The World War II - 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Figures of the Second World War

336 Pages·2001·5.44 MB·English

by  Howard Langer

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The World War II 100
Copyright © 2002 by Howard Langer
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may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechani-
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THE WORLD WAR II 100
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Langer, Howard.
The World War II 100 : a ranking of the most infl uential fi gures of the Second World
War / by Howard Langer.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-56414-506-9
1. World War, 1939-1945--Biography. 2. Heads of state--Biography. 3.
Generals--Biography. 4. Admirals--Biography. I. Title: World War Two 100. II. Title:
World War Two One Hundred. III. Title: World War 2 100. IV. Title: World War 2 One
Hundred. V. Title.
D736 .L36 2001
940.53’092’2--dc21 2001031540
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to those anonymous infl uentials who fought the good fi ght,
including—but certainly not limited to—the:
Marines at Tarawa,
sailors off Midway,
G.I.s in the Huertgen Forest,
airmen over the Ploesti oilfi elds,
submariners prowling the Pacifi c depths,
nurses on Bataan,
coast guardsmen along the Gulf of Mexico,
and merchant seamen braving the North Atlantic.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Bob Bly for thinking about me for this project, literary agents
Marilyn Allen and Bob Diforio, and Career Press acquisitions editor Mike Lewis. As
usual, I could not have done this without the enthusiastic support of my wife, Florence,
friends, and family.
The staff of the New City (Rockland County, N.Y.) Public Library provided their
usual cheerful assistance. Other county libraries that were helpful include Pearl River,
Nanuet, Orangeburg, and the Finklestein Memorial Library in Spring Valley.
In addition to the books and authors listed in the bibliography, I made use of several
encyclopedias, including the World Book and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Other invaluable resources were The New York Times, Current Biography, and the
World Almanac.
I shall always be indebted for an afternoon with the late William L. Shirer. His
insights on Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, and France were extremely
valuable.
As every researcher has discovered through the years, the sources do not always
agree. That goes not only for the factual material in this book, but for the value judg-
ments as well. For all of these, I assume full responsibility.
Contents
Preface..............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction: A Brief History of World War II............................................................................11
# 1 Adolf Hitler: Cruel and Cunning............................................................................................25
# 2 Franklin D. Roosevelt: Risking Impeachment.......................................................................29
# 3 Winston S. Churchill: From Defeat, Defi ance........................................................................33
# 4 Joseph Stalin: Ruthless and Paranoid.....................................................................................37
# 5 George C. Marshall: First in War, First in Peace....................................................................40
# 6 Isoruku Yamamoto: Planning Pearl Harbor...........................................................................44
# 7 Dwight D. Eisenhower: Leader of the Coalition....................................................................47
# 8 Douglas MacArthur: “I Shall Return.”...................................................................................51
# 9 Jimmy Doolittle: The Raider from “Shangri-La”...................................................................54
# 10 Douglas Bader: Legend of the RAF.......................................................................................57
# 11 George S. Patton, Jr.: The Fightingest Field Commander....................................................60
# 12 Heinz Guderian: Master of the Blitzkreig........................................................................................63
# 13 Albert Einstein: The Pacifi st Who Won the War.................................................................66
# 14 Harry S Truman: “The Buck Stops Here.”..........................................................................68
# 15 Stewart Menzies: Master of the Ultra Secret........................................................................71
# 16 Bertram Ramsay: A Miracle at Dunkirk..............................................................................74
# 17 Georgi Zhukov: Stalin’s Toughest General..........................................................................77
# 18 Chester Nimitz: Up from the Canvas....................................................................................79
# 19 Husband E. Kimmel/Walter Short: Foul-Ups— or Fall Guys?.............................................82
# 20 Ernest J. King: “No Fighter Ever Won by Covering Up.”....................................................85
# 21 Henry L. Stimson: Bipartisanship in Time of Peril.............................................................88
# 22 Harry L. Hopkins: “Lord Root-of-the-Matter”.....................................................................91
# 23 William Stephenson: The Spy in Rockefeller Center..........................................................93
# 24 William J. Donovan: American Spymaster..........................................................................95
# 25 Reinhard Heydrich: Plots and Paranoia...............................................................................98
# 26 William F. Halsey, Jr.: The Navy’s “Patton”.......................................................................101
# 27 Henri Petain: The Man from Vichy....................................................................................104
# 28 Alan Brooke: Churchill’s “Marshall”..................................................................................106
# 29 Hideki Tojo: A Time for Hara-Kiri....................................................................................109
# 30 J. Robert Oppenheimer: “I Am Become Death....”............................................................112
# 31 Wernher von Braun: Father of the V-2...............................................................................115
# 32 Leslie R. Groves: Director of the Manhattan Project........................................................117
# 33 Omar Bradley: The G.I.’s General.......................................................................................120
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# 34 Arthur Harris: The 1,000-Plane Raider.............................................................................123
# 35 Thomas Kinkaid: In the Spirit of John Paul Jones.............................................................126
# 36 C.A.F. Sprague: “Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable”..................................................129
# 37 Bernard Montgomery: He Chased the Desert Fox.............................................................132
# 38 Takeo Kurita: A Sea Battle and an Election.......................................................................135
# 39 Erwin Rommel: Destination: Suez?....................................................................................138
# 40 William Friedman: Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Purple Code.........................................141
# 41 Henry H. Arnold: Champion of Airpower.........................................................................144
# 42 Vasily Chuikov: Hero of Stalingrad.....................................................................................146
# 43 Hermann Goering: From Air Ace to War Criminal...........................................................149
# 44 Joseph Goebbels: Propagandist to the End.........................................................................152
# 45 Masaharu Homma: A Question of Responsibility.............................................................155
# 46 Alfred Jodl: Unconditional Surrender................................................................................157
# 47 Konstantin Rokossovsky: The Captive Hero......................................................................160
# 48 Wilhelm Keitel: The Man Who Obeyed Orders.................................................................163
# 49 Emperor Hirohito: The Last Word......................................................................................166
# 50 Benito Mussolini: Hitler’s Junior Partner..........................................................................169
# 51 Charles De Gaulle: Leader of Free France..........................................................................172
# 52 Joachim von Ribbentrop: The Role of the Deal-Maker.....................................................175
# 53 Vyacheslav M. Molotov: Man of the Hammer...................................................................178
# 54 Semyon Timoshenko: Rebuilder of the Red Army............................................................181
# 55 William L. Shirer: From Reporter to Historian.................................................................184
# 56 Gerd von Rundstedt: The Führer’s Bluntest General........................................................187
# 57 Friedrich von Paulus: The Field Marshal and the Corporal..............................................190
# 58 Tomoyuki Yamashita: The Tiger of Malaya.......................................................................192
# 59 Jean Darlan: Behind the North African Landings.............................................................195
# 60 Frank Knox: From Rough Rider to Navy Boss..................................................................198
# 61 Josip Broz (Tito): Guerrilla Warfare...................................................................................201
# 62 Maurice Gamelin: How France Lost the War....................................................................204
# 63 Robert Murphy: A “Diplomat Among Warriors”..............................................................207
# 64 Karl Doenitz: Commander of the U-boats..........................................................................210
# 65 Heinrich Himmler: The Führer’s Hit Man........................................................................213
# 66 Neville Chamberlain: The Great Appeaser?......................................................................216
# 67 Anthony McAuliffe: Crisis at Bastogne..............................................................................218
# 68 Gustav Krupp/Alfred Krupp: The Family Business..........................................................221
# 69 Andrew Jackson Higgins: Eureka!......................................................................................224
# 70 Edward R. Murrow: “This…is London.”...........................................................................227
# 71 Ernie Pyle: The Little Guy’s War........................................................................................230
# 72 Bill Mauldin: Up Front........................................................................................................232
# 73 Breckinridge Long: Silent Partner of the Holocaust?........................................................234
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The World War II 100
# 74 Pietro Badoglio: Surrendering Italy....................................................................................237
# 75 Francisco Franco: Prelude to a World War.........................................................................240
# 76 Harold Alexander: Ike’s First Choice.................................................................................243
# 77 Albert Speer: The Slave Master..........................................................................................245
# 78 Eleanor Roosevelt/Madame Chiang Kai-shek/Queen Elizabeth:
The Feminine Mystique......................................................................................................248
# 79 Lavrenti Beria: Scorched Earth and Non-Persons.............................................................251
# 80 Galeazzo Ciano: Mussolini’s Heir Apparent......................................................................254
# 81 Eduard Benes: Humiliation at Munich...............................................................................257
# 82 Wladyslaw Sikorski: Betrayal and Death...........................................................................260
# 83 Joseph W. Stilwell: The Mission That Failed.....................................................................263
# 84 Jonathan Wainwright: Last Message from Corregidor......................................................266
# 85 The Sullivan Brothers/The Four Chaplains: On Brotherhood.........................................269
# 86 Charles Lindbergh, Jr.: The Isolationists’ Poster Boy........................................................271
# 87 Chiang Kai-shek: The Agony of China...............................................................................274
# 88 Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski: Leader of an Underground Army..........................................277
# 89 Claus von Stauffenberg: The Plot That Failed...................................................................279
# 90 Anne Frank: Keeping a Diary.............................................................................................281
# 91 Adolf Eichmann: “Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal”.....................................................283
# 92 Robert Jackson: Judgment at Nuremburg...........................................................................286
# 93 Henry Morgenthau, Jr.: A Plan for Germany....................................................................288
# 94 Cordell Hull: Architect of the United Nations...................................................................290
# 95 George VI/Christian X/Leopold III: Crowned Heads, Royal Symbols..............................293
# 96 Haile Selassie: The Plea That Failed...................................................................................296
# 97 Mordecai Anielewicz: He Fought Back..............................................................................298
# 98 Joseph P. Kennedy: A Controversial Ambassador.............................................................301
# 99 Paul Reynaud: A Voice in the Wilderness..........................................................................303
# 100 Pope Pius XII: The Sound of Silence................................................................................306
Appendix A: Honorable, Dishonorable, and Special Mentions................................................309
Appendix B: Chronology of World War II..................................................................................311
Appendix C: Nationalities of the World War II 100...................................................................316
Bibliography.................................................................................................................................318
Index of Names............................................................................................................................325
Index of Subjects..........................................................................................................................329
About the Author.........................................................................................................................335
Preface
“H
istory,” wrote Thomas Carlyle, “is the essence of innumer-
able biographies.”
Surely innumerable men and women made the history
we call World War II. Is it possible to limit those individuals
and their accomplishments to a list of l00? The most bloody
and devastating series of events in world history involved more than a billion people
and dozens of countries, including the eight major powers of the time: the United
States, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, China, and
Japan. For reasons relating to the origins of the war, other countries that also signifi -
cantly affected the confl ict including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, and Spain.
As I saw it, the only way to create this list of individuals was to choose from the
various groups involved, not only by nationality but by profession. That meant includ-
ing not only the government leaders and the military, but the diplomats who made the
deals, the scientists who designed the weapons, the intelligence people who broke the
codes, the journalists who reported the war, and the warriors and the victims.
What we call World War II was basically three separate wars: the war in Europe,
the war in the Pacifi c, and Hitler’s war against the Jews. All three, I felt, had to be
acknowledged.
Therefore, I deliberately avoided exclusively focusing on individuals commonly
known as “great” or “important.” Though a few of those selected for this book might
be called such, many of the chosen are little known.
I selected individuals who were the most “infl uential.” The dictionary defi nes
infl uential as having the power to bring about change. In most cases, those profi led
here did bring about change—for good or evil. In other cases, they tried to bring about
change but failed. In a few cases, they had the power to bring about change but, for
whatever reasons, chose not to do so.
Some of those who appear in this book are individuals representing a whole group
of people. Douglas Bader, for example, represents the Royal Air Force, which saved Brit-
ain during Nazi Germany’s blitzkreig. Three “fi rst ladies” of their lands were selected
to represent the multifaceted role of women in the war. Mordecai Anielewicz repre-
sents the Jews who fought back against the Nazi oppressors.
I elected to include some individuals whose infl uence was not felt until after
the war: Anne Frank kept a diary, and Justice Robert Jackson was a prosecutor at
Nuremberg.
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