Second World War by Bamber Gascoigne

Author:Bamber Gascoigne [Gascoigne, Bamber]
Language: zho
Format: epub
Tags: #genre
Publisher: HistoryWorld Ltd
Published: 2010-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Second Fronts: 1941-1943

From the time of the first German onslaught against Russia, in 1941, Stalin has been demanding that Churchill launch a second front across the Channel to divert German troops from the east. Churchill argued in telegrams that such a move would fail because Britain had as yet neither the landing craft nor the divisions to attempt an amphibious assault on a strongly protected coast. Stalin merely reiterated his demand, with the added implication that the British were afraid of confronting the Germans head-on and should derive courage from the Russian example.

By August 1942 Churchill became convinced that he must meet Stalin in person to persuade him that a landing in France would not be possible until 1943 at the earliest - and to bring him news of another landing soon to take place. Churchill flew to Moscow by the only safe route, skirting round the European theatre of war - first to Cairo, then to Tehran and finally northwest to the Russian capital (passing to the east of the fierce battle developing at Stalingrad). In talks lasting five days Stalin still refused to accept that an immediate invasion of France was not possible, but he responded warmly to news of Operation Torch - the codename for the imminent invasion of northwest Africa by US and British troops.

In the event Stalin's expectation of an invasion of France was frustrated even during 1943, a year in which the western Allies decided to make Italy their next target - and in which U-boat activity in the Atlantic was seriously reducing the flow of supplies from the USA to Britain. The German production of bigger and faster U-boats, and the increase of the fleet to 240 under Karl Dönitz (a World War I submarine officer recently given command of the German navy), had resulted in a massive increase in the number of merchant ships sunk in the early months of 1943. The crucial battle of the Atlantic was reaching its climax, and Germany seemed poised to win it.

But the Allies also had new weapons in the pipeline, including longer-range bombers and short-wave radar (which could detect U-boats without them being aware of it). In April and May 1943 fifty-six U-boats were sunk, with the result that from now on the convoys suffered greatly reduced losses. Just in time, victory in the Atlantic would go to the Allies.

There was another front on which the advantage swung during 1943. In 1940 the civilian victims of night-time bombing raids had mainly been the inhabitants of British towns. But in 1942-3 the strategy which the Germans first used to such effect was turned upon them with a new intensity. During 1943, from March to July, Britain's Bomber Command mounted an almost nightly campaign against the industrial targets in the Ruhr. And with heavier bombs the technique of carpet bombing, pioneered by the Germans at Coventry, led to a devastating new phenomenon, the fire storm. The one that raged through the narrow streets of Wuppertal, during the night of May 29, killed some 3400 people - compared to about 550 in Coventry.

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