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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... Palestine , Jordan and the Sudan . It was also responsible for Malta and Cyprus . It was then extended to cover forces in British East Africa and Somaliland , and any that might serve in Aden and the Persian Gulf , Iraq , Turkey and the ...
... Palestine , Singapore and elsewhere , but early in the war the squadrons there consisted of largely obsolete aircraft . In the inter - war period , the RAF had been seen in some quarters as a cheap way to police parts of the Empire ...
... Palestine and Singapore . " The art of ' ungentle- manly warfare ' in which SOE specialized was first taught by Britons who had developed such skills whilst policing the International Settlement in Shanghai , an area of informal British ...
... Palestine was similarly affected by the reach of a global conflict . Here , too , colourful posters adorned public walls , exhorting civilians to avoid gossip , to join the women's auxiliary forces or , in East Africa and elsewhere , to ...
... Palestinian citrus fruit . As the war progressed , however , such produce could find a ready market because almost any product was in demand in order to feed the insatiable appetite of full global mobilization . The war transformed 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 |