WW2
Your World War II Resource
Encyclopedia
MDSWW-- The Macmillan Dictionary of the Second World War
OCWW2--The Oxford Companion to World War II
OEGWW2--The Oxford Essential Guide to World War II
PWE: The Pacific War Encyclopedia
RMEWW2--Rand McNally Encyclopedia of World War II
WW2AVE--World War II: A Visual Encyclopedia
WW2AW--World War II: America at War, 1941-1945
Anderson shelter
Standard British garden bomb shelter erected by bolting together two curved walls of corrugated galvanized steel in a 3 ft. (.91 m.) pit and then covering them with earth. Designed by William Paterson, it was named after the Lord Privy Seal, John Anderson, who was given special responsibility for British civil defence in 1938. Two million were issued free during the early months of the war until a shortage of steel led to their being discontinued. [OCWW2]
Anglo-German Naval Treaty
In 1935, following Hitler's denunciation of the Treaty of Versailles, Great Britain came to a unilateral naval agreement with Germany. The Anglo-German Naval Treaty allowed Germany to build up to 35 per cent of total Royal Navy strength. This was expressed only in overall tonnage, which meant that the German Navy could produce larger numbers of any class provided compensatory reductions were made in other areas. With this in mind the German government agreed to state that it would not build above 45 per cent of Royal Navy submarine tonnage. Germany had claimed the right to full submarine equality, but settled for an escape clause which made this possible in the event of hostile construction by a third party.
Hailed within the German Navy as a masterstroke, the treaty provoked considerable international criticism. The French in particular were outraged, but in the complete absence of concerted or individual action from either the signatories of Versailles or the League of Nations, the British had at least found a way to bring Germany within the scope of existing international naval agreements.
A second naval agreement was signed by Britain and Germany in 1937, which effectively secured the latter's adherence to the international qualitative restrictions of the 2nd London Naval Treaty (1936), which in themselves were short-lived and ineffectual. The following year Soviet cruiser and submarine construction was invoked by Germany to activate the submarine equality clause and permit the construction of cruisers above the now permitted levels. On 28 April 1939, Hitler denounced the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. [MDSSW]
Anglo-Polish Alliance
Signed on 25 August 1939, this alliance formalized the British assurances of military aid to Poland in the event of attack by a European power. The wisdom of making such a guarantee of Poland's sovereignty was widely assumed by British politicians at the time (Lloyd George was its only critic in the British Parliament), but has since been strongly criticized by some commentators, who argue that the opportunity to safeguard Eastern Europe from German expansionism had already been sacrificed to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. In his History of the Second World War, Winston Churchill gives a ... highly persuasive interpretation of the Anglo-Polish Alliance: "History ... may be scoured and ransacked to find a parallel to this sudden and complete reversal of ... appeasement, and its transformation almost overnight into a readiness to accept an obviously imminent war ... Here was a decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people." (It is notable, however, that Churchill proclaimed himself firmly in favour at the time). Military leaders held a more pessimistic view of Britain's ability to defend Polish interests, but after the invasion of Czechoslovakia it was clearly felt that Britain needed to make a strong diplomatic stand. When Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, the Anglo-Polish Alliance provided the basis for Britain's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September. [MDSSW]
Anglo-Soviet Treaty
Signed by the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, in London on 26 May 1942. It was preceded by tough negotiations in which the British refused to acknowledge Stalin's demands for recognition of the USSR's boundaries prior to the start of the German-Soviet war in June 1941 which encompassed eastern Poland and the Baltic states. However, it decreased both parties' fears by stipulating that no armistice or peace with Germany or its Axis allies would be negotiated or concluded by one party without the consent of the other. Other clauses expressed the willingness of both parties to help each other in the war against Germany and that both parties were bound by the "two principles of not seeking territorial aggrandisement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states." Other clauses detailed joint actions to be taken after the war. [OCWW2]
ANGAU
(Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit) A quasi-military organization, the ANGAU followed the troops, with the intention of completely restoring the prewar colonial relationship between Australians and the aboriginal peoples [of New Guinea]. Noted for a less than friendly attitude toward the local inhabitants, representatives of the ANGAU often confiscated goods given the natives by friendly American and even Australian troops, with whom they were often at odds for not trating the aborigines with the proper degree of arrogance and brutality. They also took a dim view of anything resembling native collaboration with the Japanese, a phenomenon that was, in fact, not particularly common. [PWE]
Anschluss
The movement in Germany and Austria for the union of the two countries in a Greater Germany, which resulted in Austria's forced annexation by Hitler in March 1938. Although such a union had been specifically forbidden by the post-WW1 Treaty of Versailles, agitation for Anschluss continued in both countries during the 1920s and early 30s. Nazi parties in both states strongly supported the political union. In 1934 Austrian Nazis murdered Chancellor Dollfuss in an attempted coup, though it was defeated by government forces and Hitler was forced to withdraw active support for the putchists.
In February 1938, however, Hitler called Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg to a meeting at Berchtesgaden during which he used intimidating tactics to underpin his extensive demands: the lifting of the ban on the Austrian Nazi Party; the promotion of covert Nazi Dr. Seyss-Inquart as Minister of the Interior and another Nazi, Glaise-Horstenau, as Minister of War; the absorption of Austria in the German economic system.
Unable to counter the threat of force posed by Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the Austrian government assented to the changes. Implementation was accompanied by ... a significant rise in carefully orchestrated and often violent Nazi demonstrations in Vienna, Graz and elsewhere. In control of the police, Seyss-Inquart did nothing to counter these.
.... On 11 March ... Schuschnigg was powerless to stop a series of Berlin-organized Austrian SS attacks on Social Democrats, Jews and other anti-Nazis that provided Seyss-Inquart with the pretext to appeal to Berlin for help in restoring order. Along with the German troops that crossed the frontier on 12 March, Gestapo and SD arrived to begin their brutal suppression of the population. Schuschnigg was one of the first of 76,000 Austrians sent to Dachau in the first weeks of the Anschluss. As the terror continued, an Austrian concentration camp was established at Mauthausen, where at least 35,000 people were executed during the Anschluss.
The leader of the Austrian SS attacks, Kaltenbrunner, was made Minister of State Security, in what was now named Ostmark, and Globocnik (later to acquire a reputation for unparalleled brutality in Poland) became Gauleiter of Vienna. A wave of anti-Semitism, on a scale not seen in Austria before, followed the Nazi seizure of power. Now in a position to revive the device of a plebiscite as a final seal on force and illegality, Hitler announced a ballot on the Anschluss for 10 April, confident that he could determine its outcome. A total vote in favour of 99 per cent reflected the brutal efficacy of the Nazi takeover as well as the significant level of popular support for the action. [MDSWW]
Antwerp
(Sept.-Nov. 1944)  Following the Allied break-out across the Seine from Normandy in late August 1944, the German Fifteenth Army retreated at high speed across northern France into Belgium. The British 21st Army Group (Montgomery) followed, and on 3 September entered Brussels and the next day Antwerp, whose port was captured undamaged. Rather than turn his forces westward and clear the banks of the Scheldt to the North Sea 40 miles away, Montgomery persuaded Eisenhower to let him prepare an airborne advance northeastward to the Rhine (Operation Market Garden). During its execution, 17-25 September, the Fifteenth Army collected stragglers and reinforced the defenses of the Scheldt estuary, thus preventing the Allies from making use of Antwerp to resupply their armies. An acute supply shortage consequently affected their operations in the following weeks and obliged Montgomery to undertake a slow and costly clearance of the estuary (2 October-8 November), including a bloody amphibious assault on the island of Walcheren (1-8 November). The river then had to be cleared of mines, and ships did not begin to enter Antwerp until 28 November. This 85-day supply shortage was crucial in delaying the development of the Allied offensive into Germany and granted Hitler time to mount the Ardennes offensive, the main object of which was the recapture of Antwerp itself. [RMEWW2]
Anvil
This was the codename for the Allied invasion of southern France, 15 August 1944. As early as August 1943 the Combined Chiefs of Staff had considered mounting an attack on southern France as a preliminary to Overlord. The British government opposed the plan, since the necessary manpower could only be found from the forces fighting in Italy, which they eventually hoped to push into Austria. Ultimately, Anvil (re-codenamed Dragoon) was adopted, but as a follow-up instead of a preliminary to the Normandy landings. Mounted by four American and three Free French divisions it began with a sea and airborne descent on the coast between Toulon and Cannes. The German Nineteenth Army (eight divisions) did not oppose it, except at Toulon and Marseilles (captured on 28 August), and the operation resolved itself into a pursuit of the retreating Germans by the Americans up the Rhone Valley. Most of the Germans escaped to fight in Alsace-Lorraine against their pursuers, the American 7th and French 1st Armies, who drove them at the end of the war into southern Germany and Austria. Its military value remains controversial. [RMEWW2]
Anzio
A patrol in Cisterno
Site, about 35 miles south of Rome, of Allied amphibious landing in the Italian campaign. The landing was a two-division assault to put pressure on the Gustav Line, the German defenses blocking the advance of Allied forces that had landed at Salerno on Sept. 9, 1943. British Prime Minister Churchill had promoted the landing to hasten the fall of Rome and perhaps even expedite the ending of the European War.
On the night of Jan. 22, 1944, in an initial landing called Operation Shingle, Ranger-led US and British forces landed at this town on the Tyrrhenian Sea. There was no active opposition to the landing, and prospects for fulfilling the mission of the landing looked promising. The commander of the invasion troops, US Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, should have been elated. His 36,000 troops and their 3,000 vehicles had landed without casualty and the immediate objective, the Alban Hills, stood only about 20 miles away. There were virtually no German troops between the beach and the hills or beyond them to the ultimate objective: Rome.
The Anzio landing was timed to follow an Allied thrust across the Rapido and Garigliano Rivers, [and] Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring sent reserve divisions against the threat to the Gustav Line, leaving the troops landing at Anzio with little opposition. But the attempted river crossings ended in failure and substantial American losses; the Germans were able to shift forces to Anzio. Lucas, overly cautious, delayed an advance inland until he built up more supplies. After a week there were 69,000 US and British troops and their equipment ashore, the beachheads had been secured, and supplies continued to pour ashore ....
On the day following the landings the Germans had begun intensive air attacks on the troop concentrations. Then they moved up major ground forces to block the invaders and force them back into the sea. Under the pounding of German artillery the Allied troops began a bloody four-month struggle to hold onto the beachhead and a few square miles beyond it. During the battle of Anzio, US forces suffered more than 72,000 casualties. In comparison, about 15,000 fell in the Normandy invasion.
....Hitler called the beachhead "an abscess." Axis Sally, the American woman who made propaganda broadcasts for the Germans, taunted the troops by dubbing the beachhead "the largest self-supporting prisoner of war camp in the world." Churchill telegraphed Soviet leader Stalin: "Although the landing was a brilliant piece of work and achieved complete surprise, the advantage was lost and now it is a question of hard slogging." To others, he bitterly said, "I had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we had got was a stranded whale."
The men on the beachhead fought valiantly while decisions were made about Lucas. He was finally replaced on Feb. 23 by Maj. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. He staged a breakout on May 23, following the cracking of the Gustav Line. Two days later Truscott's forces made contact with the advancing Allies. [WW2AW]
Aphrodite missions
Allied code name for the use of radio-controlled bombers against German targets in Europe such as submarine pens and V-2 missile launching sites. War-weary heavy bombers -- B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators -- were loaded with 20,000 pounds or more of explosives or napalm (jellied gasoline) and taken aloft by pilots who bailed out of the aircraft before they reached the English coast. At that point a control aircraft would take over to direct the drone or -- as AAF documents referred to them -- "robot" aircraft to its target by radio with forward-looking television being used to guide the aircraft to the target. The control aircraft were also B-17 and B-24 bombers, with photographic aircraft and escorting fighters also accompanying the drones.
The Aphrodite missions, conducted by the Eighth Air Force, began in Aug. 1944, their targets being German missile launch sites near the Pas de Calais in France. The first mission was flown on Aug. 4 with a succession of four B-17G bombers; a control failure lost the first aircraft 15 miles from the target; the second impacted successfully and detonated about 500 feet from its target; one spun to earth in England; and the fourth struck about 1,500 feet from its target. Two days later, on Aug. 6, two more B-17G drones were sent against missile sites; both crashed into the sea .... [T]he decision was made not to fly additional drone missions until better control equipment became available.
Meanwhile, a Navy detachment attached to the Eighth Air Force began drone missions, using naval (PB4Y-1) variants of the B-24 Liberator bomber, with PV-1 Ventura bombers as the control aircraft. On the first Navy mission, on Aug. 12, a premature explosion destroyed the plane over England. The two Navy pilots were killed before they could bail out -- Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. and Lt. Wilford J. Willy. The second PB4Y-1 was launched against a V-2 missile site at Heligoland on Sept. 3, 1944. Because of controller error, the plane crashed and exploded into a nearby barracks area.
Aphrodite strikes were resumed by the AAF -- with improved control gear -- in mid-Sept. 1944. In this phase the drone bombers were sent against U-boat submarine pens at Heligoland and oil refineries at Heide-Hemmingstedt. Most of the eight B-17s launched between Sept. 11 and 30 blew up in flight or were lost; relatively little damage was inflicted. (One drone pilot was killed when he bailed out over England and his parachute failed to open.)
Subsequently, in late Oct. 1944 the decision was made to shift drone targets for the next phase to industrial objectives in German-held Europe, as far inland as possible. Also, if primary targets could not be hit, the drones were to be crashed "as a last resort [into] any German city."
On Dec. 5 two drone B-17s were sent toward the railroad marshalling yards in the German city of Hereford. Control problems again plagued the robot bombers: one exploded over a wooded area and the second made an uncontrolled belly landing. The latter plane did not explode and was relatively intact, giving the Germans full access to the Aphrodite control system (faulty though it was).
The final Aphrodite missions of the war were flown on Jan. 1, 1945, against thermal power stations at Oldenburg, Germany. One crashed and exploded in the town, the second struck three miles from its target. The Aphrodite experiment was over. Its successes were few, but its cost was also low. More practical would be air-launched guided bombs and missiles. [WW2AW]
Appeasement
British and French foreign policy of the 1930s which sought to propitiate the European Fascist powers by concession over matters otherwise thought to carry the risk of war. Generally a pejorative term as now applied to the policy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French leaders of the period (most notably Edouard Daladier), the usage of the time was meant specifically by appeasers to suggest those steps which might be taken to prevent Hitler taking the law into his own hands. The policy had its roots in a general commitment to peace in post-WW1 Europe, and the growing feeling in the early 1930s in Great Britain ... that the terms imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty had been impossibly harsh. The justice of Adolf Hitler's demand for a rearmed Germany and the restoration of "German" territories (such as the Rhineland) was largely accepted by many Europeans. By appeasing Hitler ... Chamberlain believed he could lay the basis for a lasting European peace.
In practice, however, appeasement was quickly compromised by the increasingly blatant opportunism of Hitler, Mussolini and even Franco. By 1938, Chamberlain had accepted Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia (Abyssinia), and tolerated international intervention in the Spanish Civil War and the German annexation of Austria (see Auschluss) ... [I]n 1938, having probably decided privately to accede to Hitler on the issue of the Sudeten Germans months before, and persuaded that this would be Hitler's last demand, he returned from Munich in September announcing "Peace with honour!" to reporters at the airport. This final act of appeasement somewhat surprised hitler, who had expected, or even hoped for, a confrontation over the Sudetenland, and dismayed his critics in Germany, who had hoped for outside support to overthrow the Nazi regime. When Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia in March 1939 it was  finally made clear to Chamberlain that appeasement had failed. [MDSSW]