The Luftwaffe undertook raids on early warning installations in Sussex, Kent and Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. ibid.
In the weeks leading up to what is now known as Battle of Britain day on the 15th September 1940 saw the culmination of one aerial battle and the onset of another altogether more costly aerial campaign. The Luftwaffe was preparing to throw the kitchen sink at Britain. ibid.
But for those in the thick of combat it was an attritional war in which a split second could mean the different between life and death. ibid.
The Luftwaffe abruptly halted its attacks on British radar stations in favour of a final wave of bombing attacks against Britain cities. ibid.
‘We knew we were going into combat. But they didn’t let any of us know that they thought it was so risky that it could be a massacre.’ World War II: The Untold Stories, History 2020
D-Day, June 6th 1944: Secret mission Operation Overlord is unleashed. 160,000 Allied troops storm Normandy. They came as young men united in one cause, to defend liberty and freedom. Those who served remember. ibid.
A combined force of over 34,000 American troops are set to land on Omaha Beach. American soldiers are landing under the combined firepower of naval guns and bombs from the war, and their secret weapon – DD tanks … ‘Someone came up what seemed like a brilliant idea to have the tanks swim to shore.’ ibid. Jeff Deffelice, author Omaha, Mar Bradley: General at War
But the Allies dominate the skies. Through relentless bomber raids their superior air power is evening the fight. ibid.
The enemy have driven the British and French armies to the sea. Trapped at Dunkirk, they await their fate. Hoping for deliverance. For a miracle. Dunkirk 2017 starring Fionn Whitehead & Tom Glynn-Carney & Jack Lowden & Harry Styles & Aneurin Bernard & James D’Arcy & Mark Rylance & Cillian Murphy & Kenneth Branagh & Tom Hardy Barry Keoghan et al, director Christopher Nolan, captions
There’s 400,000 men on this beach, sir. ibid. Commander Bolton
He’s looking for a quick way out. In case we go down. ibid. Tommy
He’s shell-shocked, George. He’s not himself. He may never be himself again. ibid. Mr Dawson
Rolls-Royce Merlin engines: the sweetest sound you could hear out here. ibid.
Well there won’t be a home if we allow a slaughter across the Channel. ibid. Dawson to shivering soldier
The bombing of British cities during World War II was the defining moment for the country. 80 years on it still resonates profoundly. Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley, BBC 2021
Experts predicted that in two months bombs and poison gas dropped from planes could kill half a million civilians. The government’s biggest fear was that people would panic, and a collapse in morale would force a surrender. ibid.
Civil defence training exercises took place all over the country. ibid.
6th July 1940: Berlin had never given a victorious leader such a warm welcome. Adolf Hitler had crushed the French and driven the British from the continent. Nazi Germany had taken on the West and unleashed the apocalypse. Apocalypse: Hitler Takes on the West I: The Trap, National Geographic 2021
He was protected by fanatical SS officers in their black uniforms – SS Schutzstaffel – capable of any crime. At the Berghof Hitler received his ministers, foreign heads of state and even film stars. He also relaxed there. ibid.
The Allies had as many tanks as the Germans but they were scattered across the entire front. They had powerful artillery but their communication systems were outdated. ibid.
24th May 1940: Hitler went to the French front to see his generals and soldiers. He congratulated them. In just two weeks they’d forced the British, French and Belgium armies to retreat. In his 13th war directive Hitler ordered their total destruction. Apocalypse: Hitler Takes on the West II: Last Battles
Churchill opened fire [French fleet]. He later wrote, ‘This was a hateful decision. The most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned. The French had been only yesterday our dear allies. But the life of the state was at stake’. ibid.
22 June 1940: France, one of Europe’s great military powers, collapsed in a few weeks. Gasping and breathless, the last government of the Third Republic led by Marshal Petain urgently requested the terms of armistice. 1940: The Sound of Surrender, History 2021
At 3.30 p.m. on June 21st the Germans began recording all conversations inside the carriage without the French knowing. ibid.
Japan’s devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor plunged America into war. But it was Hitler who struck ever closer to home. U-boat Wolf-packs prowled the Atlantic and stalked America’s east coast sending ships and crews to the bottom. Hitler’s Secret Attack on America, National Geographic 2012
A forgotten battlefield ... The graveyard of the Atlantic. It’s a treacherous stretch of water. ibid.
Hitler ordered his Wolf-packs to blast American shipping. ibid.
Every U-boat received top secret orders decrypted on the infamous Enigma coding machine. ibid.
Much of the American Navy was deployed in the Pacific. ibid.
Large merchant ships were sitting ducks ... German U-boats ruled the waves. ibid.
In America news of the losses on her own doorstep was suppressed. ibid.
Hundreds of ships. Millions of tons of cargo. And thousands of lives were lost. ibid.
Berlin: 20th April 1945: Adolf Hitler’s 56th birthday. With the Soviet Red Army closing in, Hitler came up from his bunker to make one last appearance for the cameras. World War II: The Apocalypse: Hitler’s Rise to Power aka Apocalypse: The Second World War: Aggression, France 2 2009
The Second World War left some fifty million dead most of them civilians. ibid.
The Nazis took advantage of the fact that the socialist parties were divided. ibid.
Hitler comes to power legally on 30th January 1933. Within a few months his dictatorship is firmly in place. ibid.
His first mission will be to destroy France, to wipe out the humiliation of the Versailles Treaty of 1919. ibid.
4,500 Polish officers are executed with a bullet in the head in the Katyn forest. ibid.
The Nazis declare open season on gypsies. ibid.
He wanted to make Germany a world superpower. A pathological anti-Semite, Hitler also took on the mission of asserting the superiority of the Germanic Aryan race. ibid.
Hitler also believed it was his mission to bring all the German-speaking people into the Third Reich, beginning with his homeland Austria. ibid.
Hitler and Stalin were about to stun the world ... An extraordinary diplomatic coup ... A history-making treaty with his deadly enemy. ibid.
The first shots of the Second World War were fired on Danzig. ibid.
German generals were now facing their worst-case scenario – a war on two fronts. ibid
Poland is being ruthlessly carved up. ibid.
Stalin by occupying Poland is playing into the hands of Hitler. ibid.
The Nazis now have three million Polish Jews at their mercy. ibid.
The winter of 1939/1940 is indeed one of the coldest of the century ... All the winters of this war will be brutally cold. ibid.
Oswald Mosley, the English Fuhrer, challenges the government right in the centre of London. He will spend the next several years in prison. ibid.
10th May 1940 at 5.35 a.m. the Germans unleash their offensive. German paratroopers are dropped into Holland. World War II: The Apocalypse: Collapse of France aka Apocalypse: The Second World War: Crushing Defeat
The German infantrymen knock over the French as if they came from a different world. ibid.
The Germans have reached the English channel. ibid.
400,000 men cram the beach helpless and in disarray. ibid.
The British forces have left behind almost all of their equipment. ibid.
3,000 African soldiers and officers from the French army will be shot and killed after they are captured. ibid.
All of Germany acclaims Hitler. ibid.