The Cruise of U-188

2019 ◽  
pp. 252-288
Author(s):  
David Kohnen
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Operations ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Office Of Strategic Services ◽  
Second World ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter by David Kohnen examines the Allied response to the initial German submarine operations in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. Roughly forty German submarines sailed for East Asian waters after 1942; U-188 was among the few to navigate the Allied gauntlet in the Atlantic to reach the Indian Ocean. Only three German submarines, including U-188, returned to Europe from operations in the Indian Ocean before the Allied victory in May of 1945. The discussions between key British and American commanders regarding the presence of German submarines in the Indian Ocean provide unique insight into the operations and intelligence organizations of the Admiralty and Navy Department and are examined in detail. The chapter also looks at the Allied submarine tracking rooms, which assisted the Special Operations Executive and Office of Strategic Services in the capture of the skipper of U-188 – thereby securing information on the Imperial Japanese during a critical period in the closing months of the Second World War.

scholarly journals When economics, strategy, and racial ideology meet: inter-Axis connections in the wartime Indian Ocean

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rotem Kowner
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Racial Ideology ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Java Sea ◽  
Straits Of Malacca ◽  
Second World

AbstractJapan’s relations with Germany and Italy during the Second World War were rather limited. Nevertheless, there were some regional nuances and growing cooperation as the war drew to its close. In the Indian Ocean, at least, and especially in the area around the Straits of Malacca and the Java Sea, the Japanese and German empires, and to a lesser extent the Italian empire too, did develop a rather intensive cooperation during the final two years of the war (1943–45). This cooperation encompassed several domains, such as the exchange of vital raw materials and military technology, coordinated naval activity, and even an ideological affinity that materialized in pressures to implement harsher racial policies towards Jewish communities in the region. This article examines the scope of this unique inter-Axis collaboration, the specific reasons for why which came into being in this region in particular, and the lessons we may draw from it.

scholarly journals Inter- and Intra-Theatre Learning and British Coastal Air Power in the Second World War

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
World War ◽  
Air Power ◽  
Process And Outcome ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
Second World

Historians have not yet attempted to integrate the global nature of Britain’s war with the process and outcome of military learning, and British approaches are generally presented as being compartmentalized within each theatre. This article demonstrates that in the crucial field of coastal air power, while intra-theatre learning processes were important, the British were indeed capable of inter-theatre learning. A symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship evolved between the Home and Mediterranean theatres that contributed positively to its development. However, they failed to create a similar arrangement for the Indian Ocean, which could only act as a receptor for externally created knowledge.

scholarly journals THE ORIGINS OF SOE IN FRANCE

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 935-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER J. MURPHY
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
World War ◽  
Special Operations ◽  
The Public ◽  
American Counterpart ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Public Record ◽  
Office Of Strategic Services ◽  
Second World

This article explores the official motivation behind the authorization in 1960 of research into the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War by M. R. D. Foot, leading to the publication of SOE in France in 1966. The work has traditionally been viewed as the official response to critical investigative works on SOE published during the 1950s, combined with the vocal campaign of Dame Irene Ward, who made several calls in the House of Commons for an official account of SOE to be published. Material now available at the Public Record Office reveals that these were not the sole considerations in official minds, nor the most significant, concerning the possibility of publishing such a work. The foreign office was particularly concerned that Britain's contribution to wartime resistance in Europe, exemplified by SOE, was being overshadowed by both soviet propoganda, emphasizing the communist contribution to resistance, and the publicity being given to SOE's American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The ‘campaign’ of Dame Irene Ward, supported by the negative slant given to SOE in the books of Jean Overton Fuller and Elizabeth Nicholas, unknowingly gave support to a frame of mind that was already in existence in favour of an unofficial account of SOE activity, albeit for different reasons.

The Italian Navy and Japan, the Indian Ocean, Failed Cooperation, and Tripartite Relations (1935–1943)

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-248
Author(s):  
Fabio De Ninno
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
World War ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Strategic Motivation ◽  
Imperial Japan ◽  
Original Insight ◽  
Second World

Studies of the relations between the Tripartite powers have primarily been concentrated on the relations of Nazi Germany with Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. This article, based on original documents from the Italian archives, offers an original insight on the Italian perspective about the naval relations between Italy and Japan before and during the early years of the Second World War. It analyses the strategic motivation that led Fascist Italy to seek naval cooperation with Japan and how their relationship evolved during the period between the Ethiopian War (1935–6) to the end of the Axis campaign in North Africa in 1943.

scholarly journals Metonyms of destruction: Death, ruination, and the bombing of Rotterdam in the Second World War

2021 ◽  
pp. 135918352110164
Author(s):  
Antonius CGM Robben
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Joint Destruction ◽  
Second World War ◽  
City Centre ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Port City ◽  
World War ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Second World ◽  
Insight Into

The German and Allied bombing of Rotterdam in the Second World War caused thousands of dead and hundreds of missing, and severely damaged the Dutch port city. The joint destruction of people and their built environment made the ruins and rubble stand metonymically for the dead when they could not be mentioned in the censored press. The contiguity of ruins, rubble, corpses and human remains was not only semantic but also material because of the intermingling and even amalgamation of organic and inorganic remains into anthropomineral debris. The hybrid matter was dumped in rivers and canals to create broad avenues and a modern city centre. This article argues that Rotterdam’s semantic and material metonyms of destruction were generated by the contiguity, entanglement, and post-mortem and post-ruination agencies of the dead and the destroyed city centre. This analysis provides insight into the interaction and co-constitution of human and material remains in war.

Command, Rather than Consultation

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Operational Process ◽  
Special Operations ◽  
Second World ◽  
Support Work

This article explores the lack of a collegial organizational ethos within the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. It charts the development of a decentralized body that placed its operational Country Sections in a position of dominance within the organization. The sections responsible for providing operational support — intelligence, special devices, etc. — were expected to carry out instructions issued by the Country Sections, and given little opportunity to contribute their own expertise in a collaborative manner during the operational process. The article goes on to explore the difficulties these sections faced in carrying out their respective roles, and the strategies they adopted to help facilitate their support work. The article concludes by considering why SOE chose to adopt, and maintain, such a formal, strict organizational structure over a more fluid one.

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