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
Bader, Group Captain Sir Douglas
(1910-1982) Bader was a British pilot who became a legend in his own time because he overcame the physical disability of having artificial legs. In December 1931 he lost both legs in a flying accident and was invalided out of the RAF. He argued his way past the RAF Volunteer Reserve Medical Board and in November 1939 was flying again. In June 1940 he was given command of Fighter Squadron 242, which was manned by Canadians. His outstanding leadership qualities were rewarded during the Battle of Britain when he was given five squadrons. However, he was often in disagreement with Fighter Command Headquarters and often ignored their orders, especially over his development of the 'Big Wing' Formation, which earned him the respect of his German adversaries. In August 1941 he collided with an enemy aircraft over Bethune and was captured. He spent the rest of the war in POW camps. [WAWW2]
Badoglio, Field Marshal Pietro
(1871-1956) Badoglio was a veteran of Italy's colonial wars, having fought in the disastrous campaign of 1896 in Ethiopia and in that of 1911-12 against Turkey in Libya. He made a considerable reputation for himself during World War I in the fighting against the Austrians on the Isonzo. He was the Italian Chief of Staff after the war, governor of Libya 1928-33, commanded the army which annexed Ethiopia in 1935-36 and subsequently became Viceroy of Ethiopia. He was reappointed Chief of Staff on Italy's entry into World War II but resigned on the failure of the invasion of Greece in December 1940. Long an opponent of Mussolini, he was the principal instigator of the dictator's downfall in 1943 and signed the armistice with the Allies in September. He became the first prime minister of the anti-Fascist government. [WAWW2]
Bagramyan, Marshal Ivan
(1897-1982) At the beginning of World War II, Bagramyan served as a Soviet staff officer on the Southwest Front, as Chief of Operations Department in the Kiev Military District and also as Chief of Staff to Timoshenko after Budenny's dismissal. He was given command of an army, 16th Guards (later the 11th Guards), in July 1942. His army fought on the Western Front and at Kursk (July 1943) where it attacked from the north and achieved the envelopment of Orel. In November 1943 he was promoted to General and replaced Yeremenko as Commander of First Baltic Front, which became known as the Samland Group in later operations. During the Belorussian campaign his armies unexpectedly broke through in the north and encircled Vitebsk killing 20,000 Germans and capturing 10,000. The Front Armies then crossed the Dvina, took Daugavpils and reached the coast west of Riga. Now all that was left was to complete the encirclement of German Army Group North. In January 1945 his Group occupied Memel and was then ordered to take Konigsberg. This proved a stumbling block and Bagramyan was held responsible for the failure to take it until April 1945. After the war he was appointed Commander of the Baltic Military District. [WWWW2]
Balck, Lt. Gen. Hermann
(1893-1950) Balck was a very energetic German tank commander, who rose to command an Army Group in France. Balck was very successful in the opening stages of the Battle of France; he managed to establish a bridgehead across the Meuse at Sedan. He commanded a regiment in the First Panzer Division of Guderian's Group and for Operation Barbarossa he was promoted to command a full Panzer Division. In November 1943 he was given command of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and took part in the defense of Sicily. In August 1944 he was ordered back to the USSR to command the Fourth Panzer Army but arrived too late to contain Konev's attack in the Ukraine. In September 1944 he was sent to relieve Blaskowitz and pursued a policy of elastic defense which held up Patton's advance into Lorraine. He was then sent to command the Sixth Army in Hungary but he displeased Hitler and ended the war commanding a mere subgroup. [WAWW2]
Ba MNaw, Dr. U
(1893-1977) Ba Maw was the prime minister of Burma during the Japanese occupation. He had been prime minister under the British until 1937 but was arrested for sedition in 1940. In 1942 he was appointed national leader by the Japanese and began negotiating for Burma's independence and was forced to accept the loss of part of the Shan states. In August 1943 Burma was declared independent and Ba Maw was appointed its head of state, however this was a purely nominal title -- in fact, he merely served as an adviser to the Japanese military rulers. Once the British began to overrun Burma he left for Japan and was interned by the US in Tokyo (December 1945-July 1946). he returned to Burma to face further imprisonment under the A Nu regime. [WWWW2]
Bar, Oberstleutnant Heinrich
(1913-1957) Leading jet fighter ace of the war. Flying a jet-propelled Me 262 Sturmvogel in the closing months of the war, "Heinz" Bar destroyed at least sixteen Allied aircraft, mostly B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. His total aerial kills in the war was 220, with 124 against British and American aircraft. Some sources cite Bar as the first jet ace of the war, but this can be contested by several Me 262 pilots. [WW2AW]
Baruch, Bernard
(1870-1965) Baruch was one of Roosevelt's economic advisers and was an extremely influential businessman. In 1941 he put forward his criticisms of the war economy and was appointed special adviser to [James] Byrne's Office of War Mobilization. In 1943 he produced a comprehensive report on how industry should adapt to wartime requirements. In 1946 President Truman appointed him US representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission and Baruch produced a plan to establish control of all atomic energy activities dangerous to the world, but this plan was not acceptable to the USSR. [WAWW2]
Bastico, Gen. Ettore
(1876-1972) Bastico fought in Libya, Yugoslavia and in the Greek campaign and in recompense for his services Mussolina made him Governor of Libya. On 12 July 1941 he was made Commander in Chief of Axis triips in North Africa. Rommel was not under his orders but was to be responsible to him. Rommel succeeded in making Bastico's job impossible by ignoring him and eventually troops were placed directly under Rommel. In February 1942 Bastico's appointment finally lapsed and he returned to obscurity in Italy. [WWWW2]
Bayerlein, Gen. Fritz
(1899-1970) Bayerlein was a panzer commander who fought on all the fronts during the war. In 1940 after the Polish Campaign he served under Guderian in France and then commanded a combat group in the XXXIX Corps' advance on Moscow. In 1941 he was transferred to the Western Desert and became Chief of Staff to Rommel. He commanded the unsuccessful attack on Alam Halfa. On Rommel's departure Bayerlein took direct command of the Afrika Korps. [After the war he helped write operational histories of the Desert campaign. He returned to Germany and was given command of the Panzer Lehr Division until the end of the war. This division took part in the fighting at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. [WWWW2]
Bazna, Elyesa ("Cicero")
Bazna was a Turkish subject of Albanian origin who became the highest paid spy in World War II. Before the war he had worked as the valet of the German ambassador in Ankara, Jenke, Ribbentrop's brother-in-law. He had transferred to the British Embassy without difficulty and served as valet to the British ambassador, Knatchbull-Hugessen during the war. In October 1943 he visited the German embassy and saw the Intelligence attache, Moyzisch, to whom he offered secret British documents for [US $80,000]. Cicero, as he was code named by the Germans, had obtained a key to the embassy safe and was photographing all the papers that passed through the embassy. He supplied the Germans with many important documents including the minutes of the Teheran and Cairo Conferences and details of the planned Allied invasion of Europe. He was paid some [US $1,200,000] in bank notes but British embassy officials became suspicious and Bazna disappeared. The information ... was treated with suspicion by the Germans who thought it was planted, and [it] was never presented to Hitler .... Bazna was traced after the war to South America where he was arrested for trying to pass counterfeit money -- the Germans had given him forged bank notes .... [WAWW2]
Beaverbrook, Lord Maxwell Aitkin
(1879-1964) A Canadian self-made multimillionaire and the founder of a great press empire, Beaverbrook had played a major part in British coalition politics during World War I when he had directed the government's information services and had become a close friend and political ally of Winston Churchill. On the latter's assumption of the premiership in 1940, Beaverbrook was made Minister of Aircraft Production, with the task of increasing the output of desperately needed fighters. By ruthless simplification of production methods he did succeed in keeping the numbers of replacements ahead of losses during the Battle of Britain. Subsequent investigation suggested, however, that the disruption he caused in established procedures resulted in an eventual net shortfall of aircraft by the end of 1940. Then, however, the crisis was over. He subsequently acted as Minister of Supply (1941-42) and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45), and also as administrator of the Lend-Lease scheme in America in 1942. A 'political gadfly' with an irrepressible urge to create mischief around him, Beaverbrook was valued by Churchill less for his administrative skills than for his creative unorthodoxy. [WWWW2]
Beck, Gen. Ludwig
(1880-1944) A former chief of staff, Beck had resigned in 1938 in protest against Hitler's plans for aggressive war which he believed would bring about disaster for Germany. He then became the focus for the 'military opposition' to Hitler, which maintained a timorous existence during the early years of the war. A man of genuine moral courage, however, he gladly joined with [Col. Claus von] Stauffenberg in the active  conspiracy which culminated in the Bomb Plot of 20 July 1944, was arrested in the War Office by the opportunist [Gen. Friedrich] Fromm, and committed suicide under his supervision that evening. [WAWW2]
Bedell Smith, Gen. Walter
(1895-1961) A staff officer who had risen from the ranks, he became, at the outbreak of the war, Secretary of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and American Secretary of the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff. In September 1942 he went to England to become Chief of Staff to Eisenhower, with whom he remained to the war's end. Eisenhower enormously valued his services and talents which were those of the perfect soldier-diplomat. He laid the basis for the negotiations of the Italian armistice of 1943 and arranged the surrender of the German forces in the west in May 1945. [WWWW2]