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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... Malta often recalled personal memories of the horrors of the Western Front in the First World War to convey the extent of the bomb damage inflicted on the island . Other territories , too , were bombed , including Aden , Burma , Ceylon ...
... Malta or Alexandria . If RAF reinforcements were sent in anticipation of any such move , it would be at the cost of weakening Britain's defences against possible Luftwaffe attack and making even more likely the utter devastation of ...
... Malta . The American - built Catalina flying boat was a mainstay of ocean patrolling by British forces in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean , and in India and Burma the Fourteenth Army relied for its supplies on American - built Dakota ...
... Malta and Singapore as well as in the Battle of Britain , and in Burma an American Volunteer Group threw its Tomahawks into the ring in defence of the Burma Road and its precious supply cargoes trucking overland to China . In September ...
... Malta in the fight and to shuttle supplies from Gibraltar to Alexandria . From September 1939 convoys began to sail homeward from Gibraltar and Sierra Leone , outward and homeward to and from Bergen in Norway , and outward into the ...
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 |