Page 75 - All About History - Issue 09-14

10 dirty tricks of World War II

The aftermath of WWII
home-front damage, England
A trench shelter packed
with ammunition drums

“ There was
unrestricted

bombing
on German

targets,
including

Essen,
Düsseldorf
and Cologne”

lthough some of the dirty tricks The Luftwaffe initially pummelled channel minutes. Putting people through the pain
listed could be deemed rather ports but, in August 1940, dropped bombs of nausea, vomiting, muscular damage and
frivolous, the campaigns waged on residential areas of London in an attack convulsions was cruel but all sides had
by both sides, each desperate to that has been said to be accidental. The their stockpiles despite great reluctance to
A gain an advantage in the raging response was swift and the RAF hit Berlin. use them for fear of fierce retaliation.
conflicts of World War II, had very real and “We will eradicate their cities,” said Hitler, It didn’t stop napalm from being
serious consequences. clearly jolted by the subsequent attack developed in 1942 in the US, though. It was
Far from stopping at plans that could on German civilians. Winston Churchill’s routinely used on Japan by the US in the
have filled the pages of boy’s-own comic rhetoric was just as direct. The Blitz in Pacific War. The US army also deployed
books, proposals were drawn up that Britain caused great hardship and, likewise, weapons containing white phosphorus,
worked to devastating effect and caused there was unrestricted bombing on severely burning victims. Most devastating
great loss of life. The targeting of civilians German targets, including Essen, Duisburg, of all was the atomic bomb, used twice
was not only cynical in the extreme but Düsseldorf and Cologne. in the course of warfare by the US and
also a massive departure from the stance The threat of poison gas – used causing years of pain and suffering in
taken by the US and UK in the years sporadically in WWI and seen by both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with more than
leading up to the war. If president Franklin sides as an ‘unfair’ weapon – constantly 200,000 civilian deaths. This was arguably
Roosevelt had called civilian bombing hung on the outskirts of the conflict, its the logical and natural conclusion to a
“inhuman barbarism”, then the change of use threatened but never fully realised. whole war in which all sides had invented
mind as both the US and UK bombarded It was common for children and adults new weapons and tricks to gain an upper
their enemy with wave after wave of to wear gas masks and practice putting hand and escalate the conflict. For all its © Alamy; Corbis; Getty; Thinkstock
bombs was as dramatic as the destruction it them on, frightened of the consequences questionable morality, the nuclear bombs
caused to life and property. of breathing in the deadly particles. Nerve did put an end to the bloodiest conflict the
Adolf Hitler was the spur for such action, gas, particularly Soman, was so deadly world had ever known.
his directive on 16 July 1940 preparing the that convulsions would begin within
Nazi regime for an invasion of England. seconds and death would result within USS Hammann was sunk
in the Battle of Midway
Warning
Disclosing this information will result in Court Martial
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