Think the German armed forces were the most modern and mechanised in the world? Or that they were the embodiment of Teutonic efficiency?
Or imagine the British were small-time under-dogs relying on their big American brothers to pull them through?
You don’t know the half of it.
For the past seven decades, our understanding of it has relied on conventional wisdom, propaganda and an interpretation skewed by the information available. This is the first of a new three-volume history in which I am challenging too-long-held assumptions about the war that shaped our modern world. Truth by common knowledge
U-boats destroyed a mere 1.4 percent of Allied shipping in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Britain had access to 85% of the world’s merchant shipping and also produced more food per acre than any other country in the world.
The Italian War Ministry was only open from 10am until 3pm, Monday to Friday. As an ally, Italy was a terrible partner to Germany and vice versa, and offered nothing like the support Allies were able to offer one another.
The British Army was the only fully mechanised in the world, while Germany was one of the least motorized in the western world. Only 16 of the 135 divisions used in their attack in the West in 1940 were mechanised. The rest used horses.