A mistake is an error of judgement, a blunder is a mistake caused by carelessness or ignorance, implying incompetence. Blunders are not always the result of incompetence; a chess player may give a critical piece away being distracted by noise, but in war it results in death with serious repercussions. This book explores such errors during the Second World War, some hardly known, a few contentious, many embarrassing.

An American destroyer which fired a live torpedo at a battleship carrying Roosevelt, an American officer who unintentionally passed British information to Rommel, and a German plane crash-landing in neutral territory with plans for invasion are some little-known incidents. Overconfidence resulted in a Luftwaffe raid hitting exposed American gas shells killing Italian civilians, British and American military. Self-assurance led to an American general who lost men and tanks failing to rescue his son-in-law from a PoW camp. Inadequate planning brought disaster in the raid on Dieppe. Poor tactics deployed in the bombing of Monte Cassino was bad propaganda for the Allies but assisted the German defense.

There are some issues which remain disputed, as with the British sinking the French Fleet, but whether it was a blunder remains questionable. There is the issue of the abdicated King Edward often accused of being a traitor, which may not have stood a court case but possibly a Judas caused by immature naivety. Finally, Dönitz was condemned at Nuremberg, but his U-boat warfare was no different from the Allies and at times almost chivalrous.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Blunders or Misjudgements
  • Roosevelt in Personal Danger
  • Rommel’s Innocent Spy
  • Mechelen Accident
  • A General’s Misjudgement
  • Calculated destruction of a famous Monastery
  • Sinking the French Fleet
  • Bio-Chemical Warfare
• Chapter 2 The Dieppe Disaster
  • Why it was Deemed Necessary
  • A Plan to ease Political Pressures
  • Town of Dieppe
  • Operation Rutter
  • Canadianss
  • Committee Work
  • Rutter becomes Jubilee
  • Jubilee Battle
  • First Postmortem
  • Further Ramifications
  • The Focus on Mountbatten
  • Political Driving Forces
• Chapter 3 Edward VIII, A Judas?
  • Introduction
  • An Overview of Modern Monarchy
  • Early Life of Edward VIII
  • Character, as revealed in private love letters
  • The Interbellum Years
  • Wallis Simpson
  • The Divisions at Abdication
  • Nazi Sympathiser or Traitor?
  • The Second World War
  • Bahamas
  • Postwar
  • Final Observations
• Chapter 4 U-Boat War, was Dönitz Guilty?
  • A U-Boat Commander’s Autobiography
  • Submarine Warfare in the First World War
  • Interbellum Years
  • Submarine Warfare in the Second World War
  • The Crewmen
  • U-boat Conduct of Warfare
  • Karl Dönitz to 1918
  • Interbellum Years
  • The Second World War
  • Post-Hitler
  • Introduction to Trial
  • Trial Papers
  • Final Judgement
  • Observations on the Trial
  • Spandau then Freedom
  • Dönitz, A Misjudgement or Not
• Final Observations on Case Studies
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Plates