World War II
World War II, also called the Second World War, was a major conflict fought on Earth in the 20th century. It began in Europe in September 1939, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, AUDIO: Neverland) and earlier in Asia in July 1937 after a period of unrest beginning in 1931. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Log 384) Worldwide hostilities formally ended in September 1945. (PROSE: Base of Operations) Apart from a handful of neutral countries, it involved the whole of the Earth.
The Doctor stopped several groups from interfering with the war as Earth was distracted by its own chaos, including the War Lords, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus), the Players, (PROSE: Players), the Cybermen, (PROSE: Illegal Alien) and the Valbrects. (PROSE: Base of Operations) Eileen Younghusband also defended Earth from alien attacks during the conflict. (PROSE: The Last Duty)
History
Foreseeing
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw, among other things, the Second World War, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
Origins
Treaty of Versailles
In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the peace conference at Versailles, formally bringing an end to World War I. George Limb was among the attendees. Chief Inspector Patrick Mullen and the Seventh Doctor later suspected that he may have had a hand in sabotaging the treaty, sowing the seeds for another conflict. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) The treaty cost Germany all her colonies and much of her European territory, and decreed that she accept responsibility for the war. Nazi Colonel Oskar Steinmann later claimed the treaty was a “draconian” measure intended to punish Germany. (PROSE: Just War) The Allies set war reparations that, in the eyes of many Germans, were obviously meant to be too high for Germany to pay off, crippling her economically and preventing recovery. Kaiser Wilhelm II was gotten rid of, although his name remained for buildings such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
Europe and the rise of fascism
On 9 November 1923, Adolf Hitler led an unsuccessful coup against the German government, which became known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He was arrested for treason and spent six months in prison, although he was originally sentenced for five years. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Despite its failure, the incident brought Hitler to the attention of George Limb, who felt he had potential and was someone the British government ought to take seriously. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Hitler proved to be highly charismatic which helped him rise to power in later years. (PROSE: Warchild)
Benito Mussolini rose to prominence in the same period, establishing a fascist dictatorship in Italy. (AUDIO: The Rapture) Mussolini, like Hitler, also proved to be a charismatic figure. (PROSE: Warchild)
By August 1928, British Great War veteran Oliver Marks had heard rumours about a new movement in Germany formulating a further atrocity by planning another Great War. At first, he dismissed the rumours. (PROSE: The Glamour Chase)
For Germany, the period period following the First World War was a grim one. Soviets had attempted to spark a communist revolution in Germany after the conflict. The economy collapsed in 1929 with the Great Depression, and Germans began to feel neglected and abused by the United States. Jews received much of the blame for these problems, an attitude in Germany that dated back centuries.
In this context, an election was held in Germany in July 1932 which failed to deliver a majority. Another election was held in November of that year. Parties with the initials Z, DVP, KPD, SPD and NSDAP – the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei led by Hitler (PROSE: Just War) – were among those standing in the elections, all attacking the incumbent Chancellor Papen and vowing to fix the economy. Once again, no party achieved a majority, resulting instead in unsuccessful and unpopular coalitions. With no one in charge, authority effectively vanished and there was no way to deal with crime, unrest and unemployment. The thuggish Sturmabteilung, a private army owned by Hitler who claimed the real army was too corrupt and lazy, filled the void left by the unreliable police force and clamped down on unrest and subversive elements such as Bolshevists. The Nazis were not largely visible to the public so that their violent methods were less likely to drive away potential supporters.
Landing in Berlin in at the beginning of 1933, the First Doctor told Susan Foreman that the war was “in the wind” at this stage. Notable scientists of the period included Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, Eugene Wigner and Fritz Haber. With Hitler on the rise, Einstein left for the United States. Susan and the Doctor became entangled in a plot to kidnap Haber and have him extract gold from sea water. While German underground crime syndicates sought the secret to aid in the country's economic recovery, Pollitt, a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service sought the secret as well. Susan wrecked Pollitt's chances of discovering the secret and potentially changing the history of the coming war. With history back on track, the Doctor and Susan later lamented that, if Germany had been in a better financial position, Hitler may not have come to power. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
Hitler finally did come to power on 30 January 1933. The Matrix recorded this event as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) Mels told her high school history teacher that “A significant factor in Hitler's rise to power was the fact that the Doctor didn't stop him.” (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Fritz Haber fled Germany when Hitler came to power and died in exile in 1934. As the German Army had done in the previous war, the Nazis later used Haber's process to produce explosives and poisonous gases that could be used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in death camps. (AUDIO: The Alchemists, PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane)
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the early 1930s, Ramsay MacDonald, turned a blind eye to the new regime in Germany and instead prioritised domestic economic issues of unemployment rates and political issues concerning the Conservative Party. For this, the Seventh Doctor opined that MacDonald was an idiot. (PROSE: Log 384) Winston Churchill, meanwhile, recognised the danger posed by Hitler and the Nazis as well as Mussolini in Italy (PROSE: Players) but his warnings largely went unheeded. In the words of Edward Grainger, Churchill was a “self-glorifying, arrogant has-been… Spouting all that rubbish about Germany and Nazis.” Nevertheless, Churchill attracted sympathisers from within the Security Services. (PROSE: Log 384)
In 1934, Hitler struck against his own private army and eradicated the leadership of the SA in the Night of the Long Knives. Two thousand people were executed in one day. (PROSE: Timewyrm Exodus) Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich helped the Fifth Doctor chase the Master through Berlin as this was happening. A part of the Doctor regretted that he could not have killed both men before they carried out the crimes they would eventually commit. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
Atrocities in Asia
Before Hitler came to power, another storm was brewing in Asia. In China in 1911, Sun Yat Sen led an alliance of nationalist warlords, which became known as the Kuomintang, in a revolution which ousted the boy Emperor Pu Yi. Now in control of China, the Kuomintang faced a growing communist influence fostered by the USSR to the north. It fell to Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat Sen's successor as the leader of the Kuomintang, to combat the communist insurgencies. Chiang was successful in driving the Communists into the mountains of north and central China, bordering Mongolia, but the Nationalists were unable to dislodge the Communists further. Order in China eroded as the two ideologies fought for dominance.
Amid this confusion, the region of Manchuria in the north-east of China was threatened with trade strangulation by a new Russian railway stretching from Europe to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. Both Chinese and Japanese trade suffered as a result. Japan, emerging as an expansionist power on the continent, had ambitions of expanding her Empire and gaining control of China's natural resources. According to Major Ryuji Matsu of the Imperial Japanese Army, Japan also sought to bring order to a China divided by Nationalists and Communists and attract trade back to the region. In 1931, the Sakura Kai engineered a fight between the Chinese to justify the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, claiming the Chinese had attacked first. By 1932, the Japanese occupation was complete, and Pu Yi was enthroned as the ruler of the new puppet state of Manchukuo. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The occupying Kwantung Army set the peasant population to work constructing Zhong Ma Fortress. The Kwantung Army committed many atrocities against the Chinese which deterred the peasants from attempting to escape. Those that did were shot on sight. Zhong Ma was a prison and research facility where the Japanese conducted experiments intended to forward the development of biological weapons. These projects were headed by the young military scientist Ishii Shiro and sponsored by the Japanese Emperor himself. Prisoners were dissected, blood samples were taken, and subjects were deliberately infected with bubonic plague, so that the Japanese could learn more about the human body and how to weaponise germs. (PROSE: Log 384) Kwantung Army Intelligence set up their headquarters in Hsinking. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
Shanghai imposed sanctions on Japan, worsening the trade situations of both nations. Japanese troops were deployed onto the streets of Shanghai in 1932 and briefly occupied the city. Some areas were subjected to air raids by aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier Hosho off the coast, and a number of the city's inhabitants were arrested and interrogated. Sung-Chi Li was captured by Ishiguro Takashi and interrogated by Ryuji Matsu, who promised Shanghai would one day fall to the Japanese. With Li becoming disillusioned with the capabilities of his own government to bring back stability, Matsu convinced him of Japan's need to bring order to China via their own rule and the two agreed on a partnership. Intervention by the Western powers, looking to protect their own trading centres, prevented the Shanghai crisis from escalating into full-scale war between China and Japan, at least for a short time. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
When Mai Ling was made a prisoner in Zhong Ma in 1933, the Seventh Doctor sought to save her before the Japanese inadvertently unleashed the ghost warrior within her, bringing untold chaos and changing the course of the war. In order to gain access to the necessary resources and information to infiltrate the fortress, the Doctor warned the British Security Services sympathetic to Churchill of alliance talks being conducted in secret between the Nazis and the Japanese. In response, the Security Services began recruiting operatives to send on a spy mission to Manchuria. It was not sanctioned by the British Government. The Doctor recruited Edward Grainger for his rescue mission. The two were briefly captured by the Japanese and experimented on but escaped and survived along with Mai Ling. Afterwards, the Doctor put forward a recommendation that Grainger be recruited in an unofficial capacity as an operative for the British Government, to be made official once the war began. Major-General Vernon Kell sent such an offer to Grainger, who accepted. (PROSE: Log 384) His granddaughter, Linda Grainger, later recalled that Edward travelled a lot during the war. (PROSE: Childhood Living)
Tensions between Japan and China continued to grow as disputes over Manchuria/Manchukuo persisted. (PROSE: The Year of Intelligent Tigers) In Japan, where the government was run by army generals, (PROSE: Endgame) the Army split into two factions who disagreed on the best course of action, although both sides advocated expansion into other countries. The Kodo Ha, controlled by the Sakura Kai, pushed for further expansion in Manchukuo and into China to offset strategic advantages enjoyed by the Soviet Union. The Tosei Ha viewed China as Japan's main enemy but felt it better to adhere to the formal rules of engagement and achieve their ambitions within the political system. The Kodo Ha controlled the local commanders in Manchukuo and used them to assassinate various government ministers, including prime ministers, between 1933 and 1935. In February 1936, the Sakura Kai engineered a revolt in Tokyo by the Japanese First Infantry Division, supporters of the Kodo Ha. Many government officials and civil servants were killed before revolt was suppressed by imperial order. The Kodo Ha still held onto the control of the Manchukuo commanders but the Tosei Ha, at least nominally, maintained control of the Army, but made alterations to their policy. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) By extension, they also maintained control of the government. (PROSE: Endgame)
Fighting between the Chinese and Japanese occurred in 1936. The War Lords kidnapped some of these soldiers to have them participate in the War Games, placing them in the Chinese sector.[2] The survivors were returned home when the War Lords were defeated. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) Finally, in July 1937, the Japanese provoked a fight between Chinese soldiers at Marco Polo Bridge, sparking further hostilities which forced the government to move onto a war footing, bringing war to Asia.
The front lines opened up on the Manchurian frontier, almost 400 miles north-east from Shanghai. The Japanese Twelfth Army made efforts to push south into Shangdong province, where they gained control everything north of Tai'an and the mountain of T'ai Shan. However, the initial aim of the Japanese was not to advance but to consolidate Manchuria, meaning they met minimal resistance. The Imperial Army Air Fleet launched air raids from Manchuria against Shanghai using Mitsubishi Ki-15 single-engined planes, “just to prove that they can,” according to the Fourth Doctor. Mitsubishi A5Ms also harassed KMT troop trains transporting Chinese Nationalist troops to the north. Nationalist China, meanwhile, was disadvantaged by the need to divide her forces between the Japanese front lines near Shangdong and the Communist-held regions near Mongolia.
Ishiguro Takashi began seeking revenge for the deaths of his brothers in the 1936 revolt in Tokyo. Hunted by the Sakura Kai, he fled from Japan to Hong Kong and then China and began plotting against the “traitors” who controlled Japan's military government. There, under the guise of Woo, the Hong Kong-born owner of Club Do-San in Shanghai, he sought to build a united front against the Kwantung Army before they drove south from Manchuria. Bigger Chinese criminal organisations were already preparing to resist further Japanese invasions. Woo worked as a vigilante, who became known as Yan Cheh, cracking down on crimes committed against others in China. Such acts only served as costly distractions at a time when the resistance to the Japanese military had to be as strong as possible.
In August 1937, Hsien-Ko and the Tong of the Black Scorpion sought to prevent Magnus Greel from travelling to 1872, in order to formally punish him and avenge the death of Hsien-Ko's father, Li H'sen Chang. Affiliating the Tong with the Kuomintang to do so, Hsien-Ko believed her success would, among other things, allow her to change time, preventing the invasion of Manchuria and China's war against Japan altogether. She had many encounters, often fatal, with Japanese forces while travelling in Manchukuo and Shangdong on her mission. Her efforts were ultimately thwarted by Sung-Chi Li who, working for Major Matsu as a double agent, wrecked Hsien-Ko's reactor and then manipulated the Tong into fighting each other. Afterwards, the Fourth Doctor and Romana I used the TARDIS to time ram Greel's time cabinet back on course before Hsien-Ko created a temporal paradox.
Eventually, the Japanese Army moved into Shanghai. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The data gathered from the experiments in Zhong Ma and its successor, Unit 731, led to the creation of biological weapons which the Japanese unleashed to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in China in the war. Germ-ridden packages were dropped on Chinese towns and villages throughout Manchuria. (PROSE: Log 384)
Europe on the brink
Amid the growing tensions back in Europe, the Spanish Civil War occurred, between 1936 and 1939. (PROSE: History 101) Spain stayed neutral in the World War. (AUDIO: Resistance)
Mussolini allied himself with Hitler with a vision of making Italy a great nation once again. Edward Greyhaven opined that Mussolini was a “fool” to ally himself with a “monster”. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
George Limb attended another conference in Munich in 1936. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald had dinner in Berlin in 1937. The Doctor later reminded Clara that they did not and nor could they decide to kill Hitler afterwards as it was impossible for them to change the future. (TV: Kill the Moon)
Also in 1937, a new German submachine gun, the MP 38, was manufactured by Ermawerke in Erfurt. It was issued at first to the Schutzstaffel in 1938. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
In 1938, the Nemesis statue passed over Earth, influencing Hitler to annex Austria. De Flores stood next to Hitler as he “ordered the first giant step towards greatness.” (TV: Silver Nemesis) Colonel Oskar Steinmann claimed the Austrians welcomed German rule due to the Nazis' commitment to unite the world under the strong ideology of Fascism. (PROSE: Just War) Hitler also defied the Versailles Treaty by reoccupying the Rhineland. Winston Churchill began to fear what plans he had for the rest of Europe, more immediately with Czechoslovakia and Poland. (PROSE: Players)
Czechoslovakia was indeed later invaded by Hitler. Oskar Steinmann claimed German rule was once again welcomed. (PROSE: Just War) Another conference held in Munich tried to settle the crisis peacefully. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attended, but George Limb opined that Chamberlain let Hitler walk all over him, highlighting the Allies' lack of resolve. Chamberlain returned to the United Kingdom where he announced, "I have in my hand a piece of paper..." (PROSE: Illegal Alien) which promised "peace in our time." The Fifth Doctor thought Chamberlain made wrong decisions on this occasion but for the right reasons. (PROSE: One Wednesday Afternoon) As time would tell, peace was not what Hitler wanted. He expressed his ambitions for world domination, intending to attack Poland, then Russia, then Persia and then move into Asia. Britain guaranteed aid to Poland in the event she was attacked but Hitler did not expect Britain to honour their guarantee as she had previously backed down from similar guarantees. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Teselecta travelled to Berlin in 1938 where its crew executed Nazi officer General Erich Zimmerman on the charge of category three hate crimes. The Teselecta proceeded to Hitler's office to inflict on him the same punishment before realising they were too early in Hitler's time stream. Seconds later, Hitler was saved by the TARDIS crashing through his office window. The Eleventh Doctor told him that saving his life was “an accident” and warned him that “The British are coming!” before Rory Williams locked him in a cupboard. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
In 1939, Italy invaded and conquered Albania with what was mockingly viewed by the Albanians as an “army of toy soldiers.” Their defeat at Italy's hand shamed them greatly. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
Poland became Germany's next target. Not only did the Nazis view Poland as . (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Prior to making the first move, German signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) Although Hitler loathed the Soviets, regarding them as “Bolshevik scum”, and fully intended to attack them, the non-aggression pact was intended to keep the Soviets off Germany's back while Poland was dealt with. The pact stipulated that Poland be divided between Germany and Russia. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) George Limb was present in Russia shortly before the deal was struck. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
The war in Europe formally began on 1 September 1939 with the German and Russian invasion of Poland. In response, Britain and France, against Hitler's expectations, declared war on Germany on 3 September, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) another event which the Matrix recorded as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland)
The War
Hitler conquers Europe
The invasion of Poland lasted one month before the nation was crushed. SS officer Brigadeführer Kraus earned the reputation during the invasion as the Butcher of Cracow. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Oskar Steinmann claimed that Poland, like Austria and Czechoslovakia, also welcomed the Germans and their strong Fascist rule. (PROSE: Just War)
A number of skilled scientists fled from mainland Europe to Great Britain at the beginning of the war. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
As in World War I, (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead) Scottish Highland regiments fought in the war as part of the British Army. (AUDIO: Resistance, The Forsaken) John Benton's father served in the British Army. (HOMEVID: Wartime)
With Germany now engaged in a war with the Allies, Hitler directed his forces to Western Europe. He launched a “lighting war” against Britain, France, Belgium and Holland. All save Britain fell under the might of the Wehrmacht. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Oskar Steinmann claimed that even Paris welcomed German rule. (PROSE: Just War)
The Allied forces faced the Wehrmacht at Dunkirk. The Wehrmacht were able to cut the Allies off and bombers attacked the surrounded soldiers. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) Evacuation efforts were organised and on 27 May, (AUDIO: Neverland) the evacuation of Dunkirk began. It was codenamed Operation Dynamo. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion) Boats evacuated 338,000 men back to Britain, 100,000 of which came straight from the beach, although the evacuation generated some controversy. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) Corporal Gibbs, who was among those successfully evacuated along with Captain Clive Freeman, considered Dunkirk “a mess.” (AUDIO: The Forsaken). The First Doctor witnessed the events at Dunkirk. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
The Germans proceeded to occupy the Channel Islands. A force of time traveling Cybermen from the 30th century which arrived in Jersey in 1939, fled to mainland Britain when the Germans arrived. They left behind a sleeper force in the Le Mur Engineering factory, which the Nazis began studying. The fleeing Cybermen set up a new base of operations in the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory. Meanwhile, the discovery of the sleeper force led to a power struggle in Berlin. Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and other leading Nazis all began vying for a position under Hitler that would give them control of the Cybermen. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
In the words of the Sixth Doctor, the British retreat from the continent left Hitler “the master of Europe.” (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) The Ninth Doctor said of the situation: “the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion.” (TV: The Empty Child)
Britain defiant
With Europe under Nazi control, the Nazis began planning Operation Sealion, the cross-Channel invasion and conquest of Britain. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The fear of invasion swept Britain. A distraught Winston Churchill, by now the Prime Minister, was unsure what to do. The Doctor convinced him to fight on, adding it could lead to his “finest hour”. The Sixth Doctor later recounted that Churchill, in response, “... brightened up, lit one of his big cigars, gave me a victory sign, and went out and won the war.” (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure)
George Ratcliffe, a London builder's merchant with fascist sympathies, spoke out against Britain's part in the war, believing the country should instead be allied to Nazi German. For this he was imprisoned. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
The Home Guard, made up of civilian volunteers, was established to defend the country from German invasion. Members such as Tom Wintringham also believed it should be used to launch a socialist revolution against the government if any attempt was made to make peace with Germany. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Hidden bases full of supplies and weapons were established so British resistance groups could go into hiding and continue operating against the Germans in the event of an invasion (PROSE: Made of Steel) Four citadels were build under the surface of London, intended to allow the British government to continue operations if the worst happened. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
The Royal Air Force repelled the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet)
The extra-dimensional Shakers approached the desperate British government, offering aid. A pact was agreed upon and Operation Shaker was planned out. The Shakers would conduct a secret war against the Germans; the British offered them India as Lebensraum in return, with no intention of keeping the promise. The men of the South Mendip Auxiliary Unit, who had been trained to fight a guerilla war against the Germans, were also part of the Operation. Scientists, meanwhile, studied ways to defeat the Shakers for when they were no longer needed. Ultimately, the invasion never came and Operation Shaker was never put into full effect. The Shakers were trapped in the fabric of the BBC Broadcasting House by factions of the British Government after the threat of German invasion passed. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
The Blitz
- Main article: The Blitz
In late 1940, major towns across the UK suffered an aerial bombardment campaign that became known as the Blitz. The attacks occurred nearly every night and necessitated the blotting out of every light to deny the Luftwaffe a target. Much of the urban population spent the night in bomb shelters or underground train stations. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Woman and children were evacuated from large cities to the safety of the countryside to escape the bombing. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe), although not every parent was willing to send their children away. (PROSE: Tell me You Love Me) A number of London children were sent to Wales. (WC: Alien File: Eve)
In retaliation, the Royal Air Force carried out its own systematic bombings of Germany, which resulted in millions of German civilian deaths, far more than the British had lost in the Blitz. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The bombardment of Germany crippled Reverend Wainwright's faith. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
Shoreditch was hit particularly badly, (PROSE: Ash) as was Hampshire. Despite the danger of the bombs, the Queen refused to leave London. Some shops such as Henrik's stayed open for business despite bomb damage. (AUDIO: Lost and Found) One woman and her husband resolved to continue working in their shop as normal despite waking up on 14 November 1941 to find the building destroyed. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) After a heavy raid on Coventry, rumours began which claimed Churchill knew the attack was going to happen but kept quiet in order to protect a secret code. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go)
The government continued to meet and operate in the relative safety of the Cabinet War Rooms. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
The First Doctor and Susan were present in London during an air raid relatively early in their travels. Susan compared it to a Zeppelin raid they had witnessed in the previous war. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
The Cyber-Leader which led the group of Cybermen away from the Channel Islands was damaged by a bomb and went mad, committing a series of murders around London's East End to sustain itself. The Seventh Doctor used the Blitz to destroy this force of Cybermen by lighting up the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory, making it an easy target for the Luftwaffe. The following day, the Doctor travelled to Jersey to destroy the remaining Cybermen in the Le Mur compound and put an end to the Nazi research. After the Doctor departed, Patrick Mullen and Cody McBride discovered a third, much larger dormant Cyberman army hiding in the sewers beneath London in preparation for a later invasion. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
Ian Chesterton grew up in Blitzed London. (AUDIO: The Time Museum) Barbara Wright was also a young girl at the time. Her father fought in the war and was killed close to Christmastime of 1940.[3] When travelling with the Doctor and Susan much later in their lives, Ian and Barbara arrived in Blitzed London again on Christmas Eve, 1940, and spent the night in a public shelter in Hazel Street as air raid hit neaby Gable Street. On Christmas Day, they discovered the Bansharai, creatures who fed on love to survive and took the forms of dead or separated loved ones, including Barbara's father, to do so. The Bansharai departed once they reunited as a family. (PROSE: Tell me You Love Me)
For a short time on both sides, the Cardiff rift linked January 1941 and 2008, allowing Jack Harkness and Toshiko Sato of Torchwood Three to meet with the original Captain Jack Harkness and to cause suspicions in the members of the institute about Bilis Manger. On the day following their meeting, the original Jack Harkness would inevitably be killed in a firefight. The present-day Jack did not interfere with his final fate to preserve the timeline. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
Famous pilot Amy Johnson died flying for the RAF Auxiliary Service in the war. (COMIC: A Wing and a Prayer)
The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler landed in London during the Blitz. There, they defeated the Empty Child plague and met Jack Harkness. (TV: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)
In June, a small group of Germans, led by Lieutenant Koenig assisted by Miss Wyckham, entered the south coast of England. They used a piece of Chronosteel found in the Rhineland to block early warning systems, which they hoped would allow the Germans to invade Britain in full force. Clyde Langer and George Woods stopped them, with Clyde returning the Chronosteel to its rightful place with the Shopkeeper and Captain in 2010. (TV: Lost in Time)
Donna's father, an American, went to England during the war and witnessed the bombing of the cities and the deaths of even young children. (PROSE: Goodwill Toward Men) The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made efforts to keep the US out of the war. Cody McBride nevertheless felt that America was capable of dealing with Germany if hostilities began between the two nations. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) In spite of the bleak situation, the Eleventh Doctor assured Churchill that the whole world was watching Britain and her struggle. Her acts of resistance provided “a beacon of hope” to the conquered and vulnerable peoples of the world. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
As London, Britain and the Empire continued to suffer under the German onslaught, Churchill became desperate for something that would give Britain an advantage over Germany. It was in this context that the last Daleks in existence arrived in 1941 and located a remaining Progenitor device. Unable to activate it as they were viewed as genetically impure, the Daleks passed themselves off as robotic war machines called Ironsides invented by Dr. Edwin Bracewell, himself actually an android, who approached the British military with plans for the so-called “Ironside Project”. Despite his desperation, Churchill was initially had his doubts about the “Ironsides”, seeing them as “too good to be true.” (TV: Victory of the Daleks) He called the Eleventh Doctor for assistance, citing a “potentially very dangerous” situation. (TV: The Beast Below)
However, the Doctor arrived a month late. By then Churchill had become convinced of the Ironsides' effectiveness. They proved excellent at shooting down German aircraft flying over London and even created new technologies which augmented the strength of the RAF by creating devices which went as far as to make their aircraft space-worthy. Churchill hoped to one day use the Ironsides in numbers to take the war to Germany. Ultimately, the Daleks were using themselves as bait to lure the Doctor to 1941 and confirm to the Progenitor, via his testimony, that they were truly Daleks. With this achieved, the active Progenitor produced the first Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm.
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Attempting to get the Doctor off their back so they could escape, the new Daleks lit up every light in London, prompting German bombers to set off over the Channel at once to cause as much damage to the city as possible. However, the augmented Spitfires Jubilee, Flintlock and their leader Danny Boy flew into space and engaged the Dalek saucer above the Moon, knocking out the beam and plunging London back under the cover of darkness. The Daleks then set the Oblivion Continuum which powered Bracewell to detonate. With the whole of the Earth threatened with destruction, the Doctor had no choice but to leave the Daleks in order to deactivate the bomb, allowing them to escape the war via time corridor and proceeded to rebuild their race. However, the Doctor and Amy Pond were able to defuse the bomb by helping Bracewell override it with his humanity. All alien technology was subsequently removed by the Doctor to prevent wide-scale tampering with history. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Bracewell continued to work with Churchill and the British. Later that year, he brought a mysterious painting by Vincent van Gogh before Churchill. Regarding the painting, Churchill tried to contact the Doctor but reached River Song in the Stormcage facility instead. He warned her about the painting so she could pass on the message to the Doctor. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) The Eleventh Doctor later recruited Danny Boy and the augmented Spitfires to fight the at Demons Run. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
Leading Nazi Rudolf Hess embarked on a mission in a plane. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS) He was captured by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London. (PROSE: The Domino Effect)
The Blitz ended in July 1941 (PROSE: Illegal Alien) although the Germans continued to bomb Britain in less concentrated efforts afterwards. Fountain Street, London, was among those reduced to rubble by firebombs in 1943. (PROSE: Ash)
Beyond Western Europe
With Britain still undefeated, Germany turned her attention east towards the Soviet Union. They sought to capture Russia's countless resources of land, slaves, oil, grain and metals. The Germans thus pushed into Eastern Europe, (PROSE: Just War) bringing the Soviets into the war on the side of the Allies in 1941, relieved Britain from the threat of invasion. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
The Russians suffered terribly during Operation Barbarossa. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Almost two thousand Russia planes were destroyed by the Luftwaffe on the first day of the attack. The Baltic States quickly fell to the Germans, and the Army advanced forty miles into Russia with each passing day as they fought towards Moscow. They had problems establishing their supply lines fast enough to keep up. More than two million Soviet soldiers, more men than were in the whole British Army, became German prisoners of war after the Battles of Bialystock, Kiev and Vyazma-Briansk. More Soviet soldiers were captured each day than the Germans could process. The astonishing speed and successes of the campaign were announced on German radio stations. Propagandists were soon told to tone down their reports of victories because Germany citizens were beginning not to believe them. (PROSE: Just War)
Fey Truscott-Sade served as a British spy and special operative in occupied Europe. (COMIC: Me and My Shadow) Professor Alec Palmer also served as a spy. (TV: Hide)
The war also spread to North Africa. British and Australian forces, with French forces under Charles de Gaulle, clashed with the German Afrika Korps, led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Italians and their Tuareg tribesmen allies in the Sahara Desert, Libya. (COMIC: The Instruments of War, PROSE: The Dying Days) Tanks and aircraft were deployed by both sides during the campaign. In November 1941, British forces raided the German headquarters in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Rommel.
A month later, during a lull in the fighting in Cyrenaica, the German command was infiltrated by a Rutan spy disguised as German war hero Heinz Bruckner, searching for the Sontarans' lost superweapon, the Warsong. The Twelfth Doctor, Rommel, Kygon Brox's forces of the Eighth Sontaran Battle Fleet and even the Allied forces worked together to prevent the Rutans from using the Warsong to transform Earth into a weapon that could be used in the Sontaran-Rutan War. After its destruction, the fighting in Africa resumed. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
Sam Bishop's great-grandfather fought with the Eighth Army, serving in North African battlefronts such as Gazala, Tobruk and El Alamein. (AUDIO: Earthfall) Captain Jack Harkness was present at El Alamein, (PROSE: Risk Assessment) as was the Doctor during one of his first five incarnations. (PROSE: The King of Terror) The Eighth Doctor claimed to have driven an ambulance there. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) Major Dakar recalled that the British executed “traitors and cowards” at El Alamein. (PROSE: Ghosts of India)
On the Eastern Front, the Germans suffered a major setback. Despite the great start to the campaign, Germany's failure to defeat Britain meant that she found herself fighting a war on two fronts again, as had happened during World War I. In Russia, the Germans had advanced 1,000 miles along a 2,000 mile front and came within sight of Moscow. However, the Russian winter then arrived and the snow brought the Wehrmacht grinding to a halt. The Russians, who were far more prepared for winter warfare, counter-attacked and the Germans were pushed back.
The Luftwaffe units called into Russia from Guernsey proved effective at halting Russian tanks, disrupting Russian supply lines, aiding in the fortification of strategic towns and providing supplies for the occupying German forces. However, Germany was forced to end the bombing campaigns against Britain and abandoned plans to invade England in order to conserve resources. After Moscow, Germany's war became a defensive one. Early signs of panic began to sweep Berlin, with officers and civilians beginning to consider that Germany could lose the war. Anyone caught by the authorities of discussing this possibility were punished and purged for defeatism. (PROSE: Just War)
The Asian and European wars merge
On Sunday, 7 December 1941, Japan entered the wider war on Germany's side and attacked Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. Ray Budnick, a civilian pilot, was the first American to engage the Japanese as their Zero aircraft opened fire on him while he was out on a morning flight over Honolulu. The Fourth Doctor considered Budnick, who escaped, as important a historical character as the US General and post-war President Dwight D. Eisenhower even though history would forget him. The Japanese proceeded to bomb the American naval base in what the Doctor called “the greatest airborne attack” of the 20th century. (PROSE: Only Connect) UNIT's Bill Filer considered Pearl Harbour a big “series of balls-ups.” (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) Nevertheless, the Eighth Doctor noted that the “America woke up from an isolationist slumber” following the attack, bringing them into the war on the side of the Allies. (PROSE: Fear Itself)
Rumours spread that Roosevelt knew the attack on Pearl Harbour was coming but kept quiet so he could use it as justification to enter the war. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) With the United States finally in the war, Roosevelt and Churchill allied their countries in a great transatlantic bond. (PROSE: Loving the Alien) America mobilised the massive resources at her disposal to support Britain and the Soviet Union. With Germany beginning to crack under pressure from fighting both European powers, the entry of America into the war proved to be a disaster. In effect, it was no longer Britain but Germany who fought alone. (PROSE: Just War)
In January 1942, Nazis in France forced Pierre Vedrun to build them a machine to travel to England. His daughter, Monique Vedrun used it to escape, but actually also travelled through time to the 1970s. There, the Third Doctor met the Nazis and her, secretly following them back to 1942. He attempted to stop the Nazis from becoming knowledgeable time travellers, tricking them into going through it again, but this time to a British jail in 1942. (COMIC: Timebenders)
Pearl Harbour opened the Far East Campaign. In the second week of February 1942, the Japanese turned their attention to the British Empire's Asian colonies and invaded Singapore. Outmatched, the British evacuated their soldiers and civilians by sea as the Japanese advanced on Singapore. On the island of Kenga which was away from the main assault, Captain Clive Freeman and his men, including Corporal Gibbs and Privates Lawson and James Jackson were ambushed in the jungle by Japanese scouting parties and harassed by air raids for a week after the invasion began, before they could be evacuated. Freeman was killed in the ambush but his form was taken by the Forsaken which fed on the fear of the other men as they held out. The Second Doctor defeated it by having it feed on its own fear. Afterwards, the boat arrived to complete the evacuation. Churchill called the fall of Singapore “the largest capitulation in British military history.” (PROSE: The Forsaken)
Action also took place in the jungles of Burma (PROSE: Just War) where Major-General Scobie served in a number of excursions. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)
In the Pacific, the US and Japan were separated by a huge number of islands throughout the ocean, each one occupied by fanatical Japanese soldiers who were prepared to die before they surrendered. The Americans had to take these islands one by one on their way to Japan. (PROSE: Endgame) In the US, Japanese-Americans were locked up in camps, regardless of whether they were patriotic Americans. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
The Axis falters
On the Eastern Front, the Nazis attacked and besieged Stalingrad in the snowy winter of 1942. The Drofen began consuming the city's living and dead during the siege until Erimem, failing to negotiate a peaceful solution, instructed the Russian defenders to bomb the Drofen ship. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)
On Christmas Eve 1942, Oskar Steinmann, promoted to the rank of Generalmajor, watched the first test of the V1 flying bomb at Peenemünde. Steinmann tried to convince himself that the weapon would strike fear into Germany's enemies and was the only hope left of defeating Britain. However, a teenage Unteroffizier, who did not argue against being called a defeatist, claimed it was just a psychological weapon. Despite the rocket being a great achievement, it would not help Germany win the war. (PROSE: Just War)
The Battle of Stalingrad continued into 1943. One million Soviets were killed defending the city. (PROSE: Happy Endings) Colonel Katayev was one of the Russians who fought in the battle. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune). The Sixth Doctor told Hitler that Stalingrad was “key” and the victor would “win the war.” The Russians gained valuable experience from Stalingrad which was later put to use against German cities. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
In 1943, Fenric was working with his Haemovores at Maiden's Point. Russia and Britain, while nominally allies, were plotting against each other in preparation for post-war conflicts. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
The Germans occupied the south of France in 1943. Although there were members of the French population who joined the French Resistance or stayed sympathetic towards the Allies, others collaborated with the Germans. The Milice, the French Gestapo, was formed, identified by their berets and brown uniforms. People seeking to avoid capture fled south in order to cross the Pyrenees into neutral Spain. Pilot Officer Randolph Wright was shot down over France in February 1944. He was taken prisoner and eventually died in captivity in Germany. A Gestapo agent took his identity in order to infiltrate French Resistance cells and prevent them crossing the Pyrenees. He was exposed by Polly Wright and shot dead by Resistance members. (AUDIO: Resistance)
The Allies invaded Italy in 1943. A landing craft fitted with a powerful amplifier and huge loudpseakers played recordings of gun-battles several miles away from the site of the Allied landings, luring the enemy to the wrong location. Germany occupied the previously Italian-controlled Albania. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) Mussolini's own people rose up against him and strung him to a lamp post. (PROSE: The Dying Days) A battle took place at Monte Cassino in 1944 which left the monastery in ruins. By that stage, the Allies had conquered much of southern Italy but the Germans remained in control of the north and soon came into confrontation with their former allies.
One month after Monte Cassino, the German Special Service Division working under the instructions of Hermann Goering were plundering Northern Italian villages, stealing thousands of priceless Italian paintings and treasures and transporting them back to Germany “for real appreciation.” Goering began building up a private collection, much of which was never found after the war. Italian partisans operated against the Germans but were fearful of retaliation. The Time Lords send the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith to Borosini during the period to rescue a priceless Raphael possessed by Father Antonio and other treasures. The Doctor put into effect Operation Stop Thief. Giovanni's partisans ambushed and derailed the convoy on its way to Berlin and returned the paintings to Borosini. The Doctor and Sarah Jane departed with the treasures in the TARDIS ahead of the arrival of Lieutenant Schuler's armoured column. Upon arrival, the Germans could not find the treasures. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Allies on the offensive
In May 1944, the shapeshifting Valbrects led by Reginta sought to invade Earth while the war weakened the planet, gain control of its minerals and ores and enslave the human race. They began by infiltrating a US Army base commanded by General Michael Heyman, with plans to replace the entire US Army and seize control of the planet. The Twelfth Doctor exposed them and Colonel Preston led the defence of the base. The Doctor forced the Valbrects to leave Earth by threatening to blow up their ship with an American bridge-buster bomb. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
The word “debrief” was an Americanism coined towards the end of the war. Britain invented the computer during the war by codebreakers. They were kept a secret. (PROSE: Silhouette) Toshiko Sato's grandparents, (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts) Rachel Jensen, Alan Turing, (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) and Constance Clarke all worked on code-breaking at Bletchley Park. (AUDIO: Criss-Cross)
American troops were sent to Britain in advance of the Normandy landings, (PROSE: Base of Operations) codenamed Operation Overlord. (PROSE: Trace Memory) In response to events on the island of Guernsey, the Germans committed a significant amount of time and resources to fortifying the Channel Islands. Consequently, the French coast was left relatively undefended and was vulnerable to the oncoming Allied attack. The Seventh Doctor hypothesised that had the Germans fortified the French coast instead, it may have been possible for them to repel the invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
In June 1944, the Allied troops launched the invasion of Normandy, gaining a foothold in mainland Europe. (PROSE: The Taint) Kenneth James Valentine, who joined the Royal Dragoon Guards in 1941 at the age of 15, was part of the Twenty Seventh Armoured Brigade which landed at Sword Beach. He was wounded in combat and was sent back to Britain where he spent the rest of the war. (PROSE: Trace Memory)
Paris was liberated from Nazi rule. The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald visited the city, where they thwarted a plan by the Darapok Empire to brainwash humanity into destroying itself by destroying their transmitter on the Eiffel Tower, and then frightening them off. (COMIC: Trust)
In Germany, members of the armed forces came to oppose Hitler and his insanity and organised the Valkyrie. However, their plot to remove Hitler failed. Erwin Rommel was implicated in the plot and was offered a choice between suicide or the death of his family. He chose the former. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
Germany launched V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets against Britain in 1944. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Young Barbara Wright was evacuated to the countryside during these attacks after she was burned by V1 wreckage in her street which left a scar on her back. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane)
In October, the Seventh Doctor and Ace arrived at Colditz. (AUDIO: Colditz)
The Eleventh Doctor attempted to lead a breakout in a German prisoner of war camp. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
In December, the Germans launched their last offensive in Europe, in the Ardennes region in Belgium. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) George Woods fought at Ardennes the age of 16. (TV: Lost in Time) Colonel Herbert Elgar claimed that the offensive was “making everyone in Paris feel jittery,” mostly due to the French memory of previous German invasions. However, there was little chance of the Germans advancing deep into French territory. American Marines confidently claimed it would “all be over in a month or two.” (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Endgame
In 1945, an amnesiac Eighth Doctor, Alan Turing and Graham Greene were involved in an unexplained alien conflict and survived the annihilation of Dresden by British and American bombers. (PROSE: The Turing Test) Ian Gilmore witnessed Dresden's destruction during a flight and tried to put it out his mind after. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
The Allied leaders, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, gathered at Yalta to discuss the partitioning of Europe. Official photographs showed them smiling but this was staged for propaganda purposes. (PROSE: Byzantium)
The British invaded Germany in 1945. Just as the British forces planned to do if the Nazis invaded Britain in 1940, groups of Nazis went into hiding in secret bases full of supplies and weapons. These resistance groups called themselves Werewolves. (PROSE: Made of Steel)
On 23 April, the Soviets reached the outskirts of eastern Berlin. (PROSE: Just War) Upon entering the city, they began hunting for Hitler. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
On 28 April, Mussolini was executed. (PROSE: Just War)
On 30 April, Hitler committed suicide. (PROSE: Just War) (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The Allies' victory over Germany was marked by VE Day on 8 May 1945. A major celebration took place in Trafalgar Square in London. (PROSE: Magic of the Angels) The Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex were present in London for the celebrations. Prior to this visit, Hex had never heard of VE Day. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
Roosevelt died towards the end of the war. Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt's Vice-President, succeeded him as President and oversaw the end of the conflict. He attended the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin to settle the fate of post-war Europe. (PROSE: Endgame) With the Soviets having failed to find the remains of Hitler or Eva Braun, Stalin told Truman at the conference that he thought Hitler had fled to Spain or Argentina. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The scientists from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute discovered how to split the atom, paving the way for the creation of nuclear weapons. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) The Americans, with the assistance of the British and scientists from other nations, developed the atomic bomb. These scientists hoped that, following a demonstration on an uninhabited island, the threat of the bomb alone would convince Japan to surrender, but they were opposed to it actually being used. However, the Allies were concerned that this would not be enough and that clearing the Japanese troops from all the Pacific islands could extend the war for another five years and lead to many more deaths. (PROSE: Endgame)
The decision was made to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. With the power of 13,000 tons of TNT, the bomb eradicated the city and burned at least 100,000 men, women, children and babies to death, with many more dying later from radiation poisoning. Four days later, an even more powerful plutonium explosion bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. (PROSE: Endgame, Atom Bomb Blues) A third bomb was intended for Kyoto but the aircraft carrying the bomb, the Sky Jack, fell into a black hole. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) Nevertheless, the two bombs achieved the surrender of the Japanese, who surrendered to the Americans. (PROSE: Endgame, Log 384)
The war formally ended in September 1945. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
Aftermath and legacy
International issues
After the Japanese surrendered, they destroyed all of their biological warfare facilities before the American forces arrived and occupied their territory. However, the Americans found out about the experiments. Fearing that the Russians could benefit from this knowledge, and seeing an opportunity to learn from experiments that the US would never conduct themselves, the Americans granted the Ishii Shiro and the other perpetrators immunity for their crimes in exchange for the data. Some of the perpetrators went on to gain high positions in academia or powerful organisations. They were never persecuted and lived out lives of wealth and power. The Americans incorporated the data into their own medical knowledge and even deployed biological weapons against North Korea in the Korean War. (PROSE: Log 384)
This was symptomatic of the deteriorating post-war relations between the capitalist West and the communist Soviet Union, a conflict which had been foreseen by both sides as early as 1943. (TV: The Curse of Fenric) In 1955, the First Doctor said of the situation: “It is one of the eternal truths of history, that today’s allies become tomorrow’s enemies.” (PROSE: Losing the Audience) This marked the beginning of the Cold War. Britain's four citadels set up in case of a Nazi invasion were maintained due to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
The far reaching consequences of the Pearl Harbour attack saw the United States take a leading role in the post-war world, which, in the words of the Eighth Doctor, left its “isolationist slumber” and “looked to the next danger”, that being the Soviet Union. (PROSE: Fear Itself) President Truman, despite being viewed merely as a “caretaker” president after Roosevelt's death, won the election of 1948. He oversaw the Marshall Plan, a massive aid initiative which aimed to help Europe rebuild after the war. (PROSE: Endgame)
A few of the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb were so unhappy about its use that they passed the secrets to the Russians in order to break the US nuclear monopoly. The USSR developed its own nuclear weapons in 1949, resulting in a nuclear standoff between the two superpowers. (PROSE: Endgame) The nuclear bomb became the new fear during the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union continued to work on their own nuclear bombs. By late 1963, as Barbara Wright calculated, they had enough to annihilate the entire population of Earth thirty times over. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane)
Poland and Czechoslovakia were ruled by communists in the post-war years. (COMIC: The Broken Man, AUDIO: The Curse of the Fugue, Artificial Intelligence) Albania also experienced a Stalinist revolution aided by General Tito, fostering a new, more confident and aggressive identity for the nation to wash away the shame of the Italian and German occupations. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
Berlin and Vienna were both divided into four zones patrolled by the United Kingdom, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: The Anachronauts, Quicksilver)
Despite Hitler's suicide and the collapse of the Nazi regime, Nazism survived as an ideology and neo-Nazis still sought to make Hitler's vision of Earth a reality. (TV: Silver Nemesis, PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass, Down, Illegal Alien)
Computers, first invested and used by the British wartime codebreakers and kept a secret, became household items a few decades after the war (PROSE: Silhouette)
Domestic issues
Ration books, passes and general security checks stayed in place in the UK for a few years after the war. Numerous ex-servicemen moved to Blyth, Newcastle and other parts of Tyne which offered good living conditions and work in the shipyards. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat People)
Churchill was “rejected” by the British people in 1945. (AUDIO: Living History) He did not leave politics behind, however, and returned as Prime Minister, a post he still held in 1954 (PROSE: The Witch Hunters) at 80 years of age. (PROSE: Childhood Living) Eventually, he retired to his home in Chartwell. (AUDIO: The Chartwell Metamorphosis)
After departing from Operation Stop Thief in 1944, the Doctor and Sarah Jane were diverted by the Time Lords to Borosini in peacetime, April 1948, where they returned the secured paintings and treasures to Father Antonio and Giovanni. The recovery of the artefacts made the news but Antonio and Giovanni were sworn to keep the role of the time travellers a secret. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
By 1948, parts of London were yet to be rebuilt following the German bombing. Children, including Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, took to playing among the wreckage. Polly's mother told Polly that it was the bravery of Londoners which helped the city to recover. (AUDIO: Lost and Found) Bombed streets were bulldozed for reconstruction, although this proved a slow process and numerous buildings remained condemned some decades later. (PROSE: Ash) As late as 1966, certain parts of London were still in the process of being rebuilt (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond) such as Bermondsey. (AUDIO: Threshold)
Fortunately for London's inhabitants, they were the last major attacks against the city until the Daleks invaded the Earth in the 22nd century. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) St Paul's Cathedral famously survived the Blitz and other German bombing attacks, as it had the previous war and would in the Third and Fourth World Wars and the Dalek invasion. (AUDIO: Frostfire)
Mr. Gamble made a lot of money during the war, which made him a very influential figure in his home of Lewes during the 1950s. (AUDIO: The Bonfires of the Vanities)
The monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy was fully rebuilt by 1976. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Alien activity
During the war, a large number of alien spaceships were shot down, generating a black market of alien artefacts. Norton Folgate and his colleagues at the Torchwood Institute were still dealing with this by 1953. (AUDIO: Ghost Mission)
The Shakers remained trapped in the fabric of the BBC Broadcasting House until the 1950s. The recording sessions of Max and Maxine's radio comedy show, Anyway, As I Say, produced the right conditions for them to escape. Believing they had emerged in an occupied Britain, they continued to follow outdated orders, covertly killing regular audience members whom they believed to be German occupiers or enemy collaborators. In 1955, the First Doctor forced them to reveal themselves. Learning that the promise of Indian Lebensraum had been broken, the Shakers announced they would declare war on the British Empire, but the Doctor destroyed them by making it impossible for them to exist in the same dimension. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
The house of Joan Calder, her mother, Mrs. Calder and grandfather, Old Mr. Calder was preserved by an unknown force after it was firebombed in 1943. In 1963, the First Doctor and Susan got lost and arrived at the house, discovered something was wrong and that Mr. Calder was somehow involved. Susan smashed a mirror through which the force was maintaining its hold over the house and it disintegrated and vanished as it should have in 1943. The Doctor and Susan never discovered how this could have occurred, although the Doctor guessed Mr. Calder may have discovered something terrible in the mirror while fighting in the trenches during the First World War. (PROSE: Ash)
The dormant Cyberman army discovered in the sewers of London by Patrick Mullen and Cody McBride (PROSE: Illegal Alien) awoke and invaded Earth over three decades after the war, in the late 1970s. (TV: The Invasion)
Memory
Polly Wright visited a séance after the war in order to try and communicate with her late uncle Randolph. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat People)
Sam Bishop's great-grandfather regaled the young Sam Bishop with war stories of his time in North Africa, inspiring Sam to eventually join UNIT. (AUDIO: Earthfall)
Inspired by his experiences as an evacuee, George Woods entered the field of radar development in which he worked throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In November 2010, at the age of 83, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to the field. Clyde Langer read an online article about his wartime and post-war life and exploits. (TV: Lost in Time)
When the Monks invaded the Earth in the 21st century and brainwashed humanity into believing an alternate history, they attempted to condition everyone into believing that they watched over one of Churchill's wartime speeches. (TV: The Lie of the Land)
By the 30th century, on the human-colonised world of Avalon, the records of their history became scattered and muddled, with some genuine history becoming intertwined with myths, legends and stories. Barbara Wright read an account of how King Arthur defeated the Nazi Armada off the coast of Cornwall with the aid of Merlin’s "Atome Fire", in what was supposedly the "last battle" before people migrated to Avalon. (PROSE: The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Alternative timelines
While on a fishing trip to an island to the Pacific Ocean on 25 July 1963, the Fifth Doctor discovered that the TARDIS had materialised in an alternative timeline in which World War II had never ended. After being held at gunpoint by an American fighter pilot native to this timeline named Angus "Gus" Goodman, the Doctor offered him the chance to get off the island, which was Japanese territory. Goodman accepted the Doctor's offer and became a short-lived companion. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon, 4-Dimentional Vistas) However, he was killed by the Moderator, a hitman in the employ of Josiah W. Dogbolter, before he could be returned in the United States in his timeline. (COMIC: The Moderator)
In another alternative timeline accidentally created by the Seventh Doctor and Ace's arrival in Colditz Castle in October 1944, Nazi scientists used the laser technology contained in Ace's Walkman to refine uranium and create nuclear weapons. They subsequently bombed New York City and Moscow, forcing the surrender of the United States and the Soviet Union and winning Germany the war. This timeline was negated by an alternative version of the Eighth Doctor who, while posing as a German scientist named Johann Schmidt, fabricated a "flight log" for the TARDIS and manipulated Elizabeth Klein into travelling back in time to Colditz in October 1944 on the pretext of retrieving the Doctor so that he could teach her to pilot the TARDIS. Her lover Major Jonas Faber saw through Schmidt's trickery but was too late as Klein had already decided to disobey his orders and make the trip into the past. Unfortunately for Klein, her arrival in Colditz alerted the Seventh Doctor to the impending alteration of history and he and Ace were able to prevent it. (AUDIO: Colditz, Klein's Story)
In an alternative timeline in which Hitler did not lose the power of the Timewyrm, Germany had conquered the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe by 1941. After visiting the occupied London in May 1951 in this timeline, the Seventh Doctor and Ace prevented this from coming to pass. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Parallel universe
In a parallel universe visited by the Third Doctor, the Republic of Great Britain and White Russia were able to crush Nazi Germany by intimidating Adolf Hitler into backing down from his sabre-rattling. Consequently, World War II never took place. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
Behind the scenes
- According to the non-narrative book Doctor Who The Official Annual 2011 in an alternative timeline in which the Eleventh Doctor did not discover the Ironsides, they turned the tide of the war and took the fight to Germany. After the war was won, Churchill was pressured by Stalin and Truman into having the Ironsides destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
- The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the theatre of the war between China and Japan which began earlier than the accepted start date of the war in Europe (1939), has often been overlooked in Western historiography concerning World War II. The conflict has not been named as such in the Doctor Who universe, but the Short Trips: The Centenarian entry, Log 384, treats World War II and the Sino-Japanese War as the same conflict. Its origins are extensively explored in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, the only Doctor Who story to be set during the conflict. Hostilities between China and Japan during the 1930s were first alluded to in the Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the War Games, although not in the original televised version of the story.
Footnotes
- ↑ The Soviet Union fought on Germany's side during the invasion of Poland in 1939 but remained neutral afterwards until it was attacked by Germany in 1941. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
- ↑ Another account claimed that the War Lords did not take soldiers from time periods beyond 1917 owing to the risk of their “greater technological knowledge.” (TV: The War Games)
- ↑ Other accounts make passing references to Barbara's father being alive when she was older. (PROSE: Venusian Lullaby, The Plotters, Byzantiym!)
