Western Civilization. The Second World War Essay

Western Civilization. The Second World War - Essay Example In the months and days prior to the war, tension had built up all over the country. As a newly appointed general and having had my father participate in the First World War, I was equally tense and concerned not only about my safety, but that of my squadron as well. When the looming war finally broke, initial orders conveyed to me and other generals expressly instructed us to lead our troops to invade Poland. This was one of the cruellest acts I have ever witnessed because innocent farmers were forced to relinquish their food supply and horses to the soldiers because they were needed for the war effort. Additionally, old people and veterans of the World War were recalled to the battle field. After the first two days, all the generals including me got assigned to diverse tasks meant to ensure that, the war was going as planned. I got the task of assigning the veterans to their specified areas of responsibility. I instructed them to head to the Hellnthal area and protect the border to the west; it was sad, yet challenging to see the old veterans rise up to serve their nation again after diligently doing the same during the previous war. The recalling of veterans and billeting them in the available castles, in Drreibor, was done hurriedly because France and England had declared war on Germany (Cole, Symes, Coffin, and Stacey 520). The weather was getting cold toward the conclusion of the Poland campaign. I remember ordering some young soldiers to replace the veterans in the castles, because the winter had a lot of snow, as well as, frost and some of the old soldiers could not handle the weather. After one year in the war, another campaign was launched and we were ordered to attack Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Holland. This is when we lost one of our planes near a dynamo generator house and the troops had to embark on travelling on railroad tracks. Other than railroads’ development, there was immense improvement of the aircrafts, which contributed to some of the major conquests in the war. The campaign lasted for six weeks and we emerged successful although, sadly, we lost a lot of men on the battle field. In 1941, the Battle of Britain began and this is when I was ordered to direct one thousand planes to raid the British (Cole et al 561). There were more casualties but as a general, one is not supposed to show weakness or pity for the enemy, but I can attest and say that this was the most difficult time in my life. I not only lost comrades, but many civilians died during the attacks as well. Additionally, about two young men were dying every day on the battle field and almost every night there were air raid. This is when I started to see people building shelters in their gardens although there was acute shortage in raw materials. It was a major development, since it showed growing innovation among civilians and it was also indicative of the people’s capacity to optimally utilize resources. It was not until 1944 that we start ed to launch attacks with the help of our allies, but despite our efforts to maintain our dominance over France, Paris got liberated. This is when the attacks got intense and we were losing so many people to the battle. Railroads and tunnels got destroyed and many boys and girls were taken to make the Westwall entrenchment, a highly difficult and perilous task (Cole 603). Even though the situation was deplorable and I did not want to exploit the young children, I had no choice but to follow orders and try to protect the civilians from continued deaths. I was also under immense pressure to guide my squadron in improving our weaponry cache, since the Americans had more civilized war machines. This brought about major improvements in the military.