A daily account of the main events of World War II.

The rise of the Third Reich as it happened from its beginnings to the start of World War II in September 1939.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe (‘swallow’) was the world’s first operational jet fighter and the fastest aircraft of World War II. Its development started back in the mid 1930s, when the German engineer Hans von Ohain began work on jet engines, but was not formalized into a specification for a twin-engined fighter until 1939. The aircraft had a difficult development period, partly because of the enormous complexity of realizing such a radical experimental design and partly because of skepticism among senior figures in the Luftwaffe. Despite slashed budgets and institutional indifference, work on the prototype progressed steadily, and on 18 July 1942 it made its first jet powered flight.

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The 10.5cm le FH 18 was designed and developed by Rheinmetall from 1928 and entered service in 1935 as what became the standard medium field howitzer of the German Army up to 1945. The le FH 18 was a completely orthodox but capable and reliable weapon given a somewhat obsolescent look as a result of its large wheels. The type was latter adapted as the le FH 18.M with a muzzle brake to reduce the recoil forces, and could fire a wide variety of shells including high explosive, smoke, tracer, hollow-charge and incendiary.

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The Prinz Eugen, launched in August 1938, was the third of five heavy cruisers laid down for the Kriegsmarine in the 1930s. On 23 April 1941 she was damaged by a magnetic mine, but was repaired in time to sail for the Atlantic with the battleship Bismarck in May. Prinz Eugen managed to elude the British warships hunting the Bismarck, having been detached to make her own way to the French Atlantic ports, and so escaped Bismarck’s fate, arriving at Brest on 1 June 1941 undamaged. On 12 February 1942 she took part in the famous “Channel Dash” with the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which totally humiliated the Royal Navy.

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Given the fact that far-sighted submachine guns such as the MP 38 and MP 40, with their all-metal construction and features to facilitate mass production, had clearly indicated the most practical line of development for such weapons under wartime conditions, the Maschinenpistole 41 could be seen only as something of an anachronism demanding somewhat greater manufacturing resources for a weapon that offered little operational advantage, something that Germany really could not afford given the industrial power of the enemies ranged against her.

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When the Italian Army received an updated model of its medium tank, designated M15/42, the German Army reaped the rewards. The Italians quit the Axis in September 1943 (only 82 had been delivered to the Italian Army before this date), and the German Army took control of 92 of the new tanks. Overall they still had many of the faults typical of Italian armoured fighting vehicles, but they did give the Germans some sorely needed fighting vehicles in the Italian theatre.

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