Jowett, Philip Images of War. Partisans & Guerrillas of World War Two

Poland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France. Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

The occupation of Europe by Germany and fascist Italy from 1939 onwards was met with resistance from all the peoples of Western, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Balkans. This resistance took various forms, ranging from minor sabotage and information gathering in some Western European countries to comprehensive partisan resistance in other parts of Europe. This first of two volumes on partisans and guerrillas between 1939 and 1945 covers the partisans of Poland from 1939, the Soviet Union from 1941 and Czechoslovakia from 1939. Italian partisans were active from the fall of Mussolini in 1943, and the French Resistance developed from an insurgency in 1940 to 1942 into a full-scale partisan war in some of the more remote regions of the country. Using over 300 war photographs, some of which have never been published before, Philip Jowett retells the story of the resistance, guerrilla warfare and partisan warfare. This brutal chapter in the annals of the Second World War was to have a significant impact on the situation at the front, while the populations of the occupied countries suffered under the wrath of the occupying armies. The second volume in this series will focus on the occupied Balkans, where some of the fiercest partisan fighting of the war took place.