Adrian Gilbert - Assassinations Anthology

Assasinations Anthology

Plots and Murders That Would Have Changed the Course of WW2

Edited and Introduced by

John Grehan

ASSASSINATIONS ANTHOLOGY

Plots and Murders That Would Have Changed the Course of WW2

First published in 2017 by Frontline Books,

an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS.

Copyright Adrian Gilbert, John Grehan, James Luto, Martin Mace, Dan Mills, Robert Mitchell, Alexander Nicoll, Andy Saunders, Peter Tsouras and Nigel West, 2017

The right of the author of each chapter to be identified as the author of the relevant section of the work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-1-84832-697-2

e-ISBN: 978-1-52670-029-2

Mobi-ISBN: 978-1-52670-028-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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P olitical assassination as a means of regime change, long pre-dates the likes of Caesar and Cassius and Hamlet and Polonius. Indeed, the fact that Shakespeare could present such scenes to a largely illiterate audience demonstrates that the planned murder of rivals for personal or political reasons was a perfectly understandable method of effecting change. It has often been the case that under dictatorial regimes, which have generally been the norm throughout history, assassination was the only course of action available to the oppressed populace.

The instability and economic decline across Europe following the First World War (which itself had been triggered by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand), ushered in a period of intense political assassination in Germany alone, by 1923, there were more than 370 political assassinations. This, consequentially, led to the emergence of powerful leaders who were prepared to eliminate all opposition as a means of restoring order. Such opposition as remained could not therefore use legal means of achieving its aims, for there was none available. This left opponents of the regime with only one means by which they could effect change assassination.

It is hardly surprising, then, that Adolf Hitler was the subject of numerous assassination attempts throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Many of these came remarkably close to success, and often the Fhrer survived by a matter of minutes or millimetres. The infamous Valkyrie assassination attempt on him on 20 July 1944 failed simply because von Stauffenbergs briefcase containing the explosives was moved just a few inches away from where it had been placed, to behind one of the stout wooden supports of the conference table, resulting in the blast being deflected away from Hitler.

It was a very close call, and has led to endless speculation about what might have happened if that briefcase had been left untouched or moved to another side. Had that or any other of the other attempts on Hitlers life succeeded, then the history of the twentieth century might have taken an entirely different course.

The question that has been asked many times is, if Hitler had died at any stage in the Second World War, would Germany have immediately sued for peace, or would the generals have taken over and fought a far more militarily-practical war than the obdurate Fhrer?

Equally intriguing is the possible failed assassination attempt on General de Gaulle on British soil. Who, one wonders, was behind that scheme, and how would Anglo-French relations have developed if he had been killed? Had the aircraft he was to fly on set off just a few minutes earlier it would have crashed to the ground.

Would the troubled region of the Balkans have known a more settled future if the German plan to eliminate Josip Tito had succeeded in 1944? Would the Allies have had to invade Japan if the revolt by officers had prevented Emperor Hirohito from surrendering in August 1945?

The number of considered or actual assassination attempts during the war might be surprising to many. This includes one suspicious incident which has not found its way into this anthology. In November 1943, President Roosevelt was sailing to North Africa to attend the Cairo and Tehran conferences on the battleship USS Iowa , with a strong US Navy escort. On the 14th of the month, the Iowa demonstrated its antiaircraft capability whilst the escorting destroyers simulated a torpedo attack on the battleship. Somehow, something went wrong and the destroyer William D. Porter actually launched an armed torpedo at Iowa . Because the escorts had been told to maintain radio silence for fear of alerting German submarines, they attempted to communicate the impending disaster by signal lamp.

In the ensuing panic, William D. Porter sent an incorrect message, adding further to the rapidly-mounting anxiety aboard the destroyer. With visions of being responsible for killing the President, the captain of William D. Porter broke radio silence. Upon hearing that a torpedo was heading towards Iowa , Roosevelt asked to be pushed out in his wheelchair onto the deck to watch the approaching missile.

Iowa immediately took avoiding action and the torpedo exploded in the battleships wake some 3,000 yards astern of the battleship. It is said that the crew of Iowa , believing that an assassination attempt had been made upon the President, trained its 16-inch guns on the destroyer, until it was accepted that the incident, which lasted for only four minutes, was a genuine mistake. While errors do indeed occur and the torpedo was almost certainly fired by mistake, there remains an element of doubt because a torpedo cannot be armed by accident.

In Assassination Anthology a number of well-known authors and historians have looked at past events where key individuals were involved in either attempts on their lives, or strange incidents occurred which, had they led to their deaths, might have radically affected the outcome of the war.

The possible consequences for the world had Stalin and Jan Smuts been murdered are investigated, as are the assassination attempts on Gandhi and Mussolini. Also investigated are the peculiar circumstances relating to the theft of a valuable Gainsborough painting in 1940. Just how great a role did the Governments Chief Whip, David Margesson, play in persuading British MPs to accept the unpopular Winston Churchill as Prime Minister, and what would have happened if Margesson had been killed when the Gainsborough disappeared? Equally intriguing is how the war in the Pacific would have developed if the Japanese puppet, President Garcia of the Philippines, had died when he was shot whilst playing golf? It is fascinating stuff.

Grounded in actual events, the various scenarios portrayed in this collection, examine the likely chain of events that would have followed if the assassination attempts had succeeded. A few inches, a few moments that was all the difference between life and death, and between the past that we know and one that we can only imagine.