Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II

13 The German Luftwaffe chief, Field Marshal Hermann Göring, with his deputy Field Marshal Erhard Milch, March 1942 (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Joseph Stalin, the Soviet communist dictator (#litres_trial_promo)

15 General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of all US forces in the Far East, with President Roosevelt (#litres_trial_promo)

16 General Arthur Percival, commander of Allied troops in Malaya – a clever and experienced leader who was utterly vanquished by a ferocious Japanese force employing 6,000 bicycles (#litres_trial_promo)

17 Stalin’s trusted General Georgi Zhukov began his career in the Tsar’s dragoons and defeated first the Japanese and then the Germans (#litres_trial_promo)

18, 19 General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the ‘Tiger of Malaya’, who was forbidden to return to Japan, and Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, once a student of Harvard University, who master-minded the attack on Pearl Harbor (#litres_trial_promo)

20 General Hideki Tojo, first Japan’s war minister and then prime minister (#litres_trial_promo)

FIGURES

1 HMS Dreadnought (#litres_trial_promo)

2 German U-boat submarine, type V11C (#litres_trial_promo)

3 HMS Ajax (#litres_trial_promo)

4 HMS Exeter (#litres_trial_promo)

5 German Enigma coding machine (#litres_trial_promo)

6 British shipping losses in the first year of the war (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Focke-wulf Fw 200C Condor (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Short Sunderland flying boat (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Consolidated Catalina flying boat (#litres_trial_promo)

10 The German battleship Bismarck (#litres_trial_promo)

11 The US long-range Liberator, used for convoy escort (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Comparative ship sizes (#litres_trial_promo)

13 British Lee-Enfield rifle Mk 111 (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Mercedes and Auto-Union racing cars (#litres_trial_promo)

15 British Bren light machine-gun (#litres_trial_promo)

16 British, French and German tanks in use at the start of the war (#litres_trial_promo)

17 Junkers Ju 52/3m transport aircraft (#litres_trial_promo)

18 German DFS 230 4.1 glider (#litres_trial_promo)

19 Heinkel He 111 bomber (#litres_trial_promo)

20 German Mauser Gewehr 98 (#litres_trial_promo)

21 German MG 34 machine-gun (#litres_trial_promo)

22 Fairey Swordfish from HMS (#litres_trial_promo)Illustrious

23 German 8.8mm anti-aircraft/anti-tank gun (#litres_trial_promo)

24 Heinkel He 280 – the world’s first jet fighter, for which neither Milch nor Udet saw any need (#litres_trial_promo)

25 British Avro Lancaster bomber (#litres_trial_promo)

26 Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber (#litres_trial_promo)

27 Supermarine Spitfire and Messerschmitt Bf 109 (#litres_trial_promo)

28 Hawker Hurricane fighter (#litres_trial_promo)

29 Messerschmitt Bf 110 long-range fighter (#litres_trial_promo)

30 Dornier Do 17 bomber (#litres_trial_promo)

31 Junkers Ju 88 bomber (#litres_trial_promo)

32 The rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet – the fastest aircraft used in the war (#litres_trial_promo)

33 Germany’s jet-propelled Me 262 – the only jet aircraft to have a significant role in the war (#litres_trial_promo)

34 Arado 234 ‘Blitz’ bomber (jet) (#litres_trial_promo)

35 Heinkel 162 ‘Volksjäger’ (jet) (#litres_trial_promo)

36 Russian Ilyushin 2 Shturmovik (#litres_trial_promo)

37 Russian T-34 tank (#litres_trial_promo)

38 Russian machine-pistol PPSh 41 (#litres_trial_promo)

39 Two of the best aircraft of the war the Mitsubishi ‘Claude’ and ‘Zero’ fighters (#litres_trial_promo)

40 The Japanese aircraft carriers Akagi and Kaga (#litres_trial_promo)

41 Japanese infantry cyclist (#litres_trial_promo)

MAPS