The Panzer II is the common name used for a family of Germantanks used in World War II. The official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen II (abbreviated PzKpfw II).
Although the vehicle had originally been designed as a stopgap while larger, more advanced tanks were developed, it nonetheless went on to play an important role in the early years of World War II, during the Polish and French campaigns.
The Panzer II was the most numerous tank in the German Panzer divisions at the beginning of the war.[2] It was used in both North Africa against the Western Allies and on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union.
The Panzer II was supplanted by the Panzer III and IV medium tanks by 1940/1941. By the end of 1942, it had been largely removed from front line service and it was used for training and on secondary fronts.
The turrets of the then-obsolete Panzer Is and Panzer IIs were reused as gun turrets on specially built defensive bunkers, particularly on the Atlantic Wall. Production of the tank itself ceased by January 1944, but its chassis remained in use as the basis of several other armoured vehicles, chiefly self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers such as the Wespe and Marder II respectively.
The RAF underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed “Article XV squadrons” for service with RAF formations. Many individual personnel from these countries, and exiles from occupied Europe, also served with RAF squadrons. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations, similarly, approximately a quarter of Bomber Command’s personnel were Canadian.[16] Additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine percent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres.[17]
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The Avro Lancaster heavy bomber was extensively used during the strategic bombing of Germany.
In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe.Â
In what is perhaps the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history, the Battle of Britain contributed significantly to the delay and subsequent indefinite postponement of Hitler‘s plans for an invasion of the United Kingdom (Operation Sea Lion). In the House of Commons on 20 August, prompted by the ongoing efforts of the RAF, Prime Minister Winston Churchill eloquently made a speech to the nation, where he said “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
While RAF bombing of Germany began almost immediately upon the outbreak of war, under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Harris, these attacks became increasingly devastating from 1942 onward as new technology and greater numbers of superior aircraft became available.Â
The British Army The British Army during World War I fought the largest and most costly war in its long history.
Unlike the French and German Armies, the British Army was made up exclusively of volunteers—as opposed to conscripts—at the beginning of the conflict.
Furthermore, the British Army was considerably smaller than its French and German counterparts.
Men of the Wiltshire Regiment attacking near Thiepval, 7 August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme.
During World War I, there were four distinct British armies.
The first comprised approximately 247,000 soldiers of the regular army, over half of which were posted overseas to garrison the British Empire, supported by some 210,000 reserves and a potential 60,000 additional reserves.
This component formed the backbone of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), which was formed for service in France and became known as the Old Contemptibles.
The second army was provided by the approximately 246,000-strong Territorial Force, initially allocated to home defence but used to reinforce the BEF after the regular army suffered heavy losses in the opening battles of the war.
The third army was Kitchener’s Army, comprising men who answered Lord Kitchener’s call for volunteers in 1914–1915 and which went into action at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
The fourth army was the reinforcement of existing formations with conscripts after the introduction of compulsory service in January 1916.
By the end of 1918, the British Army had reached its maximum strength of 3,820,000 men and could field over 70 divisions.
The vast majority of the British Army fought in the main theatre of war on the Western Front in France and Belgium against the German Empire.
Some units were engaged in Italy and Salonika against Austria-Hungary and the Bulgarian Army, while other units fought in the Middle East,
Africa and Mesopotamia—mainly against the Ottoman Empire—and one battalion fought alongside the Japanese Army in China during the Siege of Tsingtao.
The war also posed problems for the army commanders, given that, prior to 1914, the largest formation any serving General in the BEF had commanded on operations was a division.
The expansion of the British Army saw some officers promoted from brigade to corps commander in less than a year.
Army commanders also had to cope with the new tactics and weapons that were developed. With the move from manoeuvre to trench warfare, both the infantry and the artillery had to learn how to work together.
During an offensive, and when in defence, they learned how to combine forces to defend the front line. Later in the war, when the Machine Gun Corps and the Tank Corps were added to the order of battle, they were also included in the new tactical doctrine.
The men at the front had to struggle with supply problems–there was a shortage of food; and disease was rife in the damp, rat-infested conditions.
Along with enemy action, many soldiers had to contend with new diseases: trench foot, trench fever and trench nephritis.
When the war ended in November 1918, British Army casualties, as the result of enemy action and disease, were recorded as 673,375 killed and missing, with another 1,643,469 wounded. The rush to demobilise at the end of the conflict substantially decreased the strength of the British Army, from its peak strength of 3,820,000 men in 1918 to 370,000 men by 1920.
During the First World War, the Royal Navy’s strength was mostly deployed at home in the Grand Fleet, confronting the German High Seas Fleet across the North Sea.
Several inconclusive clashes took place between them, chiefly the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
The British numerical advantage proved insurmountable, leading the High Seas Fleet to abandon any attempt to challenge British dominance.
Elsewhere in the world, the Navy hunted down the handful of German surface raiders at large.
During the Dardanelles Campaign against the Ottoman Empire in 1915, it suffered heavy losses during a failed attempt to break through the system of minefields and shore batteries defending the straits.
Upon entering the war, the Navy had immediately established a blockade of Germany.
The Navy’s Northern Patrol closed off access to the North Sea, while the Dover Patrol closed off access to the English Channel.
The Navy also mined the North Sea.
As well as closing off the Imperial German Navy’s access to the Atlantic, the blockade largely blocked neutral merchant shipping heading to or from Germany.
The blockade was maintained during the eight months after the armistice was agreed to force Germany to end the war and sign the Treaty of Versailles.
The most serious menace faced by the Navy came from the attacks on merchant shipping mounted by German U-boats.
For much of the war this submarine campaign was restricted by prize rules requiring merchant ships to be warned and evacuated before sinking. In 1915, the Germans renounced these restrictions and began to sink merchant ships on sight, but later returned to the previous rules of engagement to placate neutral opinion.
A resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 raised the prospect of Britain and its allies being starved into submission.
The Navy’s response to this new form of warfare had proved inadequate due to its refusal to adopt a convoy system for merchant shipping, despite the demonstrated effectiveness of the technique in protecting troop ships. The belated introduction of convoys sharply reduced losses and brought the U-boat threat under control.
