My Goodness. Look what a search of Google newsgroups revealed:
From a post in soc.history.war.world-war-ii - 13 Oct 1998 by
Patterson, Dallas
Wilmeth is mentioned several times:
<quote>
One source recounts a report from Lt. Colonel James D. Wilmeth, one of
only a few American military personnel the Soviet authorities would
allow into Soviet occupied Poland for the purpose of contacting
American POWs for repatriation. He spoke with a number of Americans as
they were moving or were moved through Lublin. Wilmeth said, "Red Army
front line had been using the battle-cry 'on to England.' Everyone in
and behind the Red Army front lines was talking about the war between
the U.S.S.R., and England and America....(Sanders et al)." Allegedly,
many of the American POWs that fell into the hands of the Soviet
authorities were interrogated, and thousands of them were held hostage
and never repatriated to the United States or Great Britain. Other
stories recount how some few Anglo-American POWs took matters into
their own hands and escaped Soviet and German authorities to win their
freedom in the Anglo-American occupation zones.
Stories of impending Soviet hostilities against the Western Allied
forces were also reported by these escapees.
Senior Soviet commanders and intelligence officers closely questioned
American POWs and German POWs about their opinions of the qualities
and effectiveness of the Anglo-American air forces versus the Soviet
air forces. They also demonstrated a special concern about the
effectiveness of German anti-aircraft defenses versus the
Anglo-American air forces.
In other words, major elements of the Soviet armies believed they were
preparing to continue onwards and across the North German Plain to the
English Channel. In fact, Anglo-American POWs were in effect held as
hostages pending the forcible repatriation of all Soviet citizens
present in Allied nations and occupation zones. These indications of
hostile intent by the Soviet Union against their Allies were evident
in February 1945, and they were a major contribution to the incitement
of the Cold War.
Stalin was suspicious of the Allies, particularly Churchill, Great
Britain, and the Truman Administration. With the Red Army poised and
the troops indoctrinated for an invasion of Western Europe, why did
Stalin not follow through with such a plan? The answer to that
question must always be debated and remain debatable. Nevertheless, if
Stalin believed the Soviet economy and manpower deficiencies
prohibited the invasion in May to September 1945, why did he consider
it feasible in January to May 1945? Perhaps there was no single factor
that was persuasive to Stalin. Perhaps it was the combination of a
number of factors that persuaded him to rebuild the Soviet economy
before embarking on such a conquest of Western Europe.
What could some of those factors have been? Knowledge of Soviet
weaknesses in food, logistics (including the destroyed road and rail
networks), and manpower. Intelligence about the atomic bomb
developments from spies in the Manhattan Project persuaded Stalin to
adopt a wait and see posture pending proof of the weapon's
performance. The destruction wrought by the
conventional Anglo-American air forces upon the Axis cities,
industries, and military targets came to be more and more respected as
Soviet forces and Soviet intelligence occupied and evaluated the Axis
ruins. The Soviet capture and confiscation of the American B-29
Superfortress bombers and crews in the Far East territories
demonstrated an American strategic bombardment capability towards
critical Soviet targets. Anglo-American jet fighter squadrons were
becoming operational. The British election replaced
Churchill with Atlee, and the British Chiefs of Staff demonstrated a
resolve to meet a Soviet invasion with an Anglo-American
counter-invasion. Finally, the Anglo-American forces began a
demobilization, but this
demobilization was poised to reverse its direction if Stalin failed to
demobilize as well.
Once Stalin began his demobilization, the opportunity for the invasion
of Western Europe was lost. The Anglo-American forces were entirely
capable of using their unprecedented land, air, and sea mobility to
successfully conduct mobile defensive and offensive operations while
using air interdiction against the Soviet land and sea transport and
communications. From Stalin's point of view, the Anglo-Americans could
successfully mobilize and reinforce their armies faster than he could
re mobilize the Red Army to invade Western Europe. So, Stalin waited.
He waited to build Soviet nuclear weapons, Soviet ballistic missiles,
Soviet air forces equipped with jets, and Soviet armies equipped with
superior tanks. He waited to see the superior Bolshevist economy equip
the Red Army with weapons superior to those of the Anglo-American
'imperialists.' He waited in vain.
Perhaps the newspaper story has revealed only a small part of the
story, a deception or a real plan designed to forestall the imminent
Soviet invasion of Western Europe in 1945-46? Perhaps Stalin
considered the sacrifice of millions more of the Soviet populace to
famine and other privation as a worthwhile opportunity to Bolshevize
Western Europe and exploit their resources and economies for the
rebuilding of the Soviet State. After all, the Red Army and Soviet
people made the sacrifice to win the Great Patriotic War for Europe,
so the Soviet people were entitled to the compensation from Western
Europe (Stalin could have said). Perhaps Stalin relented when a firm
Anglo-American resolve and intent to counter-invade a war weakened
Soviet State became known.
Whatever the reality of Stalin's intentions and decisions may have
been, however,the Soviet armies in Poland and Germany seemed to have
some reason to believe they would be in combat against the
Anglo-Americans, just as soon as the Hitlerites were defeated. The
Anglo-American intelligence services were informed of this fact by Lt.
Colonel Wilmeth and many others. If you were the British Chiefs of
Staff and you wanted to divert the Soviet armies away from the British
Army in Germany, wouldn't you plan a diversionary campaign against the
enemy's vulnerable flanks with your numerically weaker but
technologically stronger and more mobile forces?
Wouldn't you seek to bring about the disaffection of the Muslim
populations in the Soviet Union and divert Soviet armies to the
southern Soviet republics and away from Western Europe and Great
Britain itself? Wouldn't you seek to protect your Iranian and Iraqui
oil field supplies against a Soviet refusal to withdraw from the
wartime occupation of Iran?
These are of course rhetorical questions. This newsgroup can
doubtlessly debate these questions into eternity. They are, however,
intended only as some of the many such possible explanations for the
reported facts of an impending Soviet invasion of Western Europe. In
other words, the newspaper story about a British plan for a post-WWII
conflict with the Soviet Union is very likely only a small part of a
much larger puzzle. Attempting to deduce a British motivation and
intent from that small piece of the puzzle is probably a futile and
exceedingly deceptive exercise. Until more of the necessarily larger
story of the Cold War is revealed, it would be wise for
all of us to reserve our conclusions and judgements of this piece of
that history.
Dallas Patterson
***@fidalgo.net
<quote off>
Peter Fokes
http://www.toronto.hm/