British Army during the Second World War

While there are a number of reasons for this shift, not least the entrance of both the Soviet Union and the United States in 1941, as well as the cracking of the Enigma code that same year, an important factor was the stronger British Army.

The structure of the British Army had been organized to sacrifice firepower for mobility and removed from its commanders the fire support weapons that were needed to advance over the battlefield.

[10] When the UK declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939 was rushed through Parliament that required all fit men between the ages of 18 and 41 years to register for training (except for those in exempted industries and occupations).

Lieutenant-General Montgomery reimposed and reinforced this principle when he assumed command of the Eighth Army in North Africa in 1942, halting a tendency to split divisions into uncoordinated brigades and "penny packets".

[32] In late 1940, following the campaign in France and Belgium in the spring, it was realised that there were insufficient infantry and support units, and mixing light and cruiser tanks in the same brigade had been a mistake.

Later in 1940, the British Commandos were formed following Winston Churchill's call for "specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down the enemy coast."

[61] Units that operated as smaller bodies included the Long Range Desert Group, which was formed in North Africa to report on movements and activities behind the German and Italian lines.

But only with the development of the 17-pounder anti-tank gun in 1943, did the artillery have the ability to knock out the heavily armoured Tiger and Panther tanks at a maximum range of 1 mile (1.6 km).

In 1941, the intended audience was stipulated with codes under which higher operations were distributed to unit commanders and above and manuals on minor tactics to corporals and above, lower ranks not being included.

The swift increase in the number of British tank formations created great demand for information and in 1943, MTP 41 replaced ATI 3 but technological and tactical change rapidly made written instructions obsolete, which rebounded on forces being trained in Britain.

There is little evidence in the documents of a frank acknowledgement of the failings of British tanks in North Africa and material criticising equipment is absent perhaps because the War Office and higher commands thought that admitting inadequacies would affect morale.

[103] In November 1944, 11th Army Group was redesignated Allied Land Forces South East Asia, under command of Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese.

[132] Operation Compass was a success and the Western Desert Force advanced across Libya capturing Cyrenaica, 115,000 Italian soldiers, hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces and more than 1,100 aircraft with very few casualties of their own.

[133] Following the operation the Western Desert Force, now renamed XIII Corps and reorganised under HQ Cyrenaica Command, adopted a defensive posture, to free up formations for redeployment to Greece.

The Australian 9th Division fell back to the port of Tobruk,[143] and the remaining British and Commonwealth forces withdrew a further 100 miles (160 km) east to Sollum on the Libyan–Egyptian border.

[145] It was conceived as a rapid blow in the Sollum area, and intended to create advantageous conditions from which to launch Operation Battleaxe, the main offensive that was planned for June.

Battleaxe was also a failure, and with British forces defeated, Churchill wanted a change in command, so Wavell exchanged places with General Claude Auchinleck, as Commander-in-Chief, India.

[154] 'W' Force, as they became known after their commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, was too small: it could not stop the Axis advance and was subsequently ordered to evacuate, many troops being withdrawn to Crete.

[158] Concerned that, following Axis capture of Crete, the Levant might be invaded, the British launched the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, an invasion of Vichy French controlled Syria and Lebanon, in June–July 1941.

[160] The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in August–September by British, Dominion and Soviet Union forces was then undertaken to secure the Iranian oil fields and ensure supply lines in the Persian Corridor.

The force of about 60,000 Commonwealth troops retreated 1,000 miles (1,600 km), reaching Assam in India in May.> In spite of their difficulties, the British mounted a small-scale offensive into the coastal Arakan region of Burma, in December.

The main landing of Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark's U.S. Fifth Army, with the British X Corps under Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery under command, took place at Salerno on 9 September.

Meanwhile, on the Adriatic coast, the Eighth Army had advanced to a line from Campobasso to Larino and Termoli on the Biferno river, but by the end of the year were still 80 miles (130 km) short of the Italian capital of Rome.

The British were involved in the Battle for Caen, but did not capture the city until 9 July, in the process suffering heavy losses on a scale alike to those sustained during the First World War.

[199] After the almost entire destruction of the two German armies at Falaise, in the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine the British Guards Armoured Division liberated the Belgian city of Brussels on 3 September.

In early October a large counter offensive to retake the 'island', as it became known, was repelled by an ad hoc force consisting of elements of 43rd Wessex, 50th Northumbrian divisions and 8th Armoured brigade.

Landing almost unopposed, with the road to the Italian capital of Rome open, the U.S. VI Corps commander, Major General John P. Lucas, felt that he needed to consolidate the beachhead before breaking out.

When the stalemate was finally broken in the spring of 1944, with the launching of Operation Diadem, they advanced towards Rome, instead of heading north east to block the line of the German retreat from Cassino, thus prolonging the campaign in Italy.

[206] The 1944 campaign in Burma started with Operation Thursday, a Chindit force now designated 3rd Indian Infantry Division, were tasked with disrupting the Japanese lines of supply to the northern front.

The British V Corps, under Lieutenant-General Charles Keightley, traversed the Venetian Line and entered Padua in the early hours of 29 April, to find that partisans had locked up the German garrison of 5,000 men.