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The Atlantic Charter, India, and Women
In 1942 Singapore fell to the Japanese. It was feared that the Japanese could now sail unopposed into the Indian Ocean.
India itself was fighting for independence. Churchill was not convinced he continued to offer Dominion Status which was not acceptable to the All Indian National Congress - they wanted Britain out. The Americans supported the Indians, Churchill resented their interference and Roosevelt backed down.
Meanwhile Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris had take over bomber command and Montgomery now commanded the Eighth Army in the desert. In the Battle of El Alamein Montgomery drove Rommel back into Libya.
General Bernard Montgomery |
Bernard Law Montgomery (1887-1976)- The son of a Bishop
- Went to St Paul's School and then Sandhurst
- Joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in World War One
- In World War Two he was made a commander in North Africa and was victorious at the Battle of Alamein
- Commander of ground forces for the invasion of Normandy in 1944
- First Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
After the Battle of El Alamein, the church bells in Britain rang out for the first time since 1940.
Extract From Dr Shirley Summerskill Commons Intervention On Evacuation
"I thought I would listen to the Minister on the radio because I was experiencing the same sensation as other mothers. I appreciated the attributes of the Minister, his lucidity, his fluency and so on, but what the Minister, and the whole Government, and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, have not yet realised is that on the radio they are now in contact not with a few women in their homes, the rest of the listeners being men, but that as every day passes the vast audience which the radio reaches is more and more composed of women. As the men are going into the Services are doing overtime at night we shall find that soon almost the whole audience will be women. Yet what do women hear every night? Do they hear a woman who understands the problems of the war? No . . . the only thing that matters to me are my children running round me. They have my face, my hair, my eyes . . . and the minister comes and says in a statesman like way, 'The train will leave on Thursday. You are to be evacuated. The teachers are ready, get things packed, put the tags on.' . . . And then he goes on to explain that it is a question of dispersal, that if a bomb drops on a place in the country it will not kill so many people as if it drops in a crowded town . . ."
 
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| 1937 | Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister
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| 1938 | The Munich Agreement is signed
Germany annexes Austria
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| 1939 | World War II begins
Conscription is introduced
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| 1940 | Churchill becomes Prime Minister
Rationing is introduced
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| 1941 | The Atlantic Charter is formed
Anglo-Soviet Treaty is signed
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| 1942 | The Beveridge Report is published
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| 1944 | Butler's Education Act
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| 1945 | Attlee becomes Prime Minister
World War II ends
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| 1946 | National Insurance Act is passed
National Health Act is passed
The United Nations is founded
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| 1947 | India becomes independent
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| War Diary 1942 | | • | January 26 First US troops arrive in UK |
| • | February 15 Singapore falls to Japanese |
| • | June 7 Battle of Midway |
| • | June 27 British Eighth Army retreats from Mursa Matruh |
| • | July 2 Germans invade northern Caucasus and take Sevastopol |
| • | August 6 Montgomery takes command of Eighth Army |
| • | August 19 Dieppe Raid |
| • | September 2 50,000 die in Warsaw ghetto, RAF blanket-bomb Dusseldorf and Bremen |
| • | October 23 El Alamein |
| • | October 26 Hitler purges German High Command |
| • | November 8 British and American troops land in North Africa |
| • | November 19 Soviet counter-offensive against German invasion starts |
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