Rarely seen war papers revealed
A SKETCH used to help troops escape from the beaches of Dunkirk is among the rare documents featured in a new book on the Second World War.
The War on Paper: 20 Documents That Defined the Second World War explores the conflict through a series of rarely seen papers.
Published by the Imperial War Museums (IWM), the book also features more than 50 images, extracts from letters and diaries, maps and posters charting the conflict.
The key documents range from Adolf Hitler’s signed directive ordering the invasion of Poland in 1939 to Winston Churchill’s annotated “End of the Beginning” speech, made after the Allied forces secured victory at El Alamein in 1942.
There is also the hastily scribbled “diagrammatic lay-out of embarkation” by Captain Ken Theobald, of the 5th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment, which was used by the British Expeditionary Force to flee from Dunkirk in 1940. The drawing is one of five pull-out replica documents featured in the book.
Home Front documents in the book include an “If the Invader Comes” leaflet and Air Raid Precautions, while Kindertransport identity papers and the Governor of Singapore’s final broadcast are also featured.
Other documents include the Anglo-german Declaration signed by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in September 1938, spelling out the desire not to go to war and leading Chamberlain to claim “peace for our time”.
There are also photographs of Chamberlain holding the declaration aloft to the cheering crowd who greeted him at Heston Aerodrome on September 30, 1938, and of the occupation of Warsaw, Poland.
Other images show ships holding position off the beaches at Dunkirk, with smoke billowing from burning oil storage tanks that were deliberately ignited by the fleeing Allies to prevent such a useful resource falling into the hands of the invading Germans, and rescued troops on board HMS Vanquisher making their way back to Britain.
There is also a photograph of Churchill making a radio address from his desk at No. 10 Downing Street, wearing his “siren suit”, in June 1942, as well as an image showing the signing of the surrender of all German forces in north-western Europe at Luneberg Heath on May 4, 1945.
Anthony Richards, IWM’S head of documents and sound and author of The War on Paper, said: “The story behind certain documents can be fascinating and I hope that readers will find the examples included in The War on Paper to be both interesting and thoughtprovoking, as they portray the events of the war in a most immediate, direct way.”