Eighty Years Ago This Week

   Dozens of V-1s were air-launched from Heinkel He-111 bombers over the North Sea. They were targeted on Manchester but the most lethal strike was in Oldham where 27 people died. Elsewhere another 17 lost their lives. In military terms the Germans had doubled down on the already wasteful strategy of investing in flying bombs capable of no more than random and barely significant damage by commiting conventional aircraft desperately needed to support the gound campaign. The British government leapt on the success of the German Ardennes offensive to announce a fresh injection of 250,000 front line soldiers into the army ahead of the invasion of Germany. The Labour ministers were bullied into accepting an extension of civilian call-up. Other men would be transferred from the Navy and RAF and support personnel would be combed out in the Army itself. The German Ardennes offensive reach a high-water mark when it surrounded the US 101st Airborne Division at the important road junctio...

    The German launched a counter-attack in the Ardennes with 13 infantry and 7 armoured divisions with around one thousand tanks and assault guns. These were almost the last reserves available. The strategic goal was unclear; Hitler imagined that it would be possible to recapture Antwerp; von Rundstedt and the other generals knew this was too ambitious. Ultimately the rationale did not go far beyond hoping that a major breakthrough would somehow seriously compromise the Allied offensive. The Germans achieved complete tactical surprise, mainly because poor weather had stopped allied aerial reconaissance. The human intelligence on German dispositions which had been plentiful during the advance through France and the Low Countries had also disappeared now that the Germans were operating from their homeland. The allies did not expect an attack in the sector whose terrain favoured the defenders and it was manned by tired or inexperienced US units.  V-2 rockets were being targ...

  The last vestige of serious air raid precautions, which had disrupted everyone's life in Britain since the outbreak of war, was removed. The obligation to go to full black-out conditions with no light showing when the air raid alert was sounded was lifted. The Luftwaffe had become a negligible danger although V weapons were still falling on London. The US introduced five star rank for senior military officers: Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur and Arnold became Generals of the Army; Leahy, King and Nimitz became Fleet Admirals. In part this was an expedient to remove the anomaly by which Americans commanded notionally higher ranking British officers, notably Field Marshal Montgomery. The move was also emblematic of the unprecedented scale of US commitment to the Second World War. Admiral Halsey and General Bradley attained the rank but these were the last so recognised. The Canadian government decisively won the no-confidence vote by 143 to 70  which concluded the bitter debat...

    Britain's Home Guard was formally stood down after more than four years in existence. This was marked by a parade of 8,000 members through London. German invasion had ceased to be a threat long before and with the dwindling of the V-1 offensive, the Guard's anti-aircraft role was insignificant. In a neat contrast, Germany had just set up the Volksturm , broadly equivalent to the Home Guard as a defence force for men too old or too young for full military service. Princess Elizabeth launched HMS Vanguard onto the Clyde. She was to be to be Britain's largest ever and, as it proved, last battleship. She also acquired the debatable reputation as the only Royal Navy battleship never to fire its guns in anger. True or not, she embodied the big gun big ship strategy to which the Royal Navy had remained wedded to for too long. She had no real future. Even had Japan fought on for longer, the aircraft carrier had become the dominant class of warship and the decisive weapon in...