France fell in quick succession (May 10-June 22, 1940). By the end of June, Great Britain stood alone against Hitler. Not since Napoleon's day had one despot controlled such a wide European empire or commanded such awesome military superiority. Mussolini, Hitler's "jackal," declared war on France and Britain on June 10, hoping for a share of the spoils. He received a rude awakening.

Operation Sealion is the name given to Hitler's plan to cross the Channel and conquer Britain. The combination of British seapower and local air superiority (achieved through superb eightgun fighters-the Spitfire and the Hurricane-controlled by an efficient radar system) saved Britain and the Western democracies. The Battle of Britain was indeed her finest hour, and the story will be told and retold for generations to come.

Thwarted in the West, Hitler, like Napoleon, turned eastward. Military and diplomatic pressures brought Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria into the German camp. German troops were sent to train Rumanian troops and to "protect" the vital oilfields against British designs. In the spring of 1941, German and Italian Armies invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, while Nazi agitators stirred up latent anti-British feeling in Iraq and other Arab states. Weak British forces, rushed to support their Greek allies, were forced to evacuate Greece and Crete. German paratroopers overran the island of Crete; the gallant efforts of the British Navy evacuated a few survivors at heavy cost in ships and men. It was not another Dunkirk, but the evacuation of Crete was a miracle of courage against hopeless odds. Quick action kept Iraq in the Allied camp and neutralized the Vichy forces in Syria. The vital oilfields of the Middle East remained in Allied control.

British forces quicky ousted the Italians from Ethiopia and Libya, forcing Hitler to send much needed German troops to bolster Mussolini, already a faltering ally.

Hitler apparently hoped Britain would join him in an antiCommunist attack on Russia, but the mission of Rudolf Hess is still rather mysterious. Flushed with victory, Hitler turned on Stalin. On June 22, 1941, German armies invaded Russia on a 2,000 mile front, opening a new state in the war. Once again Russia traded space for time (cf. Tolstoy's War and Peace), falling back until the German lines were stretched to the breaking point. The Germans almost achieved their objective-the Leningrad-Moscow-lower Volga line-which would give Hitler control

of the Ukrainian grainfields, Donets mineral deposits, Caucasian oil, and command of Baltic and Black Sea ports. Soon they were in sight of the towers of Russia's ancient capitals. Russia gambled on the Japanese being busy in China and drew reinforcements from as far east as the Siberian-Chinese border. The Red Armies lifted the siege of Moscow and Leningrad and forced the Germans to fall back and stabilize their line. Winter allowed the Russians to take the offensive, because they were inured to the climate and familiar with the terrain. The great military genius, Hitler, refused to allow the general withdrawal urged by his General Staff, but he permitted some local retirements to shorten the defense lines.

On July 13, 1941, Britain and Russia signed a mutual aid treaty. Soon British naval vessels were convoying Allied and neutral merchantmen on the terrible voyage through the North Sea to Murmansk, carrying needed supplies to the hard-pressed Russians. One of our novels, The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat, ably describes the Battle of the Atlantic which kept both Britain and Russia in the war.

The German Armies renewed their attack on Russia in the summer of 1942, turning southward to recover the Ukraine and the Caucasus-prizes for which either side was willing to sacrifice millions of men. Sevastopol and Rostov fell to the Germans. Stalingrad on the Volga, the point through which the precious Caucasian oil was shipped, held out for months against titanic German assaults. Let Theodor Plievier tell you that story in his monumental novel, Stalingrad.

Inevitably, the war spread far beyond the confines of Europe as more and more nations became involved. The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis had preceded the outbreak of war. Japan continued its efforts to swallow up the whole of China. Japan followed Hitler's example and concluded a neutrality treaty with Russia in April 1941. This was advantageous to both parties. Russia was able to reinforce her bleeding European armies with Siberian troops; Japan had a free hand in China. The pact lasted until August 8, 1945, when Russia declared war on Japan and invaded and looted Manchuria.

Not content with her gains in China, Japan struck for control of the rich area of Southeast Asia, attacking almost simultaneously such distant points as Pearl Harbor, Manila, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The attack brought the United States actively into

the war, although we had been providing the Allies with goods and services under the Lend-Lease Act since March 11, 1941.

Most of us are familiar with the subsequent course of the war. The United States, after consulting with its Allies, decided to devote its major military effort to Europe. The Pacific Theater of War had to wait until we could build up sufficient forces to take the offensive. General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz were entrusted with our limited operations in the Pacific. General Dwight Eisenhower received command of United States forces in the European-Middle East theater and began the buildup of land, sea, and air power there. He was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in 1942. A well-coordinated Allied attack (Operation Torch) made landings in French Morocco and Algiers, while General Montgomery's Eighth Army "desert rats" pushed Rommel westward. Axis resistance in North Africa ended in May 1943. Then followed our invasion of Sicily and southern Italy. John Hersey's A Bell for Adano describes our military government operations in Italy. The War Lover, also by John Hersey, tells about aerial warfare over Europe as it was experienced by the bomber crews. George Howe's fine novel, Call It Treason, gives us an insight into the secret war fought by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) and intelligence agents.

Two of our novels deal with the Pacific theater. Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Caine Mutiny, needs no introduction. Pierre Boulle's story of life in Japanese prisoner of war camps, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, is also well known. Our selection of World War II novels unfortunately does not include one from Russia. Soviet literature was completely engulfed by the war. Novels, short stories, plays, and poetry became media for stimulating patriotic enthusiasm. From 1942 to 1945 the party line was to praise democracy, the Western Allies, the Russian people, and the common man everywhere, while condemning fascism, militarism, and feudalism, all of which were associated with Germany, but which were later transferred to the United States when the cold war began. Konstantin Simonov's Days and Nights (Ballentine S 412-K paperback) contains an account of the Battle of Stalingrad. A. A. Fadeiev's Young Guard is a strongly emotional novel of teenage resistance to the Germans, but has not been translated into English. By 1948 the Soviet writers were engaged in an anti-American campaign even more virulent than the anti-Nazi campaign of the war years.

Suggestions for additional reading, both fiction and nonfiction, are included. In addition, we offer you Malcolm Cowley's fine literary essay, "War Novels: After Two Wars." You may wish to read it before beginning any of the World War II novels, you may prefer to read it while you are reading them, or after you have read them. Why not compare the novels of World War II with those of World War I as Mr. Cowley does? We would have liked to include many of the titles mentioned by Mr. Cowley but most have gone out of print since he wrote the article in 1954. However, some may still be on library shelves if you wish to sample them.

Let's turn to our own offerings of World War II novels now.

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THE AUTHOR: Theodor Plievier first became known through his attacks on German militarism under Emperor William II. With the advent of the Hitler regime he went into exile but later returned to the East German Zone. It is known that he was in Russia during World War II and that he worked with the former soldiers of the Sixth (Stalingrad) Army in the Free German Committee, which Field/Marshal von Paulus himself later supported. To some extent Stalingrad represents the ideology of that committee. It was first published by a leftist publishing house in the Russian Zone of Berlin, but it is not a Marxist novel. It is written rather in the spirit of patriotic humanism which prevailed briefly in Russia during the war.

Plievier was an active propagandist for communism during the 1930's and published two antiwar novels: The Kaiser's Coolies and The Kaiser Goes, The Generals Remain. When it first appeared, Stalingrad was hailed as the most impressive novel of World War II (1948) and was quickly translated into English. In the meantime, Plievier evidently became disillusioned with the Soviet Union and moved to the American Occupation Zone in Munich. Moscow, the second volume of his trilogy, appeared in 1953 and Berlin was published in 1956. They won for Plievier the commendation of being "the writer doing most to awaken a conscience, a sense of responsibility in the people."

THE NOVEL: Massive, brilliant, and terrible in its relentless detail Stalingrad is often compared with All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque or with Henri Barbusse's Under Fire. Unlike these novels, Stalingrad is dramatically concentrated in time and space but deals with many men, of all ranks and kinds throughout the doomed Sixth Army, as conscious elements in a specific military situation.