• Complain

Bernard Edwards - Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards

Here you can read online Bernard Edwards - Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2006, publisher: Pen and Sword, genre: History. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Bernard Edwards Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards
  • Book:
    Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Pen and Sword
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    2006
  • Rating:
    3 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 60
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

Early on the morning of 7 December 1941, 360 Japanese carrier-borne aircraft made a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, and laid waste to the American Far East Fleet. They sank four battleships, crippled three cruisers and three destroyers, and seriously damaged two other battleships. One hundred and sixty-four planes were destroyed and 2,403 servicemen and civilians were killed. All for the loss of twenty-nine Japanese aircraft and fifty-five men. Two days later, the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse, were sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers as they raced north to intercept an enemy invasion force heading for Malaya.

In these two bold forays, the Japanese had successfully emasculated Allied naval power in the East. There now remained no big guns afloat anywhere in the Pacific and Indian oceans capable of opposing Admiral Yamamotos ships.

So began Japans blitzkrieg. The Malay peninsular was rapidly overwhelmed, Hong Kong surrendered on Christmas Day, Manila went the same way on the 31st, and on 15 February 1942, in one of the most ignominious defeats in modern warfare, 85,000 British troops laid down their arms, and the vital base of Singapore was in Japanese hands. Thereafter, the rays of the Rising Sun spread ever outwards, overrunning island after island, until even Australia was threatened.

The book tells how the Dutch Spice Islands, Java and Sumatra, became a last refuge for those fleeing before the Japanese whirlwind advance, and it was from here that the remaining Allied merchant ships in the area made their bid for freedom carrying hundreds of refugees. For many of these ships it was to be their last voyage.

REVIEWS

... good, even-handed and well-written, offering unusual perspective and... very valuable insights... a useful read for anyone with interest in the Pacific War.The NYMAS Review 41, Summer 2007

**

Bernard Edwards: author's other books


Who wrote Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

JAPANS
BLITZKRIEG

By the same author

Masters Next to God

They Sank the Red Dragon

The Fighting Tramps

The Grey Widow Maker

Blood and Bushido

SOS Men Against the Sea

Salvo!
Attack and Sink

Dnitz and the Wolf Packs

Return of the Coffin Ships

Beware Raiders!

The Road to Russia

The Quiet Heroes

The Twilight of the U-boats

Beware the Grey Widow Maker

Death in the Doldrums

JAPANS
BLITZKRIEG

The Rout of Allied Forces
in the Far East 19412

by

Bernard Edwards

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Pen Sword Maritime an imprint of - photo 1

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Pen & Sword Maritime
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Bernard Edwards, 2006

ISBN 1 84415 442 4
978 1 84415 442 5

The right of Bernard Edwards to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Sabon by
Phoenix Typesetting, Auldgirth, Dumfriesshire

Printed and bound in England by
Biddles Ltd., Kings Lynn

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword
Aviation, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe
Local History, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics and
Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

This is for my first ship, the dear old Clan Murdoch.
She sailed serenely through it all.

Painting her shapely shadows from the dawn
An image tumbled on a rose-swept bay,
A drowsy ship of some yet older day.

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

Contents

The author wishes to thank the following for their help in researching for this book:

Royal Naval Association, Swindon Branch; Instituut voor Maritieme Historie; US Naval Historical Center; National Archives, Kew; and Willem Hage, Albert Kelder, George Monk, Bernard De Neumann, Frits Norbergen and Ken Williams.

JAPANS BLITZKRIEG The evacuation of the remnants of the British Army from - photo 2

JAPANS
BLITZKRIEG

The evacuation of the remnants of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk in June 1940 has always been seen as snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Britain then stood alone, and in the months that followed her cities suffered intense bombing, and the threat of invasion from across the Channel was ever imminent. Yet in the midst of all this adversity thoughts were turned towards the defence of the Empire in the East. On 11 August 1940, Winston Churchill wrote to the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand:

The combined Staffs are preparing a paper on the Pacific situation, but I venture to send you in advance a brief foreword. We are trying our best to avoid war with Japan I do not myself think that Japan will declare war unless Germany can make a successful invasion of Britain Should Japan nevertheless declare war on us her first objective outside the Yellow Sea would probably be the Dutch East Indies In the first phase of an Anglo-Japanese war we should of course defend Singapore, which if attacked which is unlikely ought to stand a long siege. We should also be able to base on Ceylon a battle-cruiser and a fast aircraft carrier, which, with all the Australian and New Zealand cruisers and destroyers, which would return to you, would act as a very powerful deterrent upon the hostile raiding cruisers

Churchills defiant words were characteristic of British thinking in those early days, but with regard to Singapore his optimism was unfounded. It had been said many years before the outbreak of war that the impregnable fortress of Singapore was a myth, and it was in reality a 60 million floating dock whose sole defence was six 15-inch naval guns pointing mutely out to sea. As for basing a powerful naval force on Ceylon, with the Royal Navy needing all its strength merely to keep open Britains vital sea lanes in the Atlantic, this was a fantasy that could in no way become reality.

The defence of the Eastern sphere was discussed at a meeting of the War Cabinet in Whitehall in late August 1940 with Ministers and Chiefs of Staff present. It was the opinion of the Chiefs of Staff that Britain was in no position to face war with Japan, and following the meeting a top-secret twenty-eight-page report on the true situation was compiled. A copy of this report was to be sent to the C-in-C Far East without delay, and by as secure a means as possible.

Monday, 11 November 1940. As the sun rose in the east, turning the gently undulating waters of the Indian Ocean from steel-grey to a rich blue, the memories came flooding back to Captain William Ewan; memories of that other war, ended twenty-two years ago this day. So many men had died, amongst them men with whom he had sailed and whom he had known so well. Shipmates. Now, here he was once again pacing the bridge of a merchantman, her distinctive company colours hidden under a coat of drab Admiralty grey. He stopped in his stride and turned to look aft, to where the long barrel of the recently fitted 4-inch gun another relic of that distant war dominated the poop deck. He wondered if this gun would ever be fired again in anger. Looking back on the events of the night just past, he concluded that this might well be so.

Captain Ewans command, the 7528-ton Automedon, was one of Alfred Holts prestigious Blue Funnel Line, a regular Far East trader. Built on the Tyne in 1922, she was too young to have seen that other war, but had given a lifetime of exemplary service on the road to the East, and looked set to go on for another twenty years or so. Like most British cargo liners of her day, she had no pretensions to luxury, but was solid and dependable, her double-reduction turbines, even after so many thousands of miles steamed, still turning out a consistent 14 knots. She was manned by British officers and Chinese ratings, a total complement of ninety-three, and had accommodation for twelve passengers, although on the current voyage only one of her cabins was occupied, by Mr Alan Ferguson and his wife, newly-weds on their way back to Singapore. In her holds, the Automedon carried a cargo of cased aircraft, vehicles, machinery spares, bicycles, microscopes, service uniforms, cameras, sewing machines, steel and copper sheets, whisky, beer, cigarettes, food supplies, and 120 bags of mail, a bizarre mlange of the necessities of war and peace.

The Automedons long outward passage, beginning in Liverpool in late September and taking her south to Freetown, around the Cape of Good Hope to Durban, and thence across the wide reaches of the Indian Ocean, had been uneventful. Once past Finisterre, the long lazy days at sea under untroubled blue skies, when the watches came and went by the bridge bell, and gins and tonics and steamer chairs at sunset signalled the end of another day, had lulled all on board into a false sense of security. The war was far away until, on the evening of 10 November, when the ship was forty-seven days out from Liverpool and approaching the north-western tip of the island of Sumatra, the idyll came to a sudden end.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards»

Look at similar books to Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards»

Discussion, reviews of the book Japans Blitzkrieg: The Allied Collapse in the East 1941-42 - Bernard Edwards and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.