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Finally the Allies (English, Canadians and Americans) were ready to
attempt a landing, with sufficient number of troops and tanks, on
heavily fortified French soil to liberate France, Belgium and Holland
and cross the river Rhine into Germany.
June 1944
- Europe. England had now been at war for nearly 4 years and with
American help had; Cleared the Germans and the Italians out of North Africa.
- Had invaded German occupied Italy from the south and had pushed the
crack German troops north as far as Rome. This was an extremely tough
theatre with most Italian rivers flowing East-West and thus easily
defended against a south to north allied advance. This was very similar
to a World War One battle field.
- Were prepared for the “D Day landings” designed to put eventually, some
3 million Allied troops onto German occupied French soil for the onward
march to Berlin. On the 6th June some 155,000 Allied troops crossed the
English Channel and fought their way up the open Normandy beaches
against stiff German resistance from dug in positions. There were huge
Allied losses but not as many as Churchill had predicted. The main
casualties were amongst the Americans who had refused to adopt many of
the British anti mine devices because they looked too amateurish.
- Simultaneously on the Eastern Front the Russians commenced their summer
offensive on June 9th and by July 20th had reached the eastern borders
of Poland.
- Back in Normandy- France on the 6th June, the Americans had landed
57,500 troops with losses of 6000 and the British together with
Canadians landed 75,200 with losses of 4,300. The Americans landed on
the west end of the beaches in areas code named Utah and Omaha and in
spite of heavy losses had taken the port of Cherbourg by June 27th. The
English landed on beaches named Gold and Juno and the Canadians
furthest east on Sword both being tasked to take the town of Caen by
the 14th. They failed finally taking the town on July 18th but only
after the RAF had flattened the old French city with 7,000 tons of
bombs to rid it of German defences. The Free French headed by de Gaulle
were allowed to “liberate” Paris a few hours ahead of the Americans who
had done all the work, on August 25th 1944. Meanwhile the British who
are fighting further north liberate Belgium on 3rd September and the
vital port of Le Havre surrenders to the Canadians on September 12th.
By the end of 1944
- The British, Canadians and Americans have retaken all of German
occupied Western Europe up to the river Rhine.
- On the Eastern Front the Russians are as far west as Warsaw, the
capital of Poland and Hungary’s Budapest. However they had shown their
true colours in Warsaw during August when the city inhabitants rose up
against the Germans on the understanding that the Russians, only a few
miles away, would support them. The Russians preferred to watch as the
Poles were massacred by the Germans which would make it easier for the
Russians to suppress rather than liberate the Poles a few months later.
- In Italy the British and Americans were still experiencing stiff German
resistance and were fighting northwards from Florence towards Milan.
In the Far East
- The Japanese have in desperation commenced their Kamikaze suicide
flights against American shipping while the Americans helped by the
Australians are slowly ridding the Indonesian and Philippine islands of
the Japanese occupier.
- In the British theatre, the English and their
Indian supporters are still in hand to hand combat with the Japanese in
Burma and Malay.
The end in Europe.
Germany surrenders in May 1945.
Crossing the Rhine for the final run through Germany was no easy task
and the necessary bridges were not taken until the end of March ’45 by
which time the Russians had already taken some towns in the east of
Germany and were only some 50 miles from Berlin which is in the East of
Germany. Churchill had wanted to beat the Soviets (Russians) to the
German capital because he feared (quite rightly as it turned out) that
the Russians would stay there as occupiers not liberators. However he
was over ruled by the American President and his team who in spite of
all the Russian atrocities still trusted them. The British, Canadian
and American armies were instructed to ensure crucial areas like the
industrial Ruhr in Germany was firmly in Allied hands. When the Germans
guessed this plan some 2 million German civilians and army deserters
fled the east of Germany (mainly by foot) to give themselves up to the
English or Americans whom they realised they could trust to treat them
humanely.
The Germans surrendered to
- Americans in the Ruhr April 18th.
- Hitler commits suicide April 30th.
- Russians in Berlin May 2nd.
- Allies in Italy May 2nd.
- British, to Montgomery in North West Germany, Holland and Denmark May
4th.
- Americans in Riems France May 7th.
- May 8th Berlin surrender-ceremony to British, Russian, American and
French.
- Roosevelt had died 12th April 1945 at 63 years old to be replaced by
Harry Truman.
Meanwhile back in the east against the Japanese both the English out of
India and the American Pacific forces have made huge strides. The
Japanese are down and in retreat but certainly not out.
Recapping for the Asian theatre of war
- 1941 December. Japanese invade Pearl Harbour. Americans now in the War.
Japanese simultaneously invade British Malay (Now Malaysia) and British
Hong Kong. England now has a war against both the Germans and the
Japanese simultaneously.
- 1942 5th February. Singapore, defence headquarters for the British
Empires Far Eastern lands falls to the Japanese.
- 1942 May. Japanese now
control American Philippines with England’s Australia now in reach also
England’s Malay and Burma. (Burma borders on England’s pride of the
Empire, India.)
- 1942 June. Americans fight their first significant battles against the
Japanese at Midway, just west of Pearl Harbour and then in the Coral
Sea just north of British dependent Australia. Both are victories to
the Americans.
- 1943 May. The British are driven back by the Japanese 1000 miles on
foot from Rangoon in the south of Burma, to the comparative safety of
India.
- 1944 March. Chinese military, under the control of American General
Stillwell attack and defeat the Japanese in the north of Burma.
- 1944 July British forces in India now regrouped and revitalised by
British General Slim re-enter the war and by August ‘45 the Japanese in
Burma have surrendered.
- 1944 October. The battle commences to re-take the Philippines. In the
Battle of “Leyte Gulf” virtually the whole of the Japanese Navy is
destroyed by the Americans.
- 1945 March the Americans re-take Manila in the toughest of battles when
the whole city is flattened. Nearly Half a Million Japanese are killed
in the battle for the Philippines to the American numbers killed of
14,000 but the Japanese there refuse to surrender even after the end of
the war.
- 1945 February- June. First battle for a Japanese Island, Okinawa.
Japanese troops surrender on 22 June and their commanding officer
commits suicide.
- 1945 May Germans surrender in Europe.
- 1945 July. Churchill agrees to American request to drop atomic bombs on
Japan.
- 1945 August. America drops first Atomic bomb on 6th August 1945, 80,000
Japanese civilians killed. 8th August Russian declare war on Japan and
invade Manchuria. 9th Aug atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Aug 10th
Emperor of Japan Hirohito orders surrender, hardliners in Japan try to
kill him.
- 1945 September 2nd. Japanese formally surrender.
- 1945 September 8th. British land in Malay, still occupied by the
Japanese who refused to surrender.
Notes
Military production.
By 1943 the American were making more armaments than all other
countries in the war added together.
Casualties
The official figure is some 50 million people killed. A breakdown is
as follows:
- Russia and rest of USSR 20 million
- China 10 million
- Poland 5.8 million
- Germany 5.5 million
- Japan 2.3 million
- Yugoslavia 1.5 million
- France 600,000
- USA 400,000
- Britain 360,000
- Italy 300,000
The Holocaust
This was the German solution for ridding Europe of people they
considered to be of a “lower life form” and would contaminate the pure
fair skinned super race the German leaders considered themselves to be.
In all some 12 million people were rounded up and murdered. Killing on
such a massive scale needed a well thought out master plan (The Final
Solution) which involved forcing Jews and others on trains (mainly
cattle trucks) with the help of collaborators, notably the French Vichy
Government, and trucking them without food and water to various “Death
Camps” in Germany and German occupied Poland where they were first
killed by lethal gas (the Gas Chambers) and then incinerated in
specially designed furnaces. The British and Americans were not aware
that this was going on but if they had they might not have been in a
position to stop it. It is alleged that the Catholic Church in Rome was
aware of it but turned a blind eye on the basis that they hated the
Jews as much as the Nazis but this has never been proven. The Vatican
has so far refused to confirm or deny the truth.
When the death camps were finally liberated by British and American
troops they could not believe what they found. There were considerable
numbers of near dead Jews who were walking skeletons. The nearest thing
seen today are the near dead starving African people seen on television
in Nigeria and the Sudan.
Jewish Holocaust victims by nationality,
approximate.
- Poland 3million
- Russia 1 million
- Romania 500,000
- Czechoslovakia 250,000
- Hungary 200,000
- Germany 150,000
- Lithuania 150,000
- Holland 100,000
- France 100,000
POST WAR NOTES
The next 60 years
- After the war England and the rest of Europe (except
for Ireland) were in ruins particularly Germany and England who had
been bombing each other for 5 years. The factories which were still
standing had been converted to making war materials and somebody had to
fund the re-conversion back to consumer goods. Once again the Americans
acted as the bank. Under the Marshall Plan (named after American
Senator Marshall) cash grants and technical know-how were provided to
those who needed it most. The main beneficiary was Germany which nobody
minded as the idea was to avoid the long term devastation and
depression which Germany endured after the First World War which was
the prime cause of the Second.
- England had suffered food rationing through the war years and after the
war even though they were victors they could not afford to import food
at pre-war levels. Food became even scarcer and was still rationed 7
years after the end of the war.
- In 1948 England hosted the Olympics. Athletes were housed in military
quarters and any sensible team brought their own food. Wembley Stadium
was still standing as was converted for Athletics from dog racing with
a few weeks to spare. Only the French complained of the food. The
American competitors looked like a breed from Mars compared with the
Europeans as they were well fed while the European athletes were skin
and bone. English Athletes were not given any extra food rations other
than donated by sacrificing relations. Astonishingly the star of the
Games was a European woman, Fanny Blancers Kohen, who as 30 year old
mother of two from German occupied Holland, won 4 Gold Medals and could
have one six if her coach had allowed her to compete. Two skinny
English girls got silvers behind her.
The Cold War
- Whereas the English and their American Allies had liberated Western
Europe from German occupation, the Russians having got rid of the
Germans in Eastern Europe remained as conquerors. Hence Europe became
divided into two. In the East, including Poland and Romania and Eastern
Germany, the Russians ruled an enlarged Russian communist empire. Here
the state under Stalin and his
secret police ruled. The economy was centrally planned under Marxist
rules (equality for all, education for all and jobs for life) but where
religion was banned along with freedom of speech and the press. In the
west which included France, Spain, Italy, Holland and Scandinavia, the
liberators were capitalists and returned each country to self
governance of free societies, were governments were elected by the
people who had freedom of speech, action and religion. In general
people like to be free and many in the East would have moved to the
free west if the Russians had not closed all the borders creating what
Churchill described as an Iron Curtain.
- Both the free west and the communist east had the Nuclear Atom Bomb and
rockets (all of German design) to deliver them to any parts of the
world. (The inter-continental ballistic missile.) There commenced a 40
year military stand off between Russia, which had annexed half of
Europe and Islamic Asia and the “West” headed and indeed now dominated
not by England and its Empire but USA. The two sides each had the
capability to annihilate the other.
Communism v. Capitalism
- In the 40 year stand off both sides tried to preach their ideology to
the rest of the emerging world. Notably Africa and India which had just
won their freedom from the fading British Empire and the other European
Colonialist only to be courted by Russia and then a defensive and
horrified America. Further in S.E. Asia following the fall of Japan the
Russians were not slow to act and there followed first the Korean War
where the British fought along side the Americans and the Vietnam War.
Both were the Capitalist and free Americans against the Communist
ideology backed by Russia. In Africa exactly the same thing happened
with Russia backed by Cuban troops trying to set up communist states
and the Americans and British resisting them.
The fall of Communism and the immediate rise of Fundamentalist Islam.
- After some 70 years of the Communist experiment in Russia and its
satellites their economies were bankrupt. The ideology of a centrally
planned system were individual initiatives were not rewarded as
everybody must remain equal had not worked. Mikhail Gorbachov came to
power in Russia, made peace overtures to the West, the Poles revolted
and the East Germans knocked down the Berlin Wall and the Cold War was
over.
- However the world seemed to immediately fall victim of another battle
of ideologies, this time fundamentalist Totalitarian Islam against the
Free West.
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