227. Tough times: 1941 and 1942

227. Tough times: 1941 and 1942

The years 1941 and 1942 were tough ones…

Things were going badly in the Battle of the Atlantic, with Germany threatening to strangle Britain by sinking more merchant ships than the British could bear to lose.

In the Far East, the Japanese were giving the British, and indeed several other of the western nations previously seen as unbeatable, that they could be beaten by an Asian power. But by taking on the Americans, they’d made a mistake: the US had barely deployed its strength and, when it did, it first put a stop to Japanese advance by sea or land before it started to fight back.

In Russia too, the German advance was running out steam. Unexpectedly tough resistance from the Soviets stopped the Germans short of their objectives. One army made it as far as the city now called Volgograd, then called Stalingrad. What happened to it there is something for our next episode.



Meanwhile, in North Africa, late 1942 was when Rommel’s breathtaking advance was at last halted at the First Battle of El Alamein in Egypt, by General Claude Auchinleck at the head of the British Eighth Army. Sadly, though, that hadn’t come fast for Winston Churchill or the British Chief of Imperial General Staff, who relieved Auchinleck of his command. Credit for the victory would go to someone else. Again, a story for the next episode.


Illustration: Officers on the bridge of a British destroyer escorting a convoy of ships, looking out for submarines. Public Domain

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License


Jaksot(275)

250. Return of the crisis man

250. Return of the crisis man

When Harold Wilson formed his second government, he immediately faced a major crisis inherited from Heath’s administration: the coalminers were on strike, a state of Emergency (Heath’s fifth in four y...

6 Heinä 202514min

249. Who governs Britain?

249. Who governs Britain?

How did Heath end up calling an election on the question of who governed the country? Especially as the choice he seemed to be offering was between him and the minders. This episode traces the impact ...

5 Heinä 202514min

248. Withered Heath

248. Withered Heath

Ted Heath’s government had to deal with two problems drawn from Britain’s postimperial standing: • adapting to its loss of global status, by negotiating, at the third time of asking and for the first ...

22 Kesä 202514min

247. Hopes dashed

247. Hopes dashed

After talking last week about his government’s achievements in the social sphere, this episode looks at the difficulties Wilson faced in economics and foreign affairs.One way Wilson explored to addres...

15 Kesä 202514min

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

According to the English poet Philip Larkin, the sixties saw the invention of sexual intercourse. While that may not be quite the case, it was certainly a time when a lot of people decided that it was...

8 Kesä 202514min

245. Pressures preventing progress

245. Pressures preventing progress

The Wilson government got off to a pretty sticky start, with the new Prime Minister learning, more or less as he arrived at Downing Street in October 1964, that the trade deficit for the year was like...

1 Kesä 202514min

244. Harold gets Home

244. Harold gets Home

Here we’re focusing on the changes that took place in Britain after Supermac (Harold Macmillan) stood down as Prime Minister.A lot of how that went depended on the Opposition formed by the Labour Part...

25 Touko 202514min

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

Last time we looked at the continuing disintegration of the British Empire. In this episode we look at two other key aspects of Macmillan’s foreign policy, Britain’s relations with the US and with pot...

18 Touko 202515min

Suosittua kategoriassa Historia

olipa-kerran-otsikko
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
mayday-fi
huijarit
mystista
rss-ikiuni
konginkangas
tsunami
totuus-vai-salaliitto
rouva-diktaattori
sotaa-ja-historiaa-podi
rss-subjektiivinen-todistaja
rss-kirkon-ihmeellisimmat-tarinat
rss-i-dont-like-mondays-2
rss-peter-peter
rss-sattuu-sita-suomessakin
historiaa-suomeksi
apinan-vuosi
maailmanpuu
tiedetta-ja-sirkushuveja-vanhojen-aikojen-podcast