Germany's surprise attack on June 22, 1941, shocked a Soviet Union woefully unprepared to defend itself. The day before the attack, the Red Army still comprised the world's largest fighting force. But by the end of the year, four and a half million of its soldiers lay dead. This new study, based on formerly classified Soviet archival material and neglected German sources, reveals the truth behind this national catastrophe.
Drawing on evidence never before seen in the West-including combat records of early engagements-David Glantz claims that in 1941 the Red Army was poorly trained, inadequately equipped, ineptly organized, and consequently incapable of engaging in large-scale military campaigns—and that both Hitler and Stalin knew it. He provides the most complete and convincing study of why the Soviets almost lost the war that summer, dispelling many of the myths about the Red Army that have persisted since the war and soundly refuting Viktor Suvorov's controversial thesis that Stalin was planning a preemptive strike against Germany.
Stumbling Colossus describes the Red Army's command leadership, mobilization and war planning, intelligence activities, and active and reserve combat formations. It includes the first complete Order of Battle of Soviet forces on the eve of the German attack, documents the strength of Soviet armored forces during the war's initial period, and reproduces the first available texts of actual Soviet war plans. It also provides biographical sketches of Soviet officers and tells how Stalin's purges of the late 1930s left the Red Army leadership almost decimated.
At a time when blame for the war in eastern Europe is being laid with a fallen regime, Glantz's book sets the record straight on the Soviet Union's readiness-and willingness-to fight. Boasting an extensive bibliography of Soviet and German sources, Stumbling Colossus is a convincing study that overshadows recent revisionist history and one that no student of World War II can ignore.
In this dramatic account of the last days of peace in 1939, Richard Overy re-creates hour by hour the unfolding story in the capitals of Europe as politicians and the public braced themselves for a war that they feared might spell the end ...
CAB70 / 5 , DC ( S ) ( 42 ) 89 , 5/10 , DC ( S ) ( 42 ) 6 , MAP Report , 26/1 , DC ( S ) ( 42 ) 98 , MAP Report , 16/11/42 ; CAB65 / 28 , War Cabinet minutes ... LHCMA , Brooke Papers , 3 / A / V , 18/5/42 retrospective ; Butler , vol.
The collection will cover both conventional and non-conventional areas.
Captain Phillips was leading us. The platoons were well deployed. We pushed our way through whatever Germans were in front of us to a drawbridge at the canal and anchored ourselves in position.' Radio operator Private Haller, ...
The journalists and the reports that brought World War II to life share accounts of the London Blitz, Eric Sevareid's parachuting over Burma from a crippled aircraft, Howard K. Smith's narrow escape from Nazi Germany on December 6, 1941, ...
Also reproduced in K. Jackson ( ed . ) , The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader ( Carcanet , Manchester , 1993 ) , p . 7 . 137. Ibid . , 20 October 1940. K. Jackson ( ed . ) , The Humphrey Jennings Film Reader , p . 8 . 138.
Who touches these books touches a profession.
Seven stories reveal how two families - one Jewish, one non-Jewish - fared in the Netherlands during the German occupation of World War II. Each story highlights a specific aspect of life; and emphasizes the difference between the options ...
Burman, Red, 172 Burma-Shave, 191 Burns, Bob, 202,301 Burns, George, 203 Bush, Douglas, 70 Butts, Wally, 167 Byrd, Harry F., 12ff., 17 Caldwell, Harmon, 67 Calloway, Cab, 44 Campanella, Roy, 165 Cantor, Eddie, 52 Carle, Frankie, ...
“毫无疑问的是,”海军中将路易斯·蒙巴顿勋爵注意到,“敌人已经完全认识到了海峡群岛的价值,认识到一旦我们的军队重新占领它们所带来的潜在威胁。”由蒙巴顿起草的“星座行动”是针对海峡群岛各岛屿而进行的一系列独立行动的统称。“天鹰行动”“六角琴行动” ...