Frank Joseph

World War Two Turning Points

The Secret Decisions, Forgotten Blunders, and Cover-Ups That Really Determined Its Outcome. Second Edition: Revised, Updated and Expanded

By Frank Joseph. Was the course of the Second World War decided at the battles of Stalingrad, El Alamein, Normandy, and Midway? Did Japan decide to surrender after the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was Hitler an “incompetent military leader” whose bungling orders condemned the German armed forces to defeat?

This engrossing and encyclopedic work answers all these questions and many more, in a survey of the real causes of the ultimate outcome of that conflict—and reveals that the traditional interpretation of the war’s progress is not only false, but often deliberately misleading.

Highlighting twenty-one major events, decisions, and strategic failures, World War Two Turning Points reveals the much deeper, and often predetermined factors, which lie behind the well-known course of events.

Starting with the fact that the Allies cracked all the German and Japanese codes—and had advance notice of every single initiative—which played a major role in defeating the Axis juggernaut, World War Two Turning Points goes on to list all the other factors which made it impossible for the war to have gone in any other direction.

From this review, it becomes clear that Hitler was in fact a military genius whose decisions and orders, had they been carried through in full by his subordinates, were almost always correct. Only treason, code-breaking, and lower rank incompetence sabotaged the German leader.

Other topics covered include little known or understood strategic failures, such as the German navy’s decision to build capital ships instead of submarines, the Finnish army’s refusal to defeat the Soviets at Leningrad, Japan’s failure to invade the Soviet Union when that state was at its weakest point, and a full discussion of the German “wonder weapons” and how, but for lower-ranking mistakes, they could have changed the course of the entire conflict.

A gripping study, and highly recommended for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the driving forces behind the world’s greatest and most tragic conflict.

Indexed. New second edition, completely revised and updated. Lavishly illustrated with 167 rare photographs.

Contents

Introduction: For Want of a Nail

PART I: Pst! Feind hört mit!: Quiet! The enemy’s listening!”

Chapter 1: The Ultra Catastrophe

Chapter 2: Treason

Chapter 3: Dunkirk

Chapter 4: Operation Sea Lion

Chapter 5: Operation Lüttich

PART II: The Best Laid Plans

Chapter 6: Hitler’s Original Plans

Chapter 7: The German “Z” Plan

Chapter 8: The Japanese “Z” Plan

Chapter 9: The American Plan

PART III: Missed Opportunities

Chapter 10: Italy Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Chapter 11: Who Sabotaged Operation Barbarossa?

Chapter 12: Refusing to Finish off Leningrad

Chapter 13: Stalin’s Mistake

Chapter 14: Japan’s “Chance of a Lifetime”

PART IV: Sea Trials

Chapter 15: Battleship Bismarck

Chapter 16: U-Boats

Chapter 17: Japan’s Super Submarines

PART V: Wonder Weapons

Chapter 18: Rocket Planes from Germany to Japan

Chapter 19: The German Jet Controversy

Chapter 20: Balloon Bomb versus Atom Bomb

Chapter 21: Japan’s Ignored Offers of Peace

Afterword: Röhm, Rommel, and Yamamoto

Appendix: Who Started the Bombing of Civilians in World War II?

References

Index

 

354 pages. Paperback.

 

$19.95

Additional information

Weight 16.96 oz
Dimensions 6 × 0.74 × 9 in
Writer

Frank Joseph

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