Katyn — 1943

When Poland was divided between Russia and Germany in 1939, over 180,000 Polish prisoners of war fell into Soviet hands: officers were segregated in special camps. In April 1943, the Germans discovered a mass grave in Katyn forest near Smolensk, later found to contain the remains of 4,400 Polish officers, and accused the Russians of mass murder, summoning an international team of experts to investigate the crime. Although the Russians long blamed the Germans for the atrocity, in 1990 they at last admitted responsibility.

The victims had their hands wired behind their backs (above) and had been shot in the back of the head. This evocative photograph sums up the fate of tens of thousands of victims of mass murder during the war.

The German-sponsored international experts (below, all but one from Axis or occupied countries) examining of the bodies of Katyn. When the London-based Polish government in exile suggested an impartial International Red Cross investigation, the Russians broke off diplomatic relations.

North Africa — 1943

The North African campaign had a sting in its tail. In January 1943, Arnim mounted an offensive, catching ill-equipped French divisions off guard and going on to shake the Americans. Rommel, forced steadily westwards by Montgomery's advance, put in an attack of his own, inflicting a sharp defeat on the Americans at the Kasserine Pass in February. The Allies then reorganized their chain of command, forming the 18th Army Group, comprising both armies (Anderson's 1st and Montgomery's 8th) fighting in Tunisia. Axis forces were gradually compressed into a pocket round Tunis, and the last of them surrendered in mid-May, leaving 238,000 prisoners in Allied hands.

The Mareth Line, based on prewar French defenses in southern Tunisia, was held by Rommel's old army, now renamed the 1st Italian army under General Giovanni Messe. Montgomery's first attack, on March 19, failed, but a hook round the desert flank forced Messe to pull back. Here (above) a 4.5-inch medium gun bombards the line.

On March 6, Rommel turned on Montgomery at Medenine, but, using information from ULTRA, Montgomery was ready for him and the attack was easily repulsed. These Gurkhas are using their distinctive weapon, the kukri, near Medenine, but this shot comes from a sequence that suggests that it was staged for the camera.

This, in contrast, is a real photograph of the Medenine battle, showing a German Mk III Special knocked out by 73rd Anti-Tank Regiment Royal Artillery, part of the anti-tank screen deployed by Montgomery as a result of ULTRA.

The end in Tunisia. An American intelligence officer interrogates two prisoners. Two French soldiers, once more on the Allied side, are in the background.

Roosevelt, in North Africa for the Casablanca conference, took the opportunity to visit troops in the field, the first President since Lincoln to do so.

Raid on Dieppe

On August 19,1942, the British mounted Operation Jubilee, a large scale raid on the port of Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, France. Some 4,900 Canadian, 1,000 British and 50 U.S. troops left five English ports in a fleet of 237 warships and landing craft. Air support was inadequate and intelligence poor, and despite some minor successes the main assault was a bloody failure, with 3,367 Canadian casualties. The Royal Navy lost a destroyer and several landing craft, and the RAF 106 aircraft to only 48 German. Although useful lessons were learnt from Dieppe, the operation's unjustifiable risks were worsened by its labyrinthine planning. Landing craft run in towards the beach (above) under cover of floating smoke dischargers.

The frontal assault was mounted by The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and The Essex Scottish, with armour from the 14th Canadian Army Tank Regiment (The Calgary Tanks), supported by the Fusiliers Mont-Royal. Twelve tanks were stopped on the beach because shingle jammed their tracks, and the 15 that made their way inland were soon knocked out. Here a German infantryman picks his way among blanketed Canadian dead.

Canadian prisoners are marched through Dieppe.

Propagandists found some crumbs of comfort: No. 4 Commando, seen here after returning to Newhaven, had taken the Varengeville battery. The U.S. Ranger makes the point that this was the first time Americans had been in action on the ground in Europe during the war.

North Africa — Part 3

British infantry advance in open order on October 24. The infantry was tasked with “crumbling” Rommel's defences.

An Advanced Dressing Station, October 24. An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps gives a drink to one of the wounded.

German prisoners await transport at El Alamein corner, October 25. Some 30,000 prisoners of war were taken.

General von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps (now an elite minority in the larger German-Italian force in North Africa) introduced to Montgomery after capture, November 4.

Crusader cruiser tanks in pursuit after Alamein.

Cecil Beaton's view of the crew of a Martin Maryland light bomber receiving a last-minute briefing before take-off. Slick co-operation between ground and air forces characterized Montgomery's conduct of the battle in North Africa.

North Africa — Part 2

The fall of Tobruk on June 21, was a heavy blow to Churchill. Here the first German vehicle to enter the town pauses in front of abandoned vehicles and a sign, couched in Tommy's humour, pointing to a barber shop.

By September 1941 there were nearly 60,000 South African troops in Egypt, 15,000 of them black: all had volunteered to serve outside South Africa, and wore an orange strip on their epaulettes to mark the fact. 1st South African Division was bloodily engaged during Operation Crusader, and the over 10,000 South Africans were captured when Tobruk fell. These South Africans take cover while their truck is bombed, June 4, 1942.

German tanks roll eastwards following British withdrawal from Gazala.

One of a series of photographs taken in July, just after Rommel had been checked at “First Alamein,” showing British guardsmen practising an advance with tanks. At this juncture the “brave but baffled” 8th Army was holding a strong position just west of the little railway halt of El Alamein, but it did not fully find its feet until the arrival of Montgomery in mid-August.

German reinforcements moving up by train to the El Alamein front in October.

Montgomery preferred to let metal, not flesh, do the business of battle. On the night of October 23-24, 882 guns pounded the Axis defences before his men began to break into them.

North Africa — Part 1

In 1942, Allied fortunes in North Africa ebbed at first, when the German General Erwin Rommel turned the strong defensive line running from Gazala on the coast to Bir Hacheim in the desert, took Tobruk, and went on to cross the Egyptian frontier. There he was checked, initially at First Alamein on July 1, and then at Alam Haifa at the very end of September. In October, British General Montgomery, the newly appointed commander of 8th Army, won the battle of El Alamein. The following month an Allied army landed in French North Africa, catching Axis forces in the theatre in a gigantic pincer which would eventually snap shut in 1943. Above, A Hudson MkVI bomber over the Pyramids, Summer 1942.

A January 1942 photograph of an Italian convoy caught by the RAF on the coast road during Rommel's withdrawal the previous month.

Although this photograph is blurred and undated (though it passed the censor in 1942) it gives a good impression of infantry of the 4th Indian Division moving up with a shell bursting dangerously close.

The British might have won the Gazala battles of May-June 1942, but superior German generalship and all-arms tactics eventually proved too much for them. Neverthrless, the Germans did not have it all their own way. Here a new U.S.-supplied Grant tank, which mounted a 75mm gun in its hull and a 37mm in the turret, passes a burning German tank.

A 25-pounder in action at night, June 2. These weapons were often used in the anti-tank role in the desert, and during the Gazala battles their detachments frequently fought them to a finish as German tanks overran their positions.

The Stuka dive-bomber, so useful for providing close air support, was very vulnerable without fighter support. These Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters aircraft wait at their desert strip while ground crew snatch an alfresco lunch.

The Eastern Front — 1942

In Russia the Germans survived the crisis of the Russian winter counteroffensive, and in April 1942 Hitler issued orders for Operation Blue, a major offensive in the south aimed at the oilfields of the Caucasus. In June the attack began well, with scenes reminiscent of victories the previous year, and the Germans pushed deep into the Caucasus. But by mid-September the offensive had stalled, and German 6th Army was making heavy weather of its attack on Stalingrad, on the Volga. On November 19, the Russians launched carefully husbanded reserves to began the attack which led to the encirclement of the 6th Army in one of the war's most terrible battles. Above, a Russian heavy machine-gun in the snow, winter 1941-42.

The Russian winter not only caught the Germans without proper clothing but caused serious difficulties for vehicles not designed with this climate in mind. Here a tank drags an assault gun from a snowdrift.

Although the Germans occupied the Crimea in 1941, the naval base of Sevastopol held out. It was eventually taken in July 1942 after heavy bombardments which reduced the city to rubble.

In early August 6th Army destroyed most of a Russian army in the bend of the Don north of Kalach. This is the apocalyptic scene on the river bank in the first week of August.

Operation Edelweiss, initiated when Hitler cancelled Operation Blue in July, sent Army Group A deep into the Caucasus. Here a German anti-tank unit is silhouetted by smoke from burning oilfields at Maikop, fired by their defenders, in the last week of August.

Operation Heron saw Army Group B drive for the Volga with the aim of taking Stalingrad and extending down the river as far as Astrakhan. Here German infantry move up as Stalingrad burns on the horizon.

The bitter fighting at Stalingrad placed overwhelming emphasis on the courage and determination of small groups of men fighting in what soon became a blighted landscape. Here a German machine-gun detachment — the empty ammunition boxes to its rear are evidence of heavy fighting — defends the ruins of suburban cottages.

A German infantry officer, whose decorations include the Iron Cross 1st Class and the infantry assault badge, issues orders. The soldier on the left has equipped himself with a captured Russian sub-machine gun.

After the encirclement of Stalingrad Hitler gave Manstein command of the newly created Army Group Don and ordered him to break into the pocket. Here a German tank hits a Russian mine during an abortive counterattack, December 20.

Friedrich Paulus, commander of 6th Army, was promoted to field-marshal on 30 January in Hitler's expectation that he would commit suicide rather than capitulate. However, he surrendered the following day. These Russian officers — the term was reintroduced by Stalin in 1942 — are still wearing collar rank badges, soon to be replaced by tsarist-style shoulder boards, all part of an attempt to restore the army's morale and efficiency.

The Germans lost some 200,000 men at Stalingrad: most of their prisoners of war did not survive captivity. Here a column of prisoners winds its way across the frozen steppe. Those in white fur hats are Romanians: defeat at Stalingrad struck a chill into Germany's allies.

The Siege of Leningrad

Leningrad, now known by its old name of St Petersburg, was encircled by the advancing Germans, and in the ensuing siege perhaps one million soldiers and citizens died. These civilians have been killed by German shelling.

The Russians kept Leningrad supplied by running trucks across the frozen Lake Ladoga.

The Russian Winter — 1941

The Russian counterattack of December 1941 used troops trained and equipped to operate in the sub-zero conditions. German commanders were badly shaken, and Hitler assumed personal command of the army, ordering his men to hold on regardless of cost.

A nation at war: members of the Moscow Young Communists digging an anti-tank ditch outside the Russian capital.

German prisoners captured during the Russian winter offensive. It is unlikely that any of the soldiers depicted here survived the war.

Murder in Russia

This photograph, released by the Russians in January 1942, shows the bodies of civilians shot by the Germans in a schoolyard at Rostov-on-Don.

German occupation was harsh and helped alienate national groups who had initially welcomed the Germans. This undated photograph, attributed by its original caption to a captured German soldier, shows a German officer hanging a prisoner.

Much of the city was reduced to rubble by the German forces who occupied it twice during the Great Patriotic War — in 1941 and 1942. The first occupation was in the autumn 1941. It lasted seven days. In the plans of Hitler's generals Rostov was a city of special importance, a strategic railway junction and a river port, a gateway to the Caucasus, rich in minerals, especially in oil. The city was badly damaged by bombing. The best units of the Nazi tank army were driven out of Rostov. But in summer the 1942, the Nazi army managed to occupy the city for the second time. The second occupation lasted seven months. It took ten years to raise the city from the ruins.

Barbarrosa in the Ukraine

A German machine gun post (above) covers a street in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, which was taken by Rundstedt's German Army Group South in October 1941.

During World War II, Kharkov was the site of several military engagements. The city was captured by the German Army on October 24, 1941, and its military allies, recaptured by the Red Army, captured a second time by the Germans on May 24,1942; retaken by the Soviets on February 16, 1943, captured for a third time by Germans on March 16, 1943 and then finally liberated on August 23, 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. It is mentioned that Kharkov was the most populous city in the Soviet Union occupied by Nazis, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was the smaller of the two by population.

Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (mostly Jewish) were killed by the Germans. They were laid to rest in a large mass grave that located at Drobitsky Yar.

The Eastern Front — Part II

In Russia in 1941 the Germans profited, as they had in Poland in 1939 and France and the Low Countries in 1940, from very effective air support. This shot shows a camouflaged Russian airfield under what the original caption terms “a hail of bombs.”

The reality of the advance through Russia, September 1941. Most German soldiers, like their fathers and grandfathers, went into battle on foot, with horse-drawn transport.

The German armoured thrusts into Russia linked to create vast pockets whose occupant defenders were captured: the Germans claimed over 400,000 prisoners by July 11, 1941.