World War II in Photographs
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1941
A Stuka attack on British shipping in
Suda Bay. Although the Royal Navy
destroyed or dispersed seaborne invasion
forces, it lost three cruisers and six
destroyers to air attack: seventeen
other ships were heavily damaged.
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ABOVE
1941
THE ATLANTIC CHARTER
In July 1941 presidential envoy Harry Hopkins told Churchill that
President Roosevelt would like a personal meeting. Churchill grasped
the opportunity to draw the USA closer to the beleaguered Britain.
The meeting took place in early August off Newfoundland: Churchill
arrived in HMS Prince of Wales and Roosevelt in USS Augusta. Roosevelt
suggested a joint declaration of principles, and the Atlantic Charter,
agreed on August 12, bound both states to forswear territorial
aggrandisement, support self-determination and establish a peace bringing
"freedom from want." Despite its bland tone, the Charter aligned the
USA, though still technically neutral, firmly against Germany. One of the
least-posed of a series of photographs of the meeting shows Roosevelt and
Churchill with General George C. Marshall, US Army Chief of Staff (over
Churchill's left shoulder) and, on Marshall's right, Admiral Ernest J.King,
later Commander-in-Chief of the US fleet. The balding civilian in profile
is US Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, who helped his British
opposite number, Sir Alexander Cadogan, to prepare the Charter.
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194 I
THE MIDDLE EAST
A treaty permitted the stationing of British troops in Iraq, but in
May the Iraqis, emboldened by Britain's misfortunes elsewhere,
besieged the air base at Habbaniya. Churchill, concerned about
the threat of oil supplies and the danger of German build-up,
ordered Wavell to send troops from Palestine to relieve it, but
when they arrived the siege had been lifted. In Syria and the
Lebanon substantial French forces under General Dentz
remained loyal to the Vichy regime. When they gave aid
to the Iraqis and allowed German aircraft to land, the
British decided to take action. Although Free French,
as well as Australian, British and Indian units participated
in the invasion, which began in June, Vichy troops fought with
unexpected determination, and an armistice was not signed till July 14.
LEFT
An RAF armoured car from the Habbaniya
base enters Fort Rutbah, Iraq, on May 16.
There were few Germans and Italians
in Iraq, and the pro-Axis elements in
Iraq lacked both troops and a cohesive
plan: Baghdad itself fell on May 31.
BELOW
After the German invasion of Russia,
British and Russian troops jointly invaded
Iran, where German influence was strong,
in August 1941 to secure an overland route
to Russia. A captured Iranian officer talks
to a British officer, through an interpreter,
near an Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
refinery at the head of the Gulf.
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1941
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In Operation Bishop, mounted on the night
of August 24, Indian army troops aboard
HMS Kanimbla with an accompanying
flotilla captured the Iranian port of
Bandar Shahpur. The three groups of
ships seen here are British and Indian
warships alongside captured merchantmen.
ABOVE
An Anglo-Russian parade in Tehran,
September 1941, the first contact between
British and Russian soldiers during the
war. General Novikov (Caucasus Army)
and Brigadier Tiarks (9th Armoured
Brigade) inspect Russian troops.
RIGHT
The British maintained a horsed cavalry
brigade of one regular and two yeomanry
regiments in Palestine. These yeomen ride
along the coast road on their way into
Syria on the last occasion that British
cavalry went on campaign mounted.
136
1941
LEFT
The unexpectedly sharp resistance put up
by Vichy French troops created problems
for British official war photographers, who
largely confined themselves to shots of what
the original caption terms "a picturesque
scene." British troops are overshadowed
by a giant irrigation waterwheel on the
River Orontes at Hama.
BELOW
Armistice terms allowed French soldiers
to choose between repatriation or service
with the Free French. Much to de Gaulle's
annoyance, only about 6,000 of Dentz's
troops opted for Free France, while over
20,000 were repatriated. This photograph
shows French soldiers waiting to register
their preferences in Beirut.
137
HESS ATTEMPTS PEACE
Rudolf Hess drifted into politics after the First World War and
quickly fell under the spell of Hitler, who he regarded as "the
incarnation of pure reason." He became Hitler's deputy in 1933,
but thereafter slipped out of the inner circle. On May 10, 1941,
he flew to Scotland in an effort, he claimed, to negotiate peace
between Britain and Germany, "two related northern states." Hitler,
who almost certainly had no knowledge of the attempt, at once
disclaimed him. At Nuremberg he received a life sentence for crimes
against peace, and was incarcerated in Berlin's Spandau prison, where
he committed suicide in 1987. This image shows RAF personnel
posing with the wreckage of Hess's crashed Messerschmitt Bf 110.
138
1941
LEND-LEASE
Though President Roosevelt was firmly convinced that Axis victory
would be disastrous, isolationism in Congress and the electorate
compelled him to proceed with caution. In December 1940
Churchill told him of the damage done by German submarines,
and warned that the time was approaching when Britain would not
be able to pay for munitions. The Lend-Lease bill, introduced into
Congress in January 1941, empowered the president to transfer any
defence material to any nation whose defence he believed vital to the
USA's interests. Although isolationists fought hard, the bill became
law in March, and proved a key turning-point in US foreign policy.
BELOW
British troops take refreshment
in an American club, June 1941.
ABOVE
The propaganda value of Lend-Lease was
enormous: here British schoolboys enjoy
their eggs courtesy of Uncle Sam.
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194 I
ABOVE
Although the Thompson sub-machine gun
was not an ideal military weapon, its American
symbolism, arising from prewar gangster films,
made it another propaganda coup. The British
soon replaced it by the cheaper and lighter
Sten, though it remained in limited service.
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