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
Arakan
Southwestern coastal area of Burma, on the Bay of Bengal, and initially the site of a limited and unsuccessful counter-offensive against Japanese occupying forces by Allied forces under British General Wavell (then Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia). By May 1942, the Japanese 15th Army under Lt. General Iida, had decisively driven the Allies out of Burma and achieved the planned frontier of Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia. While the monsoons halted further operations, Japan consolidated her positions, and General Wavell (in uneasy collaboration with Chiang Kai-shek and his abrasive deputy, General Stilwell, in China) made plans for the reconquest of Burma, to begin in November with the onset of the dry season. Subject to the wider political and military problems facing the Combined Chiefs of Staff, who allocated a low priority to this theatre, the Arakan offensive also faced command problems in dealing with General Stilwell and Chiang Kai-Shek. Although Wavell gave initial approval to a Chinese plan to converge on Japanese forces in Burma with 15 Chinese divisions from Assam and Yunnan and ten British and Indian divisions, Chiang withdrew his support at the last minute. Exasperated by what he saw as Wavell's faltering commitment, Chiang was unprepared to accept Wavell's hesitation, though it was chiefly based on his concern that there was insufficient air and naval support to cover the planned land operations.
In September 1942 Wavell nevertheless made the decision to mount a limited Arakan offensive, aiming to launch a force south from Chittagong on a drive down the Mayu Peninsula, in combination with a seaborne assault on Akyab island, to recapture air bases for further operations. The plan for the amphibious assault had to be abandoned due to lack of equipment and naval support. but the attack down the Mayu Peninsula was launched in mid-December. It was halted across the estuary of the Mayu River within two weeks by a reinforced Japanese force under General Iida.
Despite protests during February from General Irwin, the British Commander of the Eastern Army, that his troops were suffering too badly from the malarial conditions to continue, Wavell, under pressure from Churchill, ordered the advance to continue. Outflanked by Japanese forces under Lt. General Koga and left stranded as the Japanese advanced northwards from the Mayu River toward the Maungdaw-Buthidaung line, the offensive collapsed. An attempt by Lt. General Slim, who took over command of the remains of the Arakan forces on 14 April, to trap the Japanese proved too much for his exhausted troops. At the beginning of May, Buthidaung and Maungdaw were abandoned to the Japanese, who halted their offensive on that line. By the end of the month the Allied troops were back on the line they had held six months before. [MDSSW]
Arcadia Conference
Arcadia was the code name for the first summit meeting held by Americans and the British after Pearl Harbor. Churchill and his chiefs met with Roosevelt and his advisors in Washington from December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942. Among the decisions they made was to confirm their prewar commitment to give the defeat of Germany top priority. For the first time, they seriously discussed an invasion of North Africa. The course of the war was reviewed and the US agreed to much higher production quotas than those established when it was still neutral. A unified command in the Far East called ABDA (American, British, Dutch, Australian) was formed. Roosevelt created the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a counterpart to the British body already in existence, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff, which consisted of the British and American chiefs to oversee the war as a whole, was created. [OEGWW2]
Arctic Convoys
Allied convoys carrying war supplies to the USSR from Great Britain, taking the shortest route to Murmansk (northern Russia's only major ice-free port) or Archangel round the western tip of Norway. Their main value was political rather than material. Arctic convoys provided tangible proof of the Western Allies' commitment to the Soviet Union, and maintained some sort of running response to Stalin's urgent demands for a "Second Front". Militarily they were almost indefensible. The threats of German air and naval forces based in Norway combined with appalling weather conditions to make the Arctic runs among the most dangerous operations of the war.
The first Arctic convoy sailed from Britain in September 1941, and only one merchant ship was lost that year. Thirteen convoys sailed in 1942, and they were subjected to a series of powerful attacks from heavily reinforced German U-boat and aircraft forces, backed by the threat of major surface warships. The sinking of 60 ships from these attacks was compounded by heavy loss of life in waters too cold for human survival.
The most disastrous convoy of 1942 was eastbound PQ17, which sailed in June with 34 ships. Believing incorrectly that PQ17 was about to be attacked by the German battleship Tirpitz, the British Admiralty ordered the convoy to scatter on 4 July. The result was a massacre and only 13 ships reached their destination. The next convoy, PQ18, did not sail until September and was given a much stronger escort. Although 13 out of 40 ships were sunk, Luftwaffe and U-boat losses were also serious. The German surface warships in Norway remained a largely unseen threat, but their mere presence kept a considerable Royal Navy force in the area.
Only six convoys sailed in 1943, none at all during the longer days from March to November. The increase in Allied anti-submarine strength which reversed the situation in the Battle of the Atlantic also substantially improved the chances of merchantmen in the Arctic. Luftwaffe strength declined in Norway and by 1944 the major German naval surface units had been put out of action. Thirteen more convoys sailed in 1944-5 and only 13 more ships were sunk in total.
In all, 4 million tons of supplies were shipped to the Soviet Union by the Arctic route, including 5,000 tanks and over 7,000 aircraft. Eighteen Allied warships were sunk defending the convoys and the German Navy lost 38 U-boats, a battlecruiser (the Scharnhorst) and two destroyers. Despite constant Soviet demands for more Arctic convoys throughout the war, the Red Navy played only a small part in the running battle which surrounded them, offering only limited protection in coastal waters. [MDSSW]
Ardeatine Caves Massacre
German massacre of 335 political and Jewish prisoners which was carried out in the caves of Via Ardeatina, near Rome, in March 1944. It was in retaliation for the ambush of German troops by Italian partisans. [OCWW2]
Ardennes Campaign
Argenta Gap, Battle of
Generic term for the final Allied offensive in the Italian campaign, launched in April 1945 under the codename Grapeshot. The plan had been drawn up by General Mark Clark during the winter and was designed to trap General Heinrich von Vietinghoff's Army Group C between the Fifth US and Eighth British Armies. Vietinghoff expected an attack, once the ground dried out, and wanted to conduct a delaying operation based on numerous river lines, but Hitler ordered him to stand and fight in place. However, shortage of fuel and the prolonged Allied air interdiction campaign had drastically reduced his mobility. After a preliminary  operation by British Special Forces on Lake Comacchio, which was designed to tie down the German Adriatic flank, the Eighth Army struck first, on 9 April. Further operations on lake Comacchio helped to turn the German flank, enabling the British to force the vital Argenta Gap, just west of the lake which was then twice its modern size. The Fifth US Army, with the whole weight of Allied air power switched to its support, attacked on 15 April. Eight days later the two armies linked up north of Bologna and the back of the German resistance was broken. Thereafter the Allies advanced rapidly northwards and westwards, with the Americans entering Genoa on 27 April and Milan two days later, while the British also reached Venice on 29 April. On this same day the Germans signed an unconditional surrender at Caserta. This came into effect on 2 May and marked the end of the war in Italy, although the Fifth US Army continued to advance into Austria, linking up with the Seventh US Army in the Brenner Pass on 6 May. [OCWW2]
Arlington Hall
This former girls' school in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington, DC, became the site of the US Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in World War II. From its formation in 1930 until 1942, SIS was housed in the Munitions Building on the Washington Mall, part of a complex of "temporary" buildings erected for World War I. The spaces immediately became overcrowded at the start of World War II. At first it was expected that SIS would be housed in the almost completed Pentagon building across the Potomac River. Before that move could be made, however, the decision was made to locate SIS at a site of its own, preferably outside Washington, where there would be room for expansion and where security could be more easily maintained.
The site ultimately chosen, after several alternatives were considered, was the Arlington Hall Junior College on Route 50. This location was a few miles from the Pentagon and relatively close to the primary East Coast SIS radio intercept station being planned at Vint Hill Farms, near Warrenton, Va. The location was also close to housing in the Washington area for the rapidly growing SIS staff.
The property was purchased for $650,000 plus $40,000 for additional furnishings. The War Department took possession on June 14, 1942, and SIS immediately began moving personnel, files, and machinery to the school. The move was completed on Aug. 24. Almost immediately construction began on dditional buildings as well as security for the top secret facility.
Simultaneously, the Navy's cryptanalysis staff relocated from the Washington Mall complex to another former school at Nebraska and Massachusetts Avenues in northwest Washington.
The successor agencies to SIS remained at Arlington Hall until the late 1980s. [SBEE]
Army Intelligence (US)
In 1930 the Army Signal Corps set up a new codebreaking unit under William F. Friedman, who had been in front-line radio intelligence during [World War I]; he headed the newly formed Signal Intelligence Service (SIS), developing electromechanical encryption and decryption devices ... In 1940 Friedman and his staff broke the principal Japanese diplomatic code, called Purple.
Army codebreakers had triumphed over Japanese code makers. But the triumph was short-lived, for the Pearl Harbor attack of Dec. 7, 1941 was immediately viewed as an intelligence failure. It was not. The failure lay in the ability of the fledgling intelligence community ... to recognize the need to get its product and evaluations to the highest levels of the military and the White House.
.... What did quickly develop -- first the Coordinator of Information and then the Office of Strategic Services -- emerged not from the Army but from the efforts of then Col. William J.Donovan. Although the OSS was placed under theoretical military control, it was essentially a wartime Army-Navy-civilian organization that reported to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The G-2 branch of the Army's General Staff had responsibility for disseminating intelligence about the enemy and specific warnings about the danger of subversive activities. The major Army intelligence activities with respect to the collection of information about the enemy and preparation of intelligence estimates were undertaken by theater commanders; for the Army these were Gen. MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific Area and Gen. Eisenhower in the North-African-Mediterranean-European areas.
In the field, as the Army increased in size -- from five active divisions in 1939 to 89 divisions at the end of the war -- so too did the number and size of Army intelligence units. Officers with the assignment of G-2 were found at every level of the army down to battalions (some 800 to 900 men). Reconnaissance untis gathered tactical intelligence for commanders. Every infantry division had a 155-man reconnaissance troop; and the armored divisions had a 900-man cavalry reconnaissance squadron, which rode jeeps and tanks rather than horses. There were also specialized Signal Corps units that intercepted enemy communications, while the 2nd Signal Battalion operated the higher-level Army intercepts for the Signals Intelligence Service and its successors.
....At the level of the field army there was an intelligence battalion and an Army Security Agency group, while there were intelligence companies at the corps and division levels. Combat intelligence became more complex, as enemy capabilities and intentions in such diverse fields as chemical and nuclear weapons, electronic intercept, and electronic countermeasures had to be added to the traditional need for intelligence about such matters as topography, the enemy's order of battle, leadership, equipment, intentions, and communications.
....In the United States CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) agents worked with the FBI in raids on known Nazi sympathizers. Overseas, CIC agents were attached to combat divisions to play a variety of roles, from getting the maps of enemy minefields and analyzing captured enemy documents to ferreting out collaborators and enemy agents. CIC men were among the first Allied soldiers to enter Rome in June 1944.
In the Pacific, intelligence was sparse to begin with and was tightly controlled by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He barred the OSS from his Southwest Pacific Area and set up his own organizations, the Allied Intelligence Bureau and the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, which used American Nisei soldiers to interrogate Japanese prisoners, read captured enemy documents, and conduct psychological warfare. CIC units often worked with the Nisei in security investigations in combat and occupied areas....[SBEE]
A-Schule
The SS operated two major spy schools during World War II -- A-Schule West near The Hague in The Netherlands and A-Schule Ost in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. These "agent schools" taught men and women the tradecraft of espionage, such as Morse code, radio operation, placement of explosives, how to ride a motorcycle, and use of guns, including firing various types of pistols with both the right and left hand (in the event one was injured). The technical classes would correspond to the agent's intended assignment and were small, five or six students seeming to be the maximum. Physical training was also stressed and there was some Nazi political indoctrination, as required in most educational activities of the Third Reich. The students' stay at A-Schule also varied, being measured in weeks and months. They could leave the school at night only if accompanied by a member of the staff. There were several lesser German spy schools during the war. [SBEE]