(Part 4)Worl War II Full History

British Home Front

In May 1940, Winston Churchill entered Downing Street convinced that the war could only be won through the complete mobilisation of Britain’s civilian population. The British home front was as important as any battle ground. Throughout the war, the Ministry of Information (under Alfred Duff Cooper and later Brenden Bracken) tried to boost public morale through propaganda campaigns. It also frequently prevented (or at least delayed) the press from publishing information that would damage public spirits, such as photographs of bomb-damaged houses in poor parts of London.

The Home Guard, or ‘Local Defence Volunteers’, was formed on 14 May 1940, a response to the Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden’s call for ‘men of all ages who wish to do something for the defence of their country’. The Home Guard became a key plank of the strategy of civilian mobilisation. 1.5 million men rushed to join, convinced by the bleak international picture that a German invasion was on its way. Throughout June and July 1940 ordinary people made preparations for the expected onslaught, including the collection of scrap iron to make armaments and the construction of concrete pillboxes in suburban parks.

Women also played a crucial role on the home front, fighting a daily battle of rationing, recycling, reusing, and cultivating food in allotments and gardens. From 1941, women were called up for war work, including as mechanics, engineers, munitions workers, air raid wardens and fire engine drivers. More than 80,000 women joined the Women’s Land Army, enduring tough conditions and long hours in isolated rural outposts in order to prevent Britain from being ‘starved out’. In cities, the Women’s Voluntary Service prided itself on doing ‘whatever was needed’, mainly providing support (and much needed tea and refreshments) to victims of the Blitz and those sheltering in Underground stations.

From September 1940, the Blitz - the sustained bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany - hit many towns and cities across the country, particularly London, Coventry and Hull. Beginning with the bombing of London on 7 September 1940, which went on for 57 consecutive nights, and lasting until 10 May 1941, more than 43,000 civilians were killed by bombing and over a million houses were destroyed or damaged in London alone.

While the Blitz spread fear, it also engendered a strong feeling of community and collective stoicism, through urban populations. As gas masks, air raid sirens and blackouts became part of daily life for many Britons, 3.5 million children were evacuated to the countryside, where they had very mixed experiences. As families waited nervously for news of loved ones serving on the front lines, a telegram from the War Office – which carried the news of the death or capture of soldiers – became a universally feared symbol of the tragedy and arbitrariness of the war.

Rationing was another unwelcome yet necessary fact of life. Before the war, Britain had imported 55 million tons of food each year; by October 1939, this figure had fallen to just 12 million. Not just food, but also clothing, furniture and petrol were rationed, helping to create a booming black market, which traded items such as petrol coupons, eggs, nylon stockings and cigarettes. Rationing would continue until 1954, when limits on the purchase of meat and bacon were lifted.

One of the most popular items traded on the black market was SPAM, brought to Britain by US soldiers. Yet the roughly two million American servicemen who arrived in Britain in preparation for the Normandy landings became renowned for more than their dubious canned meat. As the GI’s became friendly with the local population, leaving a trail of broken hearts and a significant number of pregnancies in their wake, the English comedian Tommy Trinder famously referred to them as: “overpaid, oversexed and over here.”

Prisoners of War

During the war, the treatment of prisoners of war was supposedly governed by the Geneva Convention, a document formulated in 1929 in Switzerland and signed by the major western powers including Britain, Italy, the US and Germany. The armies of the Western Allies were under strict orders to treat Axis prisoners in line with the convention, something which generally occurred. Some abuses, however, such as the shooting of German POWS by US troops, did take place. A notorious example is the Dachau Massacre, when the soldiers who liberated the camp shot several SS guards, allegedly as they attempted to surrender.

Germany and Italy generally treated prisoners from France, the US and the British Commonwealth in accordance with the convention. The Germans were obliged to apply this humane treatment to Jewish prisoners of war who wore the British Army’s uniform, thus sparing them the horrific fate meted out to other Jews. Although Allied prisoners of war complained of the scarcity of food within German POW camps, they were treated comparatively well. For example, ordinary soldiers who were made to work were compensated, and officers were exempt from work requirements. The International Red Cross eased conditions by distributing food packages and providing medical assistance.

Although escape from German camps was almost impossible for Allied POWs, inmates did stage several famous breakouts. The Stalag Luft III camp for Airmen in Silesia (now Żagań in Poland), was the site of two famous escapes by prisoners who used scavenged objects and materials to dig a series of underground tunnels. In October 1942, a group of four prisoners which included the Army Officer (and later author) Patrick Reid made a successful breakout from Colditz Castle. They slipped out unnoticed through the kitchens into the yard, through the cellar and then finally down to a dry moat and through a park. The group then split into two pairs; all four men managed to reach the safe-haven of Switzerland.

Soviet prisoners of war were treated in accordance with their supposed ‘subhuman’ Slavic racial status by the Germans. Hiding behind the (legally invalid) pretext that the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention, the Germans treated Soviet prisoners with appalling brutality and neglect. Many died as slave labourers or ended up in death camps. Of the 5.7 million Soviet prisoners taken by the Axis powers, 3.3 million died in captivity. This figure, when compared with the 8,348 Western Allied prisoners who died in German POW camps (of a total of 232,000) starkly demonstrates the radically different treatment given to both groups.

In late 1944, as the tide of the war turned against Germany, the Nazi authorities began to move thousands of prisoners towards the interior of Germany, away from the advancing Allied armies. Over the winter of 1944/45, thousands of prisoners who were already weak, ill and malnourished were forced to walk miles to railway stations, and then taken in cattle trucks to their new destinations. During these infamous ‘Death Marches’, many were shot or died of exhaustion.

Prisoners of the Soviet Union also faced a grim fate. Thousands of Polish soldiers captured following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 were executed. More than 20,000 Poles were killed in the Katyn Forest Massacre. Of the almost 100,000 Germans captured following the Battle of Stalingrad, only 5,000 survived the war. Many German captives were sent to labour camps in the depths of Russia, where hunger, exhaustion and freezing conditions killed thousands.

US Entry and Alliance

/locations/italy In September 1939, the ideological affinity between the USA and Britain was unquestionable, yet large swathes of the US public, media and politicians were deeply isolationist. With hindsight, many people resented America’s involvement in the First World War. The desire to ‘avoid foreign entanglements’ and focus on domestic issues was widespread.

When war broke out in Europe, US President Franklin Roosevelt recognised that the conflict threatened US security, and looked for ways to help the European democracies without direct involvement in the war. This necessity increased in June 1940, when the Fall of France left Britain as the only democracy standing between Nazi Germany and America. In 1939, the Fourth Neutrality Act authorised the US to trade arms with belligerents provided that the countries paid in cash and collected them. In March 1941, Roosevelt moved further towards making the US the ‘arsenal of democracy’ with the Lend-Lease Act, which permitted the lending, leasing, selling, or bartering of arms, ammunition and food to “any country whose defence the President deems vital to the defence of the US.”

The US was sucked further towards the conflict when its navy and air force began to ‘escort’ British convoys which transported Lend-Lease material across the Atlantic, protecting them from German submarines. Roosevelt’s announcement of a ‘shoot on sight’ policy in September 1941 following an attack on the USS Greer enraged isolationist senators; they alleged that Roosevelt was deliberately provoking skirmishes with the Germans. Meanwhile, Churchill repeatedly attempted to convince Roosevelt to enter the war. At the August 1941 Atlantic Conference, the two leaders composed a charter for the post-war world; Roosevelt tackled the thorny issue of the British Empire, promoting the recognition of “the right of all peoples to choose the government under which they will live.”

Churchill did not have to wait long. After the bombing of the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, only one congressman opposed the declaration of war; the vote in the senate was unanimous. Hitler’s declaration of war on the US, which came four days later, was actually a blessing in disguise for Roosevelt; it enabled him to legitimately pursue a ‘Germany first’ strategy. In November 1942, Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, became the first US military offensive of the war in the West. Allied troops slowly cornered German forces in North Africa, who surrendered in Tunisia in May 1943. The joint British-US victory, costly and hard fought as it was, was invaluable in mobilising US public opinion behind the war effort.

By the beginning of 1943, the opening of a ‘second front’ was a pressing and divisive issue. Although both leaders recognised the urgent need to relieve the pressure on Russia on the Eastern Front, Churchill favoured an attack through Italy – the ‘soft underbelly’ of the Axis – while Roosevelt pushed for an assault on France. At the Casablanca conference in January 1943, Churchill effectively won the argument. It was decided that operations in the Mediterranean would continue once victory was achieved in North Africa. The success of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily launched in July 1943, allowed the Allies to invade the Italian mainland, capturing Rome on 4 June 1944.

Although various points of ideological and strategic difference arose between Britain and the US during the war – most notably regarding the British Empire, the British attitude in Burma and India and the shape of the post-war world – it is indisputable that Churchill and Roosevelt enjoyed a deep personal bond. The two countries they led shared the same fundamental commitment to cooperate in order to rid the world of international fascism.

Credit to: http://www.history.co.uk for my source of this story