HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

UNITED KINGDOM MILITARY SERIES

Edited by J. R. M. Butler

Grand Strategy

Volume VI
October 1944-August 1945

By John Erman
Sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

London: 1956
HMSO


President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill
President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill


Contents

  Page
Introduction xi
Chapter I. Germany and the Western Allies in the Autumn of 1944  
    (i) Germany 1
    (ii) The Western Allies 15
Chapter II. Delay in Europe, October 1944-January 1945  
    (i) The Western Front and Italy 29
    (ii) Developments in South-East Europe 40
    (iii) The German Counter-Attack 64
Chapter III. Plans for Final Victory in Europe, January-February 1945  
    (i) Agreement on the Western Front and Italy 77
    (ii) Relations with the Russians: Yalta 96
Chapter IV. Victory in Europe, February-May 1945  
    (i) The Western and Eastern Fronts, February-March 113
    (ii) Victory in the South, April-May 117
    (iii) Dresden or Berlin? 131
    (iv) The Last Weeks 151
Chapter V. The Reconquest of Central Burma, October 1944-May 1945  
    (i) The Plan of Campaign and the System of Command 165
    (ii) Operations to January 1945 174
    (iii) The New Directive, and Operations to May 1945 185
Chapter VI. The Strategy for the Pacific, October 1944-June 1945  
    (i) The American Strategy 203
    (ii) The Russian Rôle 211
    (iii) The British Rôle 220
Chapter VII. Stage Two 237
Chapter VIII. The Strategy for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, June-August 1945  
    (i) South-East Asia: To Singapore and Beyond 247
    (ii) Plans for the Invasion of Japan 257
Chapter IX. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb  
    (i) The Initial American Decision 275
    (ii) The British Part in the Initial Decision 295
    (iii) Potsdam and After: The Japanese Surrender 299
Chapter X. The Central Organization  
    (i) The Organization in London 315
    (ii) The Western Alliance 338
    (iii) The Allied Commands 351
Index 409

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Appendices

I. Code Names Mentioned in the Text
II. A. Ministerial Appointments, October 1944-May 1945
  B. Ministerial appointments, May-July 1945
  C. Ministerial Appointments, July-August 1945
III. A. British and American Chiefs of Staff; British Vice-Chiefs of Staff; British Joint Staff Mission in Washington; October 1944-August 1945
  B. Allied Commanders, October 1944-May/August 1945
IV. The Central Executive Government of Great Britain, (Chart by the War Cabinet Offices, November 1944)
V. Offices of the War Cabinet and Minister of Defense
VI. British Representation on the Combined Chiefs of Staff's Organization
VII. Background to the British Estimates of the Date for the End of the War in Europe, 1944-45
VIII. Some Prime Minister's Minutes and Telegrams, Hitherto Unpublished, of which Extracts are Quoted in the Text
IX. Chronological Table of Selected Events and Planning Dates

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Maps

I. The Western Front in Europe, Autumn-Winter 1944 29
II. The Advance on Germany from South and East, October 1944-May 1945 130
III. The Advance on German from West and East, October 1944-May 1945 162
IV. The Reconquest of Central Burma 165
V. Burma and Malaya 167
VI. The Far East 312
End Papers
Front: Festung Europa and the Japanese Position, October 1944  
Rear: Combined Chiefs of Staff's Theatres, October 1944  

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Illustrations

All plates are Crown Copyright, and have been selected with the help of the staff of the Imperial War Museum, where they are housed.

Frontispiece: Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt

Plate I. Commanders on the Western Front 36
  II. Mediterranean Commanders 56
  III. The Yalta Conference 96
  IV. Commanders in South-East Asia 176
  V. Commanders in the Pacific 208
  VI. The Potsdam Conference 260
  VII. The Atomic Bomb 275
  VIII. Mr. Churchill and The Chiefs of Staff's Committee 322
  IX. The President and his Military Advisers 344

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Introduction

The last two years of the war, from August 1943 to August 1945, form a single period in the history of grand strategy, which may be called that of the strategic offensive. The design for Europe which emerged from the First Quebec Conference in August 1943, and the complementary limits to the Allied effort in the Far East, governed the plans for the next twelve months, and provided the background to developments in 1945. Ideally, therefore, the whole of the period should have been covered in one volume. But the weight and variety of the events make this difficult, if not impossible; and we have accordingly been obliged to divide the period into two parts, which form Volumes V and VI of this series.

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Footnotes

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