And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War

by David Fraser

The author brings to life every major campaign fought by the British Army in the Second World from the momentous defeats in France, Belgium and the Far East in the early stages of the war, through to the final victories against Germany and Japan in 1945. All aspects of the conflict are described, from grand strategy at the highest levels right down to the experience of infantry, gunners and tankers in the field as the British army battled its way through the war. The book shows how the seeds of World War II were sown at the end of the previous war, twenty-one years earlier, and how successive governments in the twenties and thirties failed to safeguard Britain from the building threat from Germany. It describes how by the beginning of the conflict Hitler's armies were superior in every respect. But as the catalogue of defeats mounted, the British army were learning hard lessons, and painfully acquiring the skills needed to turn the tables. It is therefore a story which moves from triumph to tragedy, and then upward again to triumph at the last.

Genres: History, World War II, Military History, British Literature, 20th Century, Nonfiction, War

429 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

General Sir David William Fraser was educated at Eton and Christ Church college in the University of Oxford. He left school to enlist at earliest opportunity after the Second World War begun, and joined the Grenadier Guards in 1940, serving for much of the Second World War with the Guards Armoured Division, later in North West Europe, ending the war in the rank of Major. He was intimately involved afterwards in the crises in Suez, and Cyprus, and saw service in the Malaya emergency.

He was also a prolific author, publishing over 20 books mostly focused on the history of the Second World War.

There is more than one David Fraser on Goodreads

Reviews

[Steve Chambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good overview of the history and performance of the British Army during the second world war.
Starting with an examination of how the organisation managed to go from the leading proponent of all arms combat to a bunch of inept no hopers in just two decades, it then goes into the lessons learned during the first two years and how despite the massive expansion without a trained cadre to build on, they came back towards the levels of expertise shown in the previous war.

As someone else has pointed out it would be impossible to cover the subject in any real depth in a single volume but David Fraser has achieved a good balance here.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essence of this book is that it was written by a military historian who was an army man. It leans more towards a reader who has a similar background than to a wider readership.

Fraser starts on November 11th, 1918, at the end of a previous war for which the British Army had been totally unprepared (at least in terms of numbers of men) when it broke out. Yet by the Armistice the Army had turned itself into the best in the world at that time, surpassing even the Germans, who still remained formidable opponents until the last shots were fired. But during the peace all that expertise was lost, the military lessons of the Great War forgotten, and the Army became a kind of Cinderella organisation, unloved, underfunded, underequipped, and - crucially - undertrained. (That there were understandable reasons for this in a lack of public willingness to contemplate the horrors of war again so soon after what was such a massive disruption affecting so many, not to mention a political realm not keen to go against the prevailing mood, Fraser seems to discount.) It should be noted, though, that in Germany and Japan no such considerations obtained.

Seen in that context, however, the defeats the British Army endured in all theatres of war in World War 2’s early stages are not at all surprising. The mild alarm the Germans experienced at Arras in 1940, the triumphs in Somalia and Abyssinia and at Beda Fomm against the Italians (far from the fight-shy caricature of British popular myth,) speak well of the Army’s efforts to overcome its disadvantages, as does the initial victory over Rommel of Operation Crusader in the Western Desert before that instinctive military gambler turned things round again and pushed the Desert Army all the way back to El Alamein. Yet here Rommel was stopped – and could not force a way through. The less said about Malaya the better, a catalogue of bad administration, bad decisions and faulty deployments.

The book’s subtitle is The British Army in the Second World War and deals exclusively with what was called the British Army yet brought out the curious fact that for four years between mid-1940 and mid-1944 very few actual British soldiers fought the Germans or Japanese. The campaigns in Greece, Crete, the Western Desert and subsequently Italy were conducted mainly by Australian, New Zealand, South African but above all Indian, Divisions. While there were some British and Australian soldiers involved this last is especially true, with the addition of Burmese troops, of the war against the Japanese in the Far East.


It is relentlessly focused on the military aspects of the war - wider strategic or political considerations are totally absent - and suffused with the usual military jargon and alphabet soup of Corps, Divisions, Brigades etc. If a little too concentrated on the war’s early phases, as an overview of the “British” Army from 1939-1945 it serves well.

Aside:-
In the Author’s Preface he says, “the taking of Rangoon redeemed Singapore, as Dunkirk was avenged by the crossing of the Rhine.” This may be true in a purely military sense (the sight of a Japanese army streaming back in defeat in dribs and drabs through the jungles of Burma represented an undoubted victory over notoriously tenacious opponents) but politically, strategically, and in terms of prestige nothing could redeem Singapore. Its fall in 1941 signalled the end of Britain as a world power - and the end of Empire - even if that was not fully confirmed until the Suez Crisis of 1956.

[Dermot Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a conflicting book.

On the one hand, it has an excellent premise: how did the British Army overcome 2 decades of malaise to be victorious in the Second World War?

On the other hand, it has a hagiographic execution. There is a lot of discussion of Britain winning the war, but crucially, not of how. This makes it feel like a missed opportunity.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic look at the condition of the British Army at the start of World War Two,which was woeful,and its transformation into an effective fighting force able to take on the German Army.

[Russ Spence · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good but not great history of the failures and successes of the British Army in the last war, to be honest I think the subject would need a longer book to do it justice.