Forgotten but essential WWII moment subject of book

SHARON — Author Tom Shachtman will fill some gaps in the history of World War II on Sunday, June 9, 4 p.m. at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon.

Shachtman’s new book, “The Phony War,” deals with the period between the German invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, and the German attack on the Low Countries and France on May 10, 1940.

The period was referred to as the Phony War because there were no traditional military actions taken by the United Kingdom and France against the Germans.

But there was plenty of activity.

In a phone interview on Wednesday, May 15, Shachtman, a resident of Salisbury, said the Phony War merits at most a passing mention in histories of the war, and that his book is the first to address the subject in depth.

Between the invasions of Poland and Western Europe, the political leadership in the West changed, he said.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier, two of the signatories of the infamous Munich Agreement in 1938 (the others were Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and German leader Adolf Hitler), were out, replaced by Winston Churchill and Paul Reynaud.

The most important development of the Phony War came in January 1940, when what Shachtman called “a fairly dumb” German officer got in an airplane with the German plans for the invasion of Western Europe.

The plane got into trouble and had to be ditched in then-neutral Belgium. Despite an attempt to set it (and the plans) on fire, enough remained for the Belgians to have a pretty good idea of what was planned.

The original German plan was similar to the campaign in World War I: a sweep through the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) en route to France.

This was changed after the plane crash, with the bulk of the German armored attack going through the Ardennes Forest.

Shachtman said this episode included “the absurd scene” of Hitler and German air force chief Hermann Goering consulting with “Goering’s wife’s soothsayer” to determine if the captured plans had been destroyed or not.

In any event, “the Allies didn’t do a darned thing,” Shachtman said. “They were entrenched in their own plan,” which relied on tactics such as flooding the Low Countries and on the fortified Maginot Line.

The latter, Shachtman said, was outmoded in the age of air warfare.

Essentially, the Allies were thinking in terms of World War I.

In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his second term, wasn’t enthusiastic about running for a third.

“But he had no confidence in his successor,” Shachtman said.

Roosevelt was especially worried that an isolationist such as aviator Charles Lindbergh would win.

Roosevelt “felt strongly that the U.S. would have to get involved” in the war, and he took steps to provide material assistance to the Allies, which required a political effort to change neutrality laws.

Shachtman said the Phony War period contained “quite a lot we’ve forgotten.”

“It felt more like a cold war than a hot one.”