Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Operation Unthinkable

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

In the days immediately following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, new concerns gripped the victorious Allied forces.  The alliance had always been one of convenience. Diametrically opposing political and economic systems joined forces to defeat a common foe.  But now that the foe had been vanquished, what was next? Would the former allies now become enemies?  Learn more about Operation Unthinkable and the plans for how the Allies would fight each other in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors BetterHelp Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month   ButcherBox ButcherBox is offering our listeners turkey FREE in your first box plus $20 off your first order. Sign up at butcherbox.com/daily and use code DAILY Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the days immediately following the surrender of Germany in May of 1945, new concerns gripped the victorious Allied forces. The alliance had always been one of convenience, diametrically opposing political and economic systems joined forces to defeat a common foe. But now that the foe had been vanquished, what was next? Would the former allies now become enemies? Learn more about Operation Unthinkable and the plans for how the Allies would fight each other in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. There is an old adage that says, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And there's probably no better example of this than the

Allied powers in World War II. Prior to 1941, the Soviet Union was not at all friendly with the capitalist countries of the West. They had a belief in a worldwide communist revolution, and at the top of their list were countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. That isn't to say that the Soviets were fond of Nazi Germany either. Stalin and the Soviet press had plenty of bad things to say about Hitler and the Nazis too. However, Stalin did end up signing a treaty with Hitler in 1939, which resulted in the invasions of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Bessarabia, aka Moldova. When the Axis power signed the Tripartite Treaty, the Soviets actually wanted to join the

alliance and become one of the Axis Powers. In April 1941, the Soviets signed a non-aggression pact with the Japanese, largely as a gesture of goodwill towards the Germans. It wasn't until June 22nd, 1941, with the start of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, when Hitler beeneged on his deal with Stalin, that the Soviets suddenly found themselves in need of new allies. Just a few weeks later, on July 12, 1941, the British and the Soviet signed the Anglo-Soviet agreement.

The agreement was pretty simple. All it said was that they would work with each other to defeat Hitler and that neither side would seek a separate peace. The United States had been providing limited support to the Soviet. through the Lend-Lease program in 1941, which increased dramatically once the United States entered the war later that year. Throughout the duration of the war, so long as the Nazis were a threat, the alliance held up, but it was always an alliance of convenience. At the end of the day, the members of the alliance weren't so much friends as frenemies. Once the war in Europe ended in May

of 1945, the glue holding the alliance together was gone. The mistrust between the countries that had been put side for the defeat of a common enemy was now, once again, front and center. The threat now, in the eyes of the West, had gone from Nazi domination of Europe to Soviet domination of Europe. In pursuit of the German army, the Soviets literally passed through and occupied almost all of Eastern Europe and much of Germany. Much of Europe found themselves in the same place they were before, occupied by a foreign power, just now it was a new foreign power. Some within the hierarchy of the American and British governments felt that they were going to eventually end up going to war with the Soviets for the same reason they went to war with Germany. One of the top Americans who wanted

to go to war with the Soviets was none other than General George Patton, the commander of the Third Army Group. He said, quote, we promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see that they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no air force anymore. Their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low. I've seen their miserable supply trains, mostly wagons drawn by beat up old horses or oxen. I'll say this. The Third Army, alone with very little help and with damn few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don't ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives.

End quote. One other high-ranking official, who was at least somewhat sympathetic to Patton's viewpoint, was none other than Winston Churchill. Churchill worked with Stalin, but he never trusted Stalin. He trusted Stalin far less than Franklin Roosevelt did. He felt that now that Hitler had been defeated, Stalin was going to threaten Europe, having already occupied half of the continent in pursuit of the Germans. Moreover, the Americans were now turning their attention to Japan to conclude the war in the Pacific, and that would entail removing forces from Europe and sending them to Asia. The Soviets, however, who had honored their non-aggression treaty with Japan throughout the entire war, had done nothing to assist in the war in Asia by May of 1945, even though they had promised that they would.

In response to what he saw as a looming threat immediately after the surrender of Germany, Churchill asked the British Chiefs of Staff Committee to come up with a contingency plan in the case of war with the Soviet Union. A plan was quickly developed, and by early June it was presented to Churchill. There were two different contingencies that were presented. The first was in the event of an attack by the Soviets, and the second was a preemptor re-attack on the Soviets by a combined American and British force. The plan was given the code name, Operation Unthinkable. There were several assumptions that the document had, which may or may not have been true.

The assumptions laid out in the document were as follows, quote, 1. The undertaking has the full support of public opinion in the British Empire and the United States, and consequently the morale of British and American troops continues high. 2. Great Britain and the United States have full assistance from the Polish armed forces and can count upon the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity. 3. No credit is taken for assistance from the forces of other Western powers, although any bases in their territory or other facilities which may be required are made available. Number four, Russia allies herself with Japan.

And number five, the date for the opening of hostilities is July 1st, 1945. End quote. One of the odd things that happened is that right after this document was released and given to Churchill internally, Marshal Grigory Zucoff, the head of the Soviet army, ordered all Soviet forces in Poland to regroup and prepare for defensive operations. Many people think that this was early evidence of Soviet spies. in the British Intelligence Service, a group that later became known as the Cambridge Five. Needless to say, spoiler alert, none of this ever happened.

Britain had an election on July 5th and on July 26th when the ballots were finally counted. Churchill was suddenly defeated and removed as Prime Minister. The new government formed by Labor Party leader Clement Attlee, ignored the plan and never even considered it. The Americans, beyond a few people like Patton, had absolutely no desire for another war on top of the one that they had just fought. In fact, Patton's views were so far removed from what the American leadership thought that he was ultimately removed as the head of the third army and transferred to command the 15th Army, which was nothing more than a group of historians who were compiling a history of the war. From a strictly historical standpoint, this is pretty much

where the story ends. There were forces who considered or wanted to go to war with the Soviets immediately after the conclusion of the Second World War, and they never did. Instead, the world fell into a cold war that lasted for decades. But, ever since the end of the war and the plans for Operation Unthinkable were made public, military historians have wondered what exactly would have happened. So for the rest of this episode, I'm going to do something I don't usually do and engage in speculation. Speculation based on data from the summer of 1945, but speculation, not the less. Whenever you speculate about historical events that never happened, there's no way to be

proven right or wrong. In fact, if you search for Operation Unthinkable, most of what you find is just speculation. There have actually been board games made around the premise of Operation Unthinkable. So with that massive caveat, here is what I think would have happened if the events surrounding Operation Unthinkable had actually taken place. Under this scenario, it almost doesn't matter who attacked who first outside of public support. If the Soviets had attacked American or British forces, it would have bolstered support in the home front in the same way that the attack on Pearl Harbor did. It would have been getting stabbed in the back by an ally. If the British and Americans had struck first, there probably would have been much less support for the entire conflict.

Also, we have no idea if history would have considered this to be World War III or just a continuation of World War II. So, let's call it World War II. 2.5. At the beginning of the conflict, the Soviets would have had a massive advantage. At the time, the Americans and British had a combined 80 infantry divisions in Western Europe, and the Soviets had 228. The situation with armor wasn't much better. The Americans and British had 23 armored divisions, and the Soviets had 36. Moreover, Soviet tanks at the time were considered to be superior to American and British tanks. The Soviets even had an advantage and fighter aircraft with 11,802 planes to the American and British 6,048.

The only area where the American and British had an advantage was in strategic bombers. They had 2,750 compared to only 960 by the Soviets. So in the first days and weeks of such a conflict, it would be entirely likely that the Soviets would have overwhelmed the Americans and the British. However, there are a couple wildcards to consider. The first is, what would France have done? If the Soviets had attacked first and driven American and British forces back, then the French probably would have been forced to join the Allies.

France, along with Belgium and the Netherlands, had been overrun by the Germans very quickly at the start of the war, and they had very few men who ended up taking part in the conflict as frontline soldiers. So they would have been relatively fresh sources of manpower who could be equipped relatively quickly to defend their homelands. Also, the Western Allies had to be. 400,000 German prisoners of war who could be mobilized to fight the Soviets. Likewise, it's possible that Italian troops could have been mobilized as well. Even the military planners who put

together Operation Unthinkable assumed that the early days of such a conflict would not go well for the Allies. However, after the initial success of the Soviets on the ground, everything else would have been working against them. For starters, the Soviet supply lines had gotten extremely thin. The distance from their industrial facilities to the front line had gotten extremely long, and as Patten noted, they had been reduced to using horses for transportation. Logistically, their supply lines and fuel dumps would have also been easy targets for American and British bombers. The Soviets also had very little in reserve. For the Soviet Union, the war was a fight for survival. They threw everything they had at the Germans, and their forces were largely spent. By Stalin's own admission,

their economy was hanging on by a thread and were largely dependent on lend lease shipments, which would have abruptly stopped. The Soviets had no Navy to speak of, and the American and British navies were the largest in the world. They would have been unable to control the Black and Baltic seas, and the Allies would have been able to control all shipping in and out of the Soviet Union. If the Americans could have opened up a second front in Asia, it also would have caused huge problems for the Soviets, because they had put all their effort into the Germans and mostly abandoned the East. If the Allies had established bases in Finland, which the Finns would have been probably more than happy to do,

they would have had the range to bomb Moscow and other industrial facilities in the heart of Russia. Then there's also the issue of the atomic bomb, which in 1945 only the Americans had. We have no idea how it might have been used and how the war with Japan would have been resolved, but it certainly would have been a factor. But the biggest thing would have been industrial might. The American industrial heartland would still have been unreachable by the Soviets, and they would have been able to produce tanks, ships, and planes at a pace the Soviets couldn't match. Thankfully, all this speculation doesn't really matter because the war never happened.

Because after the worst war in human history, the last thing that anyone wanted was to start yet another world war. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon. Your support helps me put out a new show every day. And if you're interested in everything everywhere, daily merchandise, Patreon is currently the only place where it's available. And if you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and get notified to future episodes and projects,

please join my Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.