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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... aircraft and particularly by long - range ones such as the Shorts Sunderland and the American - built Liberators and Catalinas , often flying as a part of RAF's Coastal Command . By 1945 RAF Coastal Command had 784 aircraft , 511 ...
... aircraft carriers and the skills of naval aviation . Though awareness of the bomber's fatal power over land targets was widespread by 1939 ( ' the bomber will always get through ' , as Stanley Baldwin phrased it in 1932 ) , at sea the ...
... aircraft it was soon to encounter around the world . There were RAF bases in Iraq , Egypt , Aden , India , Palestine , Singapore and elsewhere , but early in the war the squadrons there consisted of largely obsolete aircraft . In the ...
... aircraft guns ; the latter good for morale and of some use against enemy bombers and fighters . More useful , though as yet unproven , were radar installations and the protection afforded by modern aircraft like the Hurricane . To ...
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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 |