1) France had more tanks, guns and men than Germany in 1940
It is always assumed that during the Second World War the Germans
bludgeoned their way to victory with a highly modern and mechanised army
and Air Force that was superior to anything the Allies could muster in
May 1940. The reality was very different.
On 10 May 1940, when the Germans attacked, only 16 of their 135
divisions were mechanised – that is, equipped with motorised transport.
The rest depended on horses and cart or feet. France alone had 117
divisions.
France also had more guns: Germany had 7,378 artillery pieces and
France 10,700. It didn’t stop there: the Germans could muster 2,439
tanks while the French had 3,254, most of which were bigger, better
armed and armoured than the German panzers.
2) The priority for manpower in the UK is surprising
Britain had decided before the war began that it would make air and
naval power the focus of its fighting capability, and it was only after
the fall of France that British powers realised that the Army would have
to grow substantially too.
However, right up until the spring of 1944, the priority for manpower
in the UK was not the navy, RAF, army, or even the merchant navy, but
the Ministry of Aircraft Production. In the war, Britain alone built
132,500 aircraft, a staggering achievement – especially when considering
that Fighter Command in the battle of Britain never had more than 750
fighters.
3) Allied merchant shipping losses were just 1 per cent
Allied shipping losses in the Second World War in the North Atlantic,
Arctic and Home Waters were just 1.48 per cent. Overall, there were
323,090 individual sailings, of which 4,786 were sunk. Of these, 2,562
were British, but on average, there were around 2,000 British ships
sailing somewhere around the world on any given day.
Convoys, for the most part, were pretty safe, even though a few
suffered terribly. Independent sailings and stragglers from convoys
suffered the worst, but faster independent sailings were needed to cut
down on unloading time and congestion, which was the drawback of the
convoy system.
4) Britain had the least rationing in Europe
France and Britain began the war without rationing and, while it was
modestly introduced in Britain in January 1940, France had still
resisted by the time they were defeated in June 1940. Germany, on the
other hand, introduced rationing before the war and struggled to feed
its armed forces and the wider population from start to finish.
The country’s demand for food from occupied territories led to a lot
of hunger for a lot of people, including the urban French. British
people never had to go hungry and, although a number of foods were
rationed, there were lots that were not. Certainly, by 1945, Britain had
it very easy compared with the rest of Europe.
5) The Japanese had Kamikaze rockets
It was not only the Germans who put rocket-power aircraft into the
air in the Second World War. After their initial victories, the Japanese
struggled to pace with US and British technology, but they did develop
the Ohka – or ‘Cherry Blossom’, a rocket-power human-guided
anti-shipping missile, which was used at the end of the war as a
kamikaze weapon.
It had to be carried by a ‘mother’ plane to get within range, then
once released would glide towards the target – usually a ship – before
the pilot would fire the rockets and hurtle in at up to 600 mph. Ohka
pilots were called Jinrai Butai – ‘thunder gods’ – but only managed to
sink three Allied ships. It was a lot of effort and sacrifice for not
very much.
6) Field Marshal Alexander was the most experienced battlefield commander of the war
Field Marshal Alexander was known to every Britain in the country by
the war’s end, but he is less well known today. He had an extraordinary
career, and was the only officer of the war to lead front-line troops at
every rank.
After rising to acting Brigadier in the First World War, he led the
Nowshera Brigade on the Northwest Frontier in the 1930s, the First
Division in France in 1940, and British forces in Burma in 1942. He
commanded Middle East Forces and two army groups before finally becoming
Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean.
He was also unique in the British Army for having commanded German troops in Latvia in 1919-20 during the war against Russia.
7) There was a difference between Allied & German fighter aces
The Luftwaffe had an entirely different approach to their ‘aces.’ Not
only were pilots expected to fly on operations longer without breaks,
they also actively helped their leading shots get big scores with lesser
mortals protecting them while the ‘experten’ did the shooting.
On the Eastern Front they came up against badly armed and trained
Soviet aircraft and soon the leading pilots began amassing huge scores.
Bibi Hartmann was the leading ace of all time with 352 ‘kills’. The
leading Allied ace of the entire war was RAF ace, James ‘Johnnie’
Johnson with 38 kills.
8) The missing Luftwaffe fighter plane
At the same time as Messerschmitt was developing the Bf109, rival
firm Heinkel were also putting forward a new all-metal monoplane
fighter, the He112. Early prototypes of each were pretty evenly matched
in terms of speed and rate of climb and both the Me109E, as
Messerschmitt’s fighter became, and the He112E had speeds of more than
350mph.
The latter could climb to 20,000 feet in 10 minutes. More
importantly, it had a very sturdy inwardly-retracting undercarriage that
made it easy to land for newly trained pilots, and a phenomenal range
of some 715 miles, which was better even than the twin-engine
Messerschmitt 110.
The He112 would have been the ideal partner to the Me109 – and its
range was an advantage in the battle of Britain and elsewhere. However,
while Willy Messerchmitt was a good party man and Göring had a special
(and irrational) fondness for the Me110, Heinkel had a whiff of Jewish
blood – so the Heinkel fighter was dropped.
9) The American Parsons Jacket was designed with comfort in mind
The standard and most widely worn US Army field tunic of the war was
the M41, better known as the Parsons Jacket. This was introduced in 1941
following trials by the US 5th Division in exercises in the Midwest and
Alaska in the summer and autumn of 1940, and was given its name after
Major-General Parsons, the divisional commander.
The design, however, was based on a pre-war civilian windcheater: the
rapidly expanding US Army recognised that most of its recruits were
conscripts and that comfort, durability and practicality were more
important than slick military bearing. With a zip and button front, it
was a simple, lightweight and warm short jacket that required little
tailoring and wasted no material, and which was designed in consultation
with Esquire magazine’s fashion desk.
10) Germany’s motor transport was minimal
German wartime propaganda that the Third Reich had a highly
mechanised and modern army is still widely believed, but actually, in
1939, Germany was one of the least automotive societies in the western
world, despite the autobahns and Grand Prix victories of Mercedes.
On the outbreak of war, there were 47 people for every motor vehicle
in Germany. In Britain, that figure was 14, in France it was eight, and
in the USA it was four. This meant the German army was largely dependent
on railways, horses and carts and the feet of its soldiers to get
around; there were only 16 mechanised divisions in the army in May 1940.
More importantly, however, such comparatively low numbers of motor
vehicles meant there were fewer factories, fewer workshops, fewer petrol
pumps and fewer people who knew how to drive. In other words, it was a
shortage that could not be easily rectified.
A soldier patrols in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, April 14, 2017.
10. South Korea
Leopard 2 tanks are seen during a German army, the Bundeswehr, training and information day in Munster, Germany October 9, 2015.
Members of Japan's Self-Defence Forces' infantry unit march during the annual SDF ceremony at Asaka Base, Japan.
Prime
Minister Theresa May passes tanks as she visits 1st Battalion The
Mercian Regiment (Cheshire, Worcesters and Foresters, and Staffords) at
their barracks at Bulford Camp on September 29, 2016
French soldier stands guard under the Eiffel Tower in Paris
A US Marine fires an M777-A2 Howitzer in Syria, June 1, 2017.
