Operation Pike

Operation Pike PDF Author: Patrick Osborn
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This groundbreaking study reveals the extent of British military planning against the Soviet Union during the first two years of the Second World War. These plans, formulated on the widespread belief that Soviet Russia was an active and willing partner in Adolf Hitler's war of conquest, were designed to bring the Soviets to their knees and deprive Nazi Germany of vital raw materials, especially oil. Churchill himself was one of the leading proponents of action that would have led to an Anglo-Soviet conflict even as the war with Germany raged on. Utilizing many never-before published documents, Osborn challenges conventional wisdom that Allied hopes were pinned on a Soviet entry into the war against Germany and proposes instead that, had the Nazis not successfully invaded France in May 1940, the Allies might well have launched their own offensive against the Soviet Union. Anti-Soviet rumblings began shortly after the Red Army seized eastern Poland in September 1939, and became more strident after Joseph Stalin invaded Finland later that year. Truly serious planning did not take place, however, until after Stalin's disastrous war with Finland ended in March 1940. Immediately following the abrupt end of that conflict the Red Army sent substantial reinforcements to the Black Sea region, the area most threatened by Allied attack. In March-April 1940, the British undertook secret reconnaissance flights to obtain photographs of important targets inside the Soviet Union. The swift collapse of France in May 1940 insured that British bombers were not launched against these targets, but suspicion lingered between Britain and the USSR throughout the war, contributing to Stalin's refusal to believe Winston Churchill's warnings that Hitler was preparing to invade the USSR in 1941.

Operation Pike

Operation Pike PDF Author: Patrick Osborn
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
This groundbreaking study reveals the extent of British military planning against the Soviet Union during the first two years of the Second World War. These plans, formulated on the widespread belief that Soviet Russia was an active and willing partner in Adolf Hitler's war of conquest, were designed to bring the Soviets to their knees and deprive Nazi Germany of vital raw materials, especially oil. Churchill himself was one of the leading proponents of action that would have led to an Anglo-Soviet conflict even as the war with Germany raged on. Utilizing many never-before published documents, Osborn challenges conventional wisdom that Allied hopes were pinned on a Soviet entry into the war against Germany and proposes instead that, had the Nazis not successfully invaded France in May 1940, the Allies might well have launched their own offensive against the Soviet Union. Anti-Soviet rumblings began shortly after the Red Army seized eastern Poland in September 1939, and became more strident after Joseph Stalin invaded Finland later that year. Truly serious planning did not take place, however, until after Stalin's disastrous war with Finland ended in March 1940. Immediately following the abrupt end of that conflict the Red Army sent substantial reinforcements to the Black Sea region, the area most threatened by Allied attack. In March-April 1940, the British undertook secret reconnaissance flights to obtain photographs of important targets inside the Soviet Union. The swift collapse of France in May 1940 insured that British bombers were not launched against these targets, but suspicion lingered between Britain and the USSR throughout the war, contributing to Stalin's refusal to believe Winston Churchill's warnings that Hitler was preparing to invade the USSR in 1941.

Britain's Secret War against Japan, 1937-1945

Britain's Secret War against Japan, 1937-1945 PDF Author: Douglas Ford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134244894
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
A new look at how Britain’s defence establishment learned to engage Japan’s armed forces as the Pacific War progressed. Douglas Ford reveals that, prior to Japan’s invasion of Southeast Asia in December 1941, the British held a contemptuous view of Japanese military prowess. He shows that the situation was not helped by the high level of secrecy which surrounded Japan’s war planning, as well as the absence of prior engagements with the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army. The fall of ‘Fortress Singapore’ in February 1942 dispelled the notion that the Japanese were incapable of challenging the West. British military officials acknowledged how their forces in the Far East were inadequate, and made a concerted effort to improve their strength and efficiency. However, because Britain’s forces were tied down in their operations in Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean, they had to fight the Japanese with limited resources. Drawing upon the lessons obtained through Allied experiences in the Pacific theatres as well as their own encounters in Southeast Asia, the British used the available intelligence on the strategy, tactics and morale of Japan’s armed forces to make the best use of what they had, and by the closing stages of the war in 1944 to 1945, they were able to devise a war plan which paved the way for the successful war effort. This book will be of great interest to all students of the Second World War, intelligence studies, British military history and strategic studies in general.

Secret History

Secret History PDF Author: Simon Ball
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0228002214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
As John le Carré's fictional intelligence men admit, it was the case histories - constructed narratives serving shifting agendas - that shaped the British intelligence machine, rather than their personal experience of secret operations. Secret History demonstrates that a critical scrutiny of internal "after action" assessments of intelligence prepared by British officials provides an invaluable and original perspective on the emergence of British intelligence culture over a period stretching from the First World War to the early Cold War. The historical record reflects personal value judgments about what qualified as effective techniques and organization, and even who could rightfully be called an intelligence officer. The history of intelligence thus became a powerful form of self-reinforcing cultural capital. Shining an intense light on the history of Britain's intelligence organizations, Secret History excavates how contemporary myths, misperceptions, and misunderstandings were captured and how they affected the development of British intelligence and the state.

The Twilight of the British Empire

The Twilight of the British Empire PDF Author: Chikara Hashimoto
Publisher: Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare
ISBN: 9781474453028
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Uncovers and examines Britain's counter-subversive policies and security measures implemented in the post-war Middle East, Middle Eastern affairs make headlines. Not only are they politically volatile, but the cultural and religious contexts complicate Western involvement in the region. This book reveals secret British intelligence liaisons with Middle Eastern regimes during the early Cold War. It shows how Britain tried to influence regional intelligence and security services and shape their approach to countering communist subversion. Analysing newly declassified documents alongside extensive archival research and historiography, the book pieces together the intelligence culture build by the British Empire in the Middle East in the post-war era.

Nerve Agents in Postwar Britain

Nerve Agents in Postwar Britain PDF Author: William King
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030704742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
This book reveals the nature and level of British engagement with controversial and lethal nerve agent weapons from the end of the Second World War to Britain’s submission of a draft Chemical Weapons Convention. At the very heart of this highly secretive aspect of British defence policy were fundamental questions over whether Britain should acquire nerve agent weapons for potential first-use against the Soviet Union, retain them purely for their deterrence value, or drive for either unilateral or international chemical weapons disarmament. These considerations and concerns over nerve agent weapons were not limited to low-level defence committees, nor were they consigned to the periphery, but featured prominently at the highest levels of the British government and defence planning. Importantly, and despite stringent secrecy, the book further uncovers how public scrutiny and protest movements played a substantial and successful part in influencing policy and attitudes towards nerve agent weapons.

The British Press and the Greek Crisis, 1943–1949

The British Press and the Greek Crisis, 1943–1949 PDF Author: Gioula Koutsopanagou
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 1137551550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
This book provides the first detailed analysis of how interactions between government policy and Fleet Street affected the political coverage of the Greek civil war, one of the first major confrontations of the Cold War. During this period the exponential growth of media influence was an immensely potent weapon of psychological warfare. Throughout the 1940s the press maintained its position as the most powerful medium and its influence remained unchallenged. The documentary record shows that a British media consensus was more fabricated than spontaneous, and the tools of media persuasion and manipulation were extremely important in building acceptance for British foreign policy. Gioula Koutsopanagou examines how this media consensus was influenced and molded by the British government and how Foreign Office channels were key to molding public attitudes to British foreign policy. These channels included system of briefings given by the News Department to the diplomatic correspondents, and the contacts between embassies and the British foreign correspondents.

Africa and the Second World War

Africa and the Second World War PDF Author: David Killingray
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349182648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description


In the Service of the Emperor

In the Service of the Emperor PDF Author: Edward J. Drea
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803266384
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Japan?s war in Asia and the Pacific from 1937 to 1945 continues to be a subject of great interest, yet the wartime Japanese army remains little understood outside Japan. Most published accounts rely on English-language works written in the 1950s and 1960s. The Japanese-language sources have remained relatively inaccessible to Western scholars in part because of the difficulty of the language, a difficulty that Edward J. Drea, who reads Japanese, surmounts. In a series of searching examinations of the structure, ethos, and goals of the Japanese military establishment, Drea offers new material on its tactics, operations, doctrine, and leadership. Based on original military documents, official histories, court diaries, and Emperor Hirohito?s own words, these twelve essays introduce Western readers to fifty years of Japanese scholarship about the war and Japan?s military institutions. In addition, Drea uses recently declassified Allied intelligence documents related to Japan to challenge existing views and conventional wisdom about the war.

In Command of History

In Command of History PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307824802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1014

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Book Description
Winston Churchill was one of the giants of the twentieth century. As Britain’s prime minister from 1940 to 1945, he courageously led his nation and the world away from appeasement, into war, and on to triumph over the Axis dictators. His classic six-volume account of those years, The Second World War, has shaped our perceptions of the conflict and secured Churchill’s place as its most important chronicler. Now, for the first time, a book explains how Churchill wrote this masterwork, and in the process enhances and often revises our understanding of one of history’s most complex, vivid, and eloquent leaders. In Command of History sheds new light on Churchill in his multiple, often overlapping roles as warrior, statesman, politician, and historian. Citing excerpts from the drafts and correspondence for Churchill’s magnum opus, David Reynolds opens our eyes to the myriad forces that shaped its final form. We see how Churchill’ s manuscripts were vetted by Whitehall to conceal secrets such as the breaking of the Enigma code by British spymasters at Bletchley Park, and how Churchill himself edited the volumes to avoid offending postwar statesmen such as Tito, Charles de Gaulle, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We explore his confusions about the true story of the atomic bomb, learn of his second thoughts about Stalin, and watch him repackage himself as a consistent advocate of the D-Day landings. In Command of History is a major work that forces us to reconsider much received wisdom about World War II. It also peels back the covers from an unjustly neglected period of Churchill’s life, his “second wilderness” years, 1945—1951. During this time Churchill, now over seventy, wrote himself into history, politicked himself back into 10 Downing Street, and delivered some of the most vital oratory of his career, including his pivotal “iron curtain” speech. Exhaustively researched and dazzlingly written, this is a revelatory portrait of one of the world’s most profiled figures, a work by a historian in full command of his craft. “A fascinating account that accomplishes the impossible: [Reynolds] actually finds something new and interesting to say about one of the most chronicled characters of all time.” –The New York Times Book Review A New York Times NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A BEST HISTORY OF THE YEAR SELECTION –The New York Sun NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

British Intelligence in the Second World War: Volume 5, Strategic Deception

British Intelligence in the Second World War: Volume 5, Strategic Deception PDF Author: F. H. Hinsley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521401456
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Volume 5 of the Official History of Intelligence in the Second World War, Strategic Deception, brings the series to an end. Strategic deception depends for its success on the availability of good security and good intelligence. The first three volumes of the series described the intelligence channels that gave the Allies their incomparable insight into enemy capabilities and intentions.