The British Empire and the Second World WarIn 1939 Hitler went to war not just with Great Britain; he also went to war with the whole of the British Empire, the greatest empire that there had ever been. In the years since 1945 that empire has disappeared, and the crucial fact that the British Empire fought together as a whole during the war has been forgotten. All the parts of the empire joined the struggle and were involved in it from the beginning, undergoing huge changes and sometimes suffering great losses as a result. The war in the desert, the defence of Malta and the Malayan campaign, and the contribution of the empire as a whole in terms of supplies, communications and troops, all reflect the strategic importance of Britain's imperial status. Men and women not only from Australia, New Zealand and India but from many parts of Africa and the Middle East all played their part. Winston Churchill saw the war throughout in imperial terms. The British Empire and the Second World War emphasises a central fact about the Second World War that is often forgotten. |
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... Japanese charge , with one of the world's biggest supply complexes at its rear . The Japanese , by contrast , were at the very end of a lengthy supply line snaking back into South - East Asia and even further afield , across the seas to ...
... Japanese , and were to return to Burma with the Japanese as the ' thirty heroes ' . Also in 1941 , like counterparts in other imperial territories , Prime Minister U Saw had invoked the Atlantic Charter in calling for immediate self ...
... Japanese merchant shipping was being sunk , primarily by American submarines practising unrestricted submarine warfare , whilst Japanese submarines deployed ineffectively and to little strategic effect . The blockade of the home islands ...