Captain Wynne of the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office produced this unique account of British threat responses to potential German conflict. The response was in four sections to different threats and used some documents that were later destroyed or filed under security restrictions – Strongly Recommended.
NAME: Stopping Hitler, an Official Account of How Britain Planned to Defend Itself in the Second World War FILE: R2493 AUTHOR: Captain G C Wynne PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword, Frontline BINDING: hard back PAGES: 388 PRICE: £25.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Second World War, WWII, World War Two, World War 2, Dunkirk, Sea lion, defence, coast defence, underground army, intelligence, street fighting, armour, artillery
ISBN: 1-47389-552-9
IMAGE: B2493.jpg6 BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/m88qbf5 LINKS: DESCRIPTION: Captain Wynne of the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office produced this unique account of British threat responses to potential German conflict. The response was in four sections to different threats and used some documents that were later destroyed or filed under security restrictions - Strongly Recommended. This account of British plans is probably the only full account until historians later access some documents that have been sealed. Even then, their accounts will be unable to include documents destroyed. Captain Wynne had full access to all documentation for his research. The final security review of his work may have required the deletion of some information, and required various modifications, but there is no way of knowing now what may have been stripped out for security reasons. When the work was completed in 1948, British policies were again changing. The incoming Labour Government unwisely started by assuming their real ally would be the Soviet Union and they disgracefully shipped military technology to Stalin as gifts. By 1948, even the dyed in the wool communist members of the Atlee Administration were being forced to accept that this view of the Soviet Union was seriously flawed and, slowly, the Government was being forced to make a series of changes to respond to this new and growing threat. The consequences of this to history are that Churchill had deliberately ordered the destruction of some technology and documentation to prevent the Labour Party sharing it with Russia. The Labour Government then realized his worst fears by making many unwise gifts to the Soviets. As even Labour came to understand their stupidity, some documentation that was highly sensitive, and some technologies and strategies, were reclassified to restrict access to these secrets. Capt Wynne came into the situation as it was moving towards the new Cold War footing. As a result, some documents may have already been destroyed, but he did have access to all classified, sensitive and unclassified documentation relating to the preparations for WWII and the modifications introduced to meet changing circumstances. Although the period following WWI was dominated by a political and public belief that the Great War had been the war to end all war, and that any further conflict could never be, there were people who doubted this fervent wish. Even before the Nazis came to power, there were some voices of caution, mostly from an understanding of how unwise the final Peace Treaty had been in providing German resentment. In the military, there were officers who had the job of preparing for all sorts of contingencies, however unlikely they might seem to most people. When Hitler came to power, the military began to increase preparations for a new war with Germany, even though very few politicians were prepared to consider this possibility. In fact Churchill was almost a lone voice warning of the dangers. By the mid 1930s, Britain was starting to spend an increasing sum on updating the seriously neglected Armed Forces. Crash programs began to attempt to design and build modern aircraft, ships and tanks. However, that was just the visible part of the activity. The military had to decide what the threat priorities were, decide what equipment and manpower was required and prepare the way for manufacture of weapons. As these weapons were coming into service, the military had to develop new tactics and strategies to use systems that were a major change from what they had been equipped with. There were four different threats envisaged and these were reviewed with developing plans to counter them. As no threat stands still, the plans had to be modified to reflect the current realities. The author has produced a unique and detailed account of the preparations and the modest photo-plate section includes some very interesting images.