World War II Through Cartoons

Aditya Khemka, Class of 2018

‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ — Plato

The intention of these articles are to chronicle the theatres of World War II, and the events on which the outcome of the war hinged. In an age when the television had still not taken over, newspaper reigned supreme. News consumption for the common man hinged on the printed word. These are some of the iconic cartoons from that era: cartoons which have set the hieroglyphic narrative for a generation, depicting events that now have entire books dedicated to it.

This shall be in two parts. This is the second part; it shall cover the progression of the World War after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941. The first event covered is the Battle of Stalingrad. It shall cover the War till the atom bombs were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first article covered the World War from 1933 to the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

1. Stalingrad, 1942.

Stalingrad has been deemed the bloodiest battle of all time by some, and indeed it was. With the German offensive of Barbarossa (cartoon in first edition of the article) losing momentum, the Germans dug in for a siege of the city of Stalingrad. The siege was to be an endless one. Stalingrad witnessed the most gruesome fighting of the whole war, with door to door attacks, offensives which succeeded in winning ‘inches’ of territory, a harsh winter, a disease-stricken army and worst of all, no supplies. The Red Army had already started beating back the advancing Germans after the fierce tank battle of Kharkov, but Stalingrad lay in German hands. Commander Paulus of the Germans launched a huge offensive into the city, fighting for each and every inch, with the aim of capturing the city before the winter set in. His assault could go only upto the infamous Red October Factory on the banks of the Volga. The Red Army then amassed an army of which the likes had never been seen, with 900 tanks spearheading the attack. The siege-enforcer hence became the sieged. In a valiant and risky pincer-like movement, the Red Army succeeded in ending a yearlong war for the city of Stalingrad, which had raised it to the ground. This spelled the final gong for the Nazi Republic, as the Russians threw in the massive Red Army against them, slowly but steadily pushing towards the heart of Germany itself. Stalingrad changed the course of World War II, and sealed the fate of Hitler’s Germany.

2. El Alamein, The African Theatre of War

The Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, had witnessed a highly successful desert campaign with the capture of Tobruk in 1942. Confidently, he broadcasted for ‘The ladies of Cairo to be ready for us tonight.’ The ladies never met them. Rommel had decided to bypass the bedraggled and worn garrison at El-Alamein, opting instead to lead his Afrika Korps straight into the Egyptian frontier, and leaving the Italians to take care of Alamein. He would have cursed himself later on to depend on the Italians, as by that very night, his advance had been halted by a combination of sandstorms, well-placed British artillery, and the garrison at Alamein. With field Marshall Montogomery at the helm, the British at Alamein made sure that Rommel’s luck had finally run out, preparing their defences to repel all assaults by Afrika Korps. When woken up and told of his army’s success, the eccentric Montogomery said, ‘Excellent, nothing could be better,’ and went back to sleep. A month later, Montogomery began with his own assault, having finally outmanoeuvred the Desert Fox in terms of size of the army. The losses on both sides were horrendous, with a single Battle for Kidney Ridge destroying 100 tanks of the Afrika Korps and 200 of the British XXX Armoured Division. The Battle of El-Alamein, decisive and tough, was finally won when Rommel had no option but to retreat with only 30 tanks left against 600 of the enemy, leaving the path open to the 11th Army. The Battle of El-Alamein began the decisive and strong push of Montogomery in the North Africa campaign, in which he finally secured the port of Tripoli, but could not stop the retreat of the Afrika Korps.

3. Battle of Midway Islands, Pacific Theatre.

The naval Battle of Midway was the decisive battle of the Pacific Theatre. Ironically, it was won and lost by the codebreakers, and was a naval confrontation where the opposing fleets never even saw each other. The Japanese launched a huge offensive on Midway Island, hoping to draw out the American fleet and annihilate it. Made vary of the Japanese plans, defences at Midway Island succeeded in holding off against the Japanese, messing up their plans. The Japanese were plagued by false intelligence and had no idea that the American convoy involved three US Carriers as well, and the very next day, the 4 carries accompanying the Japanese fleet were sunk by American dive bombers. With their carrier fleet crippled, the Japanese had no option but to withdraw their huge fleet. This marked the turning point, with the elimination of Japanese long range air capabilities, the US marines stormed the Japanese landholdings and began the long push back to Japan.

4. Operation Overlord or D-Day

Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it is better known, was, and still is, the largest and greatest seaborne invasion in the whole of military history, and is personally my favourite part of World War 2. Planned under the able leadership of General Dwight Eisenhower (future president of USA), D-Day was a massive operation involving Britain, USA, Canada, Free France and all of the Commonwealth nations, and which spanned three spheres of battle, airborne, paratrooper and seaborne, aimed at evicting the Germans from France and ultimately being the game changer for the Allies. With Rome already fallen to the US Fifth Army and the Red Army nearing Warsaw, Hitler was now faced with another battlefront in the west, and boy, was it massive. On a chilly and foggy morning of 6th June, 1944, the combined forces involving 6000 warships, 185,000 men and 20,000 vehicles approached the infamous beaches of Normandy, France and so the world witnessed the beginning of the end. Erwin Rommel was then the Field Marshall in France, and he was quite positive as to the strength of his Atlantic defence line. But his optimism was ill-found, as the German defences crumpled under the massive onslaught, facilitated by the capture of important bridges the day before through glider and paratrooper landings in the interiors of France. The beachheads started meeting up, and by 25 August, Paris was liberated befittingly by the French 2nd Armoured Division under General Leclerc. Another front was opened up through the landings at Cannes, and soon the Meditterenean front had also been liberated. But it was not all one way traffic. Feeling highly optimistic, Field Marshall Montogomery launched a daredevil plan codenamed Operation Market Garden for the capture of three key bridges in Netherlands in order to supplement the spear like movement of the ground troops. This airborne invasion was deemed a failure because the most important bridge (Arnhem) was unable to be captured and resulted in the death of 25,000 British Troops (I suggest my readers watch the star-studded ‘A Bridge too Far’ to appreciate the daredevilry of Operation Market Garden). D-Day was like a torch of reality for Hitler, and with the Red Army rampaging through the Balkans, it was only a matter of time before the great Deutschland itself, fell.

5. Operation in the Ardennes or the Battle of the Bulge

The Operation in the Ardennes or the Battle of the Bulge was a last-ditch attempt by Adolf Hitler to force open the noose tightening around his 1000-year Reich. With three armies left in reserve (the last ones, infact), Hitler handed the Operation to General Gerard Von Runstedt, to break through the weak point of the American frontline in the Ardennes forest, and race through to capture the vital port of Antwerp, thus separating Montogomery’s army from the Americans. Though they faced early victories, the Germans were soon held up by pockets of resistance and slow supply lines. The iron-like Field Marshall Patton promised Eisenhower that his army would provide the required support to the affected areas near Bastogne, and despite the odds being stacked against him, he did just that. With the weather clearing and the Allies getting support from the omnipresent RAF and US Air Force, it was only a matter of time before the Battle of the Bulge came to an end with the verdict being German defeat. The move to loosen the noose around Berlin had done nothing but tighten it.

6. Hitler’s Retreat

With his forces retreating on all sides, his armies shattered on all fronts, his invaded territory taken back everywhere, Hitler was now facing imminent defeat. His trusted officers had deserted him, and he himself was stuck in his bunker beneath Berlin, day in and day out, as the Red Army pounded the city to ruins. The situation was so desperate that 12 year old boys were defending the city against the fierce Red Army. Hitler still lived in disillusionment, confident that a non-existent force was on its way to liberate the city and push back the aggressors. No one around him was brave enough to tell him the truth. On 30th April, after nine days of bitter fighting, the Reichstag fell, and the Soviet flag flew across high above the centre of Hitler’s power, Berlin. On that very day, the great Adolf Hitler committed suicide along with his wife and Goebbels, and the Third Reich which was supposed to last for a 1000-years was shattered. The war in Europe was declared officially over on 8 May, 1945, with the German surrender, and the Allies rejoiced VE Day. The North Africa chapter, the Atlantic chapter and the Europe chapter were closed, but the land of the Rising Sun still stood, unwilling to negotiate for peace.

7. ‘Fat Man’ and ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On a clear day, 6th August 1945, with the war already at an end in Europe, the world was changed forever, as the USAAF Enola Gay captained by Tibbets dropped the inconveniently named ‘Little Boy’ nuclear bomb on the city of Hiroshima, wiping it from the face of the Earth. 3 days later, the same fate met the city of Nagasaki when the conveniently named ‘Fat Man’ wiped this city too, from the face of the Earth. Combined casualties tolled upto millions, with millions not expected to live for the next 5 years, as the poisonous radiation sweeps through the atmosphere. On 14 August, 1945, World War 2 officially came to an end with the unconditional surrender of Japan, thus bringing to close a 6 year long chapter which had devastated millions of lives and changed the face of humanity for ever.

The war to end all wars? Not quite so. For it is the way of the world, until humanity lives, so will strife, so will war, so will devastation. Then why to bother about World War II, you ask? The World War II led to a new and formidable power of the nuclear weapon; to the formation of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent Cold War, but it has also not allowed any conflict to affect the whole of humanity again. In a new era of cooperation, the lessons of War still hold true, and will hold true for ages to come, for, as the monument of Auschwitz says, ‘Never Again.’

Cartoons for the article are taken from Mark Bryant’s book “World War 2 in Cartoons.” The Edict would like to make a call for more such pieces from the social science departments at Ashoka.

Aditya Khemka is in his final semester at Ashoka University. He has added the coveted tag of ‘Oxon’ to his current tag of ‘Ashokan’. He has been accepted to pursue Financial Economics at Oxford University. When he’s not thinking of money, he reads about History, Strategy and Political Economy. To that end he’s engaged in board game and video game simulations as well.