Axis
Hungarian Air Force 1930-45 Part I
After World War I, the Allied victors at Versailles met to parcel out 74,971 square miles of Hungarian territory to foreign enemies, stranding nearly half of the Hungarian people under hostile, foreign domination. The Hungarian armed forces were dismantled and military aviation forbidden. Only civilian “aero clubs” were allowed, but they at least preserved some measure of flight instruction over…
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Alternative WWII: Alamein to Basra, 1942 Part I
The White House, Washington When President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the telegram announcing the fall of Tobruk to his distinguished guest in the Oval Office, he was taken somewhat aback by the depth of feeling with which the information was greeted. “Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another,” gloomily intoned…
Germany-Japan: The Exchange of Strategic Resources
One of the avowed war aims of the Axis powers was to fashion conquered lands and satellites into self-sufficient economic “spheres” that would serve the strategic and economic needs of each master race. During the Second World War, however, neither Germany nor Japan nor any of the wider areas they…
Germany-Japan: Transportation
Transportation Problems Just as Germany began to make sure of her sources of supply—with the aid of a better purchasing organization in Southeast Asia established after Wohlthat’s arrival in Tokyo in late April 1941—her road from the Far East was cut. As if to increase the irony, the supplies waiting…
Germany-Japan: The Dimensions of German Aid
To give a quantitative picture of German assistance to the Japanese is impossible. It is clear that German deliveries were drastically limited by the shipping problem, just as were shipments from the Far East to Europe. The chief means of transport, in the absence of Japanese vessels, were the German…
German-Japanese Cooperation, Synthetic Oil: A Case History
The factory system at Monowitz-Buna, a part of the Auschwitz system, used slave workers to produce synthetic rubber and oil. While German-Japanese negotiations about armaments and related equipment gave ample scope to private German interests, one episode, involving the German chemical industry, illustrates better than others the Nazi government’s inability…
Britain Strategy in Iraq
The British Western Desert Force and, later, the British Eighth Army relied considerably on Iranian and Iraqi oil to fuel military operations during the North African campaign. While major military clashes were occurring during the North African campaign, other military operations in the Middle East were beginning to undermine Britain’s…