Your friends so they can join, too. Tonights meet the author Event Features a great friend of the museum, someone whos become very involved with us in the last year or so, james holland, who, last week, published the second book in his trilogy on world war ii in the west, the allies strike back. Before i get to the introductions, i do want to follow a tradition we have here at the museum. I dont know if we have any world war ii veterans with us tonight that i can recognize. If not, id like to recognize veterans from all eras of service. [applause] thank you for your service and sacrifices. This evening, well have on stage together two of the biggest names and most prolific writers in the world war ii field. I was just thinking to myself this afternoon, if this was like boxing or something, this would be like a payperview match or something that we would have on this stage tonight. So we have our own senior historian, rob citino, who published his 10th book this month and hell be interviewing james holland, a historian, broadcaster, author. James has written 19 books on world war ii, mostly nonfiction, but also historical novels and young adult titles. Youve probably read some of these books fortress malta, battle of britain, as well as the first volume on his trilogy titled the rise of germany 1939 to 1941. When not writing, james appears on television and radio, in addition to directing the chalk valley history festival and playing cricket. I find out tonight hes a rubbish bowler and a pretty good batsman. [laughter] always better to be a batsman than a bowler. Hes a fellow of the Royal Historical society and his own collection of world war ii interviews at the imperial war museum. James and our museum have a common goal of capturing and telling the stories behind the war. If youve read his books, you know his books are filled with rich anecdotes, personal details describing not just the battles, but the human experience. I know many of you in this room, though not all of you, have visited the museum know thats the same thing we strive to do. James has quickly become a great friend of the museum. In addition to stopping here tonight, hell be back in new orleans in november for our International World war ii conference giving two talks, one at the preconference symposium and one at the actual conference. Hes also a prominent speaker on our educational travel programs. Last month, he accompanied our easy company tour in normandy for a couple of days. Hell be leading our river cruise with Anthony Beaver next may and will be aboard our trip back to normandy for the 75th anniversary in 2019, so hes a busy guy, working for us all over the world, and we really greatly appreciate it. Without further ado, please help me welcome to the stage rob citino and james holland. [applause] thank you. Rob thats the nicest introduction ive ever had in my life. I enjoyed that. [laughter] james, thank you so much for being here tonight to discuss your new book, the allies strike back, part two of a trilogy. Let me tell the audience a bit. It follows part one, the rise of germany, a fine book and the new one is equally as good. As a matter of fact, i cannot recommend either one of these books highly enough for those in our audience. James knows the material cold. Hes a master writer. He can interweave stories as well as anyone in the world. We all try to do that in our books, to go from here to here to here, to keep the reader engaged and often it befuddled our readers but james has a touch. You go from high policy talks between roosevelt and churchill to individual stories, ordinary folk caught up in the struggle, just really good stuff. Buy the allies strike back and i promise you you wont be , sorry. Get multiple copies to get multiple copies to give to your friends. Well delve into the book in a moment but now i have you here, i have to ask you, dunkirk, the film, talk to me what did , you think . James i saw it being filmed last year. I was in dunkirk and watched it and saw smoke over the town and i was thinking, its great that theyve got all this smoke going over the town, but a little bit more. Because the smoke went up some 15,000 feet and that certainly wasnt over there. I thought it was a stunning film, in many ways. I thought it was beautifully acted. You know and i love the final bit on the train. Actually, i know that steam train very well. Its not anywhere near woking to endorse it. Rob i remember thinking that to myself. James the big problem for me with it is that it implies that 338,000 men who were evacuated, largely because of the little ships. And that wasnt the case. As i understand it, Christopher Nolan is not keen on c. G. I. And, of course, because of that, that meant he couldnt have lots of big ships because they dont exist anymore and, actually, the truth is, along that moor, it had nothing to do with tides. Four for 24 7, up until the first of june when the weather broke and it turned sunny again, there were double stacked ships all the time funneling these people off all the time. Thats one of the reasons why 338,000 people got away. The other reason was because of the incredibly stoic defense over the perimeter, not just by the 16 english infantry battalions, but also by the french, as well, and also the weather. Clouds most of the time and flatasaboard seas, which made it all possible, a series of factors as to why the evacuation wasnt over in 36 hours, but lasted over a week. Thats why they all got off and theres just one scene with ken branagh and james darcey talking about the tides saying theyll be lucky if they get more than 35,000 off and its about little ships. No. But i enjoyed it. As a movie, i enjoyed it. Rob i told myself, i have to ask him about this. To the book. I have a few questions, perhaps points of discussion. A really interesting portrait in the allies strike back of germany, a country ive studied my entire life. Im proud of my 10th book coming out until i meet a man on his 19th and youll be back in a few months no doubt with your 20th. You draw an interesting portrait of germany, different from the military giant that is usually posited in most other books on the war. Your germany has crucial and eventually fatal weaknesses. Can you tell us about this . 1941 to 1943, where is germany, as a war making power in the middle of 1941, in your view . James the thing about the thing about germany, when it goes into war in september 1939, its a war of annihilation. They have to completely win against everyone they take on or else whats going to happen is that going to war is going to drag. The moment a war drags for germany, theyre in big trouble because they dont have the resources and theyre stuck in the heart of europe. You look at that coastline, look at the baltic, its a mess to get in and out of, an absolute network of little channels and islands, theres no access to the oceans. They have a little bit of the north sea, but the moment they go to war, the royal naval which in 1939 is the worlds largest, blockades all german shipping and so where are they going to get these resources from and what happens in the blitzkrieg years, they go into france and the low country and theyre kids in a sweet shop and the cupboard is bare within a matter of months, so where are they going to go . Theres only one place they can go, only one source of resources for them, and that is the soviet union, so really, apart from throwing in the towel and suing for peace in the early part of 1941, they have no alternative but to go in, in the summer of 1941, into the soviet union and its just its really tough. Its getting harder and harder for them because they dont have enough oil. They dont have enough resources to do what they want to do, so everything is incredibly frontloaded, which is why you have this if you think of the wehrmacht as a spear with a wooden shaft and shiny, sharp point, your panzer divisions and motorized divisions, theyre the kind of the shiny, silvery bit and the rest is the wooden shaft who are kind of moving with , horses and cars and on their own two feet, the way soldiers have always traditionally moved around. And it is one thing doing it in france when your battlefront is 120 miles or something and the maximum you can go is 250 miles. Its another thing altogether when your army is actually only a little bit bigger than it was when they invaded france and the low countries and your battlefront is 1200 miles and the distances, in terms of modern combat, infinite. Thats where it all starts to rob you describe germany as one of the least automotive countries in europe. I think amongst the major powers, probably only italy was less automotive, but the country that was the most radio friendly in the world. James this is just amazing. One of the places where you can find the stuff, i love pursuing nontraditional sources. The way you can get the figures for the motor industry is from the whitakers almanac, which we have in the u. K. , and they are still produced every single year. It is full of stuff you would never need to know, but it is quite interesting. You put it in the downstairs loo or your bathroom and when you have Nothing Better to do, you flick through it and say, ok, germany had 12. 5 million pigs, fascinating. Full of all sorts of, on the face of it, inconsequential data. But from my point of view and for us historians, it is absolutely fascinating. This is where you get the figure about all the cars. Germany in 1939, there are 47 germans for every motorized vehicle, whereas that figure is 14 in the u. K. , nine in france, and three in the usa. Perhaps not surprisingly over here. But france is the most Automotive Society in europe. Germany is way down. You cannot just click your fingers and produce an Automotive Society, because you have not got factories. You havent got and when you havent got many vehicles in a country, they are more expensive. What you really need is someone to massproduce lots of mobile ts or chevrolets. Then the unit cost comes down and it becomes more affordable and everyone can have wondered you dont have that in germany. That is not the german way. The consequence of that is you dont have lots of gas stations. You dont have lots of mechanics. You dont have lots of people who know how to drive. You know it is a problem. , you cannot just suddenly transform that, which is why , when germany invades france in may 1940 with 135 divisions, a division is roughly 50,000 men, only 16 of those are mechanized. 16 out of 135. 119 are not mechanized. That is where the horses come into play. March off to war much as their forefathers or fathers had. Exactly the same. But the radio thing is really interesting. The rise of the nazis is handinhand with some of the most brilliant and fantastic spin doctoring or propaganda the world has ever seen. I dont think anyone can deny that the nazis were not absolute masters of propaganda. And what joseph goebbels, the propaganda chief, recognized was what you need to do to get your message across is just say the same thing over and over again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. What they realized is radio is a really good way of doing this, radio and film. This is where triumph of the will comes into it. It doesnt matter what you think of nazism or how repugnant hitler is. If you see that film, it is rightly considered a masterpiece because it is stunning to look at. You can see why anyone in germany would go, yeah, i should you can see why anyone in germany would go, yeah, i should be proud of being german. My chest is a little bit puffed out a bit more and my back is a little bit straighter. You can see how everyone is sort of getting into the whole kind of nazi, kind of we are proud germans, teutonic vibe thing that is going on. The radio, if you can mass produce radios, if you can get radios and make them really cheap, then everyone can have one. And if everyone can have one, you can control what everyone is listening to, and that is exactly what happens. Back in my study at home, ive got a kleinen deutsch empfaenger, the german little radio. It is nine inches by nine inches by four inches. In 1934 or 1935, whenever it was first invented, that is like the rival of the ipod in terms of changing everything. Because radios like the one you have in the show beyond all boundaries, that is what they look like. Because they are big, they are quite expensive. Not everyone can have one. Whereas the little deutsche radio is super basic. You are pumping out the same stuff all the time. It is not all hitler ranting and raving and spittle flying. It is a bit of that, of course. They even have humorous programs as well and obvious marches and wagner and all the rest of it. They have a whole range of stuff. But the subliminal message is all the same. Be proud to be german. Teutonic and aryans are best. We are really cool. Our soldiers look fantastic. We love leather. Whatever it is. It is the same thing. It is a message that comes across. The most Important Message is we are absolutely tops, and everyone just believes it. Because if you repeat it enough, the message will get through. It is not just germans who are believing this stuff. It is the rest of the world. There is that amazing story of a general. Do you know the story . He is the commander in chief of the french army of the air, and he gets invited by erhard milch, whos number two in the luftwaffe in 1938 to come see the luftwaffe. Erhard milch takes him off in his mercedes and they go to an airfield, and there is a whole row of shiny new messersmith 109 single engine fighters. He says, they are impressive. They watched them all take off one by one and loop around and come back down again. And erhard milch says, well, now im going to take you to the next airfield. While they are in transit to the next airfield, all the 109s take off and land at the next airfield. And when he gets back to paris, he says, we are never going to win. We must never go to war with germany because their air force is just aboslutely rob 10 million airplanes. James exactly. It is smoke and mirrors. The germany that starts the war is never actually as powerful. We always talk about the nazi war machine. But the spearhead is the luftwaffe and panzers. Rob you have an army that is in many ways oldstyle, a total unified homefront for the time being due to propaganda and the radio. What about things like quality of german equipment . I am a treadhead. That means i love tanks. I love to talk about tanks, i love to think about tanks. I dream about tanks. When i was brought up as a kid, german tanks are the ones you want. If you were playing soldier, those are the ones you wanted to be in. We dont really think that anymore, do we . About necessarily the superiority of german equipment . James well, i dont. The moment came from me when i was researching a series of novels. I had a hero i was going to write about, and he was a british infantryman. I realized i just did not know enough about the minutiae. I have to figure out more about the weaponry and what they are using. So i went to see this chap who ran this small arms unit. He has this room stuffed full of items, including weapons. I walked past an mg42, and it had an incredible rate of fire, 1400 rounds per minute. I casually tossed off a remark to show that i knew what i was talking about. I said, that was the preeminent small arms weapon of the Second World War, because i had read it in a book. I had read it in a book just recently at the time. And he said, says who . Says who . In the next five minutes, completely deconstructed what i thought i knew about german small arms. It was a lesson. He pointed out that the rate of fire comes with all sorts of problems. It was good in initial combat, but that rate of fire quickly caused the barrel to overheat if you did not observe perfect firing discipline. You had thousands of americans coming toward you and this sea was black with antiaircraft warships. The fact that you have to have six barrels and the whole thing. And the amount of ammunition you use. It was really fascinating. It opened up my eyes and led me down a whole line of research i had not thought about before. There is in our understanding of world war ii a huge amount of assumed knowledge, particularly on the operational level. If you accept that the war is understood to be fought on three levels the strategic, and that is the stuff we all write about. Montgomery, patton, eisenhower. The big level, highlevel stuff. The tactical level, which is the stuff we are all most interested in, the cold face of war. That is your pfc in his foxhole. The actual battle. The operational level is given pretty scant regard, frankly. The operational level is the glue that binds the strategic and tactical together. It is economics of war, it is supplying g. I. s with hershey bars and camel cigarettes and the rest of it, but there is a lot more than that. When you reinsert the operational level and dont assume your readers are going to be bored of it because youre talking about logistics and supplies, actually recognize it is as rich in human drama as every other bit of the Second World War, suddenly a completely different picture emerges and you are looking at all sorts of stuff. To go back to your original point about tanks, we are lucky because one of the reasons we know the stories we know about the Second World War are based on firsthand testimonies. If you are an american g. I. And you are in a hedge row somewhere near normandy and there is a tiger tank coming toward you, and from a hedge germans are firing an mg 42, you dont care that it took 75 man hours to make the machine gun or that the barrel might overheat. You dont care this tank has got a six speed, semi automatic preselected gearbox, which you simply cannot put into the hands of an 18yearold raw recruit because they will break. You dont care that the tank is the biggest gas guzzler. All you care about is you have this big tank coming toward you. That is completely fair enough. In your postwar memoir and in your oral history testimony, that is what you are going to talk about. For everyone else, that tank does sound awesome. Why werent we building those things . I will tell you why we werent. And actually, it is really interesting. One of the things i am finding out in this second volume is in 1942, the germans and british were having a complete rethink about their armored policy. What do we want from our tanks . The only people who had really big tanks were the french. Panzer one has machine guns, panzer two has a shotgun. The germans come up against t34 and, we need something bigger. Hitler says, i want big armor. The british are also flailing around. And he puts down a series of criteria. For germans, big gun armor is a priority. Whereas the british are going number one priority is reliability and ease of maintenance. Gun and armor comes down. That is where the sherman is fantastic. For me, overall. If you line up them on the football pitch, clearly the tiger is going to win. But you know how many tiger tanks were built in world war ii . Rob a few hundred . James 1347. Do you know how many shermans were built . Rob 50,000. James