Fortunately for him, he maintained cordial relations with two of his three division commanders:General Matsui, commanding the 5th Division, and General Renya Mutaguchi, commanding the 18th Division. The 5th Division was a highly trained formation, which had acquired extensive knowledge of in-force l
The Japanese therefore decided to add an entire engineer regiment to each of the divisions of the XXVth Army, plus a fourth under the direct orders of Yamashita. A decision was made on a new type of bridge and the amount of equipment needed to build them. Engineers then began training frantically in
No one seriously considered the invasion of Malaysia to be postponed and some officers criticized the insertion of an “if” at this stage of the preparations as it might, they thought, have a bad effect on the morale of the troops. The next morning, when Yamashita summoned the junior officers and gav
During the afternoon of December 2, 1941, the General Staff of the Japanese XXVth Army and Lieutenant-Colonel Kera, responsible for the transport of troops, scanned the sea from their headquarters in the port of Samah, in the island of Hai - Nah, off Indochina. Twenty transports were expected to emb
In the years before Pearl Harbor, Japans imperial political and military power had attacked the Chinese mainland in an attempt to annex the coastal territories and rich swaths of inland Manchuria.While studying the extension of their conquests in Asia, the Japanese leaders were aware that a war with
The stragglers (in French stragglers) is the English word used to designate the Japanese soldiers of the Pacific War who, after the capitulation of Japan in August 1945 which marked the end of the Second World War, continued to fight . They are called in Japanese zanryu nipponhei (literally remainin
The Franco-Thai War (1940-1941) opposed the Thailand of General Plaek Pibulsonggram, better known as Phibun, and France of Vichy in the Indochinese peninsula. After the French rout of 1940, Thai Prime Minister Phibun saw a chance for Thailand to recover the territories abandoned to France during th
The Mers el-Kébir operation on July 3 had been calculated to coincide with the seizure of French warships in British ports. At 3:40 p.m. that day, detachments of armed British sailors silently approached the ships anchored at Portsmouth and Plymouth. The operation had been carefully prepared to obta
As early as June 20, Darlan had sent to all ship and port commanders encrypted instructions which contained this passage:“Whatever orders received, never abandon an intact vessel to the enemy. Four days later, after the signing of the armistice, he confirmed these orders, adding to them that of prep
President Lebrun then appealed to the Marshal to form a government in which Admiral of the Fleet Darlan became Minister of the Navy, while continuing to assume the functions of Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces. Darlan was an ambitious, excellent sailor, who had done much during his career to b
During the days that followed Dunkirk, the Germans, without wasting a minute, rushed straight into the heart of France. By mid-June, the French armies were incapable of any organized resistance, and Mr. Paul Reynaud, Prime Minister, had to seek the consent of the British government to ask the German
The Royal Navy did not learn until much later why Italian forces had pulled away from the bulk of their own fleeing squadron. The explanation was simple:after the English air attack at dusk, the Italians had quietly moved towards their bases until Iachino, shortly after 8 p.m., intercepted a signal
At this crucial moment, aircraft based aboard the aircraft carrier Formidable attacked the Italians, who repelled them without either of the two adversaries suffering the slightest damage. The Vittorio Veneto moved away, but was chased by Cunningham. Five torpedo planes from Formidable attacked her
The Germans were, however, able to exert sufficient pressure to induce their allies to attack the British convoys. They encouraged them by announcing that, on March 16, in the eastern Mediterranean, Luftwaffe torpedo planes had disabled two of Cunninghams three battleships, which was false. But the
In mid-February 1941, Admiral Raeder, commander in head of the German navy, and his Italian counterpart, Admiral Riccardi, met to study the possibility of an attack on British convoys by Italian surface ships. They could find no basis for agreement. But on March 5, as the English forces in Greece we
Around noon, Montgomery realized what the New Zealanders nibbling actions were going to cost and he decided to direct the effort in a northerly direction, ordering the 9th Australian Division to destroy the German units. the salient formed between Tell-el-Eisa and the sea. The 10th D.B. received the
The mission of opening two corridors in the minefields was quickly and well executed, but by dawn the tanks had been able to get no further. Throughout the night, bitter fighting took place on Miteiriya Ridge and as soon as he recovered his senses, the enemy concentrated their artillery and mortar f
Suddenly the sky lit up and a tremendous roar tore through the air. More than a thousand guns had just opened fire. The show was grand. From north to south you could see the desert, the incessant flickering of artillery pieces. On the enemys side, to the west, the sky sometimes lit up with a burst o
Deterrents are worth remembering. We knew that strategic surprise was not possible:the enemy was waiting for our attack. On the other hand, we could look for tactical surprise. It seemed to us that it was possible to deceive the adversary as to the power, the date and the direction of effort of our
Finally, the outline of the plan adopted on October 6 by Montgomery could be summarized as follows: • Main attack to the north by the 30th corps with four divisions in line (in order to establish a “bridgehead”:objective “Oxalic – a line beyond the main zone of enemy resistance). Two corridors were
Some peoples have a special martial tradition of defying death. One of them is the Polish people who - lives parallel to the Greek - were for centuries slaves to three masters (Germans, Austrians and mainly Russians). When World War I broke out most of Poland was part of the tsarist empire. More
On November 27, 1095, during the Clermont Council (France), the attendees experienced a mixture of surprise, stupefaction and enthusiasm upon hearing the unusual address of Pope Urban II . Although the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos had launched a dramatic request for help in the face of the M
In 1733 the war between the Ottoman and Persian Empires was at its peak. The Persians under the talented general, first, and then Shah Nadir, had achieved great victories against the Turks, but he had also suffered a serious defeat in his attempt to invade Turkish-occupied Iraq. But Nadir was not
Sharps Rifle The single-shot, breech-loading Sharps rifle was designed in 1848 by North American gunsmith Christian Sharps. It is based on a very reliable and robust breech closing mechanism called falling block. Sharps rifles, which have existed in a wide variety of versions and calibers, have alw