Eighty Years Ago This Week

  Britain set the seal on its first significant, unarguable triumph of the war with the issue of the Africa Star to those who had fought in North Africa for "a victory that will shine in history." Those who had fought elsewhere were not to be left out and they would receive what was then called, the 1939-43 Star, later the 1939-45 Star, a blanket decoration for all who had seen service. The Africa Star was the first medal of the war to reward a specific campaign. For the sixth day in succession the lead story in The Times was of a bombing attack, a good indication of quiet news elsewhere. Bomber command was still heavily commited to the Battle of the Ruhr but the last really big raid - on Wuppertal - was some weeks in the past. King George VI approved the final design of the "Sword of Stalingrad" which was to be presented  to the Soviet city in honour of its resistance while he was still visiting forces in the Mediterranean theatre. He chose one design from a number...

  Churchill rejigged army high command responsibilities in India. He moved Wavell from the job of C-in-C to become the Viceroy in succession to Lord Linlithgow. Given Churchill's determination to preserve the raj, it is unlikely that he wanted Wavell to improve on Linlithgow's lacklustre showing in persuading Indian leaders to support the war effort actively. Churchill had never liked Wavell and the move took him even further from active military command. He was replaced as C-in-C by Auchinleck who had been unoccupied since being sacked from the Middle East six months before and refusing command in Persia. Auchinleck had never drawn Churchill's contempt in the same way as Wavell but his days as a fighting commmander were numbered. The job was merely administrative and organizational; control of the battle against Japan was reserved for other commanders and they were to be men more to Churchill's taste. George VI left Britain for the first time during the war to visit al...

  The allied Chiefs of Staff signed the Pointblank directive which set objectives for their combined bomber offensive. The principal goal was the reduction of German fighter strength necessary to invade Europe. The directive asserted that it would be better to damage a small number of "really essential industries" severely than damaging many a little. The project was essentially American; RAF Bomber command was given a large get-out clause as the plan "did not attempt to prescribe [its] major effort." Bert Harris was safe to pursue his strategy of winning the war by bombing German cities alone. The RAF did, though, make a major concession to a rational use of air power in the pending attack on mainland Europe. A "Tactical Air Force" was formed in Britain on the model of the organisation that AM Tedder had developed to support the surface operations of the other armed forces in the Mediteranean, where practical experience had demonstrated that the RAF's...

  The allies initiated a massive air and sea bombardment of Pantelleria, a heavily fortified and rocky islet  which was seen as a potential impediment to the planned amphibious attack on Sicily. The preparations had involved detailed estimates of the weight of bombs needed to suppress Pantelleria's defences by Solly Zuckermann. Zuckermann had been involved in studies of the effect of German bombing of Britain but it was his work on Pantelleria that established himself as the pet scientist of AM Tedder, the allied air commander in the Mediterranean. When the garrison capitulated before the landing was made, he acquired  a rather spurious kudos, which was deployed in the increasingly bitter debate over the best use of bombers. Unusually for the scientists involved in the argument, Zuckerman soon visited Pantelleria to admire the airmen's handiwork. General de Gaulle turned the screws on Giraud, his rival as leader of the non-Vichy French. He accepted without reference to Gi...

  The memorial day edition of the Saturday Evening Post carried Norman Rockwell's picture of "Rosie the Riveter", made famous by a song the previous year and an emblem of the women hired by the US arms industry to do heavy manual work previously done by men now serving in the military. She is believable, muscular and relaxed. Her rivet-gun is a heavy weapon of industrial warfare. She casually tramples Hitler's Mein Kampf . Today the Rockwell image has been displaced by Howard Miller's desirable, made-up and much less challenging Rosie. Miller's Rosie flexes her biceps for show; Rockwell's Rosie is just strong. Rockwell celebrated the reality; Miller broadcast a propaganda message to women, "You'll not lose your feminity if you do war work." Hugh Dowding, commander of RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain, was given a peerage, the first of the war for a military commander. It was a reward for his successful work in building Britain...