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. |
From inside the book
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Ashley Jackson. RAN Royal Australian Navy RAR Rhodesia Africa Rifles RAOC Royal Army Ordinance Corps RASC Royal Army Service Corps RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force RCN Royal Canadian Navy RFA Royal Fleet Auxiliary RIAF Royal Indian Air Force ...
Ashley Jackson. Japanese would have available . Not only did this sum offer the Royal Navy no chance of superiority over the Japanese , it assumed that there would be no requirement for capital ships to keep Italy in check in the ...
... naval alliance with Japan had been necessary to secure British possessions in the region , as the Royal Navy was obliged to concentrate major fleet units in home waters to meet the threat of the German High Seas Fleet . From that date ...
... Royal Navy gave Britain a surfeit of vessels in that class by the end of the war . In all America supplied Britain with ninety - nine escort vessels , excluding the fifty old destroyers exchanged in 1941 for Caribbean base facilities ...
... British Empire was a thalassocracy , a sea - based world power . The Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy ( and imperial offshoots like the Royal Australian Navy and the Canadian Merchant Navy ) were inextricably bound up with the British ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
21 | |
41 | |
5 The Atlantic | 53 |
6 The Caribbean | 77 |
7 The Mediterranean | 97 |
8 Iraq Iran and Syria | 145 |
11 The Islands of the Indian Ocean | 307 |
12 India and Burma | 351 |
13 SouthEast Asia and the Far East | 405 |
14 Australia and New Zealand | 463 |
15 The Pacific | 513 |
16 Epilogue | 525 |
Notes | 535 |
Bibliography | 561 |