 when he pretended that “Desert Shield” to protect Saudi Arabia was our policy, while planning a counter-attack to take back Kuwait from Iraq. Both leaders kept their plans low key for the same reason. From a military and political standpoint it was best not to arouse the enemy into pre-emptive action against us while we prepared to strike. But Roosevelt knew that it was time to roll back the Nazi tide or face long range doom.
American industry saw the beginnings of what would later be a flood of conversion to war production. The draft was instated for the first time in peace in our history. The US Navy switched gears from protection to projection. Our ships would now take an aggressive role while ferrying convoys across the Atlantic and back again shooting at submarines on sight without a quiz. The American public may not have been ready for the switch from blocking to punching, but FDR was. The goal was to give military aid to Britain short of active belligerency, and hopefully get us in somehow. Roosevelt wanted America in this European war from this point on. Fortunately for him the Japanese gave him his pretext on 12.7.41
THE FRENCH FLEET – FRIEND OR FOE?
The British had a ready answer for this theoretical question now that Vichy France was an ersatz nation. The British attacked French forces wherever they could find them, especially naval.
At one place in North Africa the 1,300 French sailors were killed by British bombs as their ships went down to the bottom of Cadiz Bay.
DARK HOUR AT DAKAR – SEPTEMBER 23-25 1940
The port city of Dakar on the west coast of Africa was a danger to the Allies. Today it is in the tiny coastal country of Senegal. It was a base that could support a fascist invasion of
South America and it was controlled by the Vichy French who were, of course, controlled by the Nazis. The question of course was how much did the nazis control Vichy and how much could this be translated in an emergency into combined Nazi/Vichy military operations, even allowing that the French were operating their naval guns at gunpoint.
So the British teamed up with Charles de Gaulle and the anti-Vichy free French to send and invasion expedition against Dakar in late September 1940. De Gaulle expected the Vichy defenders to throw down their guns and embrace him, but that didn't happen.
The invasion force included 8,000 troops, two battleships, three cruisers and an aircraft carrier. Operation Frog Menace was a combination of 'shock and awe', and 'hearts and minds.' Both failed.
JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES 1940
The key event in US-Japanese relations was the fall of France.
When France fell it could no longer defend its overseas empire in Southeast Asia. Japan was sitting in Southern China on the border with helpless French Indochina. Japan saw the hole in the line of scrimmage and hit it.
In September of 1940 the Japanese moved into the Northern half of French Indochina, the North Vietnam of the later Vietnam War. They established military bases there but at this time did not try to administer the whole country. They let the French clean up the trash and run the electrical plants, but the Japanese were setting the whole ares up as a base for a military thrust into the South Pacific.
By taking Vietnam, the Japanese turned the United States on a dime. Nam was the last straw and was the deed that really triggered World War II in Asia. In response to this aggression the United States cut off oil to Japan as well as other war-making materials. This was what we had been threatening to do off and on for years and now we finally really did it. From this moment on Japan knew it had to either go to war to keep its oil supply flowing, or withdraw from its conquests and return to the home islands.
It must be added here before we go into more detail that many American historians consider the cutting off of Japanese oil supplies in 1940 to have been an act of aggression by the United States against Japan. They basically say that we provoked war with Japan by these actions. Many fine scholars with a straight face say that the USA started World War II in Asia because we left Japan with no choice but to either retreat back to its four home islands or strike at the Dutch East Indies to keep its war machine operational. FDR, they write, “goaded” Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor.
The US was already upset with the Japanese invasion of China, so why did the occupation of French Indochina constitute a far more serious threat? Answer; China did not geographically constitute a springboard for the quick occupation of the oil and rubber of Malaysia and the D.E.I., but Indochina, with it’s fine naval bases in today’s Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City did. From China, a move to grab our rubber and oil could be spotted from a distance in both time and space and we could scramble a response accordingly. But from Indochina Japan could grab the supply prizes of south Asia faster than we could get out of bed to read about in the morning paper. That is why the July 1940 seizure of Indochina from the feeble Vichy government was the decisive moment in the coming of the Pacific War.
By the end of July 1940 The United States had enacted a series of economic sanctions on Japan. The fact that America was in a defense build-up mode was offered as a token explanation Japan. The US had to hold on to our resources. But the real reason for the bans was to punish and deter Japanese aggression in Asia. Scrap metal, petroleum, and products derived from petroleum were first barred from export, followed fast by aviation fuel, the big one. Then came iron and steel.
Japan was not singled out in the export embargoes but Great Britian was given an exemption, so the point was obvious. Tensions ran high. American citizens were asked to return home from the Far East and China was given a loan of 25 million dollars. The weather forecast was war cloudy.
USSR AND JAPAN 1940
Yet Japan’s biggest fear was not an attack from the United States. It was fear of an attack from Soviet Russia. America was a distant naval threat, but the USSR could intervene directly in the China theatre at the drop of a hat. The Russians still thirsted for revenge after the humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese, and the bear wanted some of it’s Pacific nuts and berries back.
If Japan struck south and then was attacked from behind by the Russians, the entire situation would be militarily untenable. Japanese diplomacy was therefore directed largely towards obtaining a non-aggression pact with Russia. Many of the militarist leaders of Japan wanted to attack Russia first and worry about conquering the rest of southern Asia later. Generally speaking, the Army big shots wanted to hit the Russians first and the Naval brass wanted to take their chances on Russian neutrality and attack to the south. The Navy guys got their way in the end with the help of Hitler who invaded Russia in 1941, thus more or less insuring against attack from the Russian flank.
MARTINIQUE UNIQUE
In the summer of 1940, while Debs Garms was winning the NL batting title back in the states, a unique situation faced the USA on the French island of Martinique. Here was the finest naval base in the Caribbean. The Vichy French still had a first-rate aircraft carrier and a heavy cruiser there, among other ships. This fleet and French planes were a threat to the Panama Canal and to Britain’s crucial Venezuelan oil supply. Would the French Navy in Martinique obey if the Fuhrer ordered it to go out and attack the Allies?
Roosevelt sent an emissary there to warn the French that if this fleet so much as conducted maneuvers of any kind without the full notification and approval of the United States, the US would treat it as a hostile foe. The semi-captive French fleet in Martinique we were assured, would remain strictly neutral.
CAN ENGLAND SURVIVE?
In July Hitler gave a speech in which he made a last plea for a ‘peaceful’ solution with England. He said, “Mr. Churchill for once ought to believe me when I say that a great empire will be destroyed – an empire which it was never my intention to destroy or even to harm. I do, however, realize that this struggle, if it continues, can end only with the complete annihilation of one or other of the two adversaries.”
He couldn’t have been more prophetic. History is fascinated more by Hitler’s victories than with his ultimate defeat, but while his conquests were equaled by Rome, Alexander the Great, and Napoleonic France, the winning of the war with Germany in 1945 marked the greatest military defeat of any nation in all of human history.
FDR TAKES A VACATION
Roosevelt and Hopkins went on a Caribbean cruise. Roosevelt seemed not to have a care in the world at a time when the world was threatened. But near the end of the cruise he emerged with a plan to save England through the “Lend-Lease” program. It was entirely the work of Roosevelt's mind, and it was what FDR was really up to on the cruise, when it seemed to some that he was irresponsibly partying while Rome burned.
DESTROYERS FOR THE UK – SEPTEMBER 1940
America finally lifted a finger to give material support to Britain in her time of need. To help save Britain “from Hitler and his Huns, with the greedy Italian at his tail’ (to quote Churchill) the Lend Lease Program was enacted on the Second of September, 1940. By this act (agreed to in principle in July 1940) we loaned 50 of our older destroyers (but not quite ‘antiquated’ as is often written: these four-pipers were all built after the First World War) to Great Britain in exchange for a 99 year lease on some valuable naval bases in the Caribbean.
The Caribbean bases were located in Trinidad, Jamaica, Antigua, the Bahamas, St. Lucia and one in South America on the coast of British Guyana. We also threw in 10 modern Coast Guard cutters with as little public fanfare as possible, and they with equal quietness slipped in the base of Argentia (not to be confused with the nation of Argentina) in Newfoundland, which would see much use in the war. These last two mutual items were not formally part of the Lend-Lease deal. The British even threw in a free base in Bermuda for American use, to the slight consternation of the Bermuda legislature. Bermuda was a free gift.
The United States wanted the English bases because it was fearful that the Panama Canal vulnerable to air attack, which it certainly was. A war game a few years earlier with friendly fire and fake bombs had seen a lone US plane launched from a cruiser a hundred miles away in the Caribbean drop three bombs on the most important lock before any defense began to scramble. The US was also concerned about Nazi infiltration and eventual occupation of South America. If Germany could move down into Africa, it could find itself in striking distance of Brazil from Dakar.
Some British historians and documentary filmmakers still complain about how little we did for them in this their time of need, how they did the front line fighting for freedom while we sat it out on the sidelines. Well then, why did Britain do everything in its power at the Washington Naval Conference and beyond to make sure that we did not build up the naval supremacy that we had sought? If they had not clung to the pride of historic British Naval supremacy, we could have been the big brother they needed when facing down Hitler in 1940. As it were, we had only 50 old tin cans to offer.
American and Britain are the two truest friends in the world today. But there was still enough suspicion left over from the rivalry of the 100 years before World War One to prevent their support for our naval buildup in the decade after it.
The 50 destroyers were badly needed by Britain. Many historians demean the value of these old tin cans as if they were a pathetic gesture in real terms, suggesting that the true value was the psychological and political impact of our active help.
In fact German submarines were making life very difficult for the convoys crossing the Atlantic from Halifax to Liverpool and there was a hopeless shortage of British destroyers. If only capital ships were good sub fighters, Britain might not have needed the 50 so much, but they weren’t and it did. British destroyers were so overworked that more than half of them were in the shop. A large number had been lost in the evacuation of France. Battleships were of no help in convoy duty since German surface ships were few and sought not the decisive gunfight in any case. The German navy was for commerce raiding, not heavyweight boxing matches like in World War One. There would be no Battle of Jutland this time. What were needed were destroyers that could counterattack submarines. The 50 hit the spot in a major way.
Later when America was in the war an officer griped that he wished we had those 50 old tin cans now. It was pointed out to him that they were doing the front line fighting for freedom a year longer than they would have been if we had kept them.
The Lend-Lease deal was exiting news in Berlin. Hitler wanted to break diplomatic relations with the USA but his closest advisors (this was the point in his life when he occasionally still listened to them) cautioned that it would be better to see which way the air war in London was going before doing so. There were still plans on the drawing board for invading England and if the London Blitz succeeded, Germany would not want America in the fight defending the British beaches on the German D-Day.
The first 8 American destroyers were taken over in Halifax on September 6, 1940. This was the same date that the Luftwaffe began its titanic air assault on the city of London/Westminster.
TRIPARTITE PACT 9.27.40
The urgency of inter-Allied co-operation in the west was underscored by the signing in Berlin of the Tripartite Pact on September 27, 1940. This transformed the vague non-committal Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 into a more formal defensive alliance.
Tripartite 40 did not mean the Axis was now a united military power in concert planning to conquer the world (although the Allies would paint it as such later for propaganda purposes). The T-Pact validated the mutual spheres of influences of the 3 budding empires, but it was primarily directed against the United States.
Germany, Italy and Japan agreed to help each other out by every means necessary “when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.”
A separate article stated that this principle did not apply to the USSR.
So Germany would use the threat of Japanese intervention in the Pacific if the USA thought of entering the European War, and Japan used the threat of German intervention in the Atlantic if the US entered the Pacific War.
Coming at a time when both Japan and Germany were on a roll, the T-Pact was a real threat to US freedom of action in world affairs.
The Soviet Union was invited to join the pact. Vyacheslav Molotov went to Berlin to discus this, but his conditions were unacceptable to Hitler. Molo asked for a Russian sphere of influence in southeastern Europe. Hitler had his eyes on the same sphere and could not concede this. When Vyacheslav left Berlin with an empty basket, Hitler made the fateful decision that Russia would have to be invaded.
The formation of the Tripartite Pact probably helped Roosevelt win the Election of 1940.
OPERATION SEA OTTER
The head of the German Air Force, Mr. Goering was so fat that he could only fly two engine planes. His ego was even fatter. His delusional pride enabled him to actually think that his Luftwaffe could not only defeat England as part of a preparation for invasion, he thought the Luftwaffe could force England to surrender all by itself. He thought Germany could win through air power alone! It was an absurd idea and only a mentally disturbed leadership could have even conceived of such a thing. They were making the same mistake that Japan was making on the other side of the globe. They mistook democratic pacifism as a permanent state of mind, not realizing that once aroused, democracies are every bit as macho as dictatorships.
The plan for invading England was serious one called Operation Sea Lion. Hitler knew it could never succeed unless or until the Luftwaffe took control of the air from Britain along its Southern coast. With the strong British Navy to back it up, a strong RAF would be too much in tandem for even the superior Germans.
So Goering launched a campaign to wipe out the British air fields and the planes that lived there whether on the ground or in air combat. This fight lasted several weeks and when it was not going as well as planned, Hitler and Goering both became egoistically impatient and decided that terror was a better weapon than sound military strategy. They would use the military as a political weapon to demoralize the British. The Luftwaffe would bomb the British so badly that they would sue for peace.
Now the plan became simply the bomb the main British cities, especially London. The Blitz was on. Ju-88’s, Stukas and Heinkel 111 bombers raided the great city on almost a daily basis for many weeks. September and October of 1940 was the worst of it. One in five buildings in London was either destroyed or seriously damaged. Casualties among civilians ran into the thousands. It was strategic terror bombing, but it had even less chance of success than the failed conventional military bombing campaign that preceded it.
But the RAF fighters had several advantages. They had limitless fuel for air to air combat over its own home, while the German fighters had a short time to operate over the target. The Spitfire had only one goal, shoot down the bombers. The German fighters had to engage the British fighters and remain close to the bombers at the same time, sometimes an impossible contradiction.
Most important, the German bombers did not have the four engine payload that would have been decisive. The Luftwaffe bombers could not destroy London, even if the RAF had been far less effective. Goering's raiders didn’t have the muscle.
On the other hand, the British were loaded with four engine bombers and as soon as Germany tried to destroy London, the British retaliated. But it was better to publicize the desperate situation in London to the world rather than the retaliation.
British air raids on German targets were sadly ineffective. British bombers had more payload, but the accuracy was extremely poor, and the results were not inspiring. The smaller Luftwaffe bombers outperformed the larger RAF ones headed back the other way.
By the end of 1940 Hitler and Goering definitely knew that Operation Sea Lion was a dead animal on the beach. England was not going to die. The ego twins may or may not have known that the decision to bomb people instead of airfields and naval bases had been a completely idiotic and counter-productive blunder. And they had set a horrible precedent that would be adhered to by all the combatants until the end of the war. From now on, the civilians were targets too. They were worth only five points, a soldier was worth 25 points and a tank was worth 500 points. But from now on the civilians were targeted.
ALTERNATIVE TAKE
That in short, is the conventional version of the story. But it may be mythical in some respects. The idea that England was outnumbered and doomed and that Germany was threatening to wipe England off the political map, is clearly a propaganda myth from the war that has carried over into history.
But what has been less explored is that the myth might have been true if Germany had played its cards smarter. The expose of the myth might therefore also be a myth.
The true core of the un-feasibility of Operation Sea Lion is that Hitler never hated England and had never planned for Sea Lion before the war began. If he had, then the threat to England that school-children read about would have been true.
When Germany planned to invade Chechkovslovakia, Poland, and France in 1938, 1939 and 1940 there were meetings upon meetings with Hitler and the generals. Everything was meticulously discussed and planned, with Hitler approving every last detail. Everyone knew what had to be done down to the smallest item by the time the last meeting broke up.
Such was not the case with Sea Lion. Hitler had a few half-baked meetings with the generals and admirals in the summer of 1940, but little was specifically planned. It was all vague, except for a general idea that it was going to happen. The reason was political. Hitler could never find the hate in his heart to make a real commitment to destroy his racial brethren across the channel until it was too late to make it work. He hated the upstart Checks and planned their destruction accordingly. The same with Poland and the French. But when the Battle of Britian took place, it was a result of a haphazard evolution of events, not part of a pre-planned intelligent strategy.
If Hitler had his mind made up to take England down from the moment France fell, he might have done it. If he had made up his mind to someday take England down while he was dictating his memoirs to Hess in prison, it is even more likely he would have done it. But Hitler was always sad to be at was with a people had admired, and any young man can tell you, there is nothing less promising than a fight with a guy you're not mad at. Such was the Battle of Britian. The guy who is red with rage has a a decisive ad (advantage.) In this case it was England.
Now let's say that Hitler did indeed hate England from way back when with the same ferocity that I hate FOX network baseball announcers. Then the tactical situation might have made victory at least plausible. Instead of an ad lib strategy that fell into place pell mell, the invasion of England in August 1940 would have been carefully planned, deliberately co-ordinated, infused with Hitler's personal dynamic leadership, and could have worked.
If such were the case then the concept of interior parachute drops to take airfields, followed by brigades landing by conventional aircraft probably would have been planned. This would have bypassed the impregnable south England coastal defenses. The tactic had worked in the fall of Belgium and Holland. It was not outrageous to think it might have worked in England. But there was not any sense of commitment to that sort of bold strategy. Instead Hitler, in frustration out of not wanting to be at war with England at all, simply told Goering to take out the British air defenses by air power alone. This had to seem unrealistic, but it was a last minute posturing strategy in apology for no real strategy at all.
If Hitler really wanted to kill England, he would have rejected Admiral Raeder's nay-saying that the Royal Navy controlled the channel and an invasion was impossible. The military genius (at times) would have listened to others who argued that German minefields were all over the south British coast and the actual areas where the Royal Navy could operate effectively was much smaller than claimed. He might have saved total Luftwaffe strength for the invasion itself, rather than depleting it in an impossible dream of wiping British defenses out completely first. Even if the air Battle of Britian had gone better for the Germans than it did, an invasion could not been a smart follow-up plan because the Luftwaffe needed to repair and replenish its planes and pilots. Winning through air power alone was almost silly, since more than half the English plane factories were out of range of German bombers and lost RAF planes could be replenished indefinitely.
Furthermore, the Germans had plenty of Seibel Ferries to cross the channel in. There were medium sized heavily armored ferries with 8 inch guns. They proved amazingly effective in crossing 300,000 German troops over the Straights of Messina in 1943, even though the Allies had total air superiority at the time.
In sum, Operation Sea Lion was not feasible because deep in his heart Hitler didn't want to do it. He saved his dignity by trying to bomb England to surrender, but he was handing the Luftwaffe a task he had to know was absolutely impossible. It is therefore unfair for historians to say that the Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain. Hitler was saving face by ordering the Luftwaffe to fly to Mars and back. He was trying to take down the heavyweight champion with his weak left while saving his strong right for the upcoming battle against Russia. No wonder he lost the Battle of Britain. He didn't really fight it. He only pretended to with air power. It was just holding action disguised as an offensive threat. There was never a single senior strategy meting where Hitler and his generals made any specific plans to invade England.
RAF MYTH
One of the myths of the Battle of Britian is that the Royal Air Force fighters were slugging it out in a life or death dogfight with the Luftwaffe fighters as the British people watched in awe, their fate decided above them.
That was an accurate picture late in September 1940. But partisan Allied historians overlook the true picture up to that point which was that the Messerschmit ME-109 fighters were frustrated for many weeks because the R.A.F. fighters were avoiding air-to air combat at all costs. In fact, the British were leaving their cities open to air attack as the best choice under the circumstances.
The reason for this was that the British had an inferior fighter plane in the Hurricane, and the new superior Spitfires were simply few and far between at this time. The Hurricane was no match for the ME-109. Sending up five of the precious and few Spitfires against 30 or 40 Me-109's would be more of less saying, 'yes, I want to lose the war. I want to give the Germans complete air superiority at this time.'
Churchill needed to buy some time while more Spitfires came on line. Only then would the R.A.F deem it wise to rise to the sky and duke it out. Until then, the fighters simply ran away day after day. In fact, in the August-early September stage, the entire purpose of the German bombing raids was to bait the British fighters into the sky so that the Germans could win the complete air superiority that Goering was under orders to achieve. Heinkels escorted by ME-109's would raid south England ports just to try to get a fighter fight started. The German fighters had quite the limited range, so it was easy for the R.A.F. fighters to fly away the other way and live to fight another day. Pro-Ally writers just find this so sickening a thought that they pretend that this stage of the Battle never happened. It makes sense and the way things worked out, it obviously worked. But you have to go to German sources to find a very consistent frustration that the R.A.F fighter refused to come up and fight in the first six weeks of the Battle of Britian. Perhaps it wasn't heroic, but in a way it was brilliantly heroic. It took courage to face the moral humiliation of running away in order to win the larger strategic victory.
By mid-September the new Spitfires began to come on line and by the end of September that image of the slugfest in the skies to decide the fate of a nation was an accurate one. With enough Spitfires beside them, even the 'Canes' performed well enough.
RED CROSS BUOYS
German pilots who landed in England were captured and incarcerated. But German pilots who landed in the water were another story.
If British vessels got to them they were taken prisoner same as if they had landed on the island. The Germans had a serious pilot shortage (much more so than the British) and they desperately tried to rescue some of their flying men. They dropped buoys with a giant Red Cross insignia for the pilots to cling to. Then German seaplanes with a giant Red Cross insignia on them would land near the buoys and go pick them up. Or we should say, try and pick them up. R.A.F. fighters shot these Red Cross planes to pieces, and slaughtered the pilots clinging to the buoys.
The Germans complained that the British were violating international law. The British countered with the argument that the Germans had lost all protection of international law when they tried to conquer the world. There was no way the British pilots and political leaders were going to allow these guys to go back to Germany, get in another Heinkel, and kill their wife, dog, and child two weeks later. No way.
COVENTRY AND MANNERHEIM
The point of no return in the no-holds-barred department came with the air raid on Coventry, England on the night of November 14/15 1940.
There was heavy industry in Coventry so in that sense it was a legitimate military target, but the industrial spots were not singled out. Instead the target was the city itself. A little after 7 p.m. tea time, 500 German bombers appeared over the city and rained incendiaries all over the city. The first waves started the fires and the later waves added fuel to the fires. The later waves used the lights of the first fires to more easily find the target. 500 English citizens perished that night, one for every bomber. More than 60,000 buildings were burned to the ground.
The Brits adopted a new word from the event. For the rest of the war any city or town destroyed by air was said to have been “coventrated.” The fires of Coventry started another fire, a burning fire in the British people for revenge. In a sense the coventration of Coventry was a strategic aid. British bomber command had been frustrated by a rank inability of its planes to find and destroy specific targets in Germany both day and night. RAF raids were costing more planes than the meager results could justify. But now with new rules of air engagement, the British were confident they could at least hit the side of a barn; that is, they could now without guilt single out any German city in range and attack it without regard for individual sites within it. All it took was a few flares to find the city and then whamo. The British people got it on the night of December 16/17. Operation Abigail Rachel was a new style warfare air raid on the Rhineland city of Mannheim. There was industry there but at this point it no longer mattered exactly where the bombs fell as long as they fell on Mannheim. The target now was German morale.
The manhandling of Mannheim was not very successful. Less than 200 bombers went in and although only three were lost, the bombing was embarrassingly off-target for the most part. 500 buildings were razed by the explosions and fires (as compared to the 60,000 in Coventry). 115 German civilians died on the ground. Next to nothing was accomplished in a strict military sense. But a new order or battle was established. Jack Bull had served notice that ‘two can play at this game.’ From now on the RAF would hope to be able to locate and destroy specific targets in urban areas, but if they couldn’t then the random destruction of cities and towns would do instead, and all the bomber crews would fly home and get a sound sleep.
The human being is the most dangerous animal. Hitler underestimated British tenacity because of his stupid racial conceits. Like the Japanese, he thought that the martial spirit of his race and nation was several cuts above that of any other. He thought there was a difference between German nature and human nature. But in reality an elderly Amish preacher in a wheelchair will punch you sooner or later if you provoke him long enough. Targeting became a lot easier after Coventry.
On December 29, 1940 the Luftwaffe raided East London in force. On that night the German bomber squadrons dropped incendiaries all over the residential area around St. Paul’s cathedral. The only purpose of these bombs was to start fires and try to burn down the city. There was not even a pretense of military targeting for there was no industry to speak of anywhere in the working class section of East London, unless you count prostitution. Even the raid on Coventry was not as vicious as this one. This was cruel even by Blitz standards. This part of London had been spared thus far from the Blitz precisely because it was completely devoid of military or industrial targets.
In the main fire, two square miles of Londontown became a sea of orange death. 1,400 other fires had to be put out. Whatever tiny chance there was for a negotiated peace went up in flames that night as the City of London crackled in horror. (Big Ben and Parliament, by the way, are not actually in the City of London. They are in Westminster. This raid took place to the east of these attractions in London proper. So I’m half lying when I tell people that I proposed to my wife in London. I technically gave her the ring on the Westminster Bridge, in Westminster. )
ALTERNATE TAKE
German chauvinists have a different version of the terror raids on London and Coventry. They claim that the smoke from the first raids on strictly military targets made accurate bombing from then on impossible. That was why the rest of the bombs hit civilian areas and started tragic wildfires across residential areas.
They further state that it was the British who started the “terror raids” on German cities. Their picture is of innocent Germans sticking to strictly military targets and missing the mark, while British Wellingtons were hitting back at German cities with completely indiscriminate targeting. Some English writers in recent years also say that it was the British who started the practice or terror bombing when they hit German cities with blanket bombing of residential areas before the Germans did it back at London.
Ok, first of all, the German writers who suggest that they never ever deliberately tried terror bombing on London are just liars, or blind bird-brains.
That being said, let's concede the point. Coventry was an accident of smoke and fires, and it was the British who first started bombing German cities with terror tactics.
So?
If I were a Brit in 1940 I would have approved. Offense is immoral, defense is moral.
Imagine if you're walking down the street and some guy starts punching you and kicking you and then punching you and kicking you some more. Then you pull a knife out and reach around and stab him in the back and he staggers off to the hospital. Then after he recovers he sues you for not respecting the rules of fighting and starts writing articles in the newspapers about what a criminal you are and how you are not a gentleman, who does not respect the rules of war.
Germany started bombing British cities first. So what if it was within certain guidelines? Germany started bombing British cities first. Britain started terror bombing first, but it was in desperate response to Germany bombing British cities first. The stab in the back analogy stands. One combatants was struggling for its very life the other was not. The one not in danger of annihilation had the luxury of posing like a gentleman. The other did not. A Dutch lop rabbit will break your eardrum with a maniacal scream and bite your finger off if cornered and threatened with death. Left alone, it is the sweetest creature. There are no rules of warfare when your life is at stake. Too bad about Bremen and Hamburg. You're the jerks that started the world war, tried to conquer the world, and sent 6 million peace-loving Jews to the gas chamber. You git what was coming to you. The people of London and Coventry did not. Britian went to war in protest of a series of aggressive unacceptable violations of international law by an evil empire culminating in the last straw of the Polish conquest. England's cause was just. Germany's cause was not. Who are the good guys, the ones employing terror raids in the defense of good, or the ones following the strict rules of warfare in the pursuit of world conquest and genocide? Give me a break. If you're trying to kill me, I will cheerfully fight back with any means available, and the more terror the better.
The Germans and the German apologists are suggesting that it's proper to demand that both sides adhere to the rules of warfare under international law so Germany could win a war and then follow that up with a political settlement that included Auchwitz and Buchenwald. Once the military matter was settled in Germany's favor under the rules of international law, all political international law would be banished from the earth forever.
FRANCE AND BRITAIN AT WAR … WITH EACH OTHER
French and British battleships slugging it out with each other without restraint? French and British infantry units clashing full scale? Both these scenarios are part of the story of World War II. The second took lace in Syria. The naval conflict, a mix of political and military clashes, took place around most of the Mediterranean in the summer of 1940.
The surrender of France with much of its first class navy intact created a delicate situation for Churchill and the British. What would happen if British military forces came into contact with French forces? The two nations were allies, but the surrender of France had made them enemies on an official if not emotional level. Would the facts or sentiment dictate British action? Would French gun crews fire on British targets?
The answer came on July 3, 1940 when a Royal Navy Mediterranean battle group cornered a French task force at its base in Oran, Algeria. There were four battleships and other smaller French ships there, manned by French crews, and flying under the political flag of Vichy France, not the France that had fought side by side with the British for five long years in World War one. The French commander rejected pleas for a peaceful solution, involving some sort of qualified surrender. The Royal Navy then did what it had to do. It opened fire with all guns. The French ship guns and shore batteries answered and the battle of Oran was joined. Brit forces destroyed three battleships (one sunk, two beached) and sent 1,250 French sailors to their untimely death. The fourth battleship, the Croissant, escaped to Toulon to continue to fight for Hitler. Check that, it was the Strasbourg that escaped to Toulon, in spite of being damaged by air attacks from the carrier Ark Royal.
Taking four battleships out of Nazi inventory sheets was a big win, but the psychological message was almost of equal importance. All former allies who wanted to help their captors would from now on do at their personal peril. Quisling soldiers and sailors were served notice all over the globe. They now had a bulls eye on their chest just as surely as their high officers or Quisling himself. There were other clashes with French Naval forces that month, and in some instances the French commanders agreed to disarm their ships by removing and surrendering parts vital to the functioning of their large guns.
Operation Le Minesweep, clearing the French Navy from the war strategy of the Germans, was a clear and quick success all over the Mediterranean, and an opportunity for Britain to put to good use its only winning card at this time, sea-power superiority.
OPERATION STOP THE SEA LION
On of the deep dark secrets of WWII is the British plan to use mustard gas to stop the Germans if they landed on the beaches of England. Both sides in the war, from start to finish, refrained from the barbaric use of poison gas. Hitler was civil when it came to a method of warfare that he had experienced in WWI. No gas was turned on to save France.
But after the war, a few determined reporters discovered the scary truth. If the Germans had landed on the beach of Southern England, the RAF was prepared to strafe the invaders with mustard gas. This was not only kept top secret during the war, it was continued top secret after the war.
POLITICS IN AMERICA 1940
SMITH ACT
Fascism begins at home. In 1940 a national law was passed that would have made the Federalists of 1799 feel proud. It was a return to the good old days of the Alien and sedition Act under John Adams.
The official title was the Alien Registration Act, but is is more commonly known as the Smith Act. The ARA made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the United States government. Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia proposed the Bill and it was passed with flying national colors in 1940. FDR signed on.
For all practical purposes it had always been illegal to conspire actively against the United States government. Just ask Aaron Burr. But now, taken to Smitty's extreme, it would be a crime to merely write that you would like to see the government overthrown.
The Smith Act would be used as a weapon against the left for the next two decades. Several high profile trials took place during the Second World War.
SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT 1940
The young men of the United States had not been subject to a military draft since the end of World War I. Roosevelt took a chance in an election year and reinstated the draft. Roosevelt showed that he was more concerned with stopping Hitler than he was with with winning the next election.
The Selective Service Act was passed by Congress in the fall, and Roosevelt personally pulled the first numbers before a live national radio audience. Franklin used the term old militia phrase “muster” to describe the event. Draft sounded too accurate. Muster sounded like the spirit of Lexington and Concord.
If Roosevelt had tried to get the Selective Service Act passed before the Fall of France, it almost certainly would have been defeated in Congress. But the victory of Hitler on the continent changed the national mindset absolutely. The Draft was passed easily and lasted until my 18th birthday in 1973.
The first version of the draft called for mandatory military service of only one year. This was the soft sell. FDR and co. wanted more but played it safe. In the fall of 1941 the length of service was extended in a new Bill.
ELECTION OF 1940
Although his popularity was declining and the unwritten Constitution limited the President to two terms FDR decided he would like to keep his White House pad another four years.
Prior to the outbreak of WWII overseas, Roosevelt was leaning towards not seeking a third term. Franklin was probably going to support his close aide Harry Hopkins for President. The name of Hopkins was bandied about from 1936 to September 1939 as a serious possibility, and Mr. Hopkins wanted the job. Partly he wanted it so he could get his revenge on a US Congress that had hated him for some time. Hopkins was considered an arrogant usurper of power who was doling out all the federal money for aid from his own personal desk, not responsible to the democracy. Congress felt it was their job to play Santa Claus, not a private citizen who buttered Roosevelt's toast and helped him down the stairs.
The animosity between Harry and the House was open. One day Hopkins came to Congress for an appropriation. Not only did they decline the appropriation, out of pure spite they passed a bill to cut Hopkin's salary from $12,000 to $10,000.
Hopkins didn't have Congress but he had a chance. HH had the support of FDR, was very famous, and was the man giving out the federal relief money. Everyone who got money from Hopkins, might in theory, vote for Hopkins in appreciation. Harry's opponents were afraid of his dole card.
The Nazi invasion of Poland and the undeclared Naval War in the Atlantic changed Roosevelt's mind about running. But he still wasn't sure until the fall of France in May 1940. By that time he had come to fully believe that he was the only man capable of leading the nation through the terrible war that he was by now sure was coming. His closest associates discussed this with him and were almost unanimous in their support of Roosevelt and equally almost unanimous in their absolute faith the FDR was right. Men like Rosenman, Hopkins Ickes and Morganthau believed in FDR as a the only man for these crazy times. If FDR was deluding himself into thinking he was some sort of a saint, he had plenty of people around him who believed it too.
A few of his old Brains Trust broke with him and opposed him in 1940. Farley was bitter and opposed him for the nomination. Tug was out of the loop, and there was a fight brewing with speechwriter Tom Tim Corcoran.
Only one important actor supported his greatness but did not want him to run for a third term. This was his close personal secretary Grace Tulley. On the night when Roosevelt gave a radio address from his home accepting the nomination, everyone was smiling exempt Grace. She had tears streaming down her face. GT loved FDR, but knew more than anyone else how wretched was his health. Tully was crying because she knew that a third term would kill him.
Had he chosen to retire to private life, Roosevelt could have definitely made more money. Would retirement have enabled him to live an extra ten years?
One man who definitely wanted the Democratic nomination, by hook or by crook, was the father of a future president.
Joseph. P. Kennedy was not happy as Ambassador to Britain. He felt that he was just an ornament over there and that the Roosevelt Administration was conducting all of its foreign relations with the UK over his head. Kennedy didn’t even know about the destroyer lease to Britain until it was announced as a done deal. JP wanted out of the London job and had his eyes on the one at 1600 Pennsylvania.
Roosevelt had indeed kept Kennedy in the dark over in London and had conducted American foreign policy through special envoys, thus bypassing the future President's father.
Kennedy had managed to make himself one of the most unpopular Americans ever to set foot in England, let alone work at the highest levels of the State Department. Kennedy always believed that England would lose to Germany and had the incredibly bad habit of saying so bluntly to whomever cared to listen. The British Secret Service, the M-15, kept a close eye on Kennedy and even suspected him of conducting secret negotiations with Nazis. Kennedy was suspected of meeting secretly with Herman Goering in Paris, but this was a false charge.
The charge that was not false was that Kennedy was trying to keep America out of the war while Roosevelt and Churchill were trying to get America in. The British foreign office compiled a secret dossier on Joe Kennedy called “Kennedania.” Everyone got to clear the air and speak their mind about the American Ambassador. “I'd like slap him senseless,” wrote the assistant Foreign secretary for North American affairs, Chester Broderick. Another diplomat, said, “Joe Kennedy is the lowest squid in the sea. I have never hated an American as much as I hate him. Come to think of it, I have never hated a man of any nation, even my own, as much as I hate Joe Kennedy.
For one thing, Kennedy was seen as a blatant threat to British national security. If Joe Kennedy had his way, England could go rot in a corner and die while America made deals with Hitler. That would have been enough to make him a hated man in England alone, even he was a super-nice guy on the outside, which he was not. On top of that, Kennedy was using desperately needed freighter space to ship his own booze crates to the United States. During the London Blitz, Kennedy escaped to rural mansions, while the British people suffered and died. Many people called him a coward for that. On top of all that he was a man who only had a gangsters sophistication. In literature, politics, and history he was a crass boor, with the diplomatic skills of a wounded badger.
The Kennedy team floated a story that Kennedy was considering running for President, just see what kind of a reaction it would evoke. The response was not entirely unfavorable but clearly not enthusiastic enough to justify a serious effort. Kennedy decided on this basis not to run. Genius! How many fools have wasted their life's fortune on a pathetic failed attempt at the White House? This guy plants one $90 newspaper article and saves himself ten million.
FDR was willing to cordially accept Kennedy’s resignation from the ambassadorial post but requested Kennedy's endorsement for a third term in 1940. Kennedy haggled. He wanted Roosevelt’s support in 1942 for his son Joe Kennedy as governor of Massachusetts.
Joseph Pat finally agreed to make an endorsement speech for FDR but declined the delivery time slot paid for by the Democratic party. JPK wanted to speak freely in his talk and insisted instead on paying for the national air time with his own money. Joe's talk defended the charge that Roosevelt wanted to get the United States into the European conflict. Kennedy told America what he knew they wanted to hear and something he could not personally desire more strongly; He told the nation that Roosevelt was not going to send any of your boys to die in any foreign war. Kennedy was speaking for Roosevelt, but meant it more than Roosevelt did.
Other men who wanted the Democratic nomination included Jim Farley and Harold Ickes. Farley was tired of being a president-maker. He wanted to graduate from Mark Hannah to William McKinley. But with the war on in Europe, Farley backed down.
FDR was nominated on the first ballot at the Dem Chicago Convention in July 1940.
The Vice-Presidential choice was more controversial than the Presidential. FDR picked Henry Wallace, a lefty's lefty. There was a great protest against the choice of Wallace. Henry was so all over the road with his opinions on everything that he was not considered a reliable Democrat. One speaker shouted to the convention that, “just because the Republicans nominated an apostate, [Wilkie] doesn't mean we have to!” but F.D.R. got his way and Wallace it was. Roosevelt had to talk Ickes out of resigning from the Democratic Party, such was that passionate man's objection to Wallace.
FRD's opponent in the campaign was Wendell Wilkie of Indiana, a man who had never run for elected office before. Everyone else in the hunt was an orthodox Republican obstructionist and isolationist, but out of nowhere Wilkie came along as an interventionist progressive and stole the nomination. Wilkie supported the destroyer deal with Britain. Breaking with the two-decade tradition of Republican isolationism, Wilkie felt that Roosevelt wasn’t doing enough to aid Britain in its lonely struggle against the Nazi war machine.
The Republican core leadership felt betrayed by the nomination of the progressive Wilkie. The guy even supported some elements of the New Deal. What sort of an excuse for a Republican was this guy? WW was a RINO before the term was coined.
Interventionism vs isolationism superseded left vs. right issues and perspectives. It was an issue being decided at a level above the usual fray between Dems and Reps, left and right. It was impossible to lock either party into representing one or the other on the intervention issue. Intervention was divisive even among the smaller political parties.
There was the usual low-life fighting. F.D.R. had secured a captain's commission in the Army Air Force for his son Elliott. The Republicans brought this up quite a few times, accusing F.D.R. of dishonorable nepotism.
The Republicans directed a lot of personal attacks against Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's Secretary of Commerce. Hopkins had been so ill for so many months that he wasn't even doing his job at Commerce and in the bargain was becoming a campaign liability. Hopkins voluntarily resigned from his position at Commerce,since he knew he would be asked to resign if he didn't.
In the final two weeks of the campaign it was becoming clear that the Republicans were going to lose. They tried one last desperate tactic. They started to accuse FDR as being too much of an interventionist, a man who was going to drag the United States into this foreign war. The fact that Wilkie had for months ben saying that he alone, was willing to take decisive interventionist action necessary to meet the crisis did not matter. Wilkie's inconsistency and flip-flop on the intervention issue was a last ditch long-shot try in a lost cause. It hurt Roosevelt's feelings when Wilkie said that the President had not done enough for preparedness, and it hurt the Dutchman's feelings again when Wilkie made speeches saying that F.D.R. was going to get your sons killed in a foreign war. Wilkie didn't even want to make the contradictory accusations but his “handlers” insisted that it was his only hope of winning. They were probably right. And it was only a faint hope that didn't work, in any case.
In the last two weeks of the election campaign, Roosevelt gave into pressure and made speeches in which he made promises he knew he would not be able in all likelihood to keep. He began to assure the mothers of America that “your boys are not going to go off to fight and die in a foreign war.” When some of his close advisors questioned the wisdom of such a lie, he snapped that it was not a lie. “If we are attacked, we, of course will go to war. And if we are attacked, then we will at that point not be involved in a 'foreign' war. So the line in these speeches is not a lie.”
One thing is certain. The Blitzkrieg in the west in may-June 1940 changed the American election. During the time of the 'Sitzkreig' the Republican Party still stood proud for old fashioned isolationism. But when France fell, everything flipped. The isolationist block held its ground, but the undecided center switched definitely towards preparedness at the least, and interventionism at the most. The average Joe now realized that the threat in Europe was a sea surge that was going to threaten the American coastlines sooner or later. Suddenly the most famous Republican political leaders, isolationists all, were not fit to represent the American people. This is what opened the door for a Wendell Wilkie, preparedness/interventionist to lead the Republican ticket.
F.D.R. was relieved when Wilkie was chosen, not so much because he knew he could be easily defeated, but rather because now the nation would not become bogged down in a destructive debate about where we as a people stood on the issue of the triple fascist threat. He could now have a good old fashioned political fight, without dragging the national interest into the middle of it.
During one speech heard by a national radio audience, F.D.R. pledged that this third term would be his final term. Many of his fans began shouting “No! No!,” and “Run again, brother!” Thinking fast, Roosevelt cupped his hand over the microphone and began to speed up his speech and talked close into the microphone. he didn't want that one getting out on the air. The third term idea was flaming controversial enough without that element fanning the fire.
Wilkie made a major blunder when he dismissed the issue of the two-term tradition. Many Americans, even some Democrats, were offended by the idea of FDR breaking the two-term tradition. If he had played up this issue he would have won many more votes. But Wilkie did a great service for the Democratic cause when he blew it off as unimportant. Wendy took the position of a team that wants the other team's star player in the line-up when he wins. If the other teams' star is sick, he'll mail him his meds. He wants to beat the best the other side has to offer, not a weakened version of his opponent. It was macho pride and dumb politics, taking one of his trump cards and ripping it up in a gesture of silly confidence.
1940 – Roosevelt Breaks America’s Two-Term Tradition
After losing the election, Wilkie showed a lot of class. He went to England to support FDR in his campaign for lend-lease help to our British friends.
Back in the states reporters showed less class when they read back to him the worst election year criticisms of FDR that Wilkie had leveled against his opponent. Wilkie laughed it off as campaign oratory.
On October 8 of 1940 Admiral Richardson went to see Roosevelt at the White House and begged him to move the Pacific Fleet from Pearl Harbor to San Diego. Richardson felt that since so many ships were being transferred to the Atlantic, the Pacific Fleet was becoming less powerful and more vulnerable. The purpose of frightening of the Japanese was not being served anyway, Richardson pleaded. Oahu was more than 5,000 miles from the Philippines. The Pacific Fleet wasn’t going to be able to stop any Japanese aggression in the Far East. until it was all over and too late. He said that the military was losing confidence in the civilian leadership in light of these unwise moves.
FDR snapped at the Admiral that this was election season and he couldn’t make a sudden move like that even if he wanted to. The public would see it as weakness. Unlike the selective service act, in this case politics came first.
CONGRESSIONALS
Harry Truman won re-election to the US Senate in 1940. But he was never endorsed by Roosevelt. The Democrat Governor of Missouri made an open bid for Truman's seat, and the other guy had FDR's clear support.
NORTH AFRICA 1940
Unlike all the other major theatres of the war, the North African campaign began by accident. Neither side pre-planned an offensive there. It just so happened that the English had a long standing empire in Egypt, and Italy had a short standing empire in Libya and Tripolitania. For the first months of the war the two sides kept a safe stand-off distance from each other. But when France surrendered, Italy recognized that it now had the advantage in the desert and went on the attack to the east in the direction of the vital Suez Canal.
Actually the first action was when the British marched west to take Fort Capuzzo, but this was not part of a strategic offensive. In September, the Italians started a strategic offensive to conquer Egypt. The Italians under General Bill Balbo penetrated into Egyptian territory as far as Sidi Barrani.
In December 1940 the British began pushing the Italians back where they came from.
WORLD WAR II 1941 (TO 12-07-41);
ENGLAND AGAINST THE AXIS
NORTH AFRICA
The year 1941 began with an important counterattack in North Africa. Churchill wanted to clean out the second rate Italian forces in North Africa first and then perhaps look to the Balkans next while holding his line in the sand.
The British cleared the Italians out of Ethiopia early on and these troops were shifted to North Africa. Other forces from the Sudan moved north too.
NO SEA LION
As 1941 opened American writers were still singing poems to the bravery of the British in the face of an imminent German invasion. Yet the UK was sending out forces all over the empire to conduct offensive operations. It seemed that the British leaders had no realistic fear of Operation Sea Lion, but ‘the Nazis are coming’ made for a great motivator both at home and abroad where it generated support.
Was England really in danger of being wiped off the map in these months? The British controlled the sea and had a slight ad in the air. The Germans had the advantage on land but not by a lot. England was an island? Could England survive? Hmmmm.
In 1941 Britain, to it's eternal credit and glory, still “stood alone” against the Axis. But it also stood much taller than the Axis. Everybody loves to play up drama so its no fun to spoil the drama party and say that the gravity of the situation the British faced in 1940-41 has been exaggerated by history. It's been exaggerated largely because the winners write the history and its more fun and rewarding to say we were cornered and hanging on for dear life and made a dramatic comeback.
We all love London and the people who suffered suffered dearly. But London was never in any danger of being destroyed completely, and its destruction had limited strategic value even if it could have been achieved. It was a terror strategy that never had a chance, given Goering's resources. Even the winning side didn't have the capability of strategic air terror until a year after Normandy. Germany certainly didn't have it in 1941. British civilians were in more danger in the V-2 crisis of 1944 than they were in 1940. There are 40 cities in Germany that got hit acre for acre more hard from air raids than London did in WWII. But London's suffering is more told of than that of all of the German cities' civilian sufferings combined. The winning side writes the history.
With Operation Sea Lion on hold and the secret plan for the invasion of Russia still months away, the focus of Nazi ambitions in early 41 lay in the Balkans and the eastern Mediterranean. Hitler was alarmed at the British troop landings in Greece and began to send significant forces eastward through Romania and into Bulgaria. From there they could strike south at Greece in the event that Britian sent large forces there.
Churchill as usual had a Mediterranean mind set and was fearful that the Nazis would take the Balkans and then intimidate Turkey into opening the straights of Constantinople in Hitler’s favor. With control of the Dardanelles Hitler could then threaten Palestine, Iraq and Egypt, changing the whole dynamic of the war.
Churchill was hoping to form a united Balkan alliance to defy Hitler with the subtle backing of the Soviet Union. Russia could not openly join such an alliance since it was the delicate political partner and open trading partner of Germany, but Russia had made it clear to Hitler through diplomatic exchanges that it regarded the threat of Germany to the straights of Constantinople as a threat to Russian security.
Churchill tried to scare Turkey into a more aggressive stance against the Nazis. He told the Turk PM that if Turkey even protested against German incursions in the Balkans Hitler would bomb Constantinople. Win proposed to send large numbers of British military aircraft to Turkey plus anti-aircraft equipment complete with crews (with or without uniforms.)
Oil was the key, as usual. From Turkey British bombers and fighters could easily threaten the vital oil fields of Romania, the lifeblood of the Nazi war machine. In the other direction British fighters and bombers in Turkey could simultaneously threaten the big Russian oil fields of Baku, thus deterring the Soviets from a Balkan repeat of the 1939 deal with the Nazis on Poland. There was always this possibility of a Nazi Soviet condominium in the southeast at the expense of everyone else. If Churchill could get British fighters into Turkish airbases, he might be able to stop it.
Turkey remained neutral and declined the British offer of help to Turkey while helping to drag Turkey into WWII.
British Empire forces broke out due west of Tobruk as the year opened, and in six weeks fought their way west to Benghazi which they captured on February 5. The entire Cyrenaica region was cleared of enemy forces, the threat to Egypt was removed, and the Italian Army in North Africa was busted up.
The British still had a nagging problem in the African rear that Churchill wanted cleared up before he made his next move in the direction of Balkans. There were still pockets of Italian military resistance in Abyssinia tying down British forces that could be used to better purpose on the main front of the Mediterranean.
Churchill wanted to clean out the second rate Italian forces in all of East Africa first. Then perhaps he would look to the Balkans while holding his line in the Libyan sand.
There is no doubt that the British early in 1941 could have continued on to the west in North Africa and cleared the Axis out of their hair there. Then Ike and Patton never would have fought in North Africa in 1942-43. We are entitled to wonder if the entire war might have gone better for the Allies if Churchill had let go of his Gallipoli complex, always thinking he had some superior shrewd game plan to work into the filed. The Prime Minister’s determination to halt the operations in North Africa so he could put all his eggs into the Balkan basket may have not have done the British war effort a big favor. His Balkan focus gave the Germans enough space to deposit two Africa Corps divisions to North Africa under General Erwin Rommel.
Churchill wanted to save Greece more than he wanted to eliminate the Axis from Africa. But the operation to save Greece was a failure (more later) so he failed on two fronts, one through actual defeat the other through passive abandonment. If Win had stuck with the obvious call of clearing out North Africa he would have at least won the bird in the hand.
HOPKINS GOES TO LONDON
Up until the beginning fo 1941, the United States had given only limited support to England. We had played around with the neutrality laws and given some ammo, but our diplomatic support was cautious. FDR was an interventionist but could not afford to let on that he was. Even Churchill was wondering just how serious we were about saving England if England was down by three goals with four minutes left.
The President wanted to meet with Churchill but it could not be arranged easily. For starters he sent his personal confidant Harry Hopkins to London. Even though Hopkins was not a prominent American by title, he was the number one FOF in the country. He was warmly received in England wherever he went. Hopkins met with Churchill and the two of them lived through several German air raids. This certainly brought home the point to Hopkins of the seriousness of the English position.
F.D.R had sent Hopkins to England, not so much as a diplomatic gesture of support, which it was, but more as a CIA officer. He wanted someone he trusted completely to go over there to get a read on the exact situation. He also wanted someone who could be trusted to convey to Churchill the exact feelings of Roosevelt regarding the war.
Churchill thought that Hitler would probably not try to invade England (many of Churchill's contemporaries disagreed.) Churchill almost hoped that Hitler would try it. he felt that the British fighting forces would inflict a decisive defeat on Germany in the event. The British had 26 land Army divisions that weren't doing a whole lot of good sitting round on the island. He could put them to work if Hitler invaded. English air and naval power was still formidable.
Hopkins was surprised at how much Churchill obviously liked America and Roosevelt. Hopkins had been led to believe otherwise and confessed this to the Prime Ribbed Minister. Churchill snapped that “This is all the doings of that scurrilous squid, Joseph Kennedy! I have an American mother, for Pete's sake!” Ambassador Kennedy, the father fo the future JFK, had not been a big help to FDR when he was ambassador to England. When John wrote his book, “Why England Slept” he might have thought to include a chapter about his dad as being one of the reasons why England slept.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ITALIAN EMPIRE IN EAST AFRICA
Looking back from the present it is hard to take very seriously the dream of Italian Empire in Africa in the early years of WWII. Since it failed ignobly in the end it is easy to see it as an interesting story but not a terrifying drama like the Japanese East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or Hitler’s Third Reich.
Yet by the middle of 1940 the Italian dream of a Roman-African Empire had been actually achieved in a degree worthy of the empire name. And there was no reason to doubt that it might expand with the help of further German victories. To the people of 1940, Italy and Mussolini were a real menace.
If Italy continued on its winning ways, the Axis might have been headed for three racist empires ruling most of the world in a tri-minium. Germany would have most of Europe, plus Russia to central Siberia. Germany also would own some of the Middle East. Japan would rule from India to all points in Asia due south and east, plus some of the Middle East. Italy could have all of Africa, plus some of the Middle East and some of southeastern Europe. The crossroads of the three evil empires would be the Middle East. The Americas would be allowed to survive but in obvious peril and in a second-rate status.
In my neighborhood in the 1960’s I heard all these jokes a hundred times. “What’s the shortest book in the world? – Italian War Heroes.”
”What do you call an Italian submarine commander?” - “Chicken of the Sea.” -
“What is the first thing they teach you in the Italian Army? - How to say 'I Surrender' in 40 languages.”
The poor performance of Italy's armed forces became a joke over time. But it is easy to lose sight of the reality of Mussolini’s threat to the people living through that time period when the entire Axis threat was as solid as a rock.
The British had forces on the flanks of Italy’s Empire in Abyssinia and environs. There were English brigades in Kenya to the south, some forces in the Sudan, and a squadron of air power across the straights at Aden. But in numbers, the Italians had the edge and since the offense has to expend more power than the defense, the reclamation of Ethiopia for it’s renowned emperor Heile Selassie would not be a sure or easy victory(sp).
Churchill had large forces in Egypt and in Cyrenia (Libya) but he was planning on shipping the heart of this power to Greece to the north, not Abyssinia to the south. If however, the Italians could be cleaned out of their southeast African Empire quickly with the emergency help of units from around scattered parts of the British Empire, then the whole English African force could help in the Balkans.
This is what happened. With the foreign legion leading the charge, the Indian Brits, the South African Brits, and the Sudanese Brits (among others in the mix) defeated the Italians in East Africa as outlined on Churchill’s history map below.
1941 Decline and Fall of the Italian Empire
The map above has a symbol for railroads but none are marked on the map. Why the symbol?
The British were able to take back their old colonial possessions in Somalia and Kenya from the new colonialist Italians.
There was a fierce battle for Keren. The siege of Keren lasted several weeks. The world as watching the battle for Keren. When Keren fell the Italians knew that the war was lost. It was the gateway to the interior, the last excellent defensive position on the board.
There was the usual political complexities with Vichy. French Somaliland, Djibouti, was in the middle of the playing field. Should the British attack it, negotiate with it for co-operation, or ignore it? What was Vichy’s position politically at the moment with regards to French Somaliland?
THE FAR EAST 1941
THE PACIFIC WINTER WAR SCARE Jan - Feb 1941
On January 27, 1941 the beleaguered US Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew sent a coded message back to Washington. It was about a rumor he had picked up from a diplomatic friend in Peru. Apparently the Japanese were planning a massive surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Back in Washington the message was duly noted and ignored.
At about this time a border clash broke out at the disputed boundary of the Mekong River between Thailand and the still nominally French controlled southern half of Indochina. Japan threatened to intervene to settle the dispute.
New rumors spread in western intelligence circles that Japan was going to use this as a pretext for major amphibious landings on the western side of the Malayan peninsula, thus threatening the security of the Indian Ocean, as it was already threatening that of the Pacific. Britain urged the US to send a naval squadron to Singapore to both protect against this and to send a message of united force to the Japanese. The idea was rejected because it was suspected that the rumor was a ruse by the British to draw the United States into the war with Germany by way of its Axis partner Japan, and that the deployment of US battleships in Singapore was more likely to provoke the Japanese than to intimidate them.
The ‘February War Scare’ did provide the USA with a chance to offhandedly warn the Japanese that they were playing with danger. Ambassador Grew was not the sort to yell at anybody, but a certain Admiral Doorman was. The admiral was meeting with the Ohashi Chuichi Vice Foreign Minister of Japan and out of nowhere, Doorman lost his cool and began to heatedly explain that the United States would not sit back passively and let the Japanese take Singapore or Malaysia, and the oil of the Dutch East Indies. By implication he was also saying that Japanese control of Indochina while not pleasant to the United States, was not probable cause for war.
When Chuichi forced Doorman to be more blunt and asked if the seizure of Malaysia and the D.E.I. would mean war between Japan and the United States, Doorman said that his meaning was plain, and that “a Japanese threat to occupy areas from which the United States procured essential primary commodities would not be tolerated.” His meaning was plain. The 61 year old hard-of-hearing Ambassador Grew would never have done this, but when FDR heard about it he sent back his approval. Grew then notified the Vice Foreign minister that he fully supported Doorman’s remarks. The United States was not going to be used as a doorman in South Asia. The creation of the Tripartite Axis the previous September influenced American thinking considerably. Roosevelt was angry at the idea of the three dictators trying to intimidate the United States. The formalization of the Axis alliance only toughened Roosevelts attitude regarding further aggressions at the expense of the USA or its allies.
Doorman’s temper might have bought the United States a few extra months in the Pacific War. Roosevelt was up to his ears in the struggle to pass lend-lease and he wanted no trouble in the Far East to make things worse. The US was content to warn the Japs not to take Singapore but for now, you can keep Indochina.
MATSUOKO TAKES A VACATION FEB 1941
Japanese war plans in early 1941 were flexible, to say the least. Most of Japan's leader's were hell bent for war, but when, where and against were unsolved questions. Prince Konoye's government did not have complete control of the situation. Everything depended on everything. There was the Army advocating one thing, the Navy advocating another, the Emperor's family dropping powerful hints in another, liberal diplomats stressing some other plan, liberal politicians daring to challenge someone's plan, and young assassins roving about planing to ice anyone who didn't honor Japan enough to suit their deranged taste.
In this middle of the which war crisis,
Foreign Minister Matsuoka took a trip across the Eurasian plain to Moscow and Berlin to talk over a few things with the evil kings.
After railing his way across Siberia, he met with Molotov over cocktails and told the Vyacheslav that Japan was very much interested in a non-aggression pact with Russia.
'Molo' seemed less interested than Matsuoka, largely because Hitler hadn't attacked Russia. “Nyet, not yet,” quipped Matsuoka.
Then the disorient express continued on to Berlin where lucky Matsuoka would get a private audience with the big star, Adolph Hitler. a man as divine in Germany as the Emperor in Japan, but with a couple of key differences. Hirohito, came from the top 1% of the top 1% of Japanese royal blood lines. Hitler was a mutt from the gutters of Vienna. Hirohito ruled passively, secretly, without responsibly. Hitler personally approved or wrote every command given to every person of any consequence in Germany. The divine god who did nothing and the gutter god who did everything.
At the Chancellery in Berlin Hitler poured Matsuoka a glass of Bavarian beer and began to talk. Matsuoka listened. 40 minutes later Matsuoka explained that he did not speak German and a translator was called in. Hitler started all over again. No problem. Hitler loved to talk.
For starters Hitler began a brag-a-log on his military conquests. “Two hundred and forty four divisions! When you add up all the enemies who have fallen before me, it adds up to 244 divisions! I have destroyed them all with half as many troops!”
Hitler told Matt that Germany did not want war with the United States. The Fuhrer was sure that if the United States chose to help England, it could not at the same time wage a war of it's own. America had industrial might but not that kind of industrial might. It was a hint that Japan might be free to move in Asia without fearing American retaliation. Hitler assured the Japanese FM that The USA would never make offensive military moves west of Hawaii. The Fuhrer was revealing himself a dunderhead on both points.
Hitler encouraged Japan to attack Britian in Asia, thus weakening his enemy in Europe. If Japan could wear down the British Navy on the other side of the world, it could only help.
Both men were feeling each other out of the more delicate question of Russia. Hitler wanted Japan to attack Russia but could not openly say so, because he had not revealed to anyone except his most intimate yes-men (he had no advisors) that he was planning in invasion in the early summer. Hitler was searching for a way to tell Japan that it was a good time to attack Singapore, that Japan did not have to fear it's Russian flank because he would tie that one down with Barbarossa. But he couldn't reveal Barbarossa.
When Matsuoka was leaving Hitler told him, “Tell the Emperor that war between Germany and Russia is not out of the question.” Coming from this guy, that was a serious hint.
GREECE AND ALBANIA FALL TO EVIL APRIL 1941
Mussolini was an important ally for Hitler, especially in the Mediterranean, but Big Benito sometimes caused the Fuhrer more trouble than he was worth.
Mussolini had long dreamed of a new Roman Empire under neo-fascism, and little Albania just across the Adriatic was a tempting prize.
The Italians took Albania with much difficulty and then when the Italian army marched into Greece it soon found itself reeling from a counter-attack and being chased back into Italian-controlled Albania. Mussolini had to get his big brother to finish the fight for him.
Hitler had vowed that he would never forget the favor Benito had done for him at the time of the Munich crisis. Without Italian support, he probably could not have won any of his bloodless victories in Europe in 1938 and 1939. Now he was true to his word. He order the full force of the German military into the Southeastern theatre.
Beginning on April 6, 1941 Nazi divisions drove the Greeks and their British allies off the peninsula and into the sea. It was Dunkirk South as the Tommies and Greeks were bailed out on the beaches in the nick of time.
The British retired to their fallback position of the island of Crete. A month long slugfest would take place for this island. In trying to protect this last Mediterranean stronghold the British Navy engaged in a full scale war with the German Air Force and the German Air Force won. It was like two great navies having a World War One type of gunbattle, except that there was only one Navy.
The Royal navy took a royal pounding around Crete in May of 1941. Nine warships were sunk and 17 were seriously damaged. The aircraft carrier Formidable wasn't very. It was damaged to such a degree that it never re-entered World War II.
The Nazis conquered Crete by mass parachute attack. Crete was the first, last, and only time in history that mass parachute was the main weapon of a strategic war plan. It worked quite well. The parachute forces tumbled out of more than 500 Luftwaffe planes and 70 gliders. They landed, they saw, they conquered. Crete was evacuated. But German casualties were much higher than anticipated. All that training and now the Nazi entire parachute corps was decimated after one mission. Hitler never ordered another offensive parachute attack again.
GOOD ON THE RUN
German armies had obviously not reached America yet, but fear of Nazi invasion had hit the coast and made breakouts. America was at long last wide-awake. Hitler was now master of all of Europe except Russia and some neutrals. Roosevelt was beginning to perceive the full maniacal goals of the post-card painter.
Hitler wanted what was coming to him. ‘The world, Chico, and everything in it.’
But little Albania and stout Greece had ruined Hitler’s plan for world dominance. There was honor among thieves as Hitler backed his pledge. The two months lost in the Balkans delayed Hitler’s invasion of Russia by some six weeks. When the Nazi army ran into the Russian winter it was six weeks before he would have run into it if he hadn’t helped Mussolini. At the end of 1941 the German army was on the outskirts of Moscow when the Russian winter froze the battle lines where they stood. Theoretically, if not for Mussolini’s inept military blunder, the Germans would have broken through Moscow and beyond before winter set in. The south Russia front with its mission to take the Baku oil fields, would have started and finished sooner as well.
Basil L. Hart, the war genius of the UK argues effectively that this standard version of events analysis (as summarized above) is largely mythical. Hart concludes that the German invaders would in all likelihood have been in roughly the same situation at the end of 1941 with or without the Albanian-Greek diversion. Hart is probably right, but his is not the prevailing historical view, and I am not prepared to adopt it.
The Greeks asked the USA to send 30 top-rate combat planes to help them fight the Nazis. FDR actually agreed to this but the bad guys conquered Greece before the planes could leave the states. This would have been an important political story in the course of the war if the Yankee planes had arrived and battled over the Greek countryside.
YUGO NEXT
Hitler rounded off his conquest of Southeastern Europe with the capture of Yugoslavia.
Prince Paul was the ruler of Yugoslavia. His ministers were summoned to Germany and ordered to join the Axis or else. The Nazis made it clear that they would wipe Yugoslavia off the map if they did not join up with him in a Balkan alliance under duress. The ministers agreed to join the Axis. Hitler was happy (as happy as an insane mass murderer can be.)
Back in Belgrade the news of the Yugo capitulation set off a rebellion. Prince Paul was deposed in a spontaneous coup backed by the people. The agreement with Hitler was declared null and void. There was dancing in the streets of Belgrade as the new revolutionary government, backed by the smiling cheering and singing people told the axis to rotate on it.
During the rising crisis in the Balkans Churchill was pushing Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey to defy Hitler together. He felt that a Balkan entente backed by England would deter Hitler from invading Southeastern Europe. This visionary triple alliance of Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey was probably a good idea; and if Turkey had agreed, perhaps Hitler would have thought twice about invading Yugoslavia. But Turkey stubbornly maintained its neutrality now and throughout the war. Churchill tried to scare the Turks by suggesting that neutrality would lead to Turkey being isolated and conquered in the end. But the Turkish crescent had learned it’s lesson well from the sour experience of World War One which had downgraded it from a glorious empire into a large but not influential state at the crossroads of Eurasia. Another round like that and Turkey would end up only slightly more powerful than Monaco.
The Yugoslavs would have to go it alone and hopefully defy Hitler with songs and attitude.
When Hitler first read of the coup in Yugoslavia he thought it was a joke at first, or so he claimed. He always enjoyed his bloodless European conquests and thought Yugo was in the bag. Once it dawned on him that no one would dare play a practical joke on the Fuhrer, Hitler decided that Yugoslavia not only would have to be invaded, but it must be done in excessively ruthless fashion, even for Nazis.
The reason for this was to shock and awe Turkey. Hitler was as aware as Churchill of the potential power of a Turkish alliance with the Balkan states. He ordered his forces to be extra brutal in Yugoslavia. He would make those Turks think twice about entering the war. He didn’t know that Turkey was not going to enter the war, period.
Meanwhile in Hungary Prime Minister Teleki was in a bad spot. Hitler informed him that German armies were going to have to pass through Hungary on their way to Belgrade. Or else. Hungary was nominally allied with Germany but the alliance had been obtained under threat of destruction and occupation.
Hitler offered Teleki a plum for the favor. Hungary could jump in at the end and take back all the territory that was given to Yugoslavia following World War One. Hungary had been allied with the Central Powers in The Great War and had paid for it at Versailles.
But Teleki was bound as a diplomat by a treaty of peace and friendship with Yugoslavia that had he had only recently signed with his own pen. In addition Churchill warned Teleki personally that if his nation helped the Nazis destroy Yugoslavia then Great Britian would declare war on Hungary. Most important, Teleki was not a Nazi-lover and he even dared to doubt that Germany could win the war in the end.
So if Teleki agrees to Hitler’s demands he commits evil against a neighbor he had signed a treaty with, plus Hungary might lose yet another World War. He might even be tried later by a victorious western alliance as a war criminal. If he defies Hitler’s demands then Hitler invades Hungary and people will blame him for all the deaths. In such a pathetic no-win situation Teleki chose suicide. He shot himself in his office. Suicide is a sin, but God might have forgiven him for this deed in these circumstances.
April 6 1941, 150 Luftwaffe planes bombed and strafed Belgrade for an hour and a half. Thousands of civilians were killed. As for the Yugoslav Air Force, the final score was 64-2 in planes destroyed in favor of Germany. The bombing pattern was simple terror; to concentrate on destroying the center of the city in its entirety.
The bombing of Belgrade without a declaration of war is one of the worst atrocities in the history of warfare. It was Pearl Harbor on civilians.
Three Army groups then crashed in over the borders of Yugoslavia. The Yugos surrendered 11 days later. The rebel music festival was cancelled without a refund. On April 17th the Mayor of Belgrade handed over the keys to the capitol city's defensive fortifications to a Nazi officer.
Hitler was good to his Axis friends. He gave three of them a slice of the Yugo pie. Italy, Hungary and Rumania all took territory from Yugoslavia and called it their own. Yugoslavian independence had lasted 22 years.
NIBLACK FIRES FIRST 4 13 1941
The United States destroyer Niblack was picking up survivors from a torpedoed allied ship on the 11th of April when it thought it identified a hostile U-boat with its ship sonar.
Niblack sought out the enemy and fired depth charges. No torpedo wake had been seen heading for the Niblack. ‘The Nibbler,’ as she was known to the men, had fired the first shot and this represented a sea change in US sea policy.
The Captain of the Niblack returned to Newport Rhode Island and upon examining the battle report decided that he had not actually attacked a German U-boat at all. The sonar had turned up a false target, probably a whale.
But word of the American attack leaked out to the press later. The Washington Post in June ran a story that we had attacked a German U-boat and editorialized vehemently against the deed. Admiral Raeder read about it in Germany and scratched his head. No one had reported to him of an attack by an American destroyer.
RUSSO-JAPANESE NON AGGRESSION PACT 4 13 41
One of the deterrents preventing the outbreak of war in the Pacific was eliminated when Japan and Russia signed a Non-Aggression Pact on April 13, 1941. Now Japan could concentrate on its war with China without having to worry about being attacked in the back by Russia in Manchuria.
The United States was trying to help China survive and took this new pact as an affront to its interests. If need be, Japan could even take on America without having to worry about fighting Russia too. They knew they would be the underdog against the United States and great Britian in the Far East. But to add the Soviet Union would be too many combined enemies to handle.
The pact gave Stalin a lift, also. Now if Germany attacked him, he too would not have to fight a two front war against major powers. Hitler was the big loser in the pact. Japan was announcing that its commitment to the Axis went only so far. Japan would not go to war with Russia in order to help Hitler live his dream of empire to his east.
The Pack swapped puppet recognitions. The USSR agreed to recognize the puppet state of Manchukuo, and the Japanese agreed to recognize a Soviet state in Chinese Mongolia called the Mongolian People’s Republic.
Roosevelt reacted to the Pact by rescinding the order to send three battleships and a carrier to the Atlantic to help with the U-boat war. With this new development, the Pacific Fleet had less metal to spare. The Pact of 4.13 made war more likely in the Pacific.
BELFAST BLITZ 1941 APRIL 15 1941
Ireland was neutral, bit Northern Ireland was British territory and fair game for German attack.
On the afternoon of April 15, a full house as a major league Irish soccer game in Belfast saw a solo German bomber circling overhead while German propaganda radio star Lord Haw Haw joked that Belfast was going to get some Easter eggs soon. They could pick up the broadcast all over the British Isles.
That night more than 200 medium German bombers dropped their loads on Belfast. More than one thousand Irishmen women and children were killed. Only London topped Belfast in the number of civilians killed in air raids.
Other British cities, like Liverpool and Coventry were raided seriously, but none suffered like Belfast. Fires spread out of control and by the end of the next day more than one fifth of the city's homes were uninhabitable. 100,000 Irish were homeless.
The Belfast Blitz of April 14, 1941 turned many Irish-Americans a bit more interventionist.
THE WAR IN IRAQ 1941
Iraq was very much pro-Nazi during the early months of Axis triumphs. On the surface the country was under British influence while nominally independent. Iraq became officially independent in 1932. Britian that year had “pulled out” of Iraq, relinquishing its mandate, But the UK (as the US may do soon) withdrew while leaving a large foot in the doorstop in case a government unfriendly took over. The British shadow of imperialism in practice under a cloak of independence in theory naturally produced a simmering resentment at all levels of Iraqi government and society. This, combined with a sadly open minded attitude towards racial superiority theories in Moslem culture, led to open Iraqi co-operation with Hitler.
A coup was staged in early 1941 and a pro-Nazi man by the name of Ali took over the country.
ROBYN MOOR
On May 21 1941 the German Navy attacked and sank an American ship for the first time in the quasi-war. The Robyn Moor (a dispatch from London misspelled it as ‘Robyn’ and I’m using it) went down in the Atlantic after being destroyed by U-69.
The 5,000 ton Robyn was on it’s way to South Africa from New York and was halted halfway between Brazil and Africa where the plates seem to form matching puzzle pieces. Captain Roger Metzger allowed the passengers and crew, less than 46 people altogether, 20 minutes to scramble into four rowboats where they were set adrift in the Atlantic while Metzger sank the Moor with the five inch surface gun.
BARBAROSSA;
Short version;
The German Army invaded Russia on the broadest battlefront in world history. It was a new record. But records are made to be broken. The new record for widest battlefront was reached when the German Army drove deeper into Russian territory. The scale is overwhelming.
Many times in war, powerful nations cannot employ all of their divisions in battle because of logistics. If the battle is locked in on an island or a mountain pass, how many divisions can a state bring to the table?
With Operation Barbarossa, two superpower countries locked in a full scale war on the most mobile, fluid, accessible and massive playing board in the history of the planet. It was the “perfect storm” of war. It has not been surpassed in greatness, and let's pray it never is. It was the super-fight in the history of the world. It was millions battling millions, literally, and on a front that in North American terms stretched from southern Canada to northern Mexico.
The invasion of Russia was very successful for the first few months. The world held its breath as the German Army chewed up Russian territory as fast as their forces could march.
By the end of the war, the move would prove to be a complete failure. The Russian winter would destroy the operation and set the stage for a fabulous Russian counterattack, a counterattack that would only end with German solders setting King Addie's corpse on fire as the Russian troops closed in on his crib.
BARBAROSSA – THE ARMIES AND THE PLAN
Didn't this Hitler guy learn anything from Napoleon?
Adolph had made so many winning strokes of military daring for so long that he believed in his own publicity, the biggest mistake. He had proven his generals wrong in the past. The working class dictator loved to taunt about how wrong the Junker military snobs had been when he took the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Then he ignored their advise and conquered Poland and then western continental Europe. They had advised him against all of this, and look at the results. On victory after another. He would prove them wrong again. The guy must have actually believe that attacking Russia was a good idea. It was insane really, when you look at it. Russia alone, or England alone was bad enough, but to force these two into an alliance, the the United States clearly lining itself up with the British side? Pretty crazy.
The decision to attack Russia may well have been an early indication of a physical deterioration in Hitler's brain. I've read few weird things about how he was going insane and may have had a venereal disease. Didn't King George go mad and mess with history from that? Did Hitler invade Russia in 1941 because of a 1921 night with a Hamburg hooker?
The other school of thought is that Hitler knew that the UK and the USSR were heading for a military alliance against him sooner or later. Even while at war with England he felt that his only chance to prevent this was to attack the USSR. Germany would put Russia in the war and take her out of it in the same lightning attack, before England knew what had happened. Russia would be conquered in ten weeks, and British dreams of a Russian alliance with US support would be squelched. The old Allies of WWI would not have a chance to do it again in WWII.
Maybe Hitler was underestimating Russian military capabilities? Hitler was not impressed with the Soviet War machine. The idiot didn't realize that this was only because there had never been one. His attack built that monster for him to then re-evaluate later. Germany was mobilized for war and had been for some time, while Stalin was asleep at the wheel and his country was forcibly mobilized for industry.
Hitler put too much stock in the relatively unimpressive performance of Soviet forces in the war with Finland in 1939-40. 'Crazy Addie' also had a leftover military prejudice from World War One. All of the easy and most of the great German victories were won in the east against the Russian, or their allies.
The race prejudice against the east was common in German military men. Hitler didn't create his political environment, he sprang from it. He and many others saw the eastern plains as a great soft field to plow for a thousand miles and thousand years with Nordic genes and factories.
The Fuhrer knew that one German soldier could take ten Russians, so his infantile racism helped us to win the war. Hitler thought the slav to be an inferior warrior so he invaded against the advice all of his foremen. Instead the Russians knocked Germany up side of the head.
Some writers suggest that Hitler wasn't that naïve about Russian ability, but simply thought he could conquer the entire country in a lightning war before that ability could be mobilized and deployed.
Many of Hitler's advisors thought that the attack (if it had to be carried out at all) should be anchored on a single main thrust towards Moscow which could run ahead of the broad front in search of victory. But in the end the invasion was conducted on an evenly paced front the length of eastern Europe in a North-South direction.
This meant that no Russian armies could be cut off and surrounded by advance German armies behind the Russian perimeter. The evenly advancing mass front had some advantages logistically, and insured many victories, but all of the wins would be tactical. The strategic breakout victory was rendered hopeless by the lack of risk on the safe broad front.
After much debate, the Generals on the eve of war had decided on a four pronged invasion with the two center groups on either side of the Pripet marshes to have the lions share of firepower. The northern and southern flank drives would have less priority.
But Hitler overruled his generals. He demanded that the northern flank be given equal if not top priority. Hitler wanted to take Leningrad in a bad way, and ordered that the two strongest center groups should not even begin to link up until Leningrad and the northern flank on the Baltic was secured. This was a major mistake by the dumkoff.
Leningrad never fell, and was far less valuable in the first place than Moscow or the oil of the Caucasus. The Nazis spent a great deal of strength in a failed attempt to take Leningrad when all that energy was needed to take the center. And the center controls the game. Thanks, Hitler. Whenever things look bleak we can always count on your stupid ego.
Hitler underestimated Russian strength also because he overestimated the damages done to the Red Army by the Stalin purge of the military in the late 1930's. More than half of the officer corps had been murdered by Stalin, seldom with sane reasons. Most of the Red Army leadership was six feet under by the end of 1938, but a recovery process had begun since Hitler had started WWII in Poland. Red Army leadership wasn't back to normal in June 1941 but it had come along way since the summer of 38 when even the great Timoshenko, the hero of the Polish campaign of 1920 had been shot in the head on Stalin's orders.
In the months between the dismemberment of Poland and the start of Barbarossa, Stalin perhaps should have mobilized the USSR for the impending war. He definitely did not, not overtly anyway. Stalin in fact, tried to be a very supportive ally of Hitler by the agreed terms of the pact of 39 between devils.
In order to prepare for Barbarossa, Hitler had to transfer several large armies from western to eastern Europe without alarming the USSR to the danger of an impending attack. This was done in slick gradual steps. However by May of 1941 it was pretty obvious what was going on.
Yet Stalin didn't panic and switch over to defcon two. He was either naïve or playing a shrewd game. Stalin may have known that he was going to be attacked at some time by Germany. But he may have also felt that if he beefed up the border with forts and increased armored formations, it would trigger the invasion he was hoping to avoid. He would rather have a little more time than a little more muscle on the frontier. By not reacting to the German transfer of a hundred divisions from France to Poland, Stalin hoped to buy a couple more months to build up the reserves for the big one.
Or he was just stupid.
If Stalin could maintain the alliance he could postpone war. So Joe delivered supplies and food to Germany on time right up to the time of the invasion. Stalin did not prepare anything but a warm butter line of defense against the Wermacht.
The 1939 pact with the devil geographically did much harm to Russian defensive posture against Germany. For two decades, Russia had built up a reasonably good defensive line along its political borders left over from World War I. It was no 3,000 mile Maginot Line, but the “Smirnoff Line” (as it was nicknamed by Churchill) wasn't bad.
Then came the deal with Satan. Russia occupied eastern Poland, and part of Romania as a reward for its services in enabling Hitler's plans. Now Russia's new line of fortified defense had been moved past its structurally built up line. All that work between the wars was negated by the advanced line.
Russia's advanced defense line was virtually indefensible. The shrewd move in the case of attack by Germany would be to concede the new advanced line and fall back to the Smirnoff line, which in the meantime should have been even further reinforced for just such an event.
But Stalin chose to let the old line fall into disrepair and rust while the new indefensible perimeter was enforced, and gave the troops there orders to not retreat if attacked. This was an open invitation to the encirclement and destruction of the best Russian rifle divisions as soon as any crack German panzer units broke through. The new line would be lost, and the old line wouldn't be of much value to fall back on.
If Hitler was occasionally a military genius and sometimes a fool, it is hard to say the same for Stalin. He was never a military genius. And he almost certainly didn't expect a full scale invasion in June of 1941.
Sure, it was obvious foolishness for Hitler to do invade Russia. If you can't beat England, heck, why not try to conquer Russia too? You lose a fight to a stocky tough little guy, then pick a fight with his much bigger brother. Of course it was insane. But Stalin was counting on Hitler's sanity. Big mistake. Stalin was just as naïve in thinking Hitler wouldn't attack Russia, as Hitler was for attacking Russia. Barbarossa was an insanity festival on both sides.
The front ran from the Baltic to the Black Sea and comprised millions of men and tanks. The scope of the combat at all times is so overwhelming as to discourage any scholar from engaging any thing but a cursory look at it all. It was 100 divisions per side locked in wall to wall combat from June of 41 to May of 45. This was why Sergeant Schultz of the situation comedy Hogan’s Heroes was so terrified of being sent to ‘The Russian Front.’ Any time his commandant Klink wanted to scare Schultz into doing something he'd say “If you don't ... the Russian Front!.” The laugh track would roll and Schultz would clean the latrine or whatever. To a German soldier, the Russian front was almost certain death.
Initially the German Army and Luftwaffe had their way. They raced across the Russian steppes plains and forests at speeds that astonished the military experts all over the worlds.
The Barbarossa Nazis were not alone. The coalition against peace included 3 Italian divisions fresh from the Albanian war. The Axis cause was helped by Russia's traditional enmity with most of its neighbors. The 200 German divisions were augmented by Germany's “allies” Rumania and Finland. Rumania had been intimidated into joining the Axis and had been skirmishing with Russia for centuries. It wasn't all that hard to get Rumania to contribute no less than 18 divisions to Operation Barbarossa. Most of the Rumanian divisions were deployed in the Southern front. The Finns were happy to help Germany and avenge the Winter War of 1939-1940. On July 10, 1941 the Finns sent 16 divisions crashing into Mother Russia on behalf of the Fuhrer. Slovakia, Croatia, and Hungary also contributed to the Nazi invasion, although only at brigade strength.
The Germans were shocked when many of the western Russians welcomed them as liberators! A great opportunity presented itself to co-opt a significant part of the enemy resources. But the Nazis mistreated everyone in the occupied territories so thoroughly that they lost this opportunity to administer their conquered territories with local in-place help. What the Russians had planned and hoped for in the Winter War but did not get, the Germans were handed on a platter and turned their fascist noses up at it. They were too busy being rude to try being shrewd.
Barbarossa was a mistake in another very important way for the nazi goals of victory and world empire. The invasion of Russia put a stop to the Aryan drive to dominate the Mediterranean. Half of the entire German army was sent crashing into Russia in a single day. All the other German fronts would suffer accordingly. With most of the German Army in Russia, the goal in the Near East became survival instead of conquest.
What if Hitler had taken all of the energy he expended in Russia and put it into the Mediterranean instead? He was already there in force after taking Greece and Crete, and Rommell was still fighting well in North Africa. Cyprus was within easy reach, and from there it would not have been a stretch to visualize a pincer movement on the Suez Canal. Rommell would close in from the west while the divisions fresh from the fight for Greece and Crete would land and move from the Sinai. The Mediterranean would belong to Germany and Italy (Malta would have to surrender soon enough) and the road to the oil of the Persian Gulf would be wide open. Stalin would have stood by and puffed his pipe while Hitler did all of this. But instead Hitler attacked Russia and woke up 392 Russian Army divisions for battle.
COMMUNIST SPY IN THE NAZI CAMP – SORGE
One of the most famous spies in all of history was a German by the name of Richard Sorge. He helped Russia win the battle of Barbarossa.
Sorge was a German reporter stationed in Moscow. His bias on the outside was blackshirted Nazi, but underneath he was a true believer in Marx and Communism. He was the W.E.B. Debois of the War, black on the outside, but red on the inside.
Sorge was able to get in close with his Far Eastern allies at the Japanese embassy. He learned that the Japanese were planing on a massive invasion in south asia and the south pacific. He therefore knew that the Russian flank in the east was secure and that the numerous divisions of Russians stationed in the Far East could be transferred to the west. He passed this information on to the Russians in disobedience of duty to the Third Reich. Sorge also knew about the German plans to attack Russia in June and passed this along to the Kremlin.
As a result of sordid Sorge's work, Stalin transferred many divisions from Siberia to the Russian front. These were good divisions that were easily capable of handling Russian winters. To them it was a normal lifestyle.
These troops were sent from east to west in gradual steps. Even after Barbarossa was well under way, they were still arriving regularly.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Siberian front was rendered moot and the Soviet Union was able to send the remaining core Siberian divisions to the eastern front to the west. German troops were consistently depressed by the sight of fresh Russian brigades dressed for a trip to the Vail ski lodge, while they would sell their families to the devil for a single warm shoe with no match.
US REACTION TO BARBAROSSA
It's natural to imagine that reaction to Barbarossa in the United States was overwhelmingly supportive of Russia.
But reaction to 6.22.41 in the United States was only slightly sympathetic to the USSR at best. Since the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939, affection for the Soviets was hardly hip, even amongst the US left. That pact alone made America anti-Russian. Then the Soviet Union helped Hitler swallow Poland. Then the Russians invaded Finland for no half-valid reason.
Then Russia’s’ benevolent neutrality’ towards Germany enabled Hitler to conquer France, and attack Britian.
All of these gestures would have made the United States angry with Russia regardless of their internal political system. The fact they were already the hated Communists to begin with multiplied the reaction to their dirty deeds in tandem with the Nazis.
The anger towards Russia was mitigated by Barbarossa, but we did not flip yet and embrace the USSR. It was not until Pearl Harbor six months later that we suddenly re-invented our relationship and perception of the USSR. America was not weeping rivers for Russia in those interim six months between Barbarossa and alliance.
Shortly after the Russo-German war began, a reporter asked Senator Harry S Truman of Missouri what he felt about it. He said we should help Russia only if Germany is clearly winning the war and that if Russia starts to win the war we then should help Germany!
Harry would change his tune later, of course. He later saw the Russians as our wonderful friends. In thinking this he was abiding the war propaganda ad campaign whose purpose was to help get the most out of the alliance. The ‘Pal Joey’ campaign worked well, probably a little too well. How Harry and the nation came to buy it’s own publicity about the Soviets is a major part of story of the post-war years.
BARBAROSA IN THE SUMMER
The success of the invasion of Russia in the opening weeks surprised even the most optimistic German generals, surprised even Hitler. By July 15 the front had advanced over 500 miles. Even the drives on the northern and southern flanks, whose forces were given the lambs share of firepower were marching forward at an amazing rate. The southern German arrow included poorly equipped Hungarian units with no reason to fight hard, and even they marched at a fantastic speed into the southern Ukraine.
The Germans, as well as the observers all over the world thought that Russia was doomed. In the United States, it was generally believed in the summer of 41 that the fall of Russia was only a matter of time. The number of Russian prisoners taken was exceeding anything in the history of warfare and the destruction of Russian planes, guns and infantry divisions was doing the same.
Nevertheless, there were hints that the fight wasn't going to be the piece of chocolate French cake that it had been in the west. The Russians were giving their own land and resources the General Sherman treatment before the Germans arrived. The “scorched earth” policy wouldn't take its toll on the Germans right away. They were still close enough to their supply lines of central Europe. But as the germans extended themselves into Holy Russia, the collective effect of the self sabotage took effect.
Also, when the Germans surrounded pockets of Russian troops and tried to seal off their escape routes, they found to their surprise, that in some cases, the Red Army was trying to force more troops into the traps, not out! This was not the passive Danish army.
Stalin of course did not have the character to accept any of the blame for the spectacular advance of the German army into Mother Russia. He blamed the very generals who had tried to warn him of the danger fo Russian defenses. general Pavlov was shot in early July as well as his chief of staff. Pavlov's dog was spared, but was sent to Siberia.
BARBAROSSA IN THE FALL 1941
The German momentum began to slow down in Russia by the middle of August. Several factors were working against the master race. Even if German brigades were universally better equipped and trained than Russian, there was the frustration of being unable to stop the tide of sheer numbers.
A superior German division could wipe out an entire Russian one and only lose a fifth of its strength in the battle, but the Russian division would be replaced by two new ones and the German division would not even get its losses replenished. By this pattern, what good was superiority in tanks and planes?
And the Russian troops fought hard. Not only were they brave, they also didn't want to get shot in the back by a political commissar. Retreat for Ivan meant certain death. Courage and tenacity were the best hope for survival.
As the German army advanced into Russia, its lines of communication and supply got longer and longer. As the Russian army retreated, its lines of communication and supply became shorter and shorter.
The more the Germans took territory, the more troops had to be left behind for administrative, garrison and counter-insurgency duties. The handling of one million Russian prisoners of war was a serious task to further tax Barbarossa resources.
Even in defeat, there are some strategic advantages.
By August, Hitler's Generals were unanimously recommending that the main attack should be aimed at Moscow. But Hitler disagreed. He still insisted that the northern Baltic flank must be secured first, and only then should the Wermacht crash the walls of the Kremlin.
In the middle of September Hitler changed his mind and actually admitted that the Generals were right. He allowed them to switch the plan their way, but by then it was too late. The time and energy that had been extended on the flanks had cost too much in the center. The air was getting pretty chilly at night and the attack had sputtered out and was now only advancing at a very slow pace. Moscow was so near yet so far away. Leningrad was hanging on just barely.
The fall rains stuck German mechanized units in the mud. Russia just happened to have very few paved roads. Heh heh.
Then the Russian winter moved in and that changed everything. Talk about your home field advantage. The German soldier was underdressed for the cold weather. The Russians embraced the winter as they had done all their lives. They were not underdressed for winter.
Thousands of master race troops froze to death. Everyone short of a handful of generals suffered. Morale was frozen out as millions of troops now hated life in the Army.
QUASI-WAR IN THE ATLANTIC 1941
GREENLAND
When Germany conquered Denmark in the evil spring of 1940 the giant island of Greenland became a strategic threat to the United States and Britain. Greenland was a Danish possession and German naval activity was increasing there over the months following the occupation of Denmark
Early in 1941 the Danish minister in Washington gave the ok for American-British occupation of Greenland. The Nazi’s declared his approval invalid but this was ignored and Greenland was occupied by the forces of good during the second week in April 1941.
ICELAND
Hitler turned his spurned Atlantic eyes to Iceland as a strategic island naval base from which to attack allied shipping to and from Great Britain. Unlike Greenland, Iceland was an independent state and had to be respected … to a point. Both Churchill and Roosevelt agreed that we had to seize the island ourselves before Germany could get its chance to. A Marine brigade was sent to South Carolina and prepared to embark on what they thought was a mission to take Martinique before the Germans did. To their surprise they were sent to Iceland on a near identical mission. As the mission steamed towards Iceland, political negotiations were under way for permission to launch it. The leader of Iceland, Herman Jonasson was not eager to give up his independence to an occupying force, no matter which side of right and wrong that outside force was on.
It came down to the wire. The premiere of Iceland ‘invited’ the US and the UK to come in and protect his country just as the ships were preparing to send the marines ashore. They were probably coming shore either way so the Icelander known among his people as ‘The Amazing Jonasson’ made the wise call.
The Americans stationed at Iceland were very surprised at how unwelcome they were among the civilians there. There was actually a substantial amount of Icy sympathy for the Nazi cause. Nazi Germany had been trying to cultivate political friendship with the Icelanders on the basis of racial flattery. The Icelanders were told they were as pure a branch of the superior Nordic race as could be found anywhere, and had awarded scholarships at German schools for select Icelandic students. This attitude melted away as the war progressed and the world could see what scum the Nazis really were, but some of this racial poison was still left over.
The seizure of Iceland changed the Atlantic strategy for the UK-US undeclared coalition. Now the convoys from Halifax N.S. did not have to travel non-stop to the British Isles. They could go as far as Iceland and turn back knowing that fresh ships from Britain could take the back leg of the journey from Iceland back to the home island. It shortened the convoy route on both ends, and with Russia entering the war (accidentally on our side) it proved an invaluable staging ground for convoys to Russia by way of the northern passage around Scandinavia.
MORE NAVAL INCIDENTS 1941
On September 4, 1941 the Destroyer USS Greer was shadowed by a German U-Boat in the Atlantic. Greer was positioning itself to attack the sub with depth charges but withheld its fire. A sister British ship asked it if it was ever going to get around to attacking the U-boat to which Greer replied in the negative, to the consternation of the Brit. Just then the U-boat sent a torpedo at the Greer which the destroyer dodged successfully. Now the Greer definitively attacked to kill, its depth charges sending the U-boat away. Thus began the shooting war between the United States and Germany that would last until May of 1945.
For the next three full months the American and German Navies were at open war with each other in the Atlantic Ocean.
The undeclared naval war in the Atlantic got even hotter on October 17, 1941 an American destroyer, the Kearney was torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland. 11 US sailors were iced.
The two nations were at peace on the surface but beneath it, the U-boats were trying to sink our ships and those of our friends.
On October 31, 1941 a Nazi submarine attacked the USS Destroyer Reuben James at a location about 600 miles to the west of Ireland. A torpedo tore into her portside blowing off the bow. The ship sank in five minutes, its depth charges exploding as it went down, thus ensuring that there were few survivors. Only 45 of the 160 man crew were rescued by nearby ships. None of the officers made it. This was the first time a US ship had been sunk in the European war, though technically not declared yet.
The Reuben James was an international news sensation, further girding the American population for participation in this war. The indignation over the RJ was helpful later after Pearl Harbor when Roosevelt wanted US participation in the German fight. A poll of November 1941 showed the country 63-26% against a declaration of war against Germany, but the momentum was building both towards war and popular support for it. On the morning after the Pearl Harbor attack Germany had not yet declared war on the United States but a poll showed 90% of Americans favoring a declaration of war by the United States against Germany. The naval war with Germany was real and the American people, while heading towards war, were not being dragged into a European war they did not understand or support.
Much has been written of a conspiracy by Roosevelt to lead Germany to declare war on America in the hours after the Pearl Harbor attack. It is speculated that if Germany had not declared war on the United States, Roosevelt would have had a tough time persuading Congress to include a declaration of war against Germany as a tag-on to its declaration of war against Japan. After all, Germany had not attacked us, Japan had.
The American people may well have been shocked to find themselves at war with the Nazis on December 8, 1941, but to the United States Navy in the Atlantic, the difference between relations with Germany after war was declared was not much different than life before it was declared.
AIR WAR EUROPE 1941
The British had won the Battle of Britian in an overall sense by the end of 1940, but the German raids on English cities did not end, and indeed continued, especially at night, throughout 1941. The bombardments were not as frequent or as severe as they had been in the fall of 1940 but that was no consolation for those who died or suffered in 1941.
The RAF tried its best to retaliate in kind against German cities, but German scientific air warfare was ahead of British. RAF bombers were bigger than the German bombers, but the Luftwaffe was advanced in guiding its craft to the targets and in delivering their bombs accurately. RAF bombing raids in 1941 were so far off the mark that it is safe to say that they did no significant damage at all to German industry and very little at all to German morale. The scientific air campaign would gradually turn in the British favor as the war years passed, but for 1941, it was a lot of blood sweat and tears for no gain. The RAF was so clearly failing in the strategic bombing efforts that there was a strong movement in the UK brass to abandon it completely and relegate the bombers to submarine chasing and ground support in North Africa. Churchill had to intervene personally to stop the denigrating transfer of bomber ops to these support theatres. The strategic air campaign would continue. The concept was good, the execution of it needed work, that's all, argued Churchill, and he got his way.
CANADA, THE VOLUNTEER STATE
England 1940-41 undeniably “stood alone, with resources so slender that one shudders to enumerate them even now.”
But some Americans were not so passive. Hundreds of Americans enlisted to fight in the RAF before Pearl Harbor. They crossed the border to Canada and were sent off to enlistment sites. In at least one case the Yank simply drove north, asked the border guards where the nearest enlistment center was, and was so directed. These volunteers trained in the endless skies over Canada. When the US entered the war most trainees elected to honor their commitment. They could have requested transfer back to the US armed forces, but chose to finish their training and fight in the war as pilots, gunners, navigators, and bombardiers in the RAF.
Canada of course was a part of the British empire and contributed a substantial part of the Allied fighting forces in WWII. This is all the more impressive because these were all volunteers. There was never a draft in Canada in WWII. yet a Canadian volunteer divisions fought in Sicily, and in other hot spots from the beginning to the end of the true ‘Great War.’ A corps of Canadians contributed mightily to the final drive across Europe in 1944-45. Canadian casualties were proportionately high for their numbers in the fight. Pretty admirable, eh?
Close co-operation between Canada and the US throughout 1940 and 1941 could have been cause for war if Hitler had chosen war. Canada was formally at war with Germany and the United States and Canada were conducting naval maneuvers, assisting in establishing and maintaining bases, convoying military supply flotillas, and co-operating in war zones in shooting situations. It would have been keeping in the natural order of international relations if Germany had declared war on the United States on the singular issue of these US-Canadian coordinated defense operations. But Hitler did not war with America, partly from fear, partly from wisdom, and partly because he never really hated America. He hated Jews, Communists, and East Europeans in general. He had never been to America, and America wasn’t Communist.
MORE US-JAPANESE RELATIONS 1941
Prince Konoye, the Japanese Premier, approached US Ambassador Grew in September with a proposal. He wanted a summit meeting in the Pacific between himself and President Roosevelt. Konoye felt that Japan might be willing to withdraw from Indochina and southern China in exchange for a new relationship of economic co-operation between the two superpowers.
The Prince also knew that the Tripartite pact (the Axis) was a grave concern in the United States and that withdrawal by Japan from that pact was not unthinkable for Japan. The Axis was negotiable. If the Konoye-Roosevelt summit meeting failed to produce a peaceful settlement and war resulted, then Konoye and Hirohito could blame the United States for the breakout of war. The failed meeting would show the world that Japan had sincerely desired peace.
Ambassador Grew loved the idea of a summit meeting (although that term was not yet in vogue) and passed it on to Washington. FDR liked the idea too, but Cordell Hull was skeptical. He outlined several preconditions to a such a meeting, putting a damper on things. Japan was now going to have to agree to several principles of behavior before Franklin could go met him. Japan wold have to back down on all points in order to begin negotiations to hopefully get them to back down on only some points. It made no sense. This is similar to the Soviet Union in the 1980’s when they wanted multiple concessions from the US before they would agree to meet for disarmament talks. Reagan rejected that idea as surely as Hirohito rejected the conditions that Hull demanded.
The FDR-PK Summit never happened. For the rest of his life, long after the war was over, Grew believed that if this summit meeting had been arranged, the war might well have been averted in the Pacific.
All hope was lost on October 16, 1941 when Konoye and his cabinet were forced to resign. Konoye lived through the war and then killed himself.
While these negotiations were going on for the summit that never was, Japan was actively preparing for war. On September 6, an Imperial conference resolved to make war on the US the UK and the Netherlands if the summit idea fell through.
Hedeki Tojo, the man who took the fall for Hirohito in 1945, the head of the Army, didn’t want war with the US. It’s not that the Imperial Army wanted peace, they were just pining for war with Russia instead.
The Imperial Navy wanted to strike south but thought war with America unwise. Tojo asked the Navy to lead the way in asking Japan to reconsider the plan for war with America. The Army would back the navy up in calling off the war.
But the Imperial navy didn’t want to look yellow. Leaders in Japanese government who failed to do the macho thing were usually assassinated. Everyone in high office was bound up in the macho trap. Few thought war wise, but no one had the guts to play the fag.
It was hard for Tojo to find anyone to take over the premiership in Konoye’s wake. The job was like the new sheriff in a bad western movie. The townsfolk are makin’ bets on how long this poor fool will live. Any new Japanese Premier had either a bad war or a humiliating diplomatic retreat to look forward to. Tojo finally took the job himself by default on October 18 1941. Hediki Tojo, not the emperor would be the arch villain of the war in America’s eyes. Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, were the evil three stooges, not Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. In truth, Hirohito should have played Curly, not Tojo. Hirohito was about as innocent as Juan Corona (you’ll have to look him up.)
The USA was reading Japans mail during all this. The cryptology dept. had completely busted the Japanese secret codes so that all of their diplomatic correspondence was known to us. The US knew that Japan was sincerely hoping to avoid war but the conditions for peace were not promising. Japan had two plans, A and B they were going to offer. If we rejected plan A they would offer plan B. If the US rejected plan B then on November 29 at the latest, “things are automatically going to happen.”
The meaning of the intercepted intelligence was plain. Japan was going to start the wheels in motion for war on the 29th of November. The USA knew that Japan was going to start a war and we knew when. But we didn't know where. We were blind to the idea that they were going to attack Pearl Harbor. US intelligence was confident that the Japanese would open the war by attacking Malaya, the Dutch East, Thailand and perhaps the Philippines. Pearl Harbor was not even on our radar. It was certainly on theirs.
So as we knew they would, the Japanese offered Plan B after we rejected the big A. According to Plan B the Japanese would agree to withdraw from Southern Indochina, but not the North, neither nation would deploy troops or ships to south Asia outside of Indochina, both countries would assist each other in acquiring Dutch East Indies oil, the USA would resume trading oil and metal to Japan, and last but most vague, the US agreed “not to resort to measures prejudicial to the endeavors for the restoration of general peace between Japan and China.”
The last one was delicate. Japan was in the middle of a full scale invasion of China and was asking the USA to stay completely out of it in the name of establishing peace. US neutrality was not exactly staying out of it. US neutrality meant giving Japan a free hand to play thug bully in China.
As for the Axis alliance, envoy Kurusu assured Roosevelt on November 17 1941 that Japan would not become a toy soldier for Hitler, doing whatever the Nazis asked them to. But Japan could not in good conscience abandon the Tripartite Pact, even if relations with the United States were repaired.
Japan however did promise that if the war in the Atlantic heated up, the Japanese would not take advantage of the situation and stab Uncle Sam from behind. Japan would not attack the United States if and when it went to war with Germany. Ultimately the opposite thing happened. Japan attacked America in the front and Hitler did the back-stabling from the Atlantic side. three days after Pearl Harbor.
Hull proposed a counter proposal (call it Plan H for Hull.) In Plan H our support for China was reasserted, and Japan was asked to evacuate southern Nam and limi its army in northern Nam to 25,000 troops. US sale of oil to Japan would be limited to oil destined for non-military purposes.
The China pledge in Plan H was so vague that even China wasn’t reassured when we informed Chiang of the wording. America's other allies were not exactly on board with plan H either. They feared that any compromise at all with Japan would lead to accusations of 'the a word.'appeasement.
Appeasement was a dangerous epithet these days. It was hip and easy to accuse anyone but a right wing interventionist hawk of being guilty of 'appeasement. Because of Chamberlain’s failure at Munich, the mere fear of being called an appeaser was enough to stifle productive diplomacy. The word is still used unfairly today and we’re not over it.
In place of plans A, B, and H, the US on November 26 proposed plan U. By these new terms, Japan not only had to withdraw from Southern Indochina, it had to withdraw from Northern Indochina as well. Not only that, it had to withdraw from all of China, and the Tripartite Pact too. While Hull was at it he should have required that Hirohito must make a pilgrimage to Washington and present a solid gold plaque to FDR that reads ‘We are the chumps and you guys are the champs.’ There was exactly the same chance of that happening as of Japan accepting the Hull ‘proposal’ of November 26.
From our intercepts of Japanese telegraphy Hull had to know that his stern proposal was setting the table for war. Things were just going to automatically happen now.
RAINBOW FIVE 12/4/1941
On December 4, 1941 two major US newspapers published a spectacular story about secret US war plans against Germany. ‘Operation Rainbow Five’, was a plan for the US to convert its economy to war and invade Germany in 1943. We weren't even at war with Germany and we were making our invasion plans.
According to Five, in the event of a two-front war with both Germany and Japan, the Asian theatre would be limited to a defensive holding action while the European conflict received the bulk of the forces.
Several top Pentagon officials were accused of being the source of the leak, including the a famous general named Wedemeyer.
The leak of Rainbow Five was especially dangerous on the Asian front. Knowing that the main effort would always be against Germany made them all the more confident and bold. This R-5 leak encouraged the Japanese to proceed with their planned offensive against South Asia and Hawaii. Hirohito would not have to worry about facing the industrial might of the USA until 1943.
Hitler and his Germany could justifiably feel threatened by the aggressive US as revealed in the leaky memo. Why was the US planning an invasion of Germany if the two nations were at peace?
Hitler was reading his paper over coffee, checking out the soccer scores (as he always did) and spit out his coffee when he read the piece about Rainbow Five. Nobody does that to Adolph, … nobody. The leak of Rainbow Five was one of the more important events that was leading to his unilateral decision to declare war on the United States on December 11, 1941.
According to historian Thomas Fleming, it was FDR himself who leaked Operation Rainbow Five to the newspapers! He wanted to trick Hitler into declaring war against the United States, and it worked. FDR expected Japan to launch a massive attack in the Far East any day now, and expected the US to declare war on Japan shortly thereafter. Roosevelt was fairly sure he could get the vote on war with Japan, but he was not so sure he could persuade Congress to declare war on Germany. Learning in a common newspaper about Rainbow Five was an affront to Hitler's pride and put him on a hair trigger to declare war on the United States.
STRATEGIC AIR POWER – STRATEGIC MISCALCULATION
Secretary of War Stimson pleaded with the administration to do everything it could to avoid war for a little while longer. Henry L. believed that if he could buy three more months, the US could deploy a force of the new B-17 bombers to the Philippines large enough to deter any attack by Japan on American bases.
The B-17 was supposed to be a strategic bomber, the first one ever. But it simply wasn't. Even if the 17’s had been sent to the far east, they would not have been a decisive force without adequate fighter protection, and with the superior Zeroes flying about, there was no chance of that. The designers of the B-17 thought it had so much machine gun firepower that it would not need fighter escort, but that turned out to be false. In addition, the B-17 was still new and still had a lot of bugs to work out.
As the European bomber war would prove, the B-17 would never reach the goals of accuracy that strategic planners hoped for. By the end of the war the Allies had thrown out the surgical strike plans and resorted to saturation terror bombing, But because in 1941 it was the new state of the art bomber plane in the world, there was understandably a little too much hope for the B-17. The only strategic impact the B-17 had was the strategic impact from falsely planning around its strategic quality.
FDR LURED AMERICA INTO WAR
There is a whole section of the Library of Congress filled with books “proving” that FDR deliberately lured the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. These writers are absolutely positive that Roosevelt knew that The Japanese were planning to attack Pearl Harbor and he did nothing. This was the only was he could rouse the nation to go to war against Japan. These books came out right after the war, and new versions of the same theory are published every decade.
The most important proof is the oft quoted statement from Roosevelt on November 25 to Hank Stimson that he was expecting a surprise attack from the Japanese, but the question now was, “how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot.” This proves that FD callously let 2,500 men die in horror at Pearl Harbor in a Machiavellian scheme to achieve the greater good.
Conveniently the quote is shortened for dramatic impact, but the full quote is “how we should maneuver them into firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”
So what was Roosevelt talking about? Did he mean a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?
By the end of November there were reports of fantastic sized Japanese Naval expeditions steaming due south towards the Dutch East Indies and Malaysia. This is where FDR and everyone else expected the attack to begin. That's what the Japanese wanted everyone to think. The South Asia task forces were real and powerful, but essentially they were a smokescreen for the big blow at the Pacific fleet asleep at the wheel at Pearl Harbor.
American intelligence experts had long scoffed at the idea that Japan could strike the Pacific Fleet at Oahu from the west without being easily detected along the way. There had been warnings of course. War games in 1932 had the United States navy sneaking up on Pearl in a surprise air raid from carriers and dropping cardboard bombs on the battleships, but that was more or less all in fun and theory.
The danger seemed especially distant since the might of the Japanese Navy was right now accounted for. The RJN with a flotilla of troop transports was on the way south to start World War II in Asia. It seemed no longer relevant whether Japan in theory could attack Pearl Harbor. It seemed an impossibility. They certainly didn't have six spare fleet carriers to sneak up on Pearl and knock out the Pacific Fleet at the same time they were invading South Asia.
But they did. And Roosevelt certainly didn't know this.
The American top brass agreed with Roosevelt that if Japan attacked South Asia, then the United States would have to intervene, and this would probably lead to declared war. In this context, Roosevelt told Stimson that he needed to maneuver Japan to fire the first shot. It would be tricky. Japan would be attacking British and Dutch targets, we were going to intervene, and somehow we had to make it look like they had fired the first shot. This was not going to be easily done. Stimson suggested that the United States launch air strikes against the Japanese invasion fleet as at steamed passed the coast of Vietnam. But this would ruin the plan to get them to fire the first shot. basically we didn't know what the hell to do. We only knew that war was imminent, the Dutch East Indies were about to be attacked for their oil, America was going to intervene, and somehow we had to look like the victims of an attack that was not actually directed against us. And the next day Roosevelt was going to ask Congress for war against Japan, and he was thinking of asking for it against Germany too.
Imagine if the US Navy had attacked the Japanese Navy as it headed towards Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies, sank 12 transports and three cruisers, and then asked for a declaration of war against Japan. That might have been a “tough sell.” This was Roosevelt's dilemma.
He might have been thinking of Stimson's precious B-17's in the Philippines. Maybe he was willing to let them sit on the airfields of Luzon, take the first blows from the air, and then regroup and fight back. The Philippines did not have the naval power of Hawaii, but they did have the overrated B-17's. Japan didn't know they were so overrated anymore than the Americans did, and perhaps they would start hostilities with the United States by knocking out this intervention force by surprise air raid. It would be a mini-version of the same strategic concept of Pearl Harbor raid. Knock out the intervention force before it has a chance to intervene.
It's possible that Roosevelt had this in mind, or Wake, or Guam to play the sacrificed pawn. But there is no way a man of his core decency would set up three thousand sailors and soldiers at Pearl Harbor in order to justify America's entry into the war.
As it all worked out, the Pearl Harbor attack was the dumbest thing Japan could possibly have done. It was the greatest political blunder of the entire war. It solved all political problems for Roosevelt, made the japanese the complete aggressor, electrified American morale for a fight, and lured the Nazis into declaring war on the United States as well. The sailors who died on the Arizona did not die in vain.
EVE OF WAR
Liberal history books have a tough time telling the story of the years between the wars. They cannot ignore the indisputable fact that weakness and appeasement opened the way for the Axis powers to almost conquer the world. Yet they are consistently still against open admiration and endorsement of ‘peace through strength.’ How do the liberal historians resolve the dilemma?
The solution is easy. They blame ‘isolationism,’ while completely ignoring the larger issue of ‘pacifism.’ The reality is that of the two, isolationism was less of a problem. While a system of internationalist alliances will not stop an aggressor if the aggressor knows that the alliance is collectively weak militarily, an isolationist nation can deter that same aggressor if that singular state has a strong military force trained and ready to move at a moments notice.
By playing word games and blaming ‘isolationism’ rather than ‘pacifism’ the left can still blame the conservatives, rather than the liberals for the coming of the Second World War. Those no good Republican isolationists were responsible, not the mass hysteria of left pacifism that stripped the United States and Great Britain of its military might between the wars.
SOURCES
See last FDR chapter (1945) for the complete sources on the Roosevelt years 1933-1945
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