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The Battle of Okinawa

On May 2nd, 1945, the 77th and 307th Infantry Division alongside the remnants of the 96th and 381st looked up at the intimidating Maeda Escarpment on the island of Okinawa, known to the soldiers as Hacksaw Ridge, a 400 foot cliff which was a natural barrier to a series of trenches, tunnels and fortifications set up by the Imperial Japanese Forces. The climb up Hacksaw Ridge would determine the outcome of the Battle of Okinawa.

By April of 1945, the Empire of Japan was on the ropes. With all their allies in the Axis Powers out of the picture, with Mussolini dead at a service station and Hitler cowering in the Führerbunker, the Japanese were the last members of the Axis with their homeland intact. Facing increasing partisan activity from the Chinese, causing massive losses on the front, and the United States having captured almost every island of theirs in the Pacific, including Iwo Jima a month prior, the last obstacle between the Americans and mainland Japan was the small island of Okinawa.

Located just 563km (350 miles) off the coast of Kyushu island, the southern most part of mainland Japan, Okinawa was a 1,207km² island, home to a vast amount of naval and air bases that would be useful in the event of an invasion of mainland Japan by the United States. Despite the fact that the 10th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr, and the 5th Fleet, overseen by Admiral Raymond Spruance, vastly outnumbered the Japanese forces on Okinawa, the Japanese had come prepared.

Map of Japanese Army positions on Okinawa

Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima of the Japanese 32nd Army stationed only what was necessary in other parts of the island, focusing the majority of his forces in the south, due to its irregular and hilly terrain, opting to build a vast complex of tunnels, trenches and fortifications. By April, they had constructed 96km (60 miles) of tunnels, enough to accommodate the entire 32nd Army and everything it needed to fight against the Americans. In order to prevent the Americans from getting any supplies of their own, command ordered the massacre of every livestock animal on the island and that the civilians and soldiers live off sweet potatoes instead of the traditional rice.

By now, the Japanese fighting doctrine of Fumeiyo Yorimo Shi, or Death Before Dishonour, had really been set in stone, with many Japanese soldiers, airmen and naval vessels doing suicide runs against American forces. With the infantry, “Banzai attacks”, in which mass numbers Japanese infantry would run at American forces with bayonets screaming “Tenno Heika Banzai” meaning “Long live the Emperor” had become common place. Planes would often fly into American naval vessels, in what were dubbed Kamikaze attacks, named after the Japanese term for “divine wind”, which dates back to at least the 13th century.

A GIF of a Kamikaze aircraft crashing into a US Warship in May 1945

On March 25th, 1945, the US Navy began shelling the island in a week long bombardment in order to soften up defences and support mine clearing. The next day, US Marines landed in the archipelago of Kerama Retto, rooting out Japanese forces there over the next five days, with its capture providing a sheltered anchorage for ships attacked by Kamikaze strikes. Eventually, the full battle began on April 1st, known as L-Day. However, the beach head was formed relatively easily, due to the fact that there was literally no Japanese resistance at the beaches that they landed at.

Having eventually secured a decent chunk of the island, with 60,000 US Troops having landed, they eventually encountered opposition in the North and South. Whilst the North was very easily taken care of, the South, where all the fortifications were, was a bloodbath. Americans would often advance into carefully prepared Japanese killing zones where they were slaughtered in their hundreds by concealed machine guns and mortars. Their idea for an offensive would involve mass artillery shelling of Japanese positions before advancing towards the Japanese pillboxes, which often included the use of flamethrowers against Japanese positions. However, this strategy lead to little success, due to the Japanese remaining sheltered in their fortified tunnels, and caused more bloodshed on both sides, as the Japanese would often launch night attacks after Americans had captured positions. Eventually, the battle reached a stalemate on the Shuri Line, a heavily fortified area located near Shuri Castle.

Meanwhile, Operation Ten-Go went ahead, a one way suicide mission by the Japanese, dispatching the Yamato, the largest battleship ever constructed, to counter offensives by the US Navy on Japanese infantry positions. It was spotted before it could reach Okinawa and was sunk, along side 5 of its escort ships and the destruction of 100 Japanese fighters, largely in Kamikaze attacks, by an American carrier force, which only lost 10 fighters in comparison. It demonstrated US air superiority and served as a great anti-climax to the largest battleship to ever be made.

Despite the stalemate and consistent bloodshed, Buckner refused to change his tactics, much to the surprise of both US Army high command and the Japanese. Whilst a somewhat successful counter offence was launched by the Japanese after his refusal to change tactics, they still lost 7,000 men in doing so. This allowed Buckner’s forces to gain the upper hand and gain back half a mile of land

During the stalemate on the island, a combat medic known as Desmond Doss served at Hacksaw Ridge, managing to rescue hundreds of men from the rain of fire without being armed with a single weapon due to his Christian beliefs. He was awarded the Medal of Honour, of which Truman said “I’m proud of you. You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honour than being president.” Doss passed away in 2006 due to breathing complications and his memory was immortalised in the 2016 Mel Gibson Film “Hacksaw Ridge”, in which Doss is played by Andrew Garfield.

Desmond Doss receiving the Medal of Honour

Over the next few months, the situation became progressively more dire for the Japanese. Whilst spring rain had slowed the American advance even more than before, Nazi Germany had surrendered and more forces from Europe were now available. In a desperate effort to maintain control over the island, mass Kamikaze strikes were ordered against American Vessels, including the USS Bunker Hill and the USS Enterprise, knocking both vessels out of the war.

Eventually, the Shuri Line became untenable by late May. The Japanese began organising a retreat in stages to the Kiyan Peninsula, the southern most point of the island. Starting on May 24th, the Japanese slowly retreated down the island towards the peninsula. Despite the death of Buckner on the battlefield during an artillery strike, making him the highest ranked US Military officer killed in action during WW2, the entire Japanese garrison was massacred to a man, with a little over 7,000 troops surrendering to the Americans out of the 110,000 stationed on Okinawa before the battle. Out of shame, Ushijima committed Seppuku or more commonly referred to as Harakiri, a traditional Samurai form of suicide via disembowelment, on June 21st. The military garrison on Okinawa had also used much of the civilian population as human shields and convinced many of them to commit suicide or simply killed them, in order to cover up their atrocities perpetrated on the island, saying that the Americans would do worse. The Americans too lost many men in the battle of Okinawa, leading them to question if a mainland invasion of Japan would simply cost more lives, possibly influencing the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan 2 months later.

US Marine Corps plane flying over the razed capital city of Okinawa

Casualties

United States – ~50,000
Empire of Japan – 94,136
Civilian – 150,000

Liberation of the Concentration Camps

When we went to Nohra, […] we took a day trip into Buchenwald. […]It was just unbelievable to see. You couldn’t—there was so much of it, you couldn’t grasp at all. We just see these people standing, you see the bodies. You see the ashes. You see the ditches. It’s just—I can’t really describe it to tell you, you know, how horrendous it was to see these people treated like animals. You might see even worse than that.
Andrew Kiniry, 45th Evacuation Hospital, describing when the 3rd Army liberated Buchenwald

As the allies advanced from the West and the Soviets from the east, many expected to see the remnants of training camps or POW camps. What they found was beyond their wildest nightmares.

What they found were thousands upon thousands of men, women and children, all on the brink of starving to death, who had been left abandoned in fences like cattle. Not only were these people but specific groups of people. Some were disabled, some were gay, some were slavs. But the most notable among these groups of people were the Jews. The soldiers thought they had seen the worst of it but they were very wrong.

They found large gas chambers, in which the prisoners would be put inside, under the pretence of having a shower to cleanse themselves. Then, Zyklon B, a pesticide, would be poured in through the showers. Deaths could take anywhere between 3 minutes to 30. The bodies were then dragged out and burnt in ovens nearby. The specific targeting of Jews was called Germany’s “Final Solution”, which involved the eradication of the Jewish population from Europe. This was known as the Holocaust, but many Jews today prefer to call it the Shoah.

Over 5.7 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Others killed included 2-3million Soviet POWs, 1.9 million Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 250,000 disabled people, 170,000 Freemasons, 25,000 Slovenes, 15,000 homosexuals, 5,000 Jehovahs witnesses, 7,000 Spanish Republicans as well as countless others. Around half of the Jewish deaths were attributed to the gas chambers, whilst the rest were due to forced labour in the camps, starvation in the camps and ghettos as well as mass shootings, most notably by the Einsatzgruppen, a death squad that tailed the Wehrmacht in their march east.

Upon discovery of the concentration camps, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, told his men to film the horrors they encountered. The film reels were then compiled into a 1 hour long documentary, shown as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials and the Trial of Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Holocaust, after his capture in 1961

Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses – because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened
Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his men about the Concentration Camps

Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton and American forces at Ohrdruf concentration camp, a part of the Buchenwald network

The survivors were liberated, many only to find that their homes had been repossessed. Many Jews sought shelter in Palestine whilst others stayed in Europe, where persecution still occurs to this day. To this day, people still deny these events happened, either that the statistics are overestimates or that such things never occurred and is simply a victim complex made by Jews, despite the countless amount of evidence recorded not just by the Allies and Soviets but by the Germans themselves. Many cite the Holocaust as the greatest humanitarian tragedy in history.

The Battle of the Bulge

By Februrary, 1943, the Wehrmacht had just suffered a great loss at the Battle of Stalingrad, in which German forces had just suffered 800,000 casualties and the hands of the Red Army. With German Morale low, Dr Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, took to the stage of the Berlin Sportpalast to deliver a speech that would change the German attitude to the war.

A photo of the rally on February 18th, the banner reading “Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg” or “Total War – Shortest War” in English.

The German nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the German people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living. […] Total war is the demand of the hour. […] The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. […] I ask you: Do you want total war? […] I ask you: Is your confidence in the Führer greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow him wherever he goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end? […] Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!

The applause that ruptured from the hall after this was enormous, with chorus’ of Sieg Heil and chants of “Führer command, we follow!” Nazi banners are raised high. Little do they know, the German people just signed their own death sentence.

As winter set in on the Western Front, the war was not looking great for Germany. With almost all of France liberated, the Italians firmly losing and the Soviets at the gates of Warsaw, Hitler needed a miracle in order to win the war. His miracle would come in the same plan he conducted four years prior.

The largely undefended and heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and France began to look promising for Hitler once again. Having initially invading France in 1940 using the same area as a breakthrough point, Hitler planned to push a surprise attack through the area, cutting off most of the Commonwealth forces in the Netherlands, forcing them into another Dunkirk style evacuation. Many questioned the validity of the plan. Whilst Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the Wehrmacht High Command, was in fully support of the plan, many others, such as Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt and Walter Model as well as General Siegfried Westphal, were much more hesitant, fearing that the attack might not even reach the Meuse River. Despite their concerns, they kept silent for fear of being accused of defeatism, which, by this point, had become a crime in Nazi Germany.

Nicknamed Operation Wacht Am Rhine, after a famous Prussian patriotic anthem, every member of high command involved in the offensive was sworn to secrecy at the threat of death, with regimental commanders only being told a day before the attack. In order to not alert American Forces, soldiers used the cover of night in order to advance from town to town, covering up their vehicles when daybreak came. Complete radio silence was enforced during the whole operation. This secrecy had clearly worked, as the Allies were not expecting an attack in any capacity, with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery of the 21st Army Group confident that the Germans would not counter attack. Whilst the Germans were vastly disadvantaged, in terms of manpower and resources, they weren’t exactly fighting the cream of America’s crop. The defence force in the Ardennes was only seven divisions, most of whom were either new to combat or had been redeployed as an in-work vacation.

American Troops on deployment in the Ardennes

Despite the lack of fuel that was desperately needed in an operation through the terrain of the Ardennes, the 6th Panzer Army, commanded by Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich, the 5th Panzer Army, lead by General Hasso von Manteuffel, and Erich Brandenberger’s 7th Army, began the assault on December 16th, attacking the North, Centre and South respectively, with the Panzer forces set to capture Antwerp and the 7th protecting the flank from American General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. Dietrich’s main objective was to capture the key bridges over the Meuse within the first 24 hours of the assault, before an advance onto Antwerp, whilst Manteuffel was to capture Brussels. Before these objectives could be reached, however, St. Vint and Bastogne had to be secured first, as it was crucial for maintaining supplies.

The 1st SS Panzer Division of the 6th Panzer Army was given special care by Hitler, as it contained the most elite troops of the Waffen-SS, including the Peiper Unit, consisting of nearly 5,000 Waffen-SS troops with 800 of their vehicles commanded by SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant-Colonel) Joachim Peiper. The full assault was preceded by Operation Grief, in which a brigade commanded by SS Standartenführer (Colonel) Otto Skorzeny adopted American customs, dressed in American uniforms and infiltrated American territory in order to capture bridges, by tampering with road signs, cutting telephone wires and minor acts of sabotage. American forces became so paranoid of encountering one of Skorzeny’s men that they distrusted everyone in an American Uniform, even holding General Omar Bradley, commander of Twelfth Army Group, captive for a short period.

Whilst Dietrich’s Army began with an artillery barrage of American positions, Manteuffel’s fighting force did not go in guns blazing, instead opting for the element of surprise. Despite this disobeying Hitler’s orders of the artillery barrage, the tactic worked well across the board, with many American forces retreating out of fear, with one officer recounting his men wetting themselves and vomiting. The heavy snow also meant that the Allies could not use their superior air power on the battlefield.

A German machine gunner in the Ardennes, December 1944

Despite the vast and quick progress, this was not consistent across the whole German front. Lieutenant Lyle Bouck of the American 99th Division, for instance, valiantly fended off German forces for the whole day with only 18 men, killing or wounding 400 Germans whilst losing only one man. This vexed Peiper so much that he ordered his unit to advance hard on the enemy position, including into a minefield, losing 5 tanks in the process. Meanwhile, the 326th Volks Grenadier Division advanced north, attempting to cut off American reinforcements but were sabotaged by their own artificial moonlight made out of bouncing spotlights off clouds, which silhouetted them in the horizon, where they were picked off like sitting ducks. In addition, the weather also meant decreased visibility and movement ofr their vehicles, slowing the advance significantly.

Despite these setbacks, German High command was satisfied with initial progress on the first day. However, due to the slower advance, Eisenhower was given ample time to move reinforcements to the front, including the famous 101st Airborne Division, to defend the town of Bastogne and block the German Advance. Meanwhile, Peiper’s unit ignored the orders of Hitler due to muddy paths, instead capturing different towns, where they would massacre POWs and civilians during the Maldemy Massacre, wherein 84 civilians and POWS were executed.

A photo of dead US Soldiers in the aftermath of Maldemy

As casualties mounted on the front, especially in the besieged town of Bastogne, an emergency meeting was called between Patton, Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, who ordered that the 7th Army cover for Patton’s position in the south, whilst his 3rd Army moved north to relieve the 101st Airborne and the 28th Infantry Divisions. Even with continuous artillery fire that prevented the Germans from capturing the city, they managed to encircle the 101st and 28th. The Germans were incredibly confident with a potential victory at Bastogne. Despite not having the strength to destroy the defenders of Bastogne, General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz of the XLVII Panzer Corps sent a demand for surrender to General Anthony McAuliffe, commander of the Bastogne Garrison and Artillery Commander of the 101st, simply responded with the following.

To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander.
McAuliffe’s response to Lüttwitz’s demand for surrender

Eventually, the snow began to ease up, allowing for Allied air superiority to make a comeback, conducting a massive supply drop onto the besieged troops at Bastogne, whilst fighter bombers proved extremely effective at breaking up German attacks. Despite this, Patton strill struggled to breach the German encirclement, repeatedly vexed by blown bridges, activities done by American engineers in order to slow the Germans earlier in the battle.

German Chief of the General Staff, Heinz Guderian, urged Hitler to withdraw forces from the Ardennes, citing it as a massive failure and to put more supplies into the East. However, German forces had just captured Celles, the furthest west of the advance, which buoyed Hitler’s spirits, and so the struggle went on.

Despite this achievement, supplies were running low, to the point where not even a full withdrawal was feasible. When American forces recaptured Celles, they found starved and exhausted Panzer troops greeting them. Runstedt now had to inform Hitler that the plan was a mass failure, to which Hitler, in a fit of rage, dismissed him. Eventually, Patton relieved Bastogne in the most Patton way possible, via a reckless charge from the north, accompanied by storms of napalm.

In a moment of delirium, Hitler commanded that no effort be spared in crushing Bastogne, having forgotten the objective of Antwerp entirely. In attack after attack, more and more lives were lost to Allied Air Superiority and artillery fire, with the Germans eventually giving up and retreating by January 11th of 1945. The Battle of the Bulge, which it was later dubbed, served as the last major offensive operation by the Third Reich, which only delayed the inevitable and now it was a desperate retreat back to Berlin.

American forces marching with an M1 Sherman in the Battle of the Bulge

Casualties

United States – 81,000
The Greater German Reich – 63,000-100,000+
United Kingdom – 1,408

The Incredible Story of Oskar Schindler

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
Edmund Burke

Oskar Schindler was a German speaking man living in the Sudetenland before war broke out. He was very well known in his youth for being a Casanova, before settling and marrying Emilie Pelzl in 1928. However, their marriage was fraught with strife, as Emilie believed that Schindler only married her when he needed someone to come home to.

By 1938, Schindler managed to land himself as a spy for the Germans, infiltrating Czechoslovakian society. Eventually, he was found out and sentenced to death. However, with days, perhaps even hours of his life left, Hitler annexed the Sudetenland and, in accordance with the Munich Agreement, Schindler was let go. He eventually ended up joining the Nazi party just before the outbreak of World War 2. Him and his wife were moved to the industrial town of Ostrava near the Polish Border, where he would bribe Nazi Officials in order to curry favour. Once Poland was invaded in 1939, Schindler saw this as a new business opportunity.

He set up shop in a Jewish Ghetto set up by the Nazis in Krakow, Poland. He made enamel in the city and hired a Jewish man who used to work in the factory he took over, Abraham Bankier, as floor manager and made him hire the employees. This assistant made it so that as many Jews could be considered essential workers so wouldn’t be taken to concentration camps and killed. He justified this to Schindler by saying that, due to Nazi laws, Jews were payed less so would cost him less money than hiring Poles to do the same work. Schindler agreed whilst enjoying the company of the Nazi party officials due to his new stature as an industrialist. He had landed himself a large contract supplying the army with kitchenware in their new war against France and Britain.

By 1941, a new law was passed stating that Jews could now earn zero money, and all money that would usually be payed to Jews would now be paid to the SS. However, this now meant that the survival of the Jews working in the factory was now Schindler’s choice. Schindler decided to use his connections with the black market to supply his workers with food out of his own pocket. This is the beginning of Schindler’s arc to redemption.

By 1942, the Death Camps had begun to open. Many of the Jews in Krakow were sent to Belzec Death Camp. However, because they were employed by Schindler, the now hundreds of Jews under his employ were saved from the gas chambers. However, things soon began to change.

Amon Göth, a second Lieutenant in the SS, ordered a new camp to be constructed in Plaszow, only 4km from Krakow. Every morning and every night, Jews from Krakow would work on building the new camp and then working inside. Göth was ruthless, he would use Jews at target practice and train dogs to attack them on command. Schindler began becoming friendly with the tyrant of Plaszow, by sending him lavish gifts he found on the black market, taking him to lavish parties and charming him relentlessly.

In March 1943, Göth ordered Krakow Ghetto to be liquidated and all the Jews to be moved to Plaszow. 2,000 Jews are moved while another 2,000 are killed during the liquidation. Schindler allegedly hid his employees inside the factory to keep them from harm.

After having witnessed the liquidation, Schindler was said to be appalled. Sol Urbach claimed that:

[Schindler] changed his mind about the Nazis. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could
Sol Urbach, Schindlerjude

Schindler moved his operation to Plaszow and bribed Amon Göth to do so and build a sub camp around the factory, whilst still maintaining a relationship with him. Göth allowed Schindler to do whatever he wanted inside the sub camp in Plaszow, which Schindler took to his advantage. The Jews who worked for Schindler inside his camp were given adequate food and living quarters, banning the SS from entering the camp.

As Germany realised it was on a track to losing the war, Göth ordered all Jews to be moved to Auschwitz to be killed. Schindler managed to, at a large personal expense, to get Amon to allow him to take all his workers to Brunnlitz to set up another factory there.

Amon asked him to make a list of every name he needed for his new factory. This list included 1,100 Jewish names. However, Schindler was unable to write it in person, as the SS had arrested Göth for his black market dealings via Schindler. Schindler was ratted out by Göth and also arrested. He assigned Marcel Goldberg to prepare the list.

One page of Schindler’s List. The list ended up being almost 20 pages long

Every man on the list was successfully sent to Brunnlitz. However, a train carrying the women was sent to Auschwitz by mistake. Whilst in prison, Schindler scrambled to save the women from death, sending a representative down to stop the extermination. Despite a very close call with death, all the women were moved safely to Brunnlitz. By now, Schindler had spent a lot of money on bribes, black market dealings and saving the lives of the Jews. He spent the last of his money on decent clothes for his workers. His workers spent the last days of the war intentionally making faulty guns in order to hinder the Nazi war effort as much as possible.

Once the war was over, Schindler was penniless but had saved 1,100 lives from the hands of the Nazis. However, because he was a member of the Nazi Party, a war profiteer and a profiteer of slave labour, he had to go into hiding in Argentina. He left his wife in 1957 and sailed back to West Germany. He died, poor, with a collapsed business and a failed marriage in 1974. However, for those few years, he would recieve small donations from the thousand lives he had saved from the clutches of evil. Amon Göth was hanged for crimes against humanity. The people he saved named themselves the Schindlerjuden, in his honour. Schindler’s name was added to the Avenue of the Righteous in Israel, a place were those who saved Jews during the Holocaust and risked their lives doing so. He was buried upon Mount Zion in Israel. Over 8,500 people are alive because of Schindler’s actions that wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Oskar Schindler’s grave covered in stones, a sign of respect for the dead in Judaism

Schindler’s story was turned into a book, Schindler’s Ark, by Thomas Keneally which was inspired by Poldek Pfefferberg, a Schindlerjude. The book was later adapted into the 1993 film Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley. It was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won 7, including Best Picture. It is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.

Liam Neeson (left) and Ben Kinglsey (right) portraying Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern respectively in *Schindler’s List*

Whoever saves one life saves the world entire
Ben Kingsley, Schindler’s List

Stauffenberg’s Plot to Kill Hitler

By July, 1944, the war was turning sour for Germany.

A map of the Front Lines by July 15th, 1944 (Allies – red, Axis – white, neutral – grey)

After a disastrous loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, the German army was on the run from the Soviets, who had begun to enter Poland. On the Western front, the Allies had made an incredible landing at Normandy, whilst an allied invasion was coming up from the south through Italy, where the Germans were assisting their allies. Germany was now fighting a war on three fronts and losing. Many Nazis began to blame Hitler’s mismanagement. Some of these men wanted Hitler gone. One of these men was Claus von Stauffenberg.

A photo of Stauffenberg before the accident

Claus von Stauffenberg was a general in the German Army. He had been severely wounded in North Africa, losing his right hand, two fingers on his left hand and his left eye. While agreeing with many of Hitler’s nationalist policies, he believed that the war would do nothing but run Germany into the ground. During his time in Russia before the accident, he was appalled by the treatment of the citizens there, especially the Jewish ones, by the SS. He believed that the only way to stop the war was to stop Hitler, and the only way to stop Hitler was by killing him. And by 1943, he had met the right man to do it.

Henning von Tresckow was a major general and the leader of a small conspiracy group inside the Nazi high command. Tresckow used to be a staunch Hitler supporter until the Invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Not only that but he knew about the Holocaust and felt he had a moral responsibility to stop this mad tyrant.

Tresckow had previously made attempts himself to kill Hitler. One famous one was in March of 1943, where he had given Heinz Brandt, a lieutenant colonel who was travelling with Hitler, a box containing two bottles of Cointreau. However, the box instead contained a bomb which would be detonated by a crushed capsule of acid, with the intent that the bomb would explode during the flight from Smolensk to Prussia. However, the bomb was stored in the cold cargo hold, whereupon the acid detonator had frozen over and Hitler landed in Prussia unscathed. Thankfully, Tresckow had managed to take a flight to Prussia, swap out the bomb with two bottles and disarm the bomb.

Stauffenberg joined the conspiracy and had eventually rose the ranks to become one of its leaders along side Tresckow. They came up with a new plan, wherein Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche would detonate a British hand grenade at a meeting he would have with Hitler, showing the new Wermacht Uniforms. However, an allied bombing raid on a train shipment delayed their plans, as the train contained the new uniforms. Not only that but during this time, Bussche was seriously wounded and had to have his leg amputated. They now had to find a new man to kill Hitler. This man would be Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, who was only 21 at the time. However, Hitler cancelled on short notice and, once again, the plot could not go through. Eventually, the meeting finally took place on July 7th, 1944, with Hellmuth Stieff as the new assassin. However, Stieff backed out, most likely because he did not want to end his life. The bomb did not detonate and Hitler walked free.

However, the conspiracy went on and this time Stauffenberg wanted to take matters into his own hands. Not only did he want to kill Hitler but also take out the entire Nazi Regime.

On July 20th, Stauffenberg and his aide, Werner von Haeften flew to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Headquarters in Prussia. They find out that the meeting had been pushed forward by half an hour due to a visit from Benito Mussolini. Stauffenberg and Haeften rushed into a room, planning on activating two bombs and placing them in Stauffenberg’s briefcase, which would then be placed under the table in the room where the meting was held. Stauffenberg would then leave the room and the bombs would detonate. The meeting was intended to be held in an undergound bunker in the Wolf’s Lair, which would mean that the pressure of the explosion would certainly kill Hitler. Stauffenberg managed to arm one bomb, before they are interrupted, being informed that the meeting was starting. He handed the unarmed bomb to Haeften before entering the meeting.

A diagram of the room where the bomb went off. Survivors are marked in green, casualties in red, the bomb in yellow and Hitler in blue

The plan had now reached a second hiccup. Due to the weather, the conference was being held upstairs in a ventialted room with open windows. The pressure plan would not work. Stauffenberg decided to place the bomb on the left side of the table leg on the right end of the table. Hitler and the bomb were only separated by 1.3 metres. Stauffenberg then gives his briefing on the Eastern front before quickly leaving the room to take an important phone call. Once he leaves, the briefcase was moved to the other side of the table leg. At 12:42, Hitler then leaned over the table to discuss more in depth plans. At this exact moment, the bomb went off.

Stauffenberg watched the explosion 20 metres back from the building. He was very confident that Hitler was dead. He then drove out of the lair with Haeften, tossing the unarmed bomb into the forest. The next step of the plan was about to commence, Operation Valkyrie.

Operation Valkyrie was originally intended to deal with domestic disturbances inside the German Reich and orders to commence the operation would be issued to the reserves. It would implement in the event of a general breakdown in national civil order. It was made by General Friedrich Olbricht, who later became a member of the conspiracy. However, he, Tresckow and Stauffenberg modified the plan to detail that in the event of Hitler’s death, the Nazi Regime would be abolished. However, General Friedrich Fromm was the only one allowed to authorise the plan. Fromm was confronted and decided to remain silent on the matter but declined to be directly involved.

Olbricht was recieving two conflicting messages. From one line, he was being told Hitler was still alive and on the other Stauffenberg was insisting Hitler was dead. Eventually, he gave the go ahead and the reserves began to mobilise, with the orders to arrest High Ranking officials, including SS officers, framing them for a coup. The conspirators would then form a government which would appeal more to the allies and attempt to negotiate peace from there.

Eventually, a group of reserves commanded by Otto Ernst Remer began surrounding the Ministry of Propaganda, with the intent of arresting Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. However, Goebbels handed Remer the telephone in his office.

Do you recognise my voice?
Hitler on the other end of the line

Hitler had survived the explosion, meaning that Operation Valkyrie could not go through. Remer was ordered to crush the plot as fast as possible. Eventually, the Bendlerblock, the headquarters of the conspiracy, was laid under siege by the Wermacht. Fromm, betraying the conspirators in order to not be caught, rounded up the conspirators. 4 of them were executed in the courtyard of the building, including Olbricht, Haeften, another conspirator called Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim and Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg’s final words were:

Long live sacred Germany!
Stauffenberg’s last words

Many of the other conspirators who were not arrested either committed suicide or went into hiding in the following weeks. Many families of the conspirators were also arrested. over 5,000 people were executed for, indirectly or not, being a part of the conspiracy. Erwin Rommel, the famous North African Tank commander, was rumoured to be a part of the conspiracy. Many movies have been made about the sacrifice of these brave men, most notably in 2008, where Mission Impossible Star, Tom Cruise, portrayed Stauffenberg. It was filmed on location in the Bendlerblock, where director Bryan Singer lead the crew in a minute of silence to honour the dead before filming began. In 1980, a memorial museum was opened in honour of these men who, in the face of evil, risked their lives to try and stop that evil from spreading.

The street sign for Stauffenbergstaße in Berlin, named after Stauffenberg. Upon this road is the Bendlerblock

John F. Kennedy and the PT-109

John F. Kennedy was, in 1941, a young up-and-comer in the political and law world. His father, Joseph Kennedy, was appointed as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom by Franklin Roosevelt. Once World War 2 had begun, Joe spoke on this, saying that “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]” and was forced to resign his position due to the controversy around this statement. Due to his father’s position in government, the young John travelled all across Europe, accompanying his father on diplomatic missions during the lead up to the war. During this time, he wrote his thesis for Harvard, on Neville Chamberlains appeasement methods with Adolf Hitler. The thesis was published and, as one of the first sources of information about these events, quickly became a best-seller. Kennedy was adamant that the US must intervene in the war, opposing his father’s beliefs.

He attempted to join the Officer Candidate School, but wasn’t allowed in due to his physical health, which may have included the chronic back pain that he may have had since he was very young. Eventually, he was assigned to the United States Naval Reserve, commissioned to ensign in October of 1941.

Once Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese, the US was thrust into World War 2. In January of 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence field office in Charleston. Kennedy had wanted to command a Patrol Torpedo Boat but believed that he would be stopped from doing so due to his medical conditions. His father ended up falsifying medical records and convincing PT command that his son’s presence would bring good publicity. He completed his sixth months training and was assigned to the PT-101. Not wanting to be stuck in the Panama canal, Kennedy convinced the Massachusetts Senator to assign him to the South Pacific in order to get some real combat action. By April 1943, he had been assigned to the PT-109.

The PT-109 was a 80 foot (20m) long patrol torpedo boat. It had 3 twelve cylinder, 1,500 horsepower engines, and had a top speed of 41 knots (76 km/h or 47 mph). It was fitted with four 21-inch torpedoes and a 20mm anti-aircraft gun and four .50 calibre machine guns but was not equipped with a radar. At the start of the ship’s deployment, it had a crew of 15:

Lieutenant and Commanding Officer John F. Kennedy
Executive Officer Leonard Jay Thom
Quartermaster, cook and signalman Edgar E. Mauer
Radioman John E. Maguire
Gunners Raymond Albert, Charles A. Harris, Harold W. Marney, Maurice L. Kowal, Edmund T. Drewitch, Leon E. Drawdy and William Johnston
Motor Mechanics Gerald E. Zinser and Patrick Henry McMahon
And Torpedomen Raymond L. Starkey and Andrew Jackson Kirksey

The crew of the PT-109. Top row left to right are Al Webb (friend and not a crew member) Leon E. Drawdy, Edgar E. Mauer, Edmund T. Drewitch, John E. Maguire. Bottom row left to right are Charles A. Harris, Maurice L. Kowal, Andrew J. Kirkesy, Leonard J. Thom, and John F. Kennedy.

In June of 1943, Drewitch had to be discharged after an injury occured when a depth charge was dislodged and landed on his bunk bed. Kowal and Drwady were both injured in July during an attack from Japanese Aircraft.

By the time of the 109’s final mission, there were 13 men aboard, as George H. R. Ross was assigned after his boat was destroyed and was an observer aboard the boat. A 37mm gun was lashed down to the front of the boat in August.

On the night of August 1st, fourteen PT boats, including the 109, were assigned to Kolombangra, an island in the middle of the Solomon islands, where 4 Japanese destroyers were alleged to appear, carrying food supplies and 900 Japanese soldiers to the Japanese Garrison on the island and were set to pass through that night. Their orders were to repel or block the Japanese advance to the island. 24 torpedoes were shot from 8 of the PTs and not one hit the convoy. The entire convoy arrived unscathed at the Naval Base in Kolombangra, due to attacks taking place at night and radio silence being enforced throughout the PTs

The region that the PTs were assigned. The naval base is stationed on the south of the island and was coming south through the Vella Gulf

At around 2:27 am, Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, returning from the base, heading north, straight at them. Kennedy decided to turn the boat to attack the destroyer with a torpedo and the newly mounted 37mm. Ross was assigned to the 37mm but he unfortunately suffered from night blindness, meaning that the could not effectively attack the boat. Within the next ten seconds, the 109 began to turn to the starboard side, with the Amagiri being commanded to match the turn.

The collision path of the two boats, graphics by Historigraph (YouTube)

After having made a sharp right turn to avoid a potential collision, the PT-109 was rammed by the Amagiri and split in half. A large fireball erupted from the 109, rising to around 100ft (30m) in the air. Some of the oil that had spilled from the boat had ignited the surface of the water. Kirksey and Marney were killed instantly, whilst McMahon was burnt from being thrown into the flaming water.

The 11 survivors clung to the side of the bow, that had not yet gone under water. They drifted south, down the Vella Gulf. Eventually, Kennedy decided that they needed to reach land before another destroyer found them or the bow sunk. The two largest islands wither side of them, Kolombangara and Ghizo were, at the time, occupied by Japanese forces. Kennedy decided to go to the small Plum Pudding Island, about 3.5 miles (5.6km) south west of their position. Unfortunately, McMahon was unable to swim, as well as two others who had been badly injured during the crash. Kennedy decided to make a raft out of a spare piece of drift wood, broken off from the boat. He then loaded two of the injured men onto the raft, whilst he hoisted McMahon onto his back and swam to Plum Pudding Island. They started the swim at 2pm on August 2 and lasted 4 hours.

Eventually, Kennedy with McMahon on his back reached the northern tip of the island, with the other 9 survivors arriving a little behind. The nearby American naval base at Rendova had received word of the 109’s crash but due to the size of the fireball reported believed that there would be no survivors so no rescue attempt was made. However, American coast watchers on Kolombangara had seen the wreckage of the bow drift down the gulf, who sent out the message to look out for any survivors

Both Kennedy and Ross swam out relatively far off the coast of the island on separate occasions. Both times came up fruitless. The crew had now been stranded for 2 days and were beginning to get hungry and thirsty. Kennedy organised the group to swim a mile (1.6km) south to the larger island of Olasana in search of supplies. Upon arrival, there was no fresh water and nothing to eat but unripe coconuts. That night, the weather worsened, meaning that they could not travel to another island in search of supplies

The next day, Kennedy and Ross swam half a mile over to Naru Island, finding an abandoned wreckage of a Japanese Barge upon their arrival, where there was food, water and other various supplies, including a small canoe. Meanwhile, a patrol boat of Solomon Natives, on the orders of the coast watchers, were investigating the barge from the water and saw Kennedy and Ross aboard the island, heavily sunburnt. Believing them to be the survivors of the barge, they decided to turn away from Naru Island, heading north to Olasana for some water. They passed by the beach, spotting the rest of the heavily sunburnt crew, believing them to also be Japanese. However, Thom’s distinct blonde beard made them realise that they were not Japanese.

The scouts informed the coast watch of the survivors, who immediately organised food and provisions to be sent over to the crew. A torpedo boat was then deployed to rescue the crew and brought them back to the base on Rendova. Battered, bruised but breathing, the crew had made it home.

The much more seriously injured crew were treated while the rest were reassigned to other PT boats. Kennedy would later go on to tell this story of survival whilst campaigning for Senator of Massachusetts and President of the United States.

A campaign parade for JFK’s 1960 Presidential Campaign

The Battle of Stalingrad

By July of 1942, Operation Barbarossa had been raging for over a year. The United States had entered the war and with no signs of Britain surrendering despite the U-Boat warfare and bombing campaign, Hitler decided to turn his back on his old ally and invade the Soviet Union. For the last 13 months, the operation had raged on and they were beginning to fall short of key objectives. One important thing that the Germans were lacking was oil. They were now over 1,000 miles into foreign territory and, with the Russian scorched earth tactic, supply lines were running thin.

In one last ditch effort to find some more oil. Hitler set his eyes on the Caucuses, an oil rich area of the Soviet Union in modern day Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Hitler added a new objective to the plan. He believed that in order to secure the Caucuses, they would need to capture the key city of Stalingrad.

Stalingrad, named after General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was a massive supply hub, due to its bountiful number of factories and a massive transport hub. Despite this, German High Command did not believe that Stalingrad was a very important objective, who thought that Army Group South should flank the Caucuses by pushing through to Astrakhan and then the armies would go down from there. However, Hitler believed that they should split Army Group South in half from the onset, and assigning Friedrich Paulus and his 6th Army to capture Stalingrad.

A photo of a building in Stalingrad before the war

The advance was swift and forceful, and the city was very close to being surrounded. However, due to the advance the supply line was even thinner. Some in the 6th Army resorted to eating their own horses to prevent themselves from starvation. 1/4 of the casualties from the 6th thus far had been due to disease rather than bullets.

Meanwhile, Stalin had prepped for a change of plans. Wanting to keep the city named after himself, he had built a large number of tanks, placing all his reserves in the city. On the 28th of July, Stalin issued his infamous order 227.

Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters!
An excerpt from Order 227

Any officer or soldier who did not comply with the order would, most likely, be shot on sight. After a large Luftwaffe attack, the 6th Army pushed into Stalingrad, managing to seize much of the suburbs. The Soviet Divisions were now split in two, with the 62nd and 64th armies shipping supplies and reinforcements across the Volga River, whilst under heavy bombardment from the Luftwaffe.

The Russians are ordered to stay close to German lines, in order to stop air support out of fear that Hitler would bomb his own men. The unique urban combat of Stalingrad had begun, with most gunfights engaging within spitting distance of the enemy. The German advance slowed but pushes into the city were still made. The Soviet Divisions in Stalingrad were on their last legs, until the Russian secret weapon eventually came.

The winter soon began to set in. The already hungry Germans were also beginning to feel the effects of the cold. The German advance either halted or slowed to a crawl, allowing Soviet High Command to recuperate and form a plan of counter assault. Whilst the plan is being formed, Paulus, orders another assault. The Germans manage to push back the Soviet forces to a small sliver of land against the Volga. However, having suffered 60,000 casualties, the battered and hungry German army cannot advance. A stalemate began to set in

Barmaley Fountain in the middle of the war torn city

Eventually, Georgy Zhukov, one of the key Russian Generals in the defence of the city, unleashes his master stroke. Operation Neptune goes ahead on November 19th, with 10 entire armies, totalling 1 million men, push through the German line, managing to encircle the German 6th and 4th armies, taking out the Romanian 5th corps, inside the city in only 3 days.

With supply lines cut off, Hitler decided to airlift supplies into Stalingrad. However, for reasons unknown, only army supplies, such as ammunition, was dropped and not food and clean water, a dire resource in the war torn city. Not only that but he also ordered 500 tons of said supplies to be dropped into the city, despite Paulus claiming that they needed 700 and the Luftwaffe saying they could only manage 300. Many Germans starved whilst the wounded succumbed to the elements, dying of hypothermia as winter truly began.

Around Christmas, Erich von Manstein, head of the Wehrmacht, ordered a push through the soviet line in order to relieve the 6th and 4th Army. However, due to orders from the Fuhrer, and dwindling numbers, Paulus did not attempt to meet up with Manstein’s men. Thousands more die in this attempted breakthrough. With no ammunition or food, the Germans are offered 2 surrenders by Zhukov, both of which Hitler orders Paulus to deny. by this time only 40,000 men of the 300,000 who initially marched on Stalingrad are still alive, whilst there are 18,000 men who are injured and yet untreated due to the lack of medical supplies. The situation became even more dire once the Soviets capture the last airfield that could be used for airdrops into Stalingrad. Despite his failure, and the German force in Stalingrad being split in two, Paulus received a promotion to Field Marshal, from Hitler himself. However, Hitler knew that there has never been a single Field Marshal ever who has been taken alive. Hitler had just signed Paulus’ death warrant.

Eventually, the Russians found his base of operations in a worn out department store basement, with the southern part of the army falling not long after that. The Soviets took mercy on Paulus, who lived out the rest of his life in East Germany until 1957. He is the only Field Marshal to ever be taken prisoner. The commander of the northern pocket also subtly requested that his men surrender. 11,000 German insurgents did not surrender and it would not be until March of 1943 before Stalingrad was clear of a German presence.

Many historians cite Stalingrad as a key turning point in the war. If Stalingrad had been captured, it would’ve been a catastrophic loss of life and morale for the Red Army. Thankfully, Hitler’s forces were pushed all the way back to Berlin thanks to the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, leading to the death of Hitler in April, 1945, and the end of the war in Europe. However, it came at a heavy cost. The Battle of Stalingrad was and still is the single deadliest battle in human history.

Casualties

German Reich – 800,000-1.5 million casualties
Soviet – 1.3 million
Civilian – 40,000

The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Within Hitler’s Third Reich, the name Reinhard Heydrich was always whispered with much more than just a hint of fear. Appointed to Director of the Nazi Secret Police, named the Gestapo, Heydrich was as loyal to the Führer as he was ruthless and brutal with his enemies. He also was Director of the Reich Security Main Office and the Deputy to the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler, who viewed Heydrich as his loyal protege and right hand man. As one of the main architects behind the Holocaust, he created the system that would lead to 6 million Jews being murdered simply for their ethnicity, most of whom were killed in the gas chambers. Hitler nicknamed him “The Man with the Iron Heart”.

After a large resistance movement had built up in the Protectorate of Bohemia in Moravia, a Nazi Protectorate created out of the modern day Czech Republic, Hitler fired Konstantin von Neurath as Protector and Heydrich was appointed as Protector in September of 1941. Here, Heydrich ruled with an iron fist. Within his first week, he ordered to public hanging of 142 people.

Meanwhile, the exiled Czechoslovak Government in London were becoming increasingly unpopular. Whilst resistance in other Nazi conquered territories, such as Poland and France, were seen as brave heroes, the Czech resistance were merely content with sabotaging a couple factories. Destined to prove themselves, they informed British Intelligence that they would assassinate Heydrich. The name of the mission would be Operation Anthropoid.

Two men were assigned to the mission, Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík, two former Captains in the Czech Army. The pair, along with some half a dozen commandos, parachuted into a wooded area just outside Prague.

A photo of Gabčík (right) and Kubiš (left)

By now, Heydrich’s mission to pacify the protectorate was complete, not just employing brutality but kindness where necessary, in an effort to distract the population from his crimes. In fact, he felt so confident in achieving his mission that he felt comfortable driving around in an open top car, armed with only handgun, with his driver also equipped with just a handgun.

Having been in Prague for five months and making little progress, Kubiš and Gabčík became increasingly frustrated. However, a plan was soon devised. On his morning route to work, Heydrich would go around a hairpin corner near Bulovka Hospital. Due to the slow speed that the car would take at this time, they decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to strike.

An image of the corner where Heydrich was killed

On the morning of May 27th, 1942, Gabčík and Kubiš stood at a tram stop, with a Sten gun and an anti-tank grenade respectively hidden on their persons. As Heydrich’s car turned the corner, Gabčík revealed himself and his gun from underneath his raincoat. Attempting to open fire, his gun had jammed, allowing Heydrich to order the driver to stop so he could shoot back with his Luger. This allowed Kubiš to roll the grenade underneath the car, where it exploded, sending shrapnel flying which wounded Heydrich fatally in his diaphragm, spleen and lungs. Kubiš grabbed a bicycle and tore off, whilst Gabčík escaped on foot. Heydrich also followed on foot, having ordered his driver to go after Kubiš. However, Heydrich, a well known sportsman, ran out of breath after a short pursuit. He looked down to find that he was bleeding from the side.

Despite hospital treatment, his wound became infected with sepsis and he collapsed on June 3rd, 1942, being declared dead the next day. Some suspected that horse hair from the lining of his car and been forced into his body during the explosion. Others suspect it was a pulmonary embolism whilst others believe that the grenade had been laced with botulism as a biological weapon, which potentially ended up in his body during the explosion. However, this last theory is possibly eronious as both Kubiš and a bystander were injured by the blast, neither of whom died. No matter how, the Butcher of Prague was dead.

His state funeral was held on June 7th 1942. Whilst Goebbels weaponised the assassination as pro-German propaganda, Hitler privately blamed Heydrich for his own demise.

Since it is opportunity which makes not only the thief but also the assassin, such heroic gestures as driving in an open, unarmoured vehicle or walking about the streets unguarded are just damned stupidity, which serves the Fatherland not one whit. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn as stupid and idiotic.
Hitler speaking on Heydrich

A photo of Hitler and Heydrich’s funeral

However, he was still angered with the Czechs. He immediately ordered the massacre of 10,000 randomly selected Czech civillians, in what would become known as the Lidice Massacre. Every male in the village was shot on sight, whilst the females were sent to concentration camps. The village was then set alight whilst all the animals in the village were rounded up and shot. A similar massacre was then carried out in the village of Ležáky. The SS filmed the massacre that they perpetrated, intending it as a message to the world.

A photo of SS Soldiers standing over the bodies of the villagers of Lidice

An informant ratted out the location of Gabčík and Kubiš, who were located in the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral. They held off a group of nearly 800 SS Soldiers for quite some time, before the two committed suicide. In his “honour” the Operation to build Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór extermination camps was called Operation Reinhard. In the twilight of the war, Heydrich’s grave was destroyed by the Soviet Army.

The Hunt for the Bismarck

By 1941, Paris had fallen to the Nazis. The next big target on Hitler’s wish list was the United Kingdom. In one ear he had Karl Doenitz, head of the Kreigsmarine and U-Boat effort said that Hitler needed to expand U-Boat operations in the Atlantic Ocean, in order to cut off Britain’s supplies and force them into surrender through starvation. In his other ear, he had Erich Raeder, the Chief of the German Navy High Command, who said that if Hitler built some very large battleships, he could destroy Britain’s mighty Royal Navy. Soon, Hitler’s mind was made up.

Admiral John Tovey, Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet was stationed at Scapa Flow, a large ocean stretch in the North of Scotland. His mission was to patrol the vast expanse of Greenland and Nazi occupied Norway. At his base, he had been receiving regular intel about this ship. A ship so large that it is the third largest battleship in human history and the largest ever used by a European country. That ship was the Bismarck.

Towering over its opponents at almost 30 ft tall, this eight 15-inch gun battleship was the might of the German Navy. Weighing in at around 40,000 tons and being equipped with the top grade armour, it was a flagrant violation of Post WW1 treaties, that limited the size of German ships.

However, while the Royal Navy was mighty once, it had somewhat lost its touch since WW1. Due to naval treaties, battleships could not be produced in the interwar period, so many ships had to be converted to match and, in some cases, not very well. Ships that were produced because of the war were produced very hastily and thus not equipped very well, and hardly had any time to test to see if they functioned.

Whilst it was operating in the Baltics at the time, a real fear of the British Naval command was the Bismarck making a break through the North Sea and escaping into the Atlantic, a guaranteed disaster for the British. And it was possible this fear was becoming a reality, as Tovey was informed that the Bismarck had left a Polish port 3 days earlier, whilst a group of German boats had been spotted passing in between Denmark and Norway. Tovey ordered his men to refuel and stand by.

A photo of the *Bismarck* moored in the fjord

An RAF scouting plane spotted a large boat, shadowed by a small cruiser, in a Norwegian Fjord. The plane sent photos back to base, where analysts confirm it’s the Bismarck, accompanied by the Prinz Eugen. A foul fog soon set in, and Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland is ordered to guard the oceans surrounding the possible path of the Bismarck from a naval base in Iceland, with Tovey believing it’ll take this opportunity to slip out into the Atlantic. A reconnaissance plane flies to the Bismarck‘s last known position below the clouds. It’s gone. Tovey ordered his fleet, who have been stationed at Scapa Flow, to sail for Iceland, filling up the gaps across Holland’s line. Tovey then radioed Holland, ordering him to maintain radio silence.

In the Denmark Strait, two cruisers were patrolling the water. One young crew man spots the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. Knowing that they could not take on the 15-inch guns and that they could not pierce the armour, the cruisers took a sharp turn into the fog. Notifying the other cruiser, the radar was activated, a true technical marvel at the time. However, the second cruiser had a very close call with the Bismarck, only being 6 miles out. Shots rang out from the Bismarck as the cruiser made its getaway. Soon, HMS Prince of Wales, commanded by Captain John Leach and HMS Hood, commanded by Captain Ralph Kerr with Holland aboard, set sail to confront the Bismarck.

Hood, was one of the warships that had been built in 1918 and revamped for WW2 but was still largely considered to be the pride of the Royal Navy, whilst Prince of Wales was a new one, fresh out of the factory only 2 months prior. Prince of Wales was still having mechanical problems, with civilian engineers still fixing hydraulics issues by the time they encountered the German ships. At 6AM on the 24th of May, 1941, Holland ordered his men to fire at the leading ship. However, Hitler had, unconventionally, placed the cruiser first. The Bismarck was the second ship. Realising the error, Leach opened fire on the Bismarck all their shots missed. They had lost the element of surprise and were now sitting ducks.

Whilst a few shots were hit against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, the British ships were no match for the German 15-inch guns, which laid waste to them. Unfortunately, Hood was struck hard. Leach watched in horror as a large fire erupted from the centre of the Hood, before it exploded, splitting in half and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Both Holland and Kerr were lost in the destruction.

The Prince of Wales manages to put itself in the exact same position that the Hood was in just moments earlier. After getting a lucky hit off on the Bismarck, a shell crashed through the bridge, killing all but 4. Leach was luckily one of those 4. He managed to order a retreat, dispensing a smoke screen to cover his get away. Out of the crew of 1,318 men, only 3 were rescued from the Hood. The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a disaster for the British and the Bismarck now had a clear path to the Atlantic but, thankfully, the fight was not over yet.

Reconnaissance planes saw oil slicks in the area, trailing away. It appeared as though Bismarck had been damaged in the battle. This should be a relief but Tovey began to worry. A while back, some of what was Holland’s Icelandic guard had lost the Bismarck on their radars. They had no idea where the beast was. Depending on how bad the damage was, there could be a mid ocean refuelling if the damage wasn’t that bad. If it was bad, it would most likely return to base, at either France or Norway. Analysts believed that it would stop at France, due to the signals being sent to the Bismarck had changed source from Berlin to Paris. Tovey’s map, due to a mathematical error, indicated that the Bismarck was travelling North to Norway. Tovey charged his fleet north, to where he believed the Bismarck might be.

Back on the home front, in Bletchley Park, mathematicians and codebreakers were scrambling to find any clues on the Bismarck’s whereabouts, before one German speaking codebreaker noticed something. A letter from a concerned father to German Naval Command, asking whether his son, who was serving on the Bismarck, was safe after the battle. The Navy confirmed that everyone was fine and that they were headed to Brest for refuelling. This message was quickly conveyed to Tovey aboard the King George V.

A photo of Bletchley Park during the war

Meanwhile, American lent scout planes were surveying the area, and spotted a large battleship leaking oil which opens fire with the anti-aircraft guns. They’ve found the Bismarck. As the planes climbed, they relayed this to the Admiralty. The HMS Ark Royal, an aircraft carrier, headed straight to the location. The had to catch her now, before she got in the range of the Luftwaffe airbases in France, where she would be unstoppable. 15 Swordfish torpedo bombers took off from the aircraft carrier. With intel claiming that it’s the only ship in the area, the Swordfish got into attack formation upon seeing a ship. The HMS Sheffield, however, realises that the Swordfish were targeting them instead. As four of the Swordfish pulled out, having realised their error, 11 released the new magnetic torpedoes. 6, thankfully, detonate on contact with the water and Sheffield managed to weave through the other 5.

The Swordfish returned to the carrier before heading out one last time. This is their final chance to sink the Behemoth. In their attack run, two torpedoes strike the Bismarck, one in its side and one in its stern. They saw the Bismarck sail on. Having prepped to report a mission failure, the jubilant crew of the aircraft carrier reported that the Bismarck was acting erratically, indicating that the torpedo run had damaged its steering.

Over next few hours, destroyers, under Tovey’s orders, have been firing upon the ship, making sure it’s occupied and cannot return to base. However, they still kept their distance till morning when Tovey spotted the Bismarck at around 9 in the morning on the 27th of May, 3 days after the sinking of the Hood. Tovey’s plan involved approaching the Bismarck from all sides, in order to disperse the gunfire across 4 directions. But first, an advance from the West must occur. One of the ships, the old, slow HMS Rodney, managed to take out the main fire control director with its massive 16-inch guns. With the Bismarck falling silent for a moment, the barrage began. The assault was from multiple sides, with even the Norfolk and Dorsetshire‘s 8-inch guns making decent work of the upper deck. An ammunition locker exploded, taking the secondary fire control director with it. The Bismarck’s crew were now firing whenever and wherever they wanted. Once the main guns fell silent permanently and the bridge down, Tovey began slamming broadsides into the Bismarck. Shockingly, it did not go under, even after 50 minutes of fire. Tovey ordered the Dorsetshire to finish the Bismarck while the other ships returned to base, which fires to torpedoes into the hull. The pride of Hitler’s fleet is finally sunk.

As they’re pulling German men out of the water, the crew of the Dorsetshire noticed a periscope peering over the water line. The Captain ordered the Dorsetshire to move, less it be sunk, abandoning hundreds of men in the water. Out of the 2,200 men on the Bismarck, only 114 were pulled from the water.

In Parliament the next day, Churchill sat down just before he was handed a note. He stood and proclaimed:

I have received news that the Bismarck is sunk.
Churchill speaking to the House of Commons

A photo of Churchill in the House of Commons

Bletchley Park erupted into cheers and applause. The sinking of the Bismarck was a naval victory that Britain desperately needed. It showed the competence of Bletchley Park and that they were highly important to the war effort. It distracted the press from the naval losses in the Mediterranean. And, most importantly, it showed the US Congress, who were hesitant about the war, that the Royal Navy could defend American Convoys. Despite Goebbels portraying the Bismarck as a noble last stand Hitler, from then on, would only use capital ships in defence of Germany, listening to Doenitz and expanding U-Boat operations in the Atlantic. Only 3 weeks later, Hitler would attack the Soviet Union, the beginning of the end for the Third Reich. The hunt for the Bismarck showed that even in the face of the might of Germany that Britain would never give up and never surrender.

The Battle of France

By May 1940, Germany controlled most of the European Continent. With Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and Norway being under Nazi control, Britain and France now stood alone as the last enemies of Germany, for the time being. One key problem in Germany’s path was the Maginot Line

A photo of a fortification on the Maginot Line

Between the late 1920s to mid 1930s, the French had built a large line of forts across their border with Germany. These forts were nigh impenetrable, so Hitler needed to think of a new strategy. He had two options. To breach south through Switzerland or to go North through the Low Countries of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Hitler chose the latter.

However, there was much bickering in army high command about how to attack. Whilst most advocated for a mere replica of the Schlieffen Plan in World War 1, Hitler and Erich von Manstein, Chief of Staff for Army Group A, requested a battle plan be made through the Ardennes, a dense forest region in Belgium and Luxembourg. Eventually, a compromise is reached, wherein Army Group B would attack from the Dutch border, whilst Army Group A would swoop in through the Ardennes.

Meanwhile, the British and French were prepping for a hypothetical counter attack. Whilst the Belgians and Dutch refused to allow French and British troops to immediately enter territory, for fear of provoking the Germans, they came up with a plan to hold the line and hopefully counter attack. However, the plan left little in the means of defence in the Ardennes, which British and French high command believed is impassible for armoured units, despite intelligence that sugggested the German’s plans to do just that.

On May 10th, 1940, Germany began to invade the Low Countries. They began with the pretence of just attacking the Netherlands, forcing Allied forces to organise up there. However, they were delayed in their response by mass numbers of refugees fleeing the opposite direction. Meanwhile, German forces began pushing through the Ardennes in mass numbers, forcing traffic jams 250km back from the front. All too late, the Allies realised their response in the Ardennes had been far too weak. The Blitzkrieg tactic worked once more in the Lowlands, with Stuka dive bombers, Messerschmidt fighters and Panzer divisions all working together in order to hit fast and hard.

The tension in France was felt on the home front too. With much of the British Public and government believing that Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies in the lead up to the war, with Czechoslovakia, has done nothing but think Hitler he can do what he wanted, Chamberlain resigned and was replaced by First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

By May 24th, Allied forces had been forced into a pocket in Belgium and Northern France. In a fighting retreat, Allied forces moved to Dunkirk, planning to evacuate forces there. Many French commanders viewed this as an abandonment and betrayal. Fearing a Southern counter attack, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt requested a cease of a direct assault on Dunkirk, to which Hitler agreed. Many say that if the Nazi forces had advanced on Dunkirk, Britain would’ve been more likely to surrender. Hitler defended this decision later, saying he did not want to humiliate the British, in hopes of initiating peace talks. Runstedt later claimed that it was not his order but Hitler’s. Regardless, nearly 340,000 troops were evacuated from Dunkirk in a spectacular feat in co-operation with land, air and sea, both civilian and military.

After the troops were evacuated and Belgium surrendered, without the consultation of the British and French, Germany launched an all out assault on the south. Only 10 days after the last troops left Dunkirk, German forces entered Paris on June 14th, 1940. On the 16th of June, the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, resigned, and was immediately replaced by Phillipe Petan, who immediately began peace talks with Germany.

Many protested to this, including Charles de Gaulle, who broadcasted a radio message from Britain, urging his fellow country men to fight. Whilst Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, was calling for peace talks through neutral Italy, Mussolini began forcing troops through the Alps on June 21st. The armistice eventually took effect on June 25th, 1940. The puppet of Vichy France was established whilst some overseas colonies remained under Allied French Control. However, Britain and the Commonwealth, with the assistance of a fractionalised France, now stood alone against the might of the German Army.

A photo of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 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, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
Churchill’s famous speech to Parliament before Dunkirk