The events of 1940 might have been remembered as the next step in the expansion of the Third Reich. Instead, because of a combination of heroic pilots, iconic aircraft and an incredible network on the ground, the Battle of Britain is celebrated as a victory of the Royal Air Force over the Luftwaffe.

Here are the key dates of this momentous battle.

July

The Luftwaffe was engaged in Störangriffe – the small scale, sporadic bombing of Britain. These nuisance raids intensified during July, when daylight bombings began to target shipping in the English Channel. This ‘Kanalkampf’ involved attacks on convoys and of shipping ports such as Dover.

A British convoy under attack by German dive bombers, 14 July 1940 (Credit: Public Domain).

12 August

After poor weather caused a delay, RAF airfields and radar stations in the south of Britain came under attack. The Luftwaffe bombers, escorted by fighter planes, attacked their targets in quick succession.

The German strategy, code-named Adlerangriff, meaning ‘Eagle Attack’, was to destroy the RAF Fighter Command first. The resulting air supremacy would allow for systematic bombing of military and economic targets further inland.

In this first attack on British ground organisation, they targeted the airfields to destroy the RAF aircraft, and the radar systems in an attempt to blind the British Dowding interception system. Of the radar stations attacked, all but Ventnor on the Isle of Wight were in use again by the next day.

Royal Air Force Radar, 1939-1945 Chain Home: radar receiver towers and bunkers at Woody Bay near St Lawrence, Isle of Wight, England. This installation was a ‘Remote Reserve’ station to Ventnor CH (Credit: Public Domain).

13 August

On this German Adlertag – ‘Eagle Day’ – a ten hour series of attacking waves focussed on the South East of England. With their 1,485 sorties, the German forces were testing the British ability to direct their resources against simultaneous – and widely dispersed – attacks. The RAF responded with 727 sorties of their own.

The Luftwaffe bombings missed their main three targets – Odiham, Farnborough and Rochford. They did hit Detling airfield in Kent, but this was not key to the battle and had been attacked as a result of faulty intelligence.

15 August

The Luftwaffe launched their largest number of sorties in one day in an attempt to deliver the knock out blow which ‘Eagle Day’ had failed to provide. The German forces flew over 2,000 missions to attack airfields and lure the British forces into a battle.

The north east of England was attacked for the first time from bases in Norway and Denmark after intelligence suggested that the bulk of the RAF fighter defences had been moved south.

Pattern of condensation trails left by British and German aircraft after a dogfight (Credit: Public Domain).

This intelligence was incorrect, however, and the day became the Luftwaffe’s ‘Black Thursday’. 75 of their aircraft were shot down. Churchill named the day as ‘one of the greatest days in history.’ The RAF had lost 34 planes in their 974 sorties.

18 August

On this – ‘The Hardest Day’ – both sides suffered huge casualties. The RAF lost 68 aircraft. The Luftwaffe, 69. The German Junker 87 ‘Stuka’ dive bombers were withdrawn from the battle after this, having proved too vulnerable to British fighters.

In a raid on RAF Kenley all 10 hangars were destroyed, alongside several of the aircraft. Biggin Hill, Kenley, Croydon and West Malling airfields were also targeted. A radar station on the Isle of Wight was destroyed entirely.

A Dornier Do 17 bomber of 9 staffel Kampfgeschwader 76, brought down on 18 August 1940 near RAF Biggin Hill (Credit: Public Domain).

20 August

Winston Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons declaring that:

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

He paid tribute to the efforts of fighter pilots and bomber crews, and emphasized that Britain was far better equipped for modern warfare than in the previous war.

24 August

The Luftwaffe bomb London. By accident. On a mission to attack military targets outside London, the bombers instead destroyed several homes in the West End and kill civilians.

A retaliatory attack on Berlin was ordered for the next day. The 80 aircraft strong attack stunned German civilians, who had been assured by Göring that this would never happen.

30 August

The RAF flew 1,054 sorties from 22 squadrons. The Luftwaffe flew 1,345. Telephone lines, gas, electricity and water mains were cut, and one of the last remaining hangars is destroyed at Biggin Hill airfield.

This was the first day that a non-English speaking pilot engaged fully in battle. Flight Officer Ludwik Witold Paszkiewicz attacked a German aircraft during a training flight.

31 August

39 RAF aircraft were shot down during this day and 14 pilots were killed. The German forces flew over Kent and the Thames Estuary and attacked airfields at North Weald, Debden, Duxford, Eastchurch, Croydon, Hornchurch and Biggin Hill. This was just one of the six attacks which Biggin Hill suffered in three days.

Heinkel He 111 bombers during the Battle of Britain (Credit: Public Domain).

7 September

The Blitz began. In response to the bombing of Berlin and to flawed intelligence which suggested that the RAF were weaker than in reality and would engage entirely in protecting the capital, the Luftwaffe commenced the targeted bombing of London. It continued for 57 consecutive nights.

Some historians see this change in focus as the moment when the Germans lost the Battle of Britain.

15 September

In the hope of drawing the RAF into an all out battle in the skies in which they could be annihilated, the Luftwaffe launched its most concentrated attack on London. The battle lasted until dusk and involved up to 1,500 aircraft. By the end of the day, German High Command were convinced that the Luftwaffe could not attain the air superiority required to invade Britain.

Hitler postponed Operation Sealion two days later, and daylight attacks were replaced with night time bombings. The final daylight raid by the Germans took place on 31 October. Whilst the Blitz was an affront to the populations in the cities, it gave the RAF a much needed chance to rebuild airfields, train pilots and repair aircraft.

These concrete structures were part of the Atlantic Wall, or Atlantikwall: a 2000 mile defensive line built by the Germans during the Second World War.

Why was the Atlantic Wall built?

After the emergence of an Eastern front following the invasion of the USSR, the failure of Operation Sealion to successfully invade Britain, and the entry of the United States into the war, the German strategy became exclusively defensive.

Building of the Atlantic Wall began in 1942. The barrier was supposed to stave off an invasion by Allies seeking to liberate Nazi occupied Europe. Coastal batteries were placed to protect important harbours, military and industrial targets and waterways. Hitler issued ‘Directive No. 40’ on 23 March 1942, in which he wrote:

In the days to come the coasts of Europe will be seriously exposed to the danger of enemy landings… Special attention must be paid to British preparations for landings on the open coast, for which numerous armoured landing craft suitable for the transportation of combat vehicles and heavy weapons are available.

The Atlantikwall spanned the coasts of six countries

As the Nazi propaganda extolled, the fortifications extended from the Franco-Spanish border, around the Atlantic coasts of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and then up to Denmark and the northern tip of Norway. This was thought to be necessary because, not only did the German forces not know when the allies would attack, they also did not know where they would choose to attack.

Camouflaged German torpedo battery in northern Norway (Credit: Bundesarchiv/CC).

It overran its completion date

The original deadline placed on the building of the Atlantic wall was May 1943. Yet by the end of the year only 8,000 structures, of a targeted 15,000, were in existence. Construction had, however, sped up since a British and Canadian raid on the French port, Dieppe, in August 1942.

How long was the Atlantic Wall?

The 2,000 miles of coastal defences and fortifications were made up of fortresses, gun emplacements, tank traps and obstacles. It was not a continuous structure or barricade.

The defences were formed into three tiers. The most strategically important areas were festungen (fortresses), then came the stützpuntkte (strong points) and finally the widerstandnesten (resistance nets).

The man in charge called it a ‘propaganda wall’

After the war, Field Marshal von Rundstedt recalled that “one has only to look at it for one’s self in Normandy to see what rubbish it was.”

Rundstedt had been dismissed from command on the Eastern Front after a significant failure at Rostov in 1941, but was appointed Oberbefehlshaber West in March 1942 and was therefore in command of coastal defence.

German soldiers placing landing craft obstructions, 1943 (Credit: Bundesarchiv/CC).

Large amounts of the operational defence was installed as late as 1944

As Allied invasion looked increasingly likely, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was assigned the task of inspecting the wall as General Inspector of the Western Defences from November 1943. He had witnessed Allied airpower in North Africa and found the defence to be weak. He argued that:

The war will be won or lost on the beaches. We’ll have only one chance to stop the enemy and that’s while he’s in the water … struggling to get ashore.

Alongside Rundstedt, Rommel worked to upgrade the number and quality of personnel and weapons. In addition, construction rates were brought back up to the highs of 1943: 4,600 fortifications were erected along the coasts in the first 4 months of 1944, to add to the 8,478 already built.

6 million land mines were planted in Northern France alone during Rommel’s lead, accompanied by obstacles such as ‘hedgehogs’, C-Element fences (inspired by the French Maginot Line) and various other defences.

The wall was built using forced labour

The organisation contracted to build the Atlantic wall was Organisation Todt, which was notorious for its use of forced labour.

During the period in which the Atlantic Wall was built, the organisation had approximately 1.4 million labourers. 1% of these had been rejected from military service, 1.5% were imprisoned in concentration camps. Others were prisoners of war, or of occupation – compulsory labourers from occupied countries. This included 600,000 workers from the unoccupied ‘free zone’ of France under the Vichy regime.

Of the 260,000 involved in the building of the Atlantic Wall, only 10% were German.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel visiting the Atlantic Wall defences near the Belgian port of Ostend (Credit: Bundesarchiv/CC).

The Allies stormed most of the defences within hours

On 6 June 1944, the Allied D-Day occured. 160,000 troops crossed the English channel. Thanks to intelligence, luck and tenacity, the wall was breached, the allies found their beachheads and the Battle of Normandy was underway.

More than two million Allied troops were in France within the next two months: the campaign to liberate Europe had begun.

The Titanic: her name is synonymous with those of Jack and Rose, fictional passengers on her maiden voyage. In the midst of the many myths and fictions surrounding the famous cruise liner and her ill-fated maiden voyage, here are 10 facts about the Titanic.

1. People died on the Titanic even before it set out

During the 26 month construction of the Titanic at the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, 28 serious accidents and 218 minor accidents were recorded. 8 workers were killed.

This was a smaller number than expected for the time, which was one death for every £100,000 spent. As the Titanic cost £1.5 million to build, 15 deaths could have been anticipated.

Most of the 8 were killed by injuries sustained from falling either from the ship or the staging surrounding it.

A 43-year-old shipwright, James Dobbin, was actually killed on the day of the Titanic’s launch. At 12:10 on 31 May 1911, an estimated 10,000 people watched as the massive ship slid from the yard onto the River Lagan.

Dobbin was crushed during the process of removing the timber stays which had been holding the ship upright.

The RMS Titanic ready for launch, 1911

Image Credit: Public Domain

2. The largest liner in the World

On her launch, the Titanic became the largest movable man-made object. She was 269 metres long and 28 metres wide. From keel to bridge she was 32 metres high, 53 metres to the top of the stacks.

Because of her grandeur, it was felt that the Titanic should have four exhaust stacks. Thomas Andrews’ efficient original design, however, necessitated only three. The ship therefore had one purely decorative stack.

Titanic’s unprecedented size resulted from competition between her owners at White Star Line, and Cunard Line.

3. One of three

Because of her size and the new equipment it would require, it would have been too expensive to build the Titanic alone. Instead, she was built alongside two sister ships, both of which also had eventful lifetimes.

Construction of the RMS Olympic began first, and the ship was launched on 20 September 1910. For the next twelve months, the fractionally smaller Olympic was the largest liner in the world.

RMS Titanic (right) at the fitting out wharf in Belfast, whilst RMS Olympic (left) gets repaired on 2 March 1912. Photograph by official photographer of Harland & Wolff

Image Credit: Public Domain

Less of the attention to detail applied to the aesthetic of the Titanic was used on the Olympic. After the former sank, however, improvements included lifeboats for all and, in October 1912, the installation of a watertight inner skin.

The Olympic rescued soldiers from the sinking British battleship, Audacious, in October 1914, and served as a troop ship carrying Canadian soldiers to the European front.

She was the only one of the three to survive more than half a decade. The third and biggest ship, the Britannic, went into production after the Titanic disaster and sank in 1916 after hitting a mine. She had been a British hospital ship.

4. Room for one (thousand) more

Around 2,200 people were on board when the Titanic sank in 1912, but her maximum capacity was around 3,500. Of these, 1,000 would be crew. In 1912, there were 908 crew members, but fewer passengers. There were 324 in First Class, 284 in Second, and 709 in Third.

Between 1,490 and 1,635 of these people died as the ship sank, including the Captain.

5. The estimated overall wealth of the passengers in first class was $500 million

$87 million of this is attributed to John Jacob Astor IV.

On their voyage from New York in January 1912, Astor and his wife Madeleine travelled on the Olympic. Astor was the richest passenger on the Titanic on their return journey, and one of the richest people in the world. He died in the sinking as a ‘women and children first’ protocol was generally followed.

Drawing of the Grand Staircase of the RMS Titanic, from the 1912 promotional booklet (Credit: Public Domain)

Image Credit: Public Domain

It is estimated that $6 million worth of belongings went down on the Titanic.

Not included, however, were the supposed riches of Alfred Nourney. Travelling under the false title Baron Alfred von Drachstedt, Nourney used his assumed aristocratic status to transfer to first class.

As the ship sank he quickly gained access to a lifeboat from the first class smoking room, unlike the 168 men in his original second class quarters, only 14 of whom survived the sinking.

6. In first class, Titanic was a place of luxury

The liner had 4 restaurants and passengers ate off the 50 thousand pieces of bone china crockery supplied by Liverpool’s Stonier and Co.

There were reading rooms, 2 libraries, 2 barber shops and a photographic darkroom on board. A heated swimming pool was reserved for use by first class passengers, at 1 shilling a time. There were also Turkish baths and electric baths, each for 4 shillings a time.

The swimming pool on the Titanic

Image Credit: Public Domain

The Titanic had its own Atlantic Daily Bulletin printed on board, including news, society gossip and the day’s menu.

A first class passenger would pay £30 for a regular room, or £875 for a parlour suite. The majority of passengers, however, were in third class, and payed between £3 and £8.

There were just two baths for all of the passengers in third class, many of whom were bunked in the 164 bed dormitory on deck G.

7. Titanic was officially responsible for delivering mail for the British Postal Service

There were 5 mail clerks, a post office and a mail room on decks F and G, along with 3,423 sacks of mail.

It was reported that during the 2 hours and 40 minutes that the ship took to sink, the clerks prioritised moving sacks of mail to the upper deck.

8. A lifeboat drill scheduled for the 14 April was called off

This was possibly because Captain Edward Smith wished to deliver a final Sunday service before retirement. The ship sank that night.

The crew had only done one lifeboat drill, whilst the ship was docked.

Even if the crew had been better trained and each lifeboat had been filled, there was only sufficient space for around a third of the ship’s maximum capacity. It was believed that the ship would not sink, so there would be time to ferry passengers off it.

This oversight was made possible by the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, which was not updated to accommodate ships exceeding 10,000 tonnes.

Photograph taken by a passenger of Cunard Line’s RMS Carpathia of a lifeboat from the Titanic

Image Credit: passenger of the Carpathia, the ship that received the Titanic's distress signal and came to rescue the survivors, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

9. The wreck was discovered in the last 50 years

The Titanic wreck lies 3,700 metres below the surface of the Atlantic. It was not discovered until 1985, at which time it was confirmed that the boat had split in two.

The task of finding the Titanic was included in a military operation to survey the remains of some nuclear submarines led by Robert Ballard.

The separated bow and stern are around a third of a mile apart. Debris from the ship covers an area of 15 square miles.

Many areas of the ship remain unexplored, as they are inaccessible to underwater vehicles.

The bow of the Titanic photographed in 2004 by the ROV Hercules

Image Credit: Public Domain

10. Titanic’s legacy endures

The sinking of the Titanic has inspired many films and documentaries. A requiem tracking the launch, journey, sinking and aftermath of the Titanic was written by Robin and RJ Gibb, and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Whilst the ship itself is too fragile to be brought to the surface, innumerable smaller parts and objects have been salvaged. Many, including a section of the hull, sit in the Luxor Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

On 1 October 1946, Hermann Göring was found guilty at the Nuremberg for his crimes during the Nazi regime. What do we know about the man who committed these crimes?

1. He was born into an aristocratic family

Hermann Göring was born on 12 January 1893 to Heinrich Göring, a diplomatic consul to German South-West Africa (now Namibia), and his second wife Franziska Tiefenbrunn.

His godfather, Hermann von Epenstein, was of Jewish descendance and also Franziska’s lover. The family lived in von Epenstein’s castles, Burg Veldenstein and Burg Mauterndorf, throughout the year.

2. He was a fighter pilot in the First World War

After a childhood of military interests, and an education at military academy, Göring entered the German Army as an infantry lieutenant in 1912. He transferred to the air force and was an ace.

He reportedly shot down 22 allied aircraft during the war, and received the Pour le Merite and Iron Cross 1st class.

Göring as a fighter pilot in 1917 (Credit: Public Domain).

3. He was wounded in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923

Göring became a member of the National Socialists in 1922 after circulating the anti-Weimar and anti-reparations scene. With his military experience, he was placed in command of the SA (‘Sturmabteilung‘ – ‘brownshirts’) in December. This fulfilled his desires for action, comradeship and power.

When the Beer Hall Putsch staged by the party in 1923 was met with police firepower, 14 Nazis were killed alongside 4 policemen, and Göring was hit in the groin and hip.

With a warrant out for his arrest he fled to Austria. He soon became addicted to the morphine prescribed for his pain, leading to his institutionalisation in Sweden in 1925 and 1926. He only returned to Germany in 1927 when a full amnesty was granted.

Munich Marienplatz during the failed Beer Hall Putsch 1923 (Credit: Bundesarchiv/CC).

4. He was Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe

On 1 March 1935 Göring took on the leadership of the Luftwaffe. Without the knowledge or strategic understanding necessary, he overestimated the German force’s potential, and underestimated that of his enemies.

He made a fatal tactical error during the Battle of Britain, when his switch to massive night bombings of London on 7 September 1940 actually gave the British fighter defences time to recover – just when they were reeling from losses in the air and on the ground.

5. His brother worked in opposition to the Nazi regime

Heinrich Göring had 3 children from a previous marriage, and 5 from his marriage to Franziska. The youngest of these, Albert, was born in 1895. He was rumoured to be von Epenstein’s son because of his dark eyes and central European features, as opposed to his brother’s blue eyes and northern profile.

The differences didn’t stop there. Albert was in Vienna pursuing a career in filmmaking at the time of the Anschluss in 1938. When Nazi policies began to threaten many of his friends, he arranged and funded exit visas, sometimes by playing on his older brother’s ego, and reportedly defended Jews who were being bullied in the street.

Albert Göring (Credit: Public Domain).

Albert was the subject of numerous Gestapo reports, 4 arrest warrants and finally a death warrant in 1944, which called for execution on sight. He was often protected from punishment by his name, shared with his powerful brother.

This name would, however, haunt him. Albert was imprisoned for two years after the fall of the Nazi regime. This was despite producing a list of the people who he had saved during the Second World War.

In conversation with an American psychiatrist, Leon Goldensohn, Hermann said of his younger brother, ‘he was always the antithesis of myself.’

6. He quickly became one of the richest men in the country

When the Nazis enacted their Four Year Plan to provide for the rearmament and self-sufficiency of Germany in 1936, Hermann Göring was made plenipotentiary (having the full power of independent action on behalf of the government). In this role he established the Reichswerke Hermann Göring, employing 700,000 workers and profiting 400 million marks.

He lived in luxury with a palace in Berlin and a hunting mansion. He decorated both with his art collection, which was bolstered by gifts from those seeking favours and by the spoils of stolen Jewish collections.

7. He had one child

Despite his earlier groin injury, during his second marriage to actress Emmy Sonnemann, Hermann fathered a daughter, Edda. Born in 1938, she was the recipient of many gifts of artwork and jewellery, and was treated like a princess as any of the daughters of Nazi leaders were. Hitler was her godfather.

After her father’s death, she maintained connections with his former colleagues. She remained protective of her father, stating that her ‘only memories of him as such loving ones, I cannot see him any other way.’ She cited Hermann’s loyalty to Hitler as the reason for his downfall, and noted that he had always supported her uncle in his actions.

Edda was subject to a number of court cases regarding the gifts that she had been given, some of which had been acquired illegally. She unsuccessfully petitioned in 2015 for compensation for the money and possessions taken from her father when he was captured.

German soldiers of the Hermann Göring Division posing in front of Palazzo Venezia in Rome in 1944 with a picture taken from the Biblioteca del Museo Nazionale di Napoli (Credit: Bundesarchiv/CC).

8. He was expelled from the Nazi party

In April 1945 Göring sent a telegram to Hitler, in anticipation of his likely death, asking permission to take up control over Germany. He had been named as successor in 1941.

Hitler and Martin Bormann condemned Göring as a traitor and rescinded the 1941 decree. Göring was forced to resign from his posts, and was expelled from the party in Hitler’s will.

9. He was convicted as a War Criminal

Göring was captured by the US Seventh Army on 9 May 1945. He was one of the highest ranking Nazi officials to be tried at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, the others having committed suicide or escaped.

Having been weaned off his drug addiction, Göring made an attempt to acquit himself. He pleaded that he had not known of many of the crimes that he was accused of and gave excuses for his role in the others.

The prosecutors were able, however, to prove his knowledge and found him guilty of all four counts – crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

10. He committed suicide

On 15 October 1946, two hours before his execution was due to take place, Göring took a cyanide capsule in his cell. His request to be shot rather than hanged had been rejected.

The former Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe’s ashes were thrown to obscurity in a river, rather than being buried in the family plot near his brother.

What do we know about Charles de Gaulle?

1. He spent most of the First World War as a prisoner of war

Having already been wounded twice, de Gaulle was injured whilst fighting at Verdun, he was captured by the German Army on 2 March 1916. For the next 32 months he was shifted between German prisoner of war camps.

De Gaulle was imprisoned in Osnabrück, Neisse, Szczuczyn, Rosenberg, Passau and Magdeburg. Eventually he was moved to the fortress at Ingolstadt, which was designated as a reprisal camp for officers deemed to warrant extra punishment. De Gaulle was moved there because of his repeated bids to escape; he attempted this five times during his incarceration.

Whilst a prisoner of war, De Gaulle read German newspapers to keep up with the war and spent time with journalist Rémy Roure and future Red Army commander, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, expanding and discussing his military theories.

2. He received Poland’s highest military honour

Between 1919 and 1921, Charles de Gaulle served in Poland under the command of Maxime Weygand. They fought to repel the Red Army from the newly independent state.

De Gaulle was awarded the Virtuti Militari for his operational command.

3. He was a mediocre student

After fighting in Poland, De Gaulle returned to teach at the military academy where he had studied to be an army officer, École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr.

He had obtained a middling class ranking when he passed through the school himself, but had gained experience in public speaking whilst in prisoner of war camps.

Then, despite again finishing in an undistinguished position in his class at École de Guerre, one of his instructors commented on de Gaulle’s ‘excessive self-assurance, his harshness towards other people’s opinions and his attitude of a king in exile.’

4. He was married in 1921

Whilst teaching at Saint-Cyr, de Gaulle invited 21-year-old Yvonne Vendroux to a military ball. He married her in Calais on 6 April, aged 31. Their eldest son, Philippe, was born the same year, and went on to join the French Navy.

The couple also had two daughters, Élisabeth and Anne, born in 1924 and 1928 respectively. Anne was born with Down’s syndrome and died of pneumonia aged 20. She inspired her parents to establish La Fondation Anne de Gaulle, an organisation which supports people with disabilities.

Charles de Gaulle with his daughter Anne, 1933 (Credit: Public Domain).

5. His tactical ideas were unpopular with French leadership in the interwar years

Whilst he had once been the protege of Philippe Pétain, who was involved in his promotion to Captain during the First World War, their theories of war differed.

Pétain generally argued against costly offensive warfare, maintaining static theories. De Gaulle, however, favoured a professional army, mechanisation and easy mobilisation.

6. He was Under-Secretary of State for War for 10 days during the Second World War

After successfully commanding the Fifth Army’s tank force in Alsace, and then the 200 tanks of the Fourth Armoured Division, de Gaulle was appointed to serve under Paul Reynaud on 6 June 1940.

Reynaud resigned on 16 June, and his government was replaced by that of Pétain, who favoured an armistice with Germany.

7. He spent the majority of the Second World War away from France

Once Pétain had come to power, de Gaulle went to Britain where he broadcast his first call for support to continue the fight against Germany on 18 June 1940. From here he began to unite resistance movements and form Free France and the Free French Forces, saying that ‘Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die.’

De Gaulle moved to Algeria in May 1943 and established the French Committee of National Liberation. A year later, this became the Provisional Government of the Free French Republic in a move that was condemned by both Roosevelt and Churchill but acknowledged by Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland and Yugoslavia.

He finally returned to France in August 1944, when he was permitted by the UK and the USA to engage in the liberation.

Crowds of French patriots line the Champs Elysees to view General Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division pass through the Arc du Triomphe, after Paris was liberated on August 26, 1944 (Credit: Public Domain).

8. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a French military court

His sentence for treason was increased from 4 years to death on 2 August 1940. His crime was in openly opposing Pétain’s Vichy government, which was in collaboration with the Nazis.

9. He was elected President of the Republic on 21 December 1958

Having resigned from the provisional presidency in 1946, citing his desire to maintain his legend, de Gaulle returned to leadership when called for to resolve the crisis in Algeria. He was elected with 78% of the electoral college, but the topic of Algeria was to take up much of his first three years as President.

In line with his policy of national independence, de Gaulle sought to exit unilateral agreements with multiple other nations. He instead opted towards agreements made with one other nation state.

On 7 March 1966, the French withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO. France remained in the overall alliance.

Charles de Gaulle visits Isles-sur-Suippe, 22 April 1963 (Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

10. He survived several assassination attempts

On 22 August 1962, Charles and Yvonne were subject to an organized machine gun ambush on their limousine. They were being targeted by the Organisation Armée Secrète, a right-wing organisation formed in an attempt to prevent Algerian independence, which de Gaulle had found to be the only option.

Charles de Gaulle died of natural causes on 9 November 1970. President Georges Pompidou announced this with the statement ‘General de Gaulle is dead. France is a widow.’

Whilst many of these prisoners were kept interned elsewhere in the British Empire or by other allied nations, almost half a million prisoners of war were being held in Britain in 1945.

1. Who were the prisoners in Britain?

Initially, the number of prisoners of war kept in Britain remained low, consisting mainly of German pilots, aircrew or naval personnel captured within its borders.

But with the war turning in the Allies favour from 1941, increasing numbers of prisoners were brought across. This began with Italian prisoners taken in the Middle East or North Africa. They participated in constructing some built-for-purpose camps, such as camp 83, Eden Camp, in Yorkshire.

As the British continued to push the Axis powers back, prisoner numbers increased, and included soldiers from not only Italy and Germany, but from Romania, Ukraine and elsewhere. During and after the Second World War, over 470,000 German and 400,000 Italian prisoners of war were held in Britain.

Original caption: ‘When a group of Italian prisoners captured in North Africa arrived in London on their way to a prison camp, one of them sported a tennis racket… these captives will probably be used for agricultural work.’ 15 June 1943

2. Where were they imprisoned?

The British prisoner of war internment camps were numbered – the list extends to 1,026, including 5 in Northern Ireland. A prisoner would be assigned to a camp depending on their classification.

‘A’ category prisoners wore a white armband – they were deemed to be benign. ‘B’ category prisoners wore a grey armband. These were soldiers who had some ideals sympathetic to those of Britain’s enemies, but did not pose a major risk.

‘C’ category prisoners were those believed to maintain fanatical national socialist ideals. They wore a black armband, and were thought likely to attempt an escape or an internal attack on the British. Members of the SS were automatically placed in this category.

To reduce any chance of escape or rescue, this final category of prisoners were held to the north or west of Britain, in Scotland or Wales.

3. How were they treated?

According to the Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, signed at Geneva on 27 July 1929, prisoners of war had to be kept in conditions equal to those that they would experience on their own army bases.

There was also no guarantee in 1942 that Britain would eventually win the war. In the hope that Allied prisoners would be granted equal treatment, those interned in Britain were not maltreated. They were often better fed than they would have been fighting at the end of a supply chain.

Those in lower risk camps were permitted to leave for work and to attend church alongside the British congregations. Depending on the camp, prisoners might be paid in real currency or in camp money – to further prevent escape.

Prisoners at Eden Camp were able to fraternize with the local community. Skilled labourers among them would make ornaments and toys to barter with the community for items they could not otherwise obtain.

When prisoners worked for and with British civilians, the animosity towards them tended to wear off. On Christmas Day, 1946, 60 prisoners of war in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, were hosted in private homes after an outreach by a minister of a Methodist church. Prisoners also formed football teams and played in the local league.

In their spare time, the Italian prisoners of camp 61, the Forest of Dean, built a monument to Guglielmo Marconi – the inventor and engineer. The monument, on Wynol’s hill, was completed in 1944 and not demolished until 1977. Remaining both in the village of Henllan, Wales, and on the Island of Lamb Holm, Orkney, are Italian chapels converted from camp huts by prisoners in order to practice their Catholic faith.

The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, Orkney (Credit: Orkney Library & Archive).

The experience was very different for category ‘C’ prisoners, who would not be trusted with local communities. In addition, the Geneva convention specified that prisoners could only be assigned work fitting with their rank.

At camp 198 – Island Farm, Bridgend, Wales – the 1,600 German officers were therefore not only entirely confined, but also exempted from manual labour. Without the opportunity to engage with the local population, animosity between the guards and the prisoners remained high. In March 1945, 70 German prisoners of war – having stockpiled provisions – escaped from Island Farm through a 20-yard long tunnel which had its entrance under a bunk in accommodation hut 9.

All of the escapees were eventually captured, some as far away as Birmingham and Southampton. One prisoner was idenitifed by his cohort as having been the guards’ informant. He was put through a kangaroo court and hanged.

Island Farm camp, 1947 (Credit: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales).

4. What work did they do to help the war effort?

Almost half of the prisoners of war in Britain – 360,000 people – were working by 1945. The nature of their work was limited by the Geneva convention, which stated that prisoners of war could not be set to work in war-related or dangerous tasks.

Italian prisoners in Orkney declared a strike when it emerged that their work on the island of Burray appeared to be intended to close off to invasion access to the four sea straits between the islands. The Red Cross Committee reassured them 20 days later that this assumption was incorrect.

For other camps, this convention meant farm work. Camps that were built from scratch, such as Eden Camp, were often placed in the centre of agricultural land. In 1947, 170,000 prisoners of war were working in agriculture. Others were engaged in rebuilding bombed roads and cities.

5. When were they repatriated?

There were prisoners of war interned in Britain until 1948. Due to the heavily depleted labour force and the requirements for food supplies and rebuilding, they were too useful to let go.

According to the Geneva convention, seriously sick or injured prisoners should be repatriated immediately. All other prisoners should be released as part of the conclusion of peace. The Second World War, however, ended with unconditional surrender – meaning there was no full peace treaty until the 1990 Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany.

The number of German prisoners actually peaked after the war ended, reaching 402,200 in September 1946. In that year, one-fifth of all farm work was being completed by Germans. Repatriation only began in 1946 when Prime Minister Clement Atlee announced – after public outcries – that 15,000 prisoners of war would be released per month.

24,000 prisoners chose not to be repatriated. One such soldier was Bernhard (Bert) Trautmann, who had become a member of the Jungvolk aged 10, in 1933, and volunteered as a soldier in 1941, aged 17. After receiving 5 service medals, Trautmann was captured by Allied soldiers on the Western Front.

As a category ‘C’ prisoner he was initially interned at camp 180, Marbury Hall, Cheshire. He was downgraded to a ‘B’ status and eventually placed at camp 50, Garswood Park, Lancashire where he stayed until 1948.

In football matches against local teams, Trautmann took the position of goalkeeper. He worked on a farm and in bomb disposal, then began to play for St Helens Town. He was offered a contract for Manchester City in 1949.

Bert Trautmann catches the ball during the Manchester City game against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane 24 March 1956 (Credit: Alamy).

Though he initially faced some negativity, Bert played 545 matches in his 15-year career for Manchester City. He was the first sportsman in Britain to wear Adidas, received a standing ovation at his first match in London – against Fulham, and played in the 1955 and 1956 FA cup finals.

In 2004, Trautmann received an OBE. He is unusual in his reception of both this and an Iron Cross.

In 1939, almost the entirety of the African continent was a colony or a protectorate of a European power: Belgium, Britain, French, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Just as the experiences of Indian soldiers fighting for Britain vary, so do those of Africans who fought. Not only did they fight across the spheres of the Second World War, their service depended on whether their country was a colony of an Axis or Allied power. This article looks at the broad experiences of French and British colonial troops.

Senegalese Tirailleurs serving in France, 1940 (Image Credit: Public Domain).

British forces

600,000 Africans were enrolled by the British during the Second World War to provide security to their own countries and other British Colonies under threat from the Axis powers.

The British publicly proclaimed their African troops to be volunteers and most often, this was true. Propaganda systems disseminating anti-facist information were published to garner support.

But whilst widespread conscription in colonial territory was prohibited by the League of Nations, the level of choice afforded to African recruits was variable. Colonial forces may not have conscripted directly, but many soldiers were forced to arms by local chiefs employed by European officials.

Others, searching for work, took employment in nondescript roles in communications or similar, and did not discover until they arrived that they had joined the army.

One of the British regiments was the King’s African Rifles, formed in 1902 but restored to peacetime strength after the First World War. At the start of the Second World War, it had just 6 battalions. By the end of the war, 43 battalions had been raised from across Britain’s African colonies.

The King’s African Rifles, comprising of natives of the East African Colonies, were led mostly by officers drawn from the British Army, and served in Somaliland, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Burma during the Second World War.

The British paid colonial soldiers in accordance with their rank and their length of service, and also their ethnicity. Black troops were sent home with a third of the pay of their white contemporaries. African soldiers were also barred from ranks above Warrant Officer Class 1.

Their racial profiling did not end there. An officer of the King’s African Rifles wrote in 1940 that ‘the darker their skin and the more remote parts of Africa they come from – the better soldier they made.’ Their service and underpayment was justified by the argument that they were being brought closer to civilisation.

In addition, despite its outlawing in the interwar years, senior members of the East African Colonial Forces – mainly those from white settler communities with more investment in the colour hierarchy than those born in Britain – argued that corporal punishment was the only way to maintain discipline. In 1941 the power to award corporal punishment was approved for courts-martial.

The illegal use of summary corporal punishment by commanders continued throughout the war, their arguments using the stereotype of African troops having short memories. An English-born missionary complained in 1943 of the flogging of African soldiers for petty crimes, which had been illegal elsewhere in British forces since 1881.

French forces

The French had maintained an army, the Troupes Coloniales, in French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa since 1857.

Among them were the Tirailleurs Senegalais, who were not only from Senegal, but from the West and Central African colonies of France. These were the first permanent units of black African soldiers under French rule. The recruits were initially social outcasts sold by African chiefs, and ex-slaves, but from 1919, universal male conscription was enforced by the French colonial authorities.

A veteran of the French colonial forces remembered being told that ‘the Germans had attacked us and considered us Africans to be apes. As soldiers, we could prove that we were human beings.’

When the Second World War began, African troops made up almost one-tenth of the French forces. Soldiers were brought to the European mainland from Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

In 1940, when the Nazis invaded France, these African soldiers were abused and massacred by the conquering forces. On 19 June, when the Germans won Chasselay, to the northwest of Lyon, they separated the Prisoners of War into French and African. They murdered the latter and killed or wounded any French soldier who tried to intervene.

African soldiers from the French colonies being escorted to their mass execution at Chasselay (Image Credit: Baptiste Garin/CC).

After the occupation of France in 1942, the Axis powers forced the French Armee Coloniale to reduce in number to 120,000, but a further 60,000 were trained as auxiliary police.

In total, more than 200,000 Africans were recruited by the French during the war. 25,000 died in battle and many were interned as prisoners of war, or murdered by the Wehrmacht. These troops fought on behalf of both the Vichy and the Free French governments, depending on the loyalties of the colony’s government and sometimes against one another.

In 1941, Vichy France granted the Axis powers access to Levant to refuel en route to their battle for the oilfields of Iraq. During Operation Explorer the Allied forces, including Free French colonial troops, fought to prevent this. They fought, however, against Vichy troops, some of which were also from the French African colonies.

Of the 26,000 colonial troops fighting for Vichy France in this operation, 5,700 chose to stay on to fight for Free France when they were beaten.

A tirailleur who has been awarded the Ordre de la Libération by General Charles de Gaulle in 1942, Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa (Image Credit: Public Domain).

French colonial troops became essential to France when one and a half million French men were in German prisoner of war camps after the Fall of France. They made up the majority of the French fighting force in Operation Dragoon, 1944. This Allied landing operation in Southern France is seen as the main French effort in liberating their own homeland.

One of the regiments to be awarded the honour of the Ordre de la Libération – awarded to heroes of the Liberation for France – was the 1st Spahi Regiment, which was formed from indigenous Moroccan horsemen.

Despite this, after the efforts of 1944 – with the path to Allied victory clear and the Germans out of France – 20,000 Africans on the front line were replaced with French soldiers in a ‘blanchiment’ or ‘whitening’ of the forces.

No longer fighting in Europe, Africans in demobilisation centres faced discrimination and were informed that they would not be entitled to veteran’s benefits, instead being sent to holding camps in Africa. In December 1944, the Thiaroye massacre of protesting African soldiers by white French soldiers in one such camp resulted in 35 deaths.

The promise that the Tirailleurs Senegalais would be granted equal citizenship of France was not granted after the war.

In Britain, for example, the official line is to remember the sacrifices of the Armed Forces from Britain and the Commonwealth. It’s important to remember however, that those soldiers from the Indian Empire were not actually part of the Commonwealth until 1947 after independence from British rule when the British Raj was partitioned into India and Pakistan (and later Bangladesh).

Not only did they fight, these troops made a considerable difference to the war and between 30,000 and 40,000 were killed. And because the world wars were fought while India was still part of the British Empire, they have tended to be mostly ignored in India, dismissed as part of its colonial past.

The experiences of the Indian Armed Forces during the Second World War are as vast and varied as those of other nations, this is just a brief overview of troops from present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (as well as Nepal, whose soldiers also fought in British Gurkha units).

1. The Indian Armed Forces received over 15% of the Victoria Crosses awarded in the Second World War

By 1945, 31 Victoria Crosses had been awarded to members of the Indian Armed Forces.
This does include 4 medals given to British members of the Indian Armed Forces, as each brigade of the Fifth Indian Infantry Division, for instance, comprised of one British and two Indian battalions. Each of the 4 Victoria Crosses awarded to the Fifth, however, went to soldiers recruited from British India.

Naik Yeshwant Ghadge served with the 3/5th Mahratta Light Infantry in Italy. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross (VC) during fighting in the Upper Tiber Valley on 10 July 1944 (Credit: Public Domain).

2. They were (nominally) voluntary

The Indian Armed Forces had under 200,000 men in 1939, yet 2.5 million people from the British Raj fought against the Axis powers. Whilst some Indians were loyal to Britain, the majority of these sign-ups were encouraged by offerings of payment through food, land, money and sometimes technical or engineering training among a population desperate for work.
In the British desperation for men, they relaxed the requirements for sign-ups in India, and even underweight or anaemic applicants were granted positions in the forces. A report published by the Indian Council of Medical Research found that, for troops from north-west India, each gained 5 to 10 lb within 4 months on a basic army ration. This not only served to allow the British to enrol underweight men, but demonstrates the draw of the Armed Forces for malnourished recruits.
The huge expansion of the Indian Armed Forces resulted in an end to the tradition of a majority Punjabi army, filled with the sons of former soldiers. Instead, only a minority of the army now owned land, and it was felt by military intelligence that this engendered a lack of loyalty and thus reliability.

3. The British also engaged India in production

The Allies sought to utilise resources and land in India for the war effort. India supplied, for instance, 25 million pairs of shoes, 37,000 silk parachutes and 4 million cotton supply-dropping parachutes during the war.

British paratroopers dropping from Dakota aircraft onto an airfield near Athens, 14 October 1944 (Credit: Public Domain).

A large number of people were therefore employed in war production. Although this was more of an opportunity to earn enough money to eat than a patriotic duty, the business classes were however significantly bolstered by this.

Whilst India’s output of war materials was extensive, the production of necessary commodities which could also be used after the war was largely unchanged. Coal production decreased during the war, despite the dependence of railways and industry on it.

Food production also remained the same, and the refusal of the British Government to stop the exportation of food from Bengal was a factor in the 1943 Bengal famine, during which 3 million people died.

4. The Indian Armed Forces served in all theatres of the Second World War

The Victoria Crosses alone demonstrate the reach of the impact of the Indian forces. Medals were awarded for service in East Africa 1941, Malaya 1941-42, North Africa 1943, Burma 1943-45 and Italy 1944-45.
The Fifth Division, mentioned above, fought in Sudan and Libya against the Italians and the Germans respectively. They were then tasked with protecting the oilfields of Iraq, and fighting in Burma and Malaya.
Indian forces not only fought abroad, but were instrumental in the victories at Imphal and Kohima, when the Japanese tide was stemmed and the invasion of India was prevented. The 17th, 20th, 23rd and 5th Indian Divisions were present.

5. The war prompted the end of the British Empire in India

In 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which set out their joint ideals for the world after the war. Despite reluctance on the British part, the charter proclaimed:

‘Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.’

The Allied fight for freedom directly contradicted their colonial power and, even though Churchill clarified that the charter was only meant for countries under Axis occupation, Gandhi’s Quit India movement began just one year later.

The Quit India movement sought to end British rule. Gandhi compelled his countrymen to halt cooperation with the British. He was arrested alongside other leaders of the Indian National Congress and, following demonstrations against this, 100,000 were imprisoned. The Quit India movement is often seen as the unification of an Indian majority against Britain.

Simultaneously, though, feeling that India had a better chance of independence under the Axis Powers, a fellow member of the Indian National Congress, Subhas Chandra Bose, sought sympathy in Germany.

Subhas Chandra Bose meeting Adolf Hitler in Germany (Credit: Public Domain).

The Free India Centre was set up in Berlin and Bose begain to recruit Indians for his cause amongst prisoners of war in Axis detention camps. By 1943, Bose had established a provisional government of India in Singapore, built up a 40,000 strong army and declared war on the Allies.

Bose’s forces fought with the Japanese at Imphal and Kohima, meaning that there were Indian soldiers on both sides.

The strength of the forces from the British Raj on the 70% colonial Allied side in this battle, however, encouraged nationalist movements in India and its neighbouring countries, resulting with the eventual grant of independence in 1947.

But when did the war start? And what should it be remembered for?

1. According to most historians the Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge

On 7 July 1937, rifle fire was exchanged between startled Chinese troops stationed 30 miles from Beijing at the Marco Polo Bridge and a Japanese military training exercise. The exercise had not been disclosed as was customary.

After the skirmish, the Japanese declared themselves to be one soldier down and demanded to search the Chinese town of Wanping. They were refused and instead attempted to force their way in. Both countries sent support troops to the area.

The Marco Polo Bridge as photographed for Shina Jihen Kinen Shashincho by a military photograph squad (Credit: Public Domain).

Early in the morning of 8 July, fighting broke out at the Marco Polo bridge. Although the Japanese were initially driven back and a verbal agreement was reached, tensions did not again fall to the pre-incident level until after World War Two.

This incident is commonly perceived to have been the result of a conspiracy by the Japanese to continue their policy of expansion.

2. Japanese expansionism began far earlier

The First Sino-Japanese War took place between 1894 and 1895. It resulted in the ceding of Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula from China, and the recognition of Korean independence. Then, when the Chinese Qing dynasty collapsed in 1912, the Japanese government and military took advantage of the division within the new Republic of China to forge alliances with local warlords.

Three years later, during the First World War, Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands for concessions within Chinese territory. Thirteen of these demands were accepted after an ultimatum, but the event greatly increased anti-Japanese feeling in China, and confirmed Japanese expansionist intentions to the Allied powers.

3. Full military invasion began in 1931 in Manchuria

One of the warlords supported by the Japanese was Zhang Zuolin of Manchuria, a region in the north-east of China. Japanese influence in the area was also bolstered by their ownership of the South Manchurian Railway.

During the night of 18 September 1931, part of that railway was blown up, beginning the Mukden Incident. The bombing was attributed to Chinese sabotage, and the Japanese army staged a full military invasion of Manchuria.

The Republic of China appealed to the League of Nations and a commission was set up. The resulting Lytton Report, published in 1932, concluded that the Imperial Japanese operations were not self defence. In February 1933, a motion was raised in the League of Nations condemning the Japanese Army as the aggressor.

The Lytton Commission investigating the blast point of the railway (Credit: Public Domain).

By the time the Lytton Commission had even published their report, however, the Japanese army had occupied the entirety of Manchuria, and created a puppet state – Manchukuo – with the last Qing emperor, Puyi, as its head of state.

When the Lytton Report was presented, the Japanese delegation withdrew from the League of Nations. The new state was eventually recognised by Japan, Italy, Spain and Nazi Germany.

4. It made up over half of the casualties in the Pacific War

Taking the period from 1937 into account, estimates for the number of Chinese civilians and military personnel killed reach up to 15 million.

Almost 500,000 of the 2 million Japanese deaths during the Second World War were lost in China.

5. The Chinese Civil War was suspended

In 1927, an alliance between the Chinese Nationalists, the Kuomintang, and the Chinese Communist Party had collapsed when the former sought to reunify China with their Northern Expedition. The two had been in conflict ever since.

In December 1936, however, the Nationalist leader Chinag Kai-shek was kidnapped by the Communists. They persuaded him to agree to a truce and to unite with them against Japanese aggression. In reality, the cooperation of the two parties was minimal, and the Communists took advantage of the weakening of the Kuomintang to gain territorial advantages for the future.

The Communists also recruited large numbers of dispossessed Chinese villagers during and after the war, using their perception as integral to the fight against Japan, which they gained as guerilla fighters. The Civil War was reignited after the Second World War over issues of territory in places where there had only been Communist fighters present on the Japanese surrender.

6. The Nazis funded both sides

From the late 1920s until 1937, Chinese modernisation was supported by Germany, first with the Weimar Republic and then with the Nazi Government. In return, Germany received raw materials.

Although the Nazis sided with Japan when war broke out, they had already been instrumental in improvements to the Chinese military. The Hanyang Arsenal, for example, produced machine guns based on German blueprints.

Minister of Finance of the Republic of China, Kung Hsiang-hsi, in Germany in 1937, attempting to garner Nazi support against Japan (Credit: Public Domain).

The German-Japanese relationship picked up in 1936 with the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact, and later with the Tripartite Pact of 1940, by which they would ‘assist one another with all political, economic and military means.’

7. The Japanese policy has been remembered as the ‘Three Alls’

Kill all. Burn all. Loot all. Within the first six months of fighting, Japan had control of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. Already there were rumours of atrocities committed by the invading force. Then, in December 1937, the Japanese forces focused on the capital, Nanjing. What followed were countless acts of violence against civilians; looting, murder and rape.

Around 300,000 were murdered in Nanjing. Tens of thousands of women were raped and at least one third of the city was left in ruins.

The Nanjing Safety Zone, a demilitarised area of the city, was not targeted with bombs as other areas were. The Japanese military did, however, encroach into the area claiming that there were guerillas there.

Bodies of victims along Qinhuai River during the Nanjing Massacre (Credit: Public Domain).

8. The Japanese atrocities also included biological and chemical warfare

Unit 731 was set up in 1936 in Manchukuo. Eventually comprising of 3,000 personnel, 150 buildings and a 600 prisoner capacity, the unit was a research centre.

To develop biological weapons, doctors and scientists deliberately infected Chinese prisoners with plague, anthrax and cholera. Plague bombs were then tested in northern and eastern China. Prisoners were vivisected – cut open – alive and sometimes without sedation for study and practice. They were also subjected to poison gas experiments.

Other projects studied the impact of food deprivation and the best treatment for frostbite – for which prisoners were taken out, wet and unclothed, until frostbite set in.

Shirō Ishii, the director of Unit 731, who was granted immunity in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

After the war, some Japanese scientists and leaders were granted immunity from War Crimes trials by the United States in return for the results of their research. Testimonies have suggested that human experimentation was not exclusive to Unit 731.

9. The Chinese defence strategy caused a disastrous flood

In a move to defend Wuhan against the advancing Japanese troops, the Chinese Nationalist armies under Chiang Kai-shek breached the dams of the Yellow River in Henan province in June 1938.

The flooding of the Yellow River is said to have led to four million people losing their homes, the destruction of vast amounts of crops and livestock, and 800,000 Chinese deaths. The flooding continued for nine years, but delayed the Japanese capture of Wuhan by just 5 months.

10. Stalemate was only broken by Japan’s attack on the United States

In 1939, the war between Japan and the joint Nationalist and Communist forces of China was at a stalemate. Only when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941, in light of American sanctions and interference, did the war pick up again when China declared war against Japan, Germany and Italy.

Ned Kelly has been the subject of a song by Johnny Cash and has been portrayed by Bob Chitty, Mick Jagger, Heath Ledger and George Mackay. But who was the man under the home-made armour?

1. He was a bushranger

A bandit. An outlaw. A bushranger is a criminal inhabiting the Australian bush. The term was coined early in the 19th century, when it was unique to the Australian colonies. Bushranging peaked between the 1850s and 1870s whilst gold was being transported by road during the Australian Gold Rush.

The crimes of bushrangers varied between the highway robbery of this period and other acts such as murder, assault, theft, home invasion and arson. The Australian fascination with bushrangers in the past and the present, however, is fed by a national myth of Australians as rebels, larrikins. Bushrangers are regarded as Robin Hood type figures, fighting oppression, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Ned Kelly is the most infamous bushranger, and his known crimes include cow and horse theft, alongside assault and murder. He became a bushranger under the mentoring of Harry Power, an absconding prisoner, in the late 1860s.

2. His Dad went to Australia as a convict

Chart of Basses Straight showing the location of Van Dieman’s Land to the south of New South Wales (Credit: Public Domain).

Ned Kelly’s father, John or ‘Red’, arrived in Van Diemen’s Land – now known as Tasmania – in 1842. ‘Red’ was transported aged 21 for pig theft in County Tipperary, Ireland. He moved to Victoria, on the mainland, in 1848.

John maintained that he was the victim of English imperialism in Ireland, a view which he imparted on his son. In his Jerilderie letter, Ned wrote of the convict system:

‘many a blooming Irishman rather than subdue to the Saxon yoke were flogged to death and bravely died in servile chains, but true to the Shamrock and a credit to Paddy’s land.’

3. The rest of his family moved to Australia willingly

Ned’s mother, Ellen Kelly (nee. Quinn) arrived in Port Phillip, Victoria, in July 1841 with her family. From County Antrim, the ten Quinns were assisted passengers – they had their voyage subsidised by the colonial government.

The Quinns moved inland to Wallan, which is where Ellen caught the eye of ‘Red’ Kelly. The couple married in 1850 and bought land near Beveridge in 1853 with money that ‘Red’ made on the goldfields.

4. He was one of 7 children

Born Edward in June 1855, Ned was the third of eight children born to Ellen and ‘Red’, and the first boy.

5. He was first arrested aged 14

In 1869, Ned was arrested for an alleged assault of Ah Fook, a Chinese salesman. According to the accusation, Kelly had initiated the altercation by declaring himself a bushranger, and had stolen 10 shillings.

According to Kelly, he had simply come to his sister’s defence, and had been beaten with a stick by the salesman. This version of events was corroborated by Ned’s sister and two others, and the charges were dropped.

6. He was a boxing champion

Ned was photographed by a Melbourne photographer in a boxing stance in 1874, after winning a bare-knuckle match at the Imperial Hotel, Beechworth.

He had been fighting Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright, for whose crime of ‘borrowing’ a horse Ned had been imprisoned for 3 years with hard labour. This was his longest spell in prison until his final capture. As unofficial champion of the district, Ned’s boxing career was short-lived.

Ned Kelly after defeating Isaiah Wright, August 1874 (Credit: Public Domain).

7. His family were all under observation

Despite the Quinn’s being free immigrants, the entire extended family was subject to increasing attention by the police.

Ellen was notorious for her violent temper as she struggled to raise 7 children alone during her husband’s imprisonment for stealing a calf in 1865, and again after his death in 1866.

She was the defendant in several court appearances and was eventually sentenced to three years in prison for setting upon Constable Fitzpatrick in 1878, with a spade. The police constable had come to arrest the third of Ellen’s sons, Dan, for stealing horses.

Bushranger Dan Kelly, member of the Kelly gang (Credit: Public Domain).

Whether Ned was present or not has never been proven, but Dan and Ned went into hiding in the bush. A reward of £100 was offered for their capture. It was at this point that the brothers, with Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, became the Kelly Gang and their crimes escalated.

8. He dictated an 8,000 word statement to justify his actions

Ned Kelly’s ‘Jerilderie letter’ was written in 1879 during the Kelly Gang’s holding up of a bank in the town of Jerilderie. The original letter’s whereabouts are unknown, but copies were made by a Crown Law clerk. They begin:

‘I wish to acquaint you with some of the occurrences of the present, past and future’

It details parts of his life going back as far as 1870, and ends:

‘I am a Widow’s Son, outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.’

“Ned Kelly in the Dock – A Scene from Life”. Wood engraving published in The Illustrated Australian News (Credit: Public Domain).

By the time Ned wrote this letter, there was a £1,000 reward for the capture of each member of the gang. On top of the injury to Constable Fitzpatrick, they were wanted for the murders of two constables at Stringybark Creek and the robbery of the National Bank at Euroa. The hold-up at Jerilderie raised the reward to £2,000 per head.

9. The Kelly Gang’s final job was undermined by a released hostage

During a plan to wreck a special police train on the 29 June 1880, the Kelly Gang took possession of a hotel at Glenrowan. The 60 people inside became hostages.

Ned allowed a schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, to leave the hotel with his wife, child and sister. It was Curnow who alerted the police of the plan. As a result, the police were able to avoid coming off tracks which the gang had damaged, and instead surrounded the hotel.

Ned Kelly’s armour, from an illustration dated 1880 (Credit: Public Domain).

During the ensuing shootout, and possibly experiencing a feeling of indestructibility because of drunkenness and a lack of sleep, Dan, Byrne and Hart were killed. Only Ned survived. He was wearing a cylindrical headpiece, breast and back plates, and an apron weighing about 41kg, instead of his mates’ plough mould-board protection.

Ned was taken into custody and executed by hanging at Melbourne jail on 11 November. Ellen was granted leave from prison to visit Ned prior to his execution, she reminded him to ‘mind you die like a Kelly.’

10. His final words are subject to speculation

Famously, Ned Kelly’s final words were ‘such is life.’

Other accounts, however, suggest that he said ‘Ah, well, I suppose it has come to this’, or alternatively said nothing at all.

Intrigue around Kelly did not stop with his death. A six month review into police conduct took place in 1881 and resulted in 36 reform recommendations, some of which would have appeased some of the demands in Kelly’s Jerilderie letter.

Further outbreaks of lawlessness amongst sympathisers for Kelly’s cause threatened for the next half a decade, in particular after news that his body had been dissected, illegally.

Kelly’s skull was exhumed during the demolition of Melbourne Jail in 1929 and sent to Canberra for research, where it was then lost, refound, sent back for display at the jail, and then stolen.