Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

A Different Historical Perspective

If the entire history of Planet Earth could be measured on the face of a twenty-four hour clock then the whole of human history would represent a modest fraction of the last second of the last minute on that clock! Indeed, far more has occurred and changed on a global scale in the last few centuries than in the previous ten thousand years! What follows then is a series of selective and condensed histories starting from the Ice Age and moving progressively towards the present time. It's a deliberately different and radical perspective on major events which describe some of the successes and the failures of different periods. Although brief mention is made to some parts of Scottish history, more detail is offered in a separate section of this web site.

Global Conflict: World War Two

In 1938, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler sought to integrate a part of the Czechoslovak Republic largely occupied by Germanic peoples and gambled the League of Nations would not intervene. He was right. Opposition from Britain vanished when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Treaty of Munich and averted war by a policy of appeasement and in which France and Britain saw Russia as a greater threat. It was thought that a Soviet-Germanic war would ease pressure on other parts of Europe. In truth, however, Hitler was ready to offer Stalin a chance to join with him in splitting Poland.

On September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland via the Danzig Corridor and applied the technique of 'lightning war' on Polish citizens. On September 17th, the Soviet Red Army invaded eastern regions of Poland in cooperation with Germany. By October 1st, Poland had been overrun while surviving Polish forces reformed in Romania, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

In late September 1939, German bombers launched from recently conquered Norway flew across the North Sea with intent to destroy the Forth Bridge. From a strategic viewpoint, destroying the bridge would have disrupted arms and supplies to Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Fife and to Scapa Flow in Orkney. It was the first aerial action of World War 2 fought over British soil and where the attackers were met by Spitfires of the City of Glasgow squadron. The attackers were repulsed and suffered several losses without any damage to the bridge. In the Luftwaffe's haste to escape, many German bombers flew across southern Fife and dropped their bombs in an effort to lighten their aircraft and escape from the battle. The photograph was taken by a German cameraman aboard one of the bombers.

One house in Kilrenny was completely blown apart killing the entire family with the sole exception of a boy who had ventured to the bottom of the garden in order to feed his pet rabbit. Two houses in Crail were destroyed but, fortunately, the families were in St. Andrews at the time. The traitor and German radio announcer 'Lord Haw Haw' was compelled to put a positive face on the failed effort by making a propaganda statement that 'the industrial town of Crail had been destroyed!'

Although we might smile about such an exaggerated description now, Crail did perform a valuable function in World War Two with the nearby airfield called 'HMS Jackdaw' training many Coastal Command pilots and providing air cover to shipping going to and coming from the major shipping ports of Leith and Methil.

Large areas around Crail and nearby Anstruther became storage facilities for a growing number of aircraft intended for the invasion of Europe and where these were relatively safe due to the proximity of Leuchars and Jackdaw plus a lack of heavy long range bombers in the German Luftwaffe; a factor that proved to be a weak area during the Battle of Britain fought over southern England in September 1940. Even today, astute visitors can see red brick buildings and Nissan huts now being used for purposes related to agriculture and a few wide gates at the side of the road where aircraft could enter or exit. In the post-war era, HMS Jackdaw was closed and aerial defence duties shifted to Leuchars Air Base near St Andrews and leaving many large hangers that have now been adopted as barns by several local farmers.

The surprising and rapid surrender of France in 1940 presented major problems for United Kingdom and where the island stood alone and was surrounded by advancing German forces. Aerial reconnaisance photographs taken in the skies above northern Europe showed the assembly to ships and barges as part of 'Operation Sea Lion', the German code name for the invasion of Britain. In advance of this though, the need to secure aerial supremacy was a necessary precursor and Herman Goering, head of the Luftwaffe was confident his air force could succeed despite a lack of long range fighter escorts for the bombers expected to destroy air bases and inflict serious damage in Southern England. Goering had been a First World War fighter pilot but his optimism was misplaced. Neither side had the kind of heavy long range bombers capable of such a task at the time and were highly vulnerable if not supported by escorting fighters. German bombers were thus medium range craft employed in a role where their available over the targets were severely limited and restricted to a range with Coventry marking their furthest extent in England.

Over many days, the 'Battle of Britain' raged in the skies of southern England and where the lack of German long range bombers and support fighters were countered by a determined force of Spitfire and Hurricane fighters piloted by refugees from Poland and elsewhere alongside British pilots yet initially incapable of stopping vital airfields from sustaining major damage. At that moment, it seemed Goering's boast had been justified but the casualty rate among German crews was high and Goering's decision to switch the offensive against the capital city of London proved to be a catastrophic error and where more time became available to repair and resupply air bases in Southern England. As the aerial offensive continued, exhausted Royal Air Force crewmen were guided by radar on to the approaching bombers and where the losses among the Luftwaffe quickly became unsustainable and was draining valuable resources from other theatres of the war. Operation Sea Lion was postponed and presumably meant to be re-enacted at a later date but it never took place. The 'Battle of Britain' marked a turning point in the war and where Germanic expansion was halted but only because the English Channel lay between Britain and Continent. At best, a kind of aerial stalemate had been acheived.

Having said that, Germany entered the was with fifteen long range liners called 'Condors' and originally designed to become a fleet of international craft crossing the Atlantic. Within months of the opening of war, these aircraft were stripped of any comfortable seating or anything deemed luxurious in order to reduce weight and make way for additionall fuel tanks. The Condors became the far seeing eyes of the German U-Boat fleet and were capable of spending longer amounts of time over the Atlantic than other planes provided by the Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

Merchant shipping convoys sailing from Newfoundland to the UK were typically given aerial protection by Hudsons flown by the Canadian Air Force and then given aerial cover by large Sunderlands flown by the Royal Air Force. The trouble was that neither type of aircraft had the range to ensure aerial cover throughout each voyage and the gap between became known as 'U-Boat' alley and where German submarines could operate without fear of sudden air attack. It's also true that many escort warships for much the war were woefully inadequate to deal with the threat of submarines. Even when early versions of ASDIC were fitted, it might be possible to track a submarine prior to an attack but following the first depth charge, the noise was such to obscure the target for some time. U-Boat captains soon learned of this disadvantage and developed a preference to launch torpedoes from a surface position and at night.

In addition, the German development of the E-Boat was another spectacular success in their favour. Small, fast, lightweight and driven by three large Daimler diesel engines capable of driving the boat to an excess of 42 knots, these fast raiders were fitted with torpedo tubes and Oerlikon heavy calibre machine guns. Being small, their only major restriction was endurance and range. In terms of application, they were capable of moving close to the English coast and dropping mines in advance of any merchant fleet likely to sail through that channel. By the conclusion of the war, E-Boat activities had claimed more than those attributed to U-Boats. It became such an importan threat that the British countered with hastily converted pleasure boats powered by petrol and where they often came off worst during any encounter with an E-Boat and where the petrol fuel exploded.

In 1934, the German Nation launched the pocket battleship 'Graf Spee' and where the country had been limited by the Treaty of Versailles to restrict the tonnage of warships. Graf Spee met this condition but included many unforseen advances of technology packed into a smaller hull. In 1939, she was given the task of surface raider in the Southern Atlantic and supported by the German oil tanker and depot ship 'Altmark'. In many ways, the 'Graf Spee' was ahead of her time in terms of design with pre-cleaner systems for her fuel and radar controlled gunnery. She attacked many merchant ships causing the British Admiralty to respond. Several groups were assembled into hunting groups and taking valuable resources away from the main theatre of conflict.

In mid December 1939, Hunting Group G comprising the cruiser HMS Exeter and ANZAC light cruisers Achilles and Ajax confronted the German South Atlantic Raider. In this mid-ocean exchange, HMS Exeter took a beating but not before a shell fired from her had hit the pre-cleaning facilty of the fuel system crucial to the operation of the Graf Spee. With limited amounts of pre-cleaned fuel available, Captain Langsdorf of the Graf Spee, had limited options and headed his ship for the neutral port of Montevideo in Uruguay with light cruisers Achilles and Ajax following. HMS Exeter sailed for the Falkland Isles after sustaining major damage.

The pocket battleship Graf Spee self destructed when trapped in the River Plate rather than accept surrender. In the wake of this incident, the British Navy were keen to examine the wreck and learn more about the sophisticated gunnery system that had proved so accurate during conflict but local authorities forbade any examination since this might have affected their neutral stance during the war.

All in all, German advantages in 1940, were sufficiently great to cause great merchant shipping losses in the opening stages of the war and where a desperate Britain made ready to 'fight the enemy on the beaches' and where beaches of the country were installed with all kinds of anti-tank blocks; some of which still survivie in some parts of Fife. The surprising and rapid surrender of France in 1940 presented additional challenging problems.

In some ways, the war had begun with German and British Naval forces equally matched although most German warships were more modern and incorporating newer technology. Unlike World War One, there was no singular naval battle but a whole series of them and where the Battle of Atlantic remained the single and most continuous conflict throughout the war. Without supply from the United States, Britain would have been compelled to surrender but somehow and against all odds, the country was able to survive and fight on. The fear in 1940 was that, following the fall of France, Hitler would insist that the modern French Navy would be annexed as a part of the German Navy. If permitted to do so then the balance of Naval Seapower would have shifted considerably in favour of Germany. Even within the French Navy, such concern prompted Admirals to sail all major warships away from France and regroup at Mers-El-Kebir near Oran in North Africa to await further orders from whatever form of French government might emerge from the surrender talks. Other French ships, located further to Northern France fled to England and where they formed separate 'Free French' Forces under personal command of General De Gaulle then exiled in England.

In Britain, Prime Minister and former First Sea Lord Winston Churchill and his staff were presented with 'mixed messages' and where they ultimately believed Hitler would insist on inclusion of the French ships into the German Navy. It was a risk deemed too great and orders were given to attack and destroy the ships docked in Mers-El-Kebir; orders that were initially rejected and led to Admiral Somerville assuming command of Force H. On closing towards the target, Somerville sent an envoy to deliver a strongly worded message to Admiral Gensoul whereby several unpalatable options were presented including service with the allies or else the prospect of destruction. When the deadline passed without answer, Force H began an attack on Mers-El-Kebir. Several French ships were sunk at their moorings while a few managed to go to sea and escaped the carnage. About fourteen hundred casualties were recorded on that day and far less than was popularly supposed in propaganda claims. Nevertheless, this event does explain why the 'Free French' forces clung to a separate indentity apart with more faith in General De Gaulle than any British politician.

Throughout the war, Free French Forces fought for their homeland rather than any other cause and with others who might help them acheive their aim! This was always true of the French Resistance movement too and where clandestine activity against the German invaders was actively supported by Britain. It remains an important difference and where Free French Forces sometimes operated according to a different agenda and causing political embarrassment and friction within the Allies.

In June 22nd 1940, near Compiegne, and within the same rail carriage where Germany had surrendered before, the roles were reversed and where Germany formerly reached terms with a French surrender.

In the opening months of World War Two, the initial land army expeditions sent by Britain into France were quickly forced back onto the beaches of Dunkirk where many soldiers were miraculously rescued by using every small ship and boat available in the South of England. It was the moment when Britain truly stood alone against a rapidly expanding Axis Empire centred in Europe but also while a new threat of Japanese expansion began in the Far East and in alliance with Italy and Germany.

On the night of 11-12th, November 1940, a small number of outdated Fairy Swordfish biplanes were launched from the decks of HMS Illustrious, a British aircraft carrier, and in a new and daring raid against the Italian Naval Fleet based at Taranto in Southern Italy. Two of the aircraft were shot down with one crew surviving but three frontline Italian battleships sustained major damage with one effectively removed from the remaining years of the war. In the wake of of the Taranto raid, many Italian warships were subsequently withdrawn to more northerly ports and thus limiting their range and influence within the Mediterranean Sea.

Pearl Harbour: December 7th 1941

On the other side of the World, this latter event was keenly observed by the Japanese Navy and where their organisation had been keen to emulate and was modelled on that of the British Royal Navy. In the wake of the Taranto raid, they considered a much bigger plan involving six aircraft carriers with hundreds of aircraft capable of delivering a crushing blow against the US naval dockyard installation located in Hawaii. Senior Admiral Isoroku Yamamotto had been educated at Harvard and estimated that it would take nearly a year before American industry could rebuild the losses he expected from the attack. Crucially, he expected the American aircraft carriers to be at Pearl Harbour when they made their surprise attack.

It was a much bolder plan on similar lines to the smaller British raid on Taranto but expanded by far greater proportions to involve a fleet of four aircraft carriers laden with modern Mitsubishi Zero aircraft carrying both bombs and torpedoes. Additional targets for the raid included Clarke Air Force base from which aerial opposition would be generated shirtly after the attack began. In the immediate period before the Battle of Pearl Harbour, British Intelligence sources feared something of the sort and began sharing information with US Intelligence counterparts. This information was largely discounted as bogus by the US and where they feared it was fabricated to draw the US into the war on the Allied side.

The undeclared intent of war began early on Sunday 7th December 1941 and when several aircraft carriers of the Japanese Navy were able to move within striking range of the naval anchorage and in total ignorance of the intended target. Being Sunday, several reports of many aircraft appoaching the harbour were filed for reading next day and where even radar warnings were ignored. During the next few minutes, the bulk of the American fleet were exposed to the sudden arrival of several hundred aircraft bearing down on numerous targets and initially without opposition.

The battleship USS Arizona took several bomb hits before the forward magazine exploded. She sank with most her crew exceeding 1400 still inside and where the above photograph is one of the few colour pictures taken during the raid on Pearl Harbour. It's the moment when the forward magazine of the USS Arizona exploded. About two hundred crewmen survivied.

Most major ships of the fleet were damaged and crippled to varying degree and rammed onto the beaches if time permitted. Clarke Air Force Base was attacked just a new fleet of B17 bomber aircraft were arriving from mainland USA. By the time US forces began to respond with a small number of aircraft, the raid had largely been completed and the Japanese aircraft carriers were already heading away from Hawaii and beyond the range of the US fighter aircraft. The initial attack on the American fleet had been a complete success in most eyes but lacked the crucial targets of the American aircraft carriers and which had been at sea when the raid took place. It was to prove a fatal flaw relating back to woeful Japanese Intelligence prior to the event and where the survival of the American aircraft carriers would come to haunt future Japanese naval operations.

Just three days after the raid on Pearl Harbour, British Royal Navy Force Z sailing out from Singapore was attacked by 86 Japanese aircraft and the battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk. The War in the Pacific had begun and the United States of America was now ready to join on the side of the Allies in World War Two and compelled to fight a war on two fronts.

Indian Ocean: April 1942

The Japanese success at Pearl Harbour had clearly demonstrated an operational understanding of aircraft carrer tactics hitherto unsuspected but worse was to follow as the six aircraft carriers led by Admiral Nagumo made a sortie into the Indian Ocean during late March and early April 1942. In one case, it caught the RAF completely by surprise as Japanese planes flew over their airbase with most British planes on the ground. Over the eleven day period, panic spread through the Idian Ocean area and Admiral Somerville sent his aircraft carriers westwards as a precaution. Two escaped to fight another day but HMS Hermes, sent to Trincomalee Harbour in Northern Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was less fortunate.

As the Japanese carrier force moved towards Ceylon, many ships were sunk and where an attack on Colombo in Ceylon resulted in an aerial battle in which the RAF lost 27 planes against alleged far fewer losses on the Japanese side. In the wake of this attack, it seemed likely a Japanese attack on Trincomalee would follow and it was deemed prudent for HMS Hermes to put to sea without aircraft and with a few escort ships rather than be trapped in harbour.

Soon after the raid on Trincomalee, however, Japanese spotter planes spotted the carrier led group and this led to an attack by seventy Japanese bombers in which HMS Hermes sustained about forty hits. The naval corvette, HMS Hollyhock and Australian destroyer HMAS Vampire were sunk along with two tankers. The Japanese fleet began to withdraw a day later but not without having effectively pushed many Allied forces back towards India and East Africa in the wake of many shipping losses.

The Battle of the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic remains as the longest continuous conflict of World War 2 and almost the longest of any conflict in history. It's unusual in that most victims were civilian sailors and began when Britain virtually stood alone against the expansion of Nazi German armed forces throughout western Europe. In this perilous state, Britain became highly dependent on food, fuel and munitions from the United States of America and where it served German interests to prevent this and bring Britain to the brink of surrender.

By 1939, at the outbreak of war, Germany had learned much from the failures of World War One and had invested in new warships and submarines. There were even plans for a new aircraft carrier but the war came too quickly for this to be built. In sharp contrast, the Royal Navy comprised elderly and poorly equipped craft to deal with the threat of submarine warfare.

Although Germany deployed battleships as surface raiders in World War Two, they were often proved more useful as a means of consuming major resources of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. The German battleship, Tirpitz, for example was everntually sunk after considerable effort but having never fired its large guns at the enemy. The German battleship, Bismark, ultimately hunted down and destroyed, never fired on a British merchant ship! The notable exception was the Scharnhorst often viewed as the scourge of the Murmansk run until it was also hunted down and sunk.

In 1939, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal narrowly avoided being hit by three torpedoes fired by U39. In the event, the torpedoes detonated prematurely and U39 was sunk and becoming the first U-Boat casualty of the war.

The development of ASDIC underwater sonar proved useful in detecting submerged submarines but was less successful in tracking submarines on the surface. Even when extensively deployed, experienced U-Boat commanders soon realised this and, under cover of darkness, some were even brave enough to lay in wait as a convoy began to pass by around them before making their attack from within. On diving though, ASDIC provided useful information as regards speed and depth of a submarine and where this information could be used to set depth charges before launching.

At the start of the war, depth charges typically comprised an outer shell of a fifty gallon oil drum packed with amatol high explosive in the belief thyat a major underwater explosion could rupture the hull of a submarine at distance. By the end of the war, there was a greater understanding of how smaller charges detonated in close proximity could acheive the same effect and make anti-submarine warfare more effective. Hedgehog was such a weapon and it proved highly effective in the latter stages of the war.

Throughout the the 'Atlantic War' was 'U-Boat Alley' and where U-Boat captains were free to operate without fear from aerial attack. U-Boat captains referred to this as the 'happy times' but the obvious solution was to carry aircraft within the convoys and where any sight of a German Condor spotter aircraft might be challenged. Britain didn' have sufficient aircraft carriers to perform this function but many merchant ships were soon converted to permit this function initially with aircraft launched from ramps and incapable of safe recovery. In time, larger merchant ships like oil tankers, were retrofitted with crude decking permitting the launch and recovery of the Seafire variant of the Spitfire.

The inclusion of maritime radar on escort warships ended the period of surface raids by submarines and where the balance of power and ability switched towards the surface ships that could manoeuvere more swiftly and move at greater speed than the U-Boats they hunted. The new fleet of makeshift aircraft carriers offered a better kind of protection and the 'happy time' of the U-Boat crews became a memory. Towards the end of the war, the life expectancy of U-Boat crews was close to nil with many going to sea and sure they would not come back.

The Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway

In the Pacific War, the Japanese advances were rapid and where their sudden expansion was led by usage of their strong aircraft carrier group whose campaigns ranged from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to North Australia with Darwin being bombed by Japanese aircraft in February 1942. For a time, it seemed that Japan's powerful carrier force was unstoppable and where their expanding Pacific empire was making it increasingly difficult to retaliate against the Japanese homeland.

Conceived more as a reminder than any serious attempt at major damage, all fighter aircraft on the USS Hornet were exchanged for long range bombers of the United States Army Air Force. Lauched from extreme range and led by General Jimmy Doolittle, the bombers attacked Honshu on the Japanese mainland in April 1942 before heading onward to China. Although the damage inflicted was light, it was a mission to show Japanese people that their cities were not immune from an American response.

One month after the Doolittle raid, in May 1942, the Japanese attempted to land troops at Port Moresby, New Guinea, but were met by a powerful US Naval Force including the aircraft carrier USS Lexington. The Lexington was sunk in the battle and the Shoho, a light carrier of the Japanese Navy was also sunk. The invasion itself, however, was cancelled and the Japanese troops were withdrawn.

In Japan, this action prompted a new plan in which the Japanese Navy decided to apply their carrier strike forces directly against the US Navy and before they could build up sufficient forces in which the newly expanded empire could be threatened. They chose Midway Island as their next objective and where establishment of a base would bring them closer to Hawaii. It was a complex plan in which two carriers would attack the Aleutian Isles in the North as a diversionary tactic and hopefully draw American forces away from the main target. Four carriers led by Admiral Nagumo would lead the initial attack while the following invasion group would be led by Admiral Kondo. From the outset, it was agreed that the plan carried enormous risk but where the chances of success was high.

In Hawaii, at Peral Harbour, the USS Yorktown limped into harbour and in need of major repairs following the recent battle in the Coral Sea. Admiral Halsey, the most experienced aircraft carrier captain was also in hospital with an infectious skin disease. In the coding and cyphers bunkers, American Intelligence had broken the encryption codes used by the Japanese Navy and were able to predict where the enemy was planning to strike next and confirmed it by means of a radio signal ruse. Midway was reinforced and made ready for the battle while the aircraft carriers USS Enterprise, USS Hornet and USS Yorktown were dispatched to an area called 'Point Luck' on the orders of Admiral Chester Nimitz. USS Yorktown had been badly damaged at Coral Sea but had been hastily patched and went to sea with some workmen still making these repairs. In anticpation of this attack, the US began to send out spotter aircraft to search for the approaching fleet and the first positive results began on June 4th 1942.

In common with the Battle of Jutland in the First World War, there ought to have been a line of picket submarines east of Midway to intercept the American aircraft carriers but they were late to assume their station and missed them. In addition, a spy plane was to have flown over Pearl Harbour and establish whether the carriers were present. That flight never took place and because radio silence was a necessary part of the plan, the Japanese carrier force was totally unaware of the American carriers located near Midway. News about the attack on the Aleutian Isles to the North were ignored by the Americans and deemed as a diversionary tactic.

The Japanese carrier fleet comprising Hiryu, Soryu, Kaga and flagship Akagi emerged through a storm front and launched the first attack against Midway. Despite reinforcement, the elderly aircraft of the USAF were blown out of the sky by this first wave and inflicted major damage on the base.

What followed was a mixture of tactical errors, crucial communication breakdowns and varying shares of luck and misfortune for both sides. Initial US aerial attacks against the Japanese carrier fleet were unsuccessful with many pilots being shot down by the Japanese air cover protecting the carriers but in sufficient numbers to make the Japanese aware that several US aircraft carriers were operating in the area. For the Japanese, it meant postponing any further attack on Midway in favour of defence against this new seaborne threat. This tactical change meant re-arming aircraft intended for the second strike on Midway with torpedoes instead of bombs. In their haste to accomplish this, bombs were carelessly left on the deck while the torpedoes were being fitted.

Japanese spotter aircraft found the USS Yorktown and the vessel was subjected to a major attack with some reports of her having sunk. Later and in error, she was spotted again and where Japanese aircraft launched a second attack with this one being more successful yet leaving the Japanese believing they had sunk two US aircraft carriers. Despite being compromised and discovered, there was still a chance that the operation could succeed but in the absence of vital knowledge that a Japanese spotter aircraft had located the USS Hornet and USS Enterprise but could not relay this vital information because of a radio fault. By the time the aircraft returned to the carrier group, it was too late.

The aerial cover for the Japanese fleet had just beaten off an earlier failed attack when several groups of American aircraft arrived above and close to the carrier fleet and amazingly found itself free to make an attack and without aerial resistance. As each American bomb and torpedo slammed into their targets, bombs left on the flight decks of the Japanese ships were detonated and virtually sealed the fate of each ship. The flagship, Akagi, which had led the fleet during the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was one of the three carriers destroyed in this battle. Soryu and Kaga suffered severe damage and sunk soon afterward. Only the Hiryu survived this attack and successfully launched the aircraft that eventually sank USS Yorktown. It did not survive the battle, however, as American aircraft successfully bombed and sank her soon afterward. In light of these events, the Japanese invasion fleet was turned around and the invasion of Midway was cancelled.

Leaders in Japan had known right from the beginning that victory against the USA needed to be quick and decisive and hence the reason for haste. Senior Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto had been educated at Harvard and believed it would take eleven months for the Americans to build up sufficient momentum so that major losses to US shipping could be replaced. The disaster at Midway effectively ended any hope of victory against the US but the Japanese were far from ready to accept surrender. They would fight to the last man!

The Battle of Midway remains as one of the most crucial battles of the Second World War! It was the most singular conflicts that the United States coud not afford to lose and where the stakes were highest. It wsa near-run thing and if the Japanese had succeeded then American involvement in the European theatre of the war would have been far less. Many more resources would have been needed to defend the western side of the USA against direct attacks against the US mainland and where Hawaii might have been attacked and abandoned. The Battle of Midway could thus have affected the outcome of World War Two!

Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and the Atomic Bomb.

In successive years, the Japanese were forced to cede recently acquired territories and progressively withdraw closer to their own shores and frontiers. In a complete converse to the European war, Allied seapower in the Pacific was 'beefed up' by new vessels and new aircraft of increasing ability and specification. New technologies gleaned from Britain like RADAR, ASDIC and advanced aircraft designs were applied against Japan in steadily growing numbers. American submarines were deployed with a view to strangling supply routes in the same way Germany had tried against Britain.

In the closing stages of the war, daily life in Japan meant dealing with shortages and a serious lack of essential supplies. Despite this and determined to the last, leaders of the Japanese nation were determined to continue the struggle towards a point where they couldn't. Admiral Yamamoto, father of the Pearl Harbour and Midway Campaigns, died when his aircraft was shot down by American aircraft during a visit to inspect Japanese troops. Despite this, and in a complex series of plans involving deception and commitment of major warships; the Japanese still hoped to inflict a serious defeat on the US forces even at this late stage of the war. Kamikaze pilots and submariners became the last vestige of success and where major naval ships left port lacking sufficient fuel to get home. Retreat was never an oiption but merely delayed the inevitable. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the backbone of what had remained of the Japanese Imperial Navy was destroyed.

As American invaders began to get closer to the homeland of Japan, the needs became more urgent. On the island of Iwo Jima, the resistance fought by the Japanese was particularly fierce but with limited resources and reduced ability to resupply, the outcome was inevitable yet at high cost to both sides.

Wooden deck aircraft carriers were particularly vulnerable to kamikaze attacks and the USS Franklin suffered badly following such an attack yet by then, the outcome of the Pacific War was inevitable. Sixty-seven Japanese cities had been targeted over six months using incenduries but even these explosives, designed to incite major firestorms, had failed to result in surrender. Estimates of casualties needed before surrender now played a major part in the decision of recently elected US President Harry S. Truman and he was advised that it might take six million American casualties before Japan would surrender.

In the wake of this unpalatable news, he chose to deploy usage of recently developed atomic bomb technology. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were selected and on August 6th and 9th, 1945, two atomic devices of differing design were air-burst over each city with horrendous consequences. The Japanese government chose to surrender just a few days later. The Battle of the Pacific was over!

Stalingrad

It's possible that nobody was more shocked and surprised than Joseph Stalin when Hitler ordered the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and especially when, under his personal direction, the USSR had signed up to a non-agression act with Nazi Germany in 1939. Indeed, the man who had inherited Chairmanship of the Communist Party and Leadership of the USSR following the death of Lenin in 1924 was distinctly absent and hidden from the World for about ten days after the invasion began. When he reappeared however, Stalin seemed better able to take on the duties of a wartime leader and make firm decisions of which many were unpalatable yet crucial. His first orders were to instruct a retreat whereby every part of infrastructure that could prove useful to the advancing German Wemacht be destroyed before pulling back. Factory plant and equipment deemed useful to the Soviet ability to fight a war was quickly relocated eastwards and esablished in new locations and in which time played a major factor as the German invasion reached out deeply into Soviet territory.

On the German side of the equation, Adolf Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union meant withdrawing troops and other resources from other theatres of the Global conflict at a time when troops and equipment were starting to arrive from America. It seems likely that, like Napoleaon before him, that he had badly underestimated the Russians and the severity of Russian winters. Thirty miles from Moscow, the German advance was halted and at Stalingrad, the Russians fought back with everything they had and despite appalling loss of life at the height of battle. The chilling statistic concerning the average survival rate for a Russian soldier arriving in Stalingrad was about 4 hours!

As the harsh winter of 1942-43 arrived, fate began to favour the defenders as German technology was stretched and found wanting in these conditions. Overlapped wheels of Panzer tanks, designed that way to provide additional armour, froze solid in the bitterly cold weather while trucks assigned to carry supplies to the front struggled in mud and snow. During the initial attack on Russia, the people had fled East but not before they destroyed bridges and railways to stop the enemy from using them. Worse still, better equipped allied shipping convoys to Murmansk were getting through and delivering modern armament and supplies to the Russian army while factories which had hastily relocated to the East were now returning to a state of production. By December 1942, the Russians were closer to matching the capabilities of the German invasion forces although still encountering staggering losses in terms of human life. Crucial supply air bases were snatched from the Wermacht and major German armies became encircled and forced to surrender.

Quite suddenly, without air support and supplies, thousands of German soldiers succumbed to frostbite, hypothermia and even starvation. By February, 1943, the situation had become untenable and, despite direct orders from Adolf Hitler ordering him not to surrender, Field Marshall Paulus felt unable to comply and became the first German Field Marshall to be captured by the enemy.

El Alamein and Afterwards

Between October and November 1942, at El Alamein in North Africa, the British Army led by General Montgomery defeated German and Italian forces in a decisive battle and which shattered the myth of invincibility attached to the German North Africa Corps. It proved to be a turning point in the war. Winston Churchill summed it up thus, "This is not the end, nor is it even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." And so it was.

The invasions of Sicily and then the Italian mainland were resisted fiercely but had drawn many resources from other theatres of the war and lessened pressures on other fronts. The Axis forces would never again have that ability to deliver a knock-out blow against the enlarged enemy that now included the United States. Allied Commanders were already hard at work on a massive European invasion called 'Operation Overlord' and in which went into operation on the 6th June 1944 with large scale troop and equipment landings on beaches in Normandy. The invading troops met with fierce resistance but ultimately established a beachhead so fuel and other supplies could continue the advance.

Despite the odds of success, Adolf Hitler pressed the German nation to continue the war even though it must have seemed inevitable that victory was no longer possible against Allied Forces pressing in from every direction.

In a last desperate attempt to halt the progress of Allied Forces in Europe, Hitler ordered a determined attack in the Ardennes and which later came to be known as the 'Battle of The Bulge' and compelling Allied strategists to quickly re-assign armoured forces under the command of General George S. Paton to move swiftly towards the area. Weather assisted the progress of German forces and when this changed, aerial superiority was attained and essential fuel supplies to the Wermacht was disrupted. The bold initiative Hitler had demanded lay in ruins and had stripped a large part of the remaining forces that could have been used to better defend the homeland. The European theatre of war ended in April 1945 soon after allied troops stormed into Berlin. Adolf Hitler proclaimed the German people had failed him shortly before taking his own life rather than be captured alive!

Conclusion

It remains a sobering thought to realise that if World War Two had begun five years later, then Germany might have entered the war equipped with atomic bomb technology and intercontinental missiles capable of striking the United States. Germany was already planning construction of an aircraft carrier and was already far ahead in the design and construction of a new generation of submarines that came too late to alter the outcome of World War Two. It's likely their pioneering work on jet aircraft would have been perfected too! In current times, we might count our blessings that it came out the way it did! Having said that, the 'Cold War' era and separate doctrines between communism versus capitalism were to prove that any promise of peae and harmonious existence among all mankind was a myth and one that remains in current times.