Though, if he did hit one of these aircraft, it was a small dent in an otherwise overwhelming attack. (Once the battle had started, Allied units moved into Belgium to meet the German advance that was expected there).
He fired back with a Boys anti-tank rifle and may have even hit a twin-engined Heinkel (or possibly a Dornier or Junkers - such was the speed and confusion of events that he was not to know) near Waterloo in Belgium. We were bombed, dive-bombed and machine gunned.” “Suddenly, it all began when the air was filled with aeroplanes and they were all attacking us. The soldier in question was a member of 4 RTR (Royal Tank Regiment), a unit that ended up right in the thick of the action, and his account of the opening of the battle certainly gives a sense of what it was like to experience Blitzkrieg: Some of the early chapters of his book deal specifically with the Battle of France, giving a specific tank commander’s eye view of events. This aspect of the story is what historian and archaeologist Tim Strickland MBE MA FSA has focused on in a recent book on the Second World War, 'Strick: Tank Hero of Arras', as well as in a speech at the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, as part of TANKFEST, a festival displaying tanks and other armored vehicles which ran from September 17 to September 20. On The Ground, Facing The Germans In France Wireless radio set from inside a British tank at the Tank Museum in Bovington – this technology also revolutionised warfare, enabling better communication and coordination between tanks and infantry (picture: writer’s collection) In other words, they found that despite the Germans’ glamorous high-speed advance and victory in 1940, there actually was still a place on the modern battlefield for slower tanks supported by infantry after all. While the Allies certainly did gear up their economies, and did develop more advanced tanks, planes, guns and tactics, in the case of armoured warfare, they also used existing doctrines more effectively. This is the popular understanding of the Battle of France and the Second World War more generally, and there is indeed a certain amount of truth to it.
This sent the Allies reeling back, broke their line, forced the French to capitulate and the British to scramble desperately out of Dunkirk.Īfter that, Britain and her main allies from 1941 onwards, the US and USSR, concentrated on modernising their own weapons, wartime economies and fighting doctrines and, having done so, eventually went on to win the war. Stalingrad – An Act Of Horror And Heroism.The War That Set The Stage For World War One.Unlike the French and British, the Germans had decoupled their tanks from infantry, placed them into separate panzer units and let them roll over the enemy at speed. In essence, the French and British were caught completely by surprise when the Germans burst out of the Ardennes Forest in May 1940. The 1940 Battle of France was a resounding German victory, brought about by vastly superior Blitzkrieg tactics that overwhelmed the staid, obsolete Allied defensive doctrines. These days, many people know the story, or at least they think they do.
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