The British Empire and the Second World War

The British Empire was the only major power in the wake of the Great War to come out stronger than when it began the war in 1914. From the Punjab to Portsmouth, the Union Jack flew over nearly a fifth of the globe, and the power of the British Royal Navy cemented their control over one of the largest empires of all time. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, the security of the empire seemed to be mostly guaranteed through its sheer vastness, and to all of the fighting seemingly limited to the European continent. Two years later, everything had comprehensively changed. Singapore had fallen to an army a fifth the size of the garrison defending it, two of her most powerful capitol ships had been struck down in the pacific by aircraft flown by airmen they thought initially to be racially inferior, and she now faced down the Nazi terror in Europe…alone. Alongside American, Free French, Polish, Australian, and New Zealand forces, British Empire soldiers fought Japanese forces in the jungles of Burma, Italians in North Africa, and Germans from the beaches of Dover to the Beaches of Normandy. Within this folder is a collection of British artifacts of the Second World War. These consist of a South Africa Volunteer Service Medal, a series of British “Battle Stars” such as a Burma Campaign, Italian Campaign, and a 1939-1945 star.