WW2
Your World War II Resource
  Biographies
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
WAWW2--The World Almanac of World War II
WW2AVE--World War II: A Visual Encyclopedia
WW2AW--World War II: America at War, 1941-1945
WWWW2: Who was Who in World War II
Ando, Rikichi
Rikichi Ando joined the Japanese Army in 1914 and quickly rose through the ranks. He was one of the hot-headed generals in China who inexorably dragged Japan deeper into conflict with the West. In early 1940 he became commander of the South China Area Army. It was Ando who made an unauthorized move into French Indochina after Germany had defeated France. It was this move that caused the confrontation with the West, which led to the oil embargo and, soon thereafter, Pearl Harbor .... The Japanese government was not pleased with all the trouble Ando had caused and recalled and retired him as punishment. However, once the decision was made (in the fall of 1941) to go to war against the West, Ando was recalled to service, promoted to full general, and given command of the 10th Area Army in Formosa. This was a crucial post, as the Japanese always feared that the Allies might invade Formosa and thus cut off Japanese access to the oil and other raw materials to the south. [PWE]
Antonescu, Marshal Ion
(1882-1946) Antonescu was a stupid rather than sinister Rumanian dictator throughout the war. He was an army leader who had assumed leadership of the fascist Iron Guards. King Carol II who was afraid of his power had him imprisoned but when faced with growing territorial demands from Germany and the USSR (he had ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukhovina to the USSR and more territory to Hungary and Bulgaria) Carol abdicated and appointed Antonescu prime minister. Antonescu came to power with the support of the Iron Guards on 5 September 1940 and immediately sent messages of loyalty to Hitler and Mussolini. He called in German troops to protect the Ploesti oilfields which were to supply Germany with 46,000 tons of fuel per month in 1941. On 23 September 1940 he signed the Axis Pact and by this time had won Hitler's trust. In January 1941 he asked Hitler for permission to suppress the Iron Guards who had been persecuting the Jews and committing other atrocities and Hitler readily assented. Antonescue secured his hold on Rumania by using the army to put its citizens down. Later that year Rumanian divisions joined Army Group South in the invasion of the USSR. These divisions went on to fight at Stalingrad and after their defeat Antonescu was soon thinking in terms of getting Rumania out of the German alliance. He sent his Prime Minister, Mihai Antonescu, to Mussolini to discuss the possibility of the withdrawal of Italy, Rumania and Hungary from the alliance but although Mussolini agreed with this scheme, he never took any action against Hitler. As the Red Army swept through the Ukraine there was little Antonescu could do. On 23 August 1944, King Michael summoned him and after a stormy interview Antonescu was arrested and replaced by Sanatescu. He was tried for his war crimes and executed after the war. [WWWW2]
Antonov, Gen. Aleksei
(1896-1962) Red Army officer who commanded the Transcaucasian Front in 1941-42, before being appointed General Vasilevsky's representative in Moscow. Posted as GHQ representative on the Voronezh Front by Sralin, with whom he was apparently not popular, Antonov's service there led to his promotion as Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Operations Chief, with orders to act as liaison between Stalin and the Front commanders. Deputizing for Vasilevsky during his frequent absences, Antonov directed the preparation of Operation Bagration and the final Soviet offensive against Berlin. In 1944 he was chief Russian spokesman at the Allied Conferences in Moscow and later Potsdam. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1945. [MDSSW]
Aosta, Duke Amadeo of
(1898-1942) Governor of Italian East Africa and Commander in Chief of the Italian Armies in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Aosta, a cousin of the King of Italy, undertook the invasion of British Somaliland in August 1940. His campaign was initially highly successful but as soon as the British were able to concentrate their reinforcements, the tide swung in their favor. In April they reoccupied the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and a month later Aosta himself was forced to surrender at Amba Alagi (16 May 1941). He died the following year in captivity in Kenya. He was liked and respected by friend and enemy alike as a gentleman, a patriot and a brave man. [WWWW2]
Appleyard, Maj. Geoffrey
(1916-1943) Appleyard began his career in the army as an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps in France but then joined the commandos. In late summer 1941 he was sent to explore Vichy France's coastal area off West Africa in the 65-ton Brixham trawler Maid Honor. He then joined the SSRF (Small Scale Raiding Force) and undertook at least eighteen different missions in northern France and on the Channel Islands to collect details of light, tides and German positions. He became the Commander of the SSRF but after the commando failure at Dieppe the force was transferred to North Africa and conducted reconnaissance raids on Pantelleria. On 12-13 July 1943 he was involved in a SAS (Special Air Service) parachute-dropping operation over northern Sicily and is presumed to have died when his plane disappeared. [WWWW2]
Arnim, Col. Gen. Jurgen von
(1889- ) Arnim was the offspring of a traditional Prussian military family. He became a member of the elite German General Staff and commanded a corps in the USSR. At the end of 1942 Hitler selected him at short notice to command the Fifth Panzer Army. Arnim was not the right man because he habitually failed to cooperate with Rommel in the field and did not consult the Italian allies, preferring to deal directly with Kesselring and the German High Command. He took over command in early December 1942 in Tunisia and secured lines of communications with Rommel on the Mareth Line. He was ordered to attack Sidi bou Zid and the Germans captured the Kasserine Pass but had to fall back for lack of support. Arnim then decided to go through with his own Ochsenkopf plan to take Beja, but as it should have been initiated earlier, he failed to make any progress. In March Arnim was made Commander of Army Group Afrika but he never received enough supplies and fought a depressing retreat until he had run out of space, ammunition and equipment. The Germans had orders to fight until their last round of ammunition was fired, but the spirit of defeatism that spread through the ranks led them to take their orders literally: they fired their last shots in the air. Arnim was captured on 12 May 1943 but only after he had severed communications with his units so he could not call for the surrender of all his troops. He spent the rest of the war in prisoner-of-war camps. [WWWW2]
Arnold, Gen. Henry H.
(1886-1950) Chief of the US Army Air Corps from Sept. 1938 to June 1941, and subsequently Chief of the Army Air Forces until the end of the war. "Hap" Arnold was one of the first pilots in the US Signal Corps, getting his wings in 1911 after being personally instructed by one of the Wright brothers. During World War I he directed Army aviation training. Between the world wars Arnold became a convert to Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell's belief in the need for an independent strategic bomber force that would reduce or eliminate the need for ground forces....
Soon after his appointment as chief of the Air Corps with the rank of major general, Arnold began cajoling US aircraft manufacturers into increasing production, and civilian flying schools into expanding their facilities on the strength of his assurance that funding would soon be available....
With the creation of the Army Air Forces in 1941 the US military air service's independence became more pronounced. In 1942 Arnold...was accorded a seat on the US Joint Chiefs of Staff so that he could equate to Britain's Chief of Air Staff, further enhancing the status and semi-independence of the AAF. Arnold formed alliances with leading RAF officers, notably those who favored strategic bombing independent of the ground force campaigns. Arnold was less successful in his relations with the US Navy and Royal Navy, which had operational control of the RAF Coastal Command, as those services competed with the AAF for four-engine bomber production, principally the B-24 Liberator, which was a highly effective antisubmarine aircraft.
The effects of Arnold's view of air power, especially the degree to which strategic bombing helped to win the war in Europe, remain the subject of debate. For the strategic bombing offensive against Japan, Arnold created the Twentieth Air Force, which was directly answerable to him; they flew new B-29 Superfortress bombers. Arnold planned to demonstrate unequivocally the power of strategic bombing to end a war without a ground invasion. The Japanese surrender after the Tokyo fire raids and the dropping of the atomic bomb were cited by air-power advocates as proof of Arnold's theory. Whatever the ultimate worth of air power in World War II, Arnold's direction of the AAF and his advocacy of a separate air arm made the establishment of the postwar separate Air Force unstoppable.
Arnold retired in March 1946 and was commissioned a five-star general of the Air Force in 1949. (He had been one of seven US officers given five-star rank during the war....[W]hen the separate US Air Force was established after the war its leaders felt that their founding father should be given a distinctive air service rank -- the only five-star rank in that service's history.] [WW2AW]
Ashworth, Cmdr. Frederick L.
(1912- ?) Weapons officer for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. A 1933 graduate of the Naval Academy, Ashworth served in surface ships before becoming a Navy pilot. In 1942 he went to the South Pacific to command a TBF Avenger bomber squadron flying combat missions against Japanese ships from the airstrip at Guadalcanal. In Aug. 1943 he became aviation staff officer for amphibious planners in the Central Pacific until mid-1944.
After serving briefly in Navy ordnance projects, in Nov. 1944 he was assigned to the Los Alamos laboratory to work on the development of the atomic bomb. After working on the bomb, he was sent to Tinian as a representative of Maj. Gen. Lesley Groves and on Aug. 9, 1945, flew as the weapons officer in the B-29 Superfortress carrying the Nagasaki bomb. Ashworth was responsible for arming the weapon after the plane took off from Tinian. When the primary target, Kokura, was found closed in by weather, he participated in the decision to attack Nagasaki. Ashworth was awarded the Legion of Merit by the AAF and the Silver Star by the Navy for his role in that attack.
After the war he participated in the 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini and was a senior US nuclear weapons planner. He also commanded the second Navy squadron capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Later, he commanded an aircraft carrier. Ashworth retired in 1968 with the rank of vice admiral. [WW2AW]
Attlee, Clement
(1883-1967) Leader of the Labour Party in parliament at the outbreak of the war, Attlee became deputy prime minister to Churchill on the formation of the [British]coalition government in May 1940. The two men were temperamental as well as political opposites, Attlee being dry, unemotional and self-effacing almost to the point of disappearance. In education and background, however, they were closer than their party affiliations would have suggested .... [A]lthough never friends they were able to find much common ground in the direction of the war and worked together without disharmony.  A superb party manager, Attlee insured the complete support of the Labour minority for Churchill's policies and, with [Ernest] Bevin, the cooperation of the trade unions in the untroubled production of war material. In the general election of July 1945 he was swept to the prime ministership by the landslide victory of his party and replaced Churchill as the British representative at the Potsdam Conference. [WAWW2]
Auchinleck, Field Marshal Sir Claude
(1884-1981) Auchinleck, affectionately known as "the Auk," was one of the most respected commanders in the British army. He made his early career as a soldier in the Indian army and was brought home to command the IV Corps in 1939. He spent some time as Commander in Chief in northern Norway and of Southern Command in 1940 but was then appointed Commander in Chief, India in 1941. In June 1941 he was then chosen by Churchill to be Commander in Chief, Middle East, replacing [Field Marshal Sir Archibald] Wavell. He arrived in Egypt at the point when British fortunes were at their lowest; Rommel had successfully defeated the British Battleaxe Operation. Auchinleck immediately set about planning a counterattack, which was code named Crusader, for November 1941. Crusader was a hard-fought battle and ended in victory for the British and the relief of the besieged Tobruk. However, Rommel did not give the British a chance to consolidate their victory and he counterattacked, forcing the British to make a strategic withdrawal to Gazala and Bir Hacheim. In May 1942 fighting was renewed and Rommel outstripped the British and took Tobruk. Although the first Battle of El Alamein, in July 1942, was a decisive victory and a tremendous setback for Rommel and the Italian army, Churchill decided it was time to replace Auchinleck with [Field Marshal Sir Harold] Alexander. Churchill could not forgive Auchinleck for the fall of Tobruk and Auchinleck could not alleviate Churchill's fears about the desert campaign. Auchinleck returned to India and served as Commander in Chief of the Indian army until 1947. [WAWW2]
Aung San
(1895-1947) A Burmese nationalist leader, Aung Sun had initially been a communist, but later collaborated with the Japanese. Together with a number of other young Burmese nationalists he attended a Japanese military training program in Formosa in the 1930s. He worked closely with Keiji Suzuki to create the Patriot Burma Forces, served as chief of staff to the Burma Independence Army in 1941-42, and was named head of the Burma Defense Force, which later became the Burmese National Army. Although he attempted to cooperate with the Japanese, the divergent objectives of Japanese imperialism and Burmese nationalism made matters difficult. By late 1944 his disillusionment, certainly fueled at least in part by Japanese defeat in the field, was such that he began making covert overtures to the British, breaking with Ba Maw, the formal head of the Japanese-sponsored independent Burma. In May 1945 he even traveled secretly to India to meet with Mountbatten and plan strategy. After the war Aung San became active in the politics of independent Burma, but was assassinated in 1947. His daughter, Aung san Suu Kyi, is the noted Burmese democratic leader, winner of the Nobel Prize for peace. [PWE]
Axis Sally
An American woman who broadcast propaganda for the Germans. Mildred E. Gillars, a native of Portland, Me., and a former Ohio Weslayan student, went to Germany in the 1920s and worked as a singer. When the war began, she left a job teaching English to broadcast propaganda from a Berlin radio station. In broadcasts aimed at American troops in Europe, she taunted soldiers with tales of unfaithful wives and girlfriends back home. The troops dubbed her Axis Sally and scoffed at her while enjoying her jazz records and her frequent playing of "Lili Marlene," one of the hit songs of the war. Arrested after the war, she was convicted of treason in 1949 and sentenced to twelve years in prison. She was paroled in 1961. [WW2AW]
Babington-Smith, FO Constance
British aviation writer who was one of the leading Allied photo interpreters during World War II. An officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force of the RAF for six years, she became an expert in aerial photographic interpretation and was in charge of the aircraft section of the Central Interpretation Unit. She is credited with being the first analyst to identify the German V-1 Buzz Bombs at the Peenemunde missile test site on the Baltic Sea in May 1943. In 1945 she was assigned to USAAF intelligence in Washington to work on photographic interpretation for the Pacific theater. She was awarded the Legion of Merit by the USAAF and the M.B.E. by the British government. After the war she was a researcher for Life magazine and wrote several books on aviation and intelligence. [WW2AW]