Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [147]
The Poles were only the most obstinate of all the Resistance movements. All of them came out into overt action as the regular armed forces of the Allies approached. Short of achieving the national uprising, what they really hoped to do was to assert their title to consideration at the end of the war. The only way they could do that was by making a valid contribution to the defeat of the Axis, and their efforts were such that they did slowly win recognition and respect. Thus Tito gained power and support from the British, and the FFI merged its efforts with the returning forces of de Gaulle. In Russia the partisans eventually controlled more than 80,000 square miles of territory behind German lines; in Norway the underground was strong enough and numerous enough to cut the railways in a thousand places in one night. In northern Italy the partisans came to control a substantial part of the country. The Danish underground mounted a rescue operation that saved large numbers of Danish Jews from the fate of their co-religionists elsewhere. The Belgians formed a secret army, the Poles stole a V-l rocket from a development site and smuggled it out of the country to the Allies.
The questions remain: how much did the Resistance accomplish, and how much did it cost? Unfortunately, there can be a definitive answer to neither question. The underground tied down large numbers of Axis troops and it destroyed huge amounts of material. There is no doubt its contribution was a major one and a vital one, but to equate it with any given amount of conventional activity is impossible. They were different sides of the same war, and neither would have been successful, or at least as successful as soon, without the other.
Even less can be said of the costs of resistance. The final accomplishment was the culmination of untold small acts of defiance. All that can be said with certainty is that the bill, in pain, sorrow, and loss of life, was immense. No one can say how many people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed through, by, or as a reaction against, the activities of the Resistance. The cost in human suffering was enormous, and it was some measure of the German tyranny that people were willing to pay such a price to be rid of it.
22. The Strategic Bombing Campaign
AS THE GROUND FORCES LAY locked in messy, mortal combat, as the cauldron of the Resistance simmered and bubbled up, there was a third war being fought. High in the heavens men froze and sweated, fought and died. The air forces of the warring powers waged their separate wars with each other and with their rivals ashore and afloat. Of the many controversies surrounding World War II, few are more virulent than the whole question of strategic bombing and its contribution to the war.
In the Battle of Britain the Germans had made the first attempt in history to subdue another country from the air. They had failed miserably. As an offshoot of the German attack, the British had unleashed their own strategic bombing offensive against continental Europe. They began with little. Several of the dominant personalities of the Royal Air Force were bomber advocates, but during the late thirties the government had—rightly as it turned out—upgraded the fighter defenses at the expense of the bomber force. The British effort was therefore slow to develop. Their bombers had limited range and limited payloads, and in their early strikes, they could do little more than infuriate the Germans, and that at almost prohibitively heavy cost. In one famous disaster, for example, a force of twenty-two Wellington bombers raided German shipping in the Heligoland Bight and only seven returned home; the rest were either shot down over the target or failed to make it all the way back to their bases. That was in December of 1939. Through early 1940 the bombers were busy supporting the French as best they could, though the French, intensely fearful of German retaliation, were extremely dubious allies as far as the air war went. Next it was a matter of striking at potential invasion ports, bombing barges and