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World War II

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History Post 1900

   World War II
   World War II montage image
   Clockwise from top: Allied landing on Normandy beaches on D-Day, the
   gate of a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, Red Army soldiers
   raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, the Nagasaki atom
   bomb, and the 1936 Nuremberg Rally.

   Date   September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945
 Location Europe, Pacific, South-East Asia, Middle East, Mediterranean
          and Africa
  Result  Allied victory. Emergence of the United States and the Soviet
          Union as superpowers. Creation of First World and Second World spheres
          of influence in Europe leading to the Cold War. Decolonisation of the
          Allied Empires.
   Combatants
   Allied powers:
   Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet Union
   United Kingdom United Kingdom
   United States
   and others Axis powers:
   Germany
   Italy
   Japan
   and others
   Commanders
   Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Joseph Stalin
   United Kingdom Winston Churchill
   Franklin Roosevelt
   Adolf Hitler
   Hideki Tojo
   Benito Mussolini
   Casualties
   Military dead:
   17,000,000
   Civilian dead:
   33,000,000
   Total dead:
   50,000,000 Military dead:
   8,000,000
   Civilian dead:
   4,000,000
   Total dead:
   12,000,000
   Theatres of World War II
   Europe – Eastern Europe – Africa – Middle East – Mediterranean – Asia &
   Pacific – Atlantic

   World War II, or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict fought
   between the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers, from 1939 until 1945.
   Armed forces from over seventy nations engaged in aerial, naval, and
   ground-based combat. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted
   in the deaths of over sixty million people, making it the deadliest
   conflict in human history. The war ended in 1945 with an Allied
   victory.

Overview

Europe

   On September 1, 1939, Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party,
   invaded Poland according to an agreement with the Soviet Union, which
   joined the invasion on September 17. The United Kingdom and France
   responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3, initiating a
   widespread naval war. Germany rapidly overwhelmed Poland, then Norway,
   the Netherlands, Belgium and France in 1940, and Yugoslavia and Greece
   in 1941. Italian, and later German, troops attacked British forces in
   North Africa. By summer 1941, Germany had conquered France and most of
   Western Europe, but it had failed to subdue the United Kingdom due to
   the success of the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.

   Hitler then turned on the Soviet Union, opening a surprise attack
   (Codename: Barbarossa) on June 22, 1941. Despite enormous gains, the
   invasion bogged down outside of Moscow in late 1941. The Soviets later
   encircled and captured the German Sixth Army at the Battle of
   Stalingrad (1942-43), decisively defeated the Axis during the Battle of
   Kursk, and broke the Siege of Leningrad. The Red Army then pursued the
   retreating Wehrmacht all the way to Berlin, and won the
   street-by-street Battle of Berlin, as Hitler committed suicide in his
   underground bunker on April 30, 1945.

   Meanwhile, the western Allies invaded Italy (1943) and then liberated
   France in 1944, following amphibious landings in the Battle of
   Normandy. Repulsing a German counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge
   in December, the Allies crossed the Rhine River and linked up with the
   Soviets at the Elbe River in central Germany.

   During the war, six million Jews, as well as Roma and other groups,
   were murdered by Germany in a state-sponsored genocide known as The
   Holocaust.

Asia and the Pacific

   Japan invaded China on July 7, 1937 (see Second Sino-Japanese war) with
   plans to expand to most of East and South-East Asia. On December 7,
   1941 Japan launched surprise attacks against several countries,
   including the major United States Navy base at Pearl Harbour, thereby
   drawing the United States into the war.

   After six months of sweeping successes, the Japanese were checked at
   the Battle of the Coral Sea and decisively defeated in the Battle of
   Midway, in which they lost four aircraft carriers. Japanese expansion
   was finally stopped and the Allies went on the offensive at the Battle
   of Milne Bay and the Battle of Guadalcanal, both in the Southwest
   Pacific. The Allies then conducted a drive across the Central Pacific,
   and were victorious in a series of great naval battles such as the
   Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944, and
   invasions of key islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. In the
   meantime, American submarines gradually cut off the supply of oil and
   other raw materials to Japan.

   In the last year of the war Allied air forces conducted a strategic
   firebombing campaign against the Japanese homeland. On August 6, 1945,
   the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and
   on August 9 another was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on
   August 15, 1945.

Aftermath

   About 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the
   war, though estimates vary greatly (refer to the Casualties section).
   Large swaths of Europe and Asia were devastated and took years to
   recover. The war had political and technological consequences that last
   to this day.

Causes

   Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy (left) and Adolf Hitler of Nazi
   Germany.
   Enlarge
   Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy (left) and Adolf Hitler of Nazi
   Germany.

   The immediate Causes of World War II are generally held to be the
   German invasion of Poland, and the Japanese attacks on China, the
   United States, and the British and Dutch colonies. In each of these
   cases, the attacks were the result of a decision made by authoritarian
   ruling elites in Germany and Japan. World War II started after these
   aggressive actions were met with an official declaration of war, armed
   resistance or both.

   The Nazi Party came to power in Germany by democratic means, although
   after acquiring power they eliminated most vestiges of Germany's
   democratic system. The reasons for their popularity included their
   renouncement of the Treaty of Versailles (particularly Article 231,
   known as the "Guilt Clause"), which had placed many restrictions on
   Germany since the end of the World War I, staunch anti-communism, the
   Dolchstosslegende and promises of stability and economic
   reconstruction. They also appealed to a sense of Germanic identity,
   superiority and entitlement, which would play an important role in
   starting the war, as they demanded the integration of lands they
   considered to be rightfully belonging to Germany. Hitler was also
   portrayed by himself, his party, and his book Mein Kampf as an almost
   otherworldly savior for the German people.

   Imperial Japan in the 1930s was largely ruled by a militarist clique of
   Army and Navy leaders, devoted to Japan becoming a world colonial
   power. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937 to bolster its
   meager stock of natural resources and extend its colonial control over
   a wider area. The United States and the United Kingdom reacted by
   making loans to China, providing covert military assistance, pilots and
   fighter aircraft to Kuomintang China and instituting increasingly broad
   embargoes of raw materials and oil against Japan. These embargoes would
   potentially have eventually forced Japan to give up its newly conquered
   possessions in China or find new sources of oil and other materials to
   run their economy. Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from
   China, negotiating some compromise, developing new sources of supply,
   buying what they needed some where else, or going to war to conquer the
   territories that contained oil, bauxite and other resources in the
   Dutch East Indies, Malay and the Philippines. Believing the French,
   Dutch and British governments more than occupied with the war in
   Europe, the Soviets reeling from German attacks and that the United
   States could not be organized for war for years and would seek a
   compromise before waging full scale war, they chose the latter, and
   went ahead with plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific.

   The direct cause of the United States' entry into the war with Japan
   was the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. Germany declared
   war on the United States on December 12, 1941.

Chronology

War breaks out: 1939

European Theatre

   German policy aims and ideologies
   The chief stated aim of the German policy at the time was the
   reacquisition of German territories taken by the Treaty of Versailles,
   and the addition of ethnic German regions of former Austria-Hungary to
   form a Greater Germany.

   Hitler's real agenda was clearly the takeover of neighboring countries.
   In fact, when he annexed Czechoslovakia in the previous year, without
   any conflict due to England's intervention, he complained that he had
   been deprived of the triumphal war which he sought. The invasion of
   Poland was one step in an overall campaign of re-militarization, and
   preparation of the German people for renewed warfare. This was
   indicated by official philosophy as laid out in numerous speeches and
   Nazi Party statements.

   However, German foreign policy professed concern for the rights of
   ethnic Germans living in portions of Poland and Czechoslovakia which
   had been taken from Germany and Austria respectively. During his
   negotiations with Chamberlain, Hitler mentioned their plight as one of
   his key reasons for asserting claims to portions of these countries.

   During one session with UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Hitler's
   aides brought him multiple reports alleging atrocities against ethnic
   Germans in nearby countries, which Hitler invoked in support of
   Germany's claims to its former territory.

   When Hitler annexed parts of Czechoslovakia and Poland, he was welcomed
   enthusiastically by these ethnic Germans. When the war ended, many of
   these communities were forcibly compelled to return to Germany proper.

   Another of the main reasons that German society moved towards war was
   due to the perceived inequities of the Versailles Treaty. (More than
   anything else, this treaty, coupled with the worldwide Great Depression
   of the 1930s, enabled the Nazis to originally ride a wave of mass
   public discontent to power, and to set in place their fascist forms of
   dictatorship and re-militarization.) The Nazis claimed that only they
   could free Germany from international subjugation. Hitler remilitarized
   the Rhineland and the Ruhr, and overturned several territorial
   dispositions which were enacted by the treaty.

   In the hands of the Nazis, this issue was used to rationalize brutal
   persecution of entire ethnic minorities and political groups. This
   effort against previous international settlements enabled a convergence
   of their political programs, war aims, and racist ideologies.
   Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow. Behind him are
   Shaposhnikov, Ribbentrop, and Stalin.
   Enlarge
   Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow. Behind him are
   Shaposhnikov, Ribbentrop, and Stalin.

   Appeasement and pre-war alliances
   The British and French governments followed a policy of appeasement in
   order to avoid a new European war. This was partially due to doubts
   about the willingness of their populations to fight another war so soon
   after the huge death tolls of the first World War. This policy
   culminated in the Munich Agreement in 1938, in which the seemingly
   inevitable outbreak of the war was averted when the United Kingdom and
   France agreed to Germany's annexation and immediate occupation of the
   German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain declared that
   the agreement represented "peace in our time". In March 1939, Germany
   invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, effectively killing appeasement.
   Less than a year after the Munich agreement, the United Kingdom and
   France declared war on Germany.

   The failure of the Munich Agreement showed that deals made with Hitler
   at the negotiating table could not be trusted and that his aspirations
   for power and dominance in Europe went beyond anything that England and
   France would tolerate. Poland and France pledged on May 19, 1939, to
   provide each other with military assistance in the event either was
   attacked. The British had already offered support to Poland in March.
   On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the
   Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Pact included a secret protocol that would
   divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest,
   including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow
   the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military
   occupation. The deal provided for sales of oil and food from the
   Soviets to Germany, thus reducing the danger of a UK blockade such as
   the one that had nearly starved Germany in World War I. Hitler was then
   ready to go to war with Poland and, if necessary, with the United
   Kingdom and France. He claimed there were German grievances relating to
   the issues of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, but he
   planned to conquer all Polish territory and incorporate it into the
   German Reich. The signing of a new alliance between the United Kingdom
   and Poland on August 25 did not significantly alter his plans.

   German and Soviet invasion of Poland

   On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, using the false pretext
   of a faked " Polish attack" on a German border post.

   On September 3, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany,
   followed quickly by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

   The French mobilized slowly and then mounted only a token offensive in
   the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British could not take
   any direct action in support of the Poles in the time available (see
   Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached
   Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.

   On September 17, the Soviet Union, pursuant to its secret agreement
   with Germany, invaded Poland from the east, throwing Polish defences
   into chaos by opening the second front. A day later, both the Polish
   president and commander-in-chief fled to Romania. On October 1, hostile
   forces, after a one-month siege of Warsaw, entered the city. The last
   Polish units surrendered on October 6. Poland, however, never
   officially surrendered to the Germans. Some Polish troops evacuated to
   neighboring countries. In the aftermath of the September Campaign,
   occupied Poland managed to create a powerful resistance movement and
   contributed significant military forces to the Allies for the duration
   of World War II.

   Phony War

   After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of
   1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the
   defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as “the Phony War”
   or the “Sitzkrieg” because so little ground combat took place.

   Battle of the Atlantic

   The U-Boat U-47 returns from sinking HMS Royal Oak, with the battleship
   Scharnhorst in the background
   Enlarge
   The U-Boat U-47 returns from sinking HMS Royal Oak, with the battleship
   Scharnhorst in the background

   Meanwhile in the North Atlantic, German U-boats operated against Allied
   shipping. The submarines made up in skill, luck, and courage what they
   lacked in numbers. One U-boat sank the British carrier HMS Courageous,
   while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in
   its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether, the U-boats sank more
   than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war. The most damaging
   effect of the U-boats was in sinking transatlantic merchant shipping.

   After 1943, Germany had no serious chance of victory at sea. The Allies
   produced ships faster than they were sunk, and lost fewer ships by
   adopting the convoy system. Improved anti-submarine warfare meant that
   the life expectancy of a typical U-boat crew would be measured in
   months. The vastly improved Type 21 U-boat appeared as the war was
   ending, but too late.

   In the South Atlantic, the Admiral Graf Spee sank nine UK Merchant Navy
   vessels. She was then engaged by British cruisers HMS Ajax, HMS Exeter,
   and HMNZS Achilles in the Battle of the River Plate, and forced into
   Montevideo Harbour. Rather than face battle again, Captain Langsdorff
   made for sea and scuttled his battleship just outside the harbour.

Pacific Theatre

   Sino-Japanese War

   The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, when Japan attacked deep
   into China from its foothold in Manchuria. On July 7, 1937, Japan,
   after occupying Manchuria since 1931, launched another attack against
   China near Beiping (now Beijing). The Japanese made initial advances
   but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to
   the Japanese in December 1937, and the capital city Nanjing (Nanking)
   also fell. As a result, the Chinese government moved its seat to
   Chongqing for the remainder of the war. The Japanese forces committed
   brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of
   Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month.

   Second Russo-Japanese War

   On May 8, 1939, 700 Mongol horsemen crossed the Khalka river, which the
   Japanese considered to be the Manchurian border. The Soviet and
   Mongolian governments believed the border was twenty miles to the east.
   Mongol and Manchu forces began to shoot at each other, and within days
   their Soviet and Japanese patrons had sent large military contingents,
   which almost immediately joined in the clash, which led to a full-scale
   war which lasted well into September, and Soviet fear of having to
   fight a two front war was a primary reason for the Molotov-Ribbentrop
   Pact with the Nazis. The Japanese would suffer approximately 18,000
   casualties, the Soviet-Mongolian forces 9,000.

War spreads: 1940

European Theatre

   Soviet-Finnish War and occupation of Baltic Republics

   In a secret Soviet-German agreement, Finland was designated a Soviet
   buffer zone, and the Soviets attacked on November 30, 1939, which
   started the Winter War. Despite outnumbering Finnish troops by 4 to 1,
   the Red Army found the attack embarrassingly difficult, and the Finnish
   defence prevented an all-out invasion. Finally, however, the Soviets
   prevailed and the peace treaty saw Finland cede strategically important
   border areas near Leningrad. The war triggered an international outcry,
   and, on December 14, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of
   Nations. In June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and
   Estonia, sending the local leadership to the Gulag; in addition, it
   annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.

   German invasion of Denmark and Norway

   Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, in Operation
   Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied
   invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back. The
   United Kingdom, whose own invasion was ready to launch, landed in the
   north. By late June, the Allies were defeated and withdrew, Germany
   controlled most of Norway, and the Norwegian Army had surrendered,
   while the royal family escaped to London. Germany used Norway as a base
   for air and naval attacks on Arctic convoys headed to the Soviet Union.

   German invasion of France and the Low Countries

   On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the
   Netherlands, and France, ending the Phony War. The British
   Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern
   Belgium and planned to fight a mobile war in the north, while
   maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further
   south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic
   example in history of Blitzkrieg. The Dutch city of Rotterdam was
   destroyed in a bombing raid.

   In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb (CACA), the Wehrmacht's
   Panzergruppe von Kleist, raced through the Ardennes, a heavily forested
   region which the Allies had thought impenetrable for a modern,
   mechanized army. The Germans broke the French line at Sedan, held by
   reservists rather than first-line troops, then drove west across
   northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two.
   Meanwhile, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly
   following the attack of German Army Group B.

   The BEF and French forces, encircled in the north, were evacuated from
   Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. The operation was one of the biggest
   military evacuations in history, as 338,000 British and French troops
   were transported across the English Channel on warships and civilian
   boats.
   Germans parading in the deserted Champs-Élysées avenue, Paris, June
   1940.
   Enlarge
   Germans parading in the deserted Champs-Élysées avenue, Paris, June
   1940.

   On June 10, Italy joined the war, attacking France in the south. German
   forces then continued the conquest of France with Fall Rot (Case Red).
   France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to
   the direct German occupation of Paris and two-thirds of France, and the
   establishment of a neutral (but pro-German) state headquartered in
   southeastern France known as Vichy France.
   Heinkel He 111 bomber over London on 7 Sep. 1940
   Enlarge
   Heinkel He 111 bomber over London on 7 Sep. 1940
   Afrika Korps tanks advance during the North African campaign.
   Enlarge
   Afrika Korps tanks advance during the North African campaign.

   Battle of Britain

   Germany had begun preparations in summer of 1940 to invade the United
   Kingdom in Operation Sea Lion. Most of the UK Army's heavy weapons and
   supplies had been lost at Dunkirk. The Germans had no hope of
   overpowering the Royal Navy, but they did think they had a chance of
   success, if they could gain air superiority. To do that, they first had
   to deal with the Royal Air Force. The ensuing contest in the late
   Summer of 1940 between the two air forces became known as the Battle of
   Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command
   aerodromes and radar stations. Hitler, angered by retaliatory UK
   bombing raids on Berlin, switched his attentions towards the bombing of
   London, in an operation known as The Blitz. The Luftwaffe was
   eventually beaten back by Hurricanes and Spitfires, while the Royal
   Navy remained in control of the English Channel. Thus, the invasion
   plans were cancelled indefinitely, as Hitler turned to the East.

   Italian invasion of Greece

   Italy invaded Greece on October 28, 1940, from Italian occupied
   Albania. The Greek army forced the Italians to retreat back to Albania.
   By mid-December, the Greeks occupied one-quarter of Albania, tying down
   530,000 Italians. Meanwhile, in fulfillment of Britain's guarantee to
   Greece the Royal Navy struck at the Italian fleet. Torpedo bombers from
   British Aircraft Carriers attacked the Italian fleet in the southern
   port of Taranto. One battleship was sunk and several other ships were
   put temporarily out of action. The success of aerial torpedoes at
   Taranto was noted with interest by Japan's naval chief, Yamoto, who was
   considering ways of "taking out" the U.S. Pacific fleet.

   North Africa

   With the French fleet neutralized, the UK Royal Navy battled the
   Italian fleet for supremacy in the Mediterranean. The British had
   strong bases at Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, Egypt. In Africa,
   Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August. In
   September, the North African Campaign began when Italian forces in
   Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The aim was to capture the Suez
   Canal, a vital link between the United Kingdom and India. UK, Indian,
   and Australian forces counter-attacked in Operation Compass, but this
   offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Australian and New Zealand
   forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack.
   German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin
   Rommel, however, landed in Libya and renewed the assault on Egypt.

Pacific Theatre

   Sino-Japanese War
   By 1940, the war had reached a stalemate with both sides making minimal
   gains. The United States provided heavy financial support for China and
   set up the Flying Tigers air unit to bolster Chinese air forces.

   Southeast Asia
   Japanese forces invaded northern parts of French Indo-China on
   September 22. The move was not unexpected, and followed a demand for
   bases in the region made two months earlier. Japanese relations with
   the west had deteriorated steadily in recent years and United States,
   having renounced the U.S.-Japanese trade treaty of 1911, placed
   embargoes on exports to Japan of war and other materials.

War becomes global: 1941

European Theatre

   Lend-Lease

   After France had fallen in 1940, the United Kingdom was out of money.
   Franklin Roosevelt persuaded the U.S. Congress to pass the Lend-Lease
   act on March 11, 1941, which provided the United Kingdom and 37 other
   countries with US$5 billion dollars in military equipment and other
   supplies, US$3.4 billion of it going to the United Kingdom and the
   Commonwealth.

   Canada operated a similar program that sent $4.7 billion in supplies to
   the United Kingdom.

   German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece

   On April 6, 1941, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces
   invaded Yugoslavia, ending with the surrender of the Yugoslavian army
   on April 17, and the creation of a puppet state in Croatia. Two rival
   resistance movements endured in Yugoslavia for the remainder of the
   war. The Communist group, AVNOJ, led by Tito finally prevailed over the
   Chetniks led by Draža Mihailović. Also on April 6, Germany invaded
   Greece from Bulgaria. The Greek army was outnumbered and collapsed.
   Athens fell on April 27, yet the United Kingdom managed to evacuate
   over 50,000 troops. The stubborn Greek resistance and the attack on
   Yugoslavia, however, delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by
   a critical six weeks.

   German airborne invasion of Crete

   Nazi Germany invaded the island with soldiers from the elite divisions
   of the 7th Flieger Division and 5 Mountain Division. Crete was defended
   by about 11,000 Greek and 28,000 ANZAC troops (see Creforce), who had
   just escaped Greece without their artillery or vehicles. The Germans
   attacked the three main airfields of the island of Maleme, Rethimnon,
   and Heraklion. After one day of fighting, none of the objectives were
   reached and the Germans had suffered appalling casualties. German plans
   were in disarray and Commanding General Kurt Student was contemplating
   suicide. During the next day, through miscommunication and failure of
   Allied commanders to grasp the situation, Maleme airfield in western
   Crete fell to the Germans. The loss of Maleme enabled the Germans to
   fly in heavy reinforcements and overwhelm the Allied forces on the
   island. In light of the heavy casualties suffered by the parachutists,
   however, Adolf Hitler forbade further airborne operations.

   German invasion of the Soviet Union
   German advances during Operation Barbarossa from June to December 1941.
   Enlarge
   German advances during Operation Barbarossa from June to December 1941.

   From the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, 1939,
   through half of 1941, Stalin and the Soviet Union fed and equipped
   Hitler and Germany as Germany invaded Western Europe and attacked the
   United Kingdom by air. Germany then betrayed its Soviet partner.

   On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa began, the largest military
   invasion in history. Three German Army Groups, an Axis force of over
   four million men, advanced rapidly deep into the Soviet Union,
   destroying almost the entire western Red Army in huge battles of
   encirclement. Nevertheless, the Soviets dismantled as much industry as
   possible ahead of the advancing Axis forces, moving it to areas east of
   the Ural Mountains for reassembly, and ultimately resupplying the
   Soviet armies and contributing mightily to the destruction of Germany.
   By late November, the Axis had reached a line at the gates of
   Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov, at the cost of about 23 percent
   casualties. Their advance then ground to a halt as the harsh Russian
   winter set in. The German General Staff had underestimated the size of
   the Soviet army and its ability to draft new troops. German soldiers
   were ill-equipped for harsh weather, and logistics were poor because of
   the distances, the rudimentary rail and road system, and the breakdown
   of men, animals and machinery in extreme cold.
   Soviet Siberian soldiers fighting during the Battle of Moscow.
   Enlarge
   Soviet Siberian soldiers fighting during the Battle of Moscow.

   German forward units had advanced within sight of Moscow's Saint
   Basil's Cathedral, but on December 5, the Soviets counterattacked and
   pushed the Axis back some 150-250 kilometers (100-150 mi), the first
   major German defeat of World War II.

   Meanwhile, on June 25, the Continuation War between Finland and the
   Soviet Union began with Soviet air attacks shortly after the beginning
   of Operation Barbarossa.

   Allied conferences
   The Atlantic Charter was issued as a joint declaration by Franklin
   Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, at Argentia, Newfoundland, on August
   14, 1941.

   In December 1941, after the United States entered the war, Churchill
   and Roosevelt met Stalin at the Arcadia Conference. They agreed that
   defeating Germany had priority over defeating Japan. To relieve German
   pressure on Russia, the US proposed a 1942 cross-channel invasion of
   France, which the British strongly opposed, suggesting instead a small
   invasion of Norway or landings in French North Africa. The Declaration
   by the United Nations was issued.

   North Africa and the Middle East

   In North Africa, Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying
   siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. Two Allied attempts to relieve
   Tobruk were defeated, but a larger offensive at the end of the year (
   Operation Crusader) drove Rommel back after heavy fighting.

   In April-May 1941, there a was short war in Iraq that resulted in a
   renewal of UK occupation. In June, Allied forces invaded Syria and
   Lebanon and captured Damascus on June 17. Later, in August, UK and Red
   Army troops occupied neutral Iran, securing its oil and a southern
   supply line to the Soviet Union.

   Mediterranean

   Good Intelligence accounted for a British victory on March 28 in the
   largest naval battle of the war so far, when Admiral Cunningham's ships
   encountered the main Italian fleet south of Cape Matapan, at the
   southern extremity of the Greek mainland. At the cost of a couple of
   aircraft shot down, the British sank five Italian cruisers and three
   destroyers. The Italian navy was emasculated as a fighting force, and
   the British task of moving troops across the Mediterranean to Greece
   was eased.

   Battle of the Atlantic

   On May 9, the UK destroyer HMS Bulldog captured a German U-Boat and
   recovered a complete, intact Enigma Machine. This was a vital for the
   Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945), and in their
   code-breaking efforts. The machine was taken to Bletchley Park, where
   it was used to help decipher and understand German encryption
   techniques.

   On May 24, the German battleship Bismarck left port, threatening
   British shipping in the Atlantic. After UK battlecruiser HMS Hood was
   sunk in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the Royal Navy engaged in a
   massive hunt across the North Atlantic for Bismarck. The German
   battleship was sunk after a 1,700-mile (2,700 kilometers) chase in
   which the British employed eight battleships and battle cruisers, two
   aircraft carriers, 11 cruisers, 21 destroyers, and six submarines.
   After an extensive chase, Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from
   aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal struck the Bismarck, resulting in only
   minor damage to the ship, but causing her rudder to jam and allowing
   the pursuing Royal Navy squadrons to catch and sink her.

Pacific Theatre

   The American battleships USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee under
   attack at Pearl Harbor
   Enlarge
   The American battleships USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee under
   attack at Pearl Harbour

   Japan and United States enter the War

   Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese
   Navy, 1939-43
   Enlarge
   Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese
   Navy, 1939-43

   In the summer of 1941, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the
   Netherlands began an oil embargo against Japan, threatening its ability
   to fight a major war at sea or in the air. However, Japanese forces
   continued to advance into China. Japan planned an attack on Pearl
   Harbour to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet, then seize oil fields in the
   Dutch East Indies. On December 7, a Japanese carrier fleet launched an
   unexpected air attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. The raid destroyed most
   of the American aircraft on the island and knocked the main American
   battle fleet out of action (six battleships sank, but four of them
   along with two other badly damaged battleships eventually returned to
   service). However, the four American aircraft carriers that had been
   the intended main target of the Japanese attack were off at sea. At
   Pearl Harbour, the main dock, supply, and repair facilities were
   quickly repaired. Furthermore, the base's fuel storage facilities,
   whose destruction could have crippled the Pacific fleet, were
   untouched.

   The attack united American public opinion to demand vengeance against
   Japan. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on
   Japan. On the same day, Japan invaded Malaya, and China officially
   declared war against Japan. Disaster struck the British on the 10th, as
   they lost two major battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.
   Both ships had been attacked by 85 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes
   based in Saigon, and 840 UK sailors perished. Churchill was to say of
   the event, "In all of the war I have never received a more direct
   shock."

   Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, even though
   it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact. Hitler hoped
   that Japan would support Germany by attacking the Soviet Union. Japan
   did not oblige because it had signed a non-aggression treaty with the
   Soviet Union. Instead, Germany's declaration largely removed any
   significant opposition to the United States' joining the fight in the
   Europe Theatre with full commitment.

   Japanese offensive

   Less than 24 hours after the Attack on Pearl Harbour, Japan invaded
   Hong Kong. The Philippines and the British colonies of Malaya, Borneo,
   and Burma soon followed, with Japan's intention of seizing the
   oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. Despite fierce resistance by
   Philippine, Australian, New Zealand, British, Canadian, Indian, and
   American forces, all these territories capitulated to the Japanese in a
   matter of months. The British island fortress of Singapore was captured
   in what Churchill considered one of the most humiliating British
   defeats of all time.

Deadlock: 1942

European Theatre

   Picture taken after the failed Canadian assault on the beach at Dieppe
   Enlarge
   Picture taken after the failed Canadian assault on the beach at Dieppe

   Western and Central Europe

   In May, the architect of the Final Solution, Reinhard Heydrich, was
   assassinated by Czech resistance agents in Operation Anthropoid. Hitler
   ordered severe reprisals against the occupants of the nearby
   Czechoslovakian village of Lidice.

   On August 19, Allied forces, mainly Canadian, launched the Dieppe Raid
   (codenamed Operation Jubilee) on the German-occupied port of Dieppe,
   France. The attack was an Allied disaster, but provided critical
   information utilized later in Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.

   Soviet winter and early spring offensives

   In the north, the Red Army launched the Toropets-Kholm Operation
   January 9 to February 6 1942, trapping a German force near Andreapol.
   The Soviets also surrounded a German garrison in the Demyansk Pocket,
   which held out with air supply for four months ( February 8 until April
   21), and established themselves in front of Kholm, Velizh, and Velikie
   Luki.

   In the south, Soviet forces launched an offensive in May against the
   German Sixth Army, initiating a bloody 17-day battle around Kharkov
   which resulted in the loss of over 200,000 Red Army personnel.

   Axis summer offensive

   On June 28, the Axis began their summer offensive, Operation Blue, a
   planned drive southeast from the Don river to the Volga river toward
   the Caucasus mountains. German Army Group B planned to capture the city
   of Stalingrad, which would secure the German left flank, while Army
   Group A planned to capture the southern oil fields. In the Battle of
   the Caucasus, fought in the late summer and fall of 1942, the Axis
   forces captured the oil fields.

   Stalingrad

   Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad, 1942
   Enlarge
   Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad, 1942

   On August 23, the Germans reached the Volga north of Stalingrad. German
   bombing virtually destroyed the wooden buildings of the city which
   flanked the central strip, containing large modern factories. By
   September 23 the main factory complex was surrounded and the German
   artillery was within range of the quays on the river, across which the
   Soviets evacuated wounded and brought in reinforcements. Ferocious
   street fighting, hand-to-hand conflict of the most savage kind, now
   ensued at Stalingrad. Exhaustion and deprivation gradually sapped men's
   strength. Hitler, who had become obsessed with the battle of
   Stalingrad, refused to countenance a withdrawal. Von Paulus, in
   desperation, launched yet another attack early in November by which
   time the Germans had managed to capture 90% of the city. The Soviets,
   however, had been building up massive forces on the flanks of
   Stalingrad which were by this time severely undermanned as the bulk of
   the German forces had been concentrated in capturing the city. They
   launched Operation Uranus on November 19, with twin attacks that met at
   the city of Kalach four days later and trapped the Sixth Army in
   Stalingrad.

   The Germans requested permission to attempt a break-out, which was
   refused by Hitler, who ordered Sixth Army to remain in Stalingrad where
   he promised they would be supplied by air until rescued. About the same
   time, the Soviets launched Operation Mars in a salient near the
   vicinity of Moscow. Its objective was to tie down Army Group Centre and
   to prevent it from reinforcing Army Group South at Stalingrad.

   In December, Von Manstein hastily put together a German relief force of
   units composed from Army Group South to relieve the trapped Sixth Army.
   Unable to get reinforcements from Army Group Centre, the relief force
   only managed to get within 50 kilometers (30 mi) before they were
   turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, Sixth Army was in
   desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was able to supply only about a
   sixth of the supplies needed.

   Shortly before surrendering to the Red Army on February 2, 1943,
   Friedrich von Paulus was promoted to Fieldmarshall. This was a message
   from Hitler, because no German Fieldmarshall had ever surrendered his
   troops or been taken alive. Only 91,000 German prisoners were taken,
   including 22 generals of which only 5,000 men ever returned to Germany
   after the war. This was to be the greatest, and most costly battle in
   terms of human life, in world history. Around 2 million men were killed
   or wounded on both sides, including civilians, with Axis casualties
   estimated to be approximately 850,000.

   Eastern North Africa

   At the beginning of 1942, the Allied forces in North Africa were
   weakened by detachments to the Far East. Rommel once again attacked and
   recaptured Benghazi. Then, he defeated the Allies at the Battle of
   Gazala, and captured Tobruk along with several thousand prisoners and
   large quantities of supplies. Following up, he drove deep into Egypt.

   The First Battle of El Alamein took place in July 1942. Allied forces
   had retreated to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the
   Suez Canal. The Afrika Korps, however, had outrun its supplies, and the
   defenders stopped its thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred
   between October 23 and November 3. Lieutenant-General Bernard
   Montgomery was in command of Allied forces known as the British Eighth
   Army. The Eighth Army took the offensive and was ultimately triumphant.
   After the German defeat at El Alamein, the Axis forces made a
   successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia.

   Western North Africa

   Operation Torch was launched by the U.S., British and Free French
   forces on November 8, 1942. It aimed to gain control of North Africa
   through simultaneous landings at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers,
   followed a few days later with a landing at Bône, the gateway to
   Tunisia. The local forces of Vichy France put up minimal resistance
   before submitting to the authority of Free French General Henri Giraud.
   In retaliation, Hitler invaded and occupied Vichy France. The German
   and Italian forces in Tunisia were caught in the pincers of Allied
   advances from Algeria in the west and Libya in the east. Rommel's
   tactical victory against inexperienced American forces at the Battle of
   the Kasserine Pass only postponed the eventual surrender of the Axis
   forces in North Africa.

Pacific Theatre

   Central and Southwest Pacific
   U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, August-December 1942
   Enlarge
   U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, August-December 1942

   On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed United States Executive Order
   9066, leading to the internment of thousands of Japanese, Italians,
   German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the
   bombing of Pearl Harbour for the duration of the war.

   In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first U.S. air raid on Tokyo, boosted
   morale in the United States and caused Japan to shift resources to
   homeland defense, but did little physical damage.

   In early May, a Japanese naval invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea,
   was thwarted by Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was
   both the first successful opposition to a Japanese attack and the first
   battle fought between aircraft carriers. The U.S. did however lose the
   major aircraft carrier USS Lexington, giving Japan a tactical victory.

   A month later, on June 5, U.S. carrier-based dive-bombers sank four of
   Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway, a major victory
   for the United States. Historians mark this battle as a turning point
   and the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Cryptography played
   an important part in the battle, as the United States had broken the
   Japanese naval codes and knew the Japanese plan of attack.

   In July, a Japanese overland attack on Port Moresby was led along the
   rugged Kokoda Track. An outnumbered, untrained and ill equipped
   Australian battalion defeated the 5,000-strong Japanese force, the
   first land defeat of Japan in the war and one of the most significant
   victories in Australian military history.

   Between late July and mid September, Australian forces, hampered by the
   terrain and the inefficiencies of High command, fought back two
   concerted Japanese thrusts towards Port Moresby, the Battle of Milne
   Bay and the Kokoda Track.

   The battle for Kokoda was a costly and desperate battle. The Australian
   forces, under the command of AIF officers, held back the Japanese
   forces long enough for the 21st Brigade to reinforce the ravaged
   militia.

   On August 7, U.S. Marines began the Battle of Guadalcanal. For the next
   six months, U.S. forces fought Japanese forces for control of the
   island. Meanwhile, several naval encounters raged in the nearby waters,
   including the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Cape Esperance, Naval
   Battle of Guadalcanal, and Battle of Tassafaronga.

   In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalcanal,
   an amphibious Japanese attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea was met
   by Australian forces in the Battle of Milne Bay.

   Sino-Japanese War

   Japan launched a major offensive in China following the attack on Pearl
   Harbour. The aim of the offensive was to take the strategically
   important city of Changsha, which the Japanese had failed to capture on
   two previous occasions. For the attack, the Japanese massed 120,000
   soldiers under four divisions. The Chinese responded with 300,000 men,
   and soon the Japanese army was encircled and had to retreat.

War turns: 1943

European Theatre

   Soviet and German spring offensives

   Soviet soldiers crossing the River Dneiper under withering German fire.
   Enlarge
   Soviet soldiers crossing the River Dneiper under withering German fire.

   After the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February
   2, 1943, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter. Many
   were concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad. These attacks
   resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take
   advantage of the over extended and weakened condition of the Red Army
   and launch a counter attack to re-capture the city of Kharkov and
   surrounding areas. This was to be the last major strategic German
   victory of World War II.

   German summer offensive

   The rains of spring inhibited campaigning in the Soviet Union, but both
   sides used the interval to build up for the inevitable battle that
   would come in the summer. The start date for the offensive had been
   moved repeatedly as delays in preparation had forced the Germans to
   postpone the attack. By July 4, the Wehrmacht after assembling their
   greatest concentration of firepower during the whole of World War II,
   launched their offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient.
   Their intentions were known by the Soviets, who hastened to defend the
   salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. The Germans
   attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet
   in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet
   divisions. The German offensive in the Northern sector was ground down
   as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses but in the
   Southern Sector there was a danger of a German breakthrough. The
   Soviets then brought up their reserves, and the ensuing Battle of Kursk
   became the largest tank battle of the war, near the city of
   Prokhorovka. The Germans lacking any sizable reserves had exhausted
   their armored forces and could not stop the Soviet counteroffensive
   that threw them back across their starting positions.

   Soviet fall and winter offensives

   The Soviets captured Kharkov following their victory at Kursk and with
   the Autumn rains threatening, Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to
   the Dnieper line in August. As September proceeded into October, the
   Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet
   bridgeheads grew. Important Dnieper towns started to fall, with
   Zaporozhye the first to go, followed by Dnepropetrovsk. Early in
   November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of
   Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital. The 1st Ukrainian Front
   attacked at Korosten on Christmas Eve, and the Soviet advance continued
   along the railway line until the 1939 Soviet-Polish border was reached.

   Allied invasion of Italy

   The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 13, 1943, yielded some
   250,000 prisoners. The North African war proved to be a disaster for
   Italy, and when the Allies invaded Sicily on July 10 in Operation
   Husky, capturing the island in a little over a month, the regime of
   Benito Mussolini collapsed. On July 25, he was removed from office by
   Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy, and arrested with the positive
   consent of the Great Fascist Council. A new government, led by Pietro
   Badoglio, took power and declared ostensibly that Italy would stay in
   the war. Badoglio had already begun secret peace negotiations with the
   Allies.

   The Allies invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. Italy
   surrendered to the Allies on September 8, as had been agreed in
   negotiations. The royal family and Badoglio government escaped to the
   south, leaving the Italian army without orders, while the Germans took
   over the fight, forcing the Allies to a complete halt in the winter of
   1943-44 at the Gustav Line south of Rome.

   In the north, Mussolini, with Nazi support, created what was
   effectively a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic or Republic of
   Salò, named after the new capital of Salò on Lake Garda.

   Mid-1943 brought the fifth and final German Sutjeska offensive against
   the Yugoslav partisans.

   Battle of the Atlantic
   A U-boat under attack by Allied aircraft
   Enlarge
   A U-boat under attack by Allied aircraft

   The turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic took place in early
   1943 as the Allies refined their naval tactics, effectively making use
   of new technology to counter the U-Boats. Although two convoys suffered
   heavy losses, the U-Boats were also taking increasingly heavy
   casualties, and were forced to abandon their main offensive in the
   mid-Atlantic.

   The Allies had also resumed running the Arctic convoys to the Soviet
   Union. In December, the last major sea battle between the Royal Navy
   and the German Navy took place. At the Battle of North Cape, Germany's
   last battlecruiser, the Scharnhorst, was sunk by HMS Duke of York, HMS
   Belfast, and several destroyers.

Pacific Theatre

   Central and Southwest Pacific
   The Battle of Changde, called the Stalingrad of the East. China and
   Japan lost a combined total of 100,000 men in this battle.
   Enlarge
   The Battle of Changde, called the Stalingrad of the East. China and
   Japan lost a combined total of 100,000 men in this battle.

   On January 2, Buna, New Guinea, was captured by the Allies. This event
   ended the threat to Port Moresby. By January 22, 1943, the Allied
   forces had achieved their objective of isolating Japanese forces in
   eastern New Guinea and cutting off their main line of supply.

   American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9.
   Australian and U.S. forces undertook the prolonged campaign to retake
   the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the Dutch
   East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war.
   The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943.

   In November, U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first
   heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theatre. The high
   casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the
   United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such
   a tiny and seemingly unimportant island. This led to the adoption of
   the " Island hopping" strategy, where the Allies bypassed some Japanese
   island strongholds and let them "wither on the vine", cut off from
   supplies and troop reinforcements.

   Sino-Japanese War

   A vigorous, fluctuating battle for Changde in China's Hunan province
   began on November 2, 1943. The Japanese threw over 100,000 men into the
   attack on the city, which changed hands several times in a few days but
   ended up still held by the Chinese. Overall, the Chinese ground forces
   were compelled to fight a war of defense and attrition while they built
   up their armies and awaited an Allied counteroffensive.

   Southeast Asia

   The Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the
   Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese
   occupation of China, but never truly allied against the Japanese.
   Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before
   the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war,
   though less openly.

   The Japanese had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by
   which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists.
   This loss forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift from
   India, known as "flying the Hump". Under the American General Joseph
   Stilwell, Chinese forces in India were retrained and re-equipped, while
   preparations were made to drive the Ledo Road from India to replace the
   Burma Road. This effort was to prove an enormous engineering task.

Beginning of the end: 1944

European Theatre

   Soviet winter and spring offensives
   Soviet advances from August 1943 to December 1944.
   Enlarge
   Soviet advances from August 1943 to December 1944.

   In the northwest, a Soviet offensive in January 1944 had relieved the
   siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the
   Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south.

   In the south, in March, two Soviet formations encircled Generaloberst
   Hans-Valentin Hube's First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The
   Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but
   losing their heavy equipment.

   In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front engaged German
   Seventeenth Army of Army Group South which had been left behind after
   the German retreat from the Ukraine. The battle was a complete victory
   for the Red Army, and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea
   led to over 250,000 German and Romanian casualties.

   During April 1944, a series of attacks by the Red Army near the city of
   Iaşi, Romania, aimed at capturing the strategically important sector.
   The German-Romanian forces successfully defended the sector throughout
   the month of April. The attack at Târgul Frumos was the final attempt
   by the Red Army to achieve its goal of having a springboard into
   Romania for a summer offensive.

   With Soviet forces approaching, German troops occupied Hungary on March
   20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no
   longer be a reliable ally.

   Finland sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but would
   not accept the initial terms offered. On June 9, the Soviet Union began
   the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after
   three months, forced Finland to accept an armistice.

   Italy and the Balkans

   Cassino is destroyed after heavy bombardment
   Enlarge
   Cassino is destroyed after heavy bombardment

   Following Italy's surrender, German troops took over the defense of the
   Italian peninsula and established the Gustav line in the southern
   Apennine Mountains south of Rome. The Allies were unable to break this
   line, and so attempted to bypass it with an amphibious landing at Anzio
   on January 22, 1944. The landing, named Operation Shingle, quickly
   became encircled by the Germans and bogged down, leading Churchill to
   comment, "Instead of hurling a wildcat onto the shore all we got was a
   stranded whale."

   Unable to circumvent the Gustav line, the Allies again attempted to
   break through with frontal assaults. On February 15, the monastery of
   Monte Cassino, founded in 524 by St. Benedict was destroyed by American
   B-17 and B-26 bombers, upon the erroneous belief that the Germans made
   use of it for artillery spotting. Two days after the bombing, crack
   German paratroopers poured into the ruins to defend it. From January 12
   to May 18, it was assaulted four times by Allied troops, for a loss of
   over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.

   After months, the Gustav line was broken and the Allies marched north.
   On June 4, Rome was liberated, and the Allied army reached Florence in
   August. It then was held at the Gothic Line on the Tuscan Apennines
   during the winter.

   Germany withdrew from the Balkans and held Hungary until February 1945.

   Romania turned against Germany in August 1944, threatening German lines
   of retreat from the Ukraine. Bulgaria surrendered in September.

   V Weapons

   In June 1944, the Germans used the world's first cruise missile, the
   V-1 flying bomb, to attack UK targets. Later, they would employ the V-2
   rocket, a liquid-fuelled guided ballistic missile.

   Area bombing raids

   The U.S., UK, and Canadian air forces counterattacked the Luftwaffe and
   began large-scale strategic bombing, eventually targeting major cities
   inside Germany. This effort was orchestrated by Air Chief Marshall
   Harris, who became known as 'Bomber Harris'. Additionally, Winston
   Churchill ordered "terror raids" intended to wipe out whole cities in
   one go, by incendiary devices causing firestorms, thus depriving German
   workers of their homes. Mass raids involving upwards of 500 to 1000
   heavy bombers at a time were undertaken against airfields, industrial
   centers, submarine bases, rail-marshalling yards, oil depots and, in
   the later stages of the war, launching sites for weapons such as the
   V-1 missile ( nicknamed 'doodlebug'), the V-2 rocket and a jet-engined
   plane, the Messerschmitt Me 262. The Luftwaffe was overwhelmed and had
   only a few operational planes left by late 1944 on the Western Front.
   By 1945, all major German cities were burnt-out ruins.

   Soviet summer offensive

   Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and
   6,000 tanks, was launched on June 22, 1944. Its objective was to clear
   German troops from Belarus. The subsequent battle resulted in the
   destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 German
   casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The
   Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
   Ruins of the Bank Polski after the Warsaw Uprising Enlarge
   Ruins of the Bank Polski after the Warsaw Uprising

   Warsaw Uprising

   The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they
   would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the
   wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters
   seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, did not advance any
   further. The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire, as
   German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The
   resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what
   was left of the city.

   Soviet autumn and winter offensives

   Bucharesters greet Romania's new ally, the Red Army, on 31 August 1944.
   Enlarge
   Bucharesters greet Romania's new ally, the Red Army, on 31 August 1944.

   After the destruction of Army Group Centre, the Soviets attacked German
   forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they
   cleared Ukraine of German presence.

   The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe
   Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an
   operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the
   sector. The result of the battle was complete victory for the Red Army,
   and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp.

   In October 1944, General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Sixth
   Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich
   Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. This was to be the
   last German victory in the Eastern front.

   The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army
   Group Centre and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the
   Germans. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of
   contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the
   Courland Pocket in Latvia. From December 29, 1944, to February 13,
   1945, Soviet forces laid siege to Budapest, which was defended by
   German Waffen-SS and Hungarian forces. It was one of the bloodiest
   sieges of the war.

   Allied invasion of Western Europe

   American troops disembark in the surf at Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6 June
   1944.
   Enlarge
   American troops disembark in the surf at Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6 June
   1944.

   On " D-Day" ( June 6, 1944), the western Allies of mainly the United
   States, the United Kingdom, and Canada invaded German-held Normandy.
   German resistance was stubborn, especially on Omaha Beach and in the
   city of Caen. During the first month, the Allies measured progress in
   hundreds of yards and bloody rifle fights in the Bocage. An Allied
   breakout ( Operation Cobra) was effected at St.-Lô.
   American troops march down the Champs Elysées in Paris
   Enlarge
   American troops march down the Champs Elysées in Paris

   During August 1944, the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army were
   almost completely encircled in the Falaise pocket after they mounted a
   counterattack. Some 50,000 were captured, but 100,000 managed to escape
   the pocket. Allied forces stationed in Italy invaded the French Riviera
   on August 15 and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine
   French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and a
   French division under General Jacques Leclerc, pressing forward from
   Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces there and
   liberated the city on August 25.

   Allied autumn offensive

   British paratroopers land during Operation Market Garden
   Enlarge
   British paratroopers land during Operation Market Garden

   Logistical problems plagued the Allies' advance east as the supply
   lines still ran back to the beaches of Normandy. Allied paratroopers
   and armor attempted a war-winning advance through the Netherlands and
   across the Rhine River with Operation Market Garden in September, but
   they were repulsed. A decisive victory by the Canadian First Army in
   the Battle of the Scheldt secured the entrance to the port of Antwerp,
   which freed it to receive supplies by late November 1944. Meanwhile,
   the Americans launched an attack through the Hurtgen Forest in
   September, but the Germans despite having smaller numbers were able to
   use the difficult terrain and find good defensive positions. In
   October, the Americans captured Aachen, the first major German city to
   be occupied.

   German winter offensive

   In December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the
   West, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler sought victory similar
   to the 1940 Ardennes offensive, which he envisioned would drive back
   the Western Allies and force them to agree to a separate peace. At
   first, the Germans scored successes against the unprepared Allied
   forces. The lead group of panzers, Kampfgruppe Peiper led by Jochen
   Peiper, got so far out in front that he created a "bulge" in the
   American lines, hence the name of the battle.

   Poor weather during the initial days of the offensive favored the
   Germans, because Allied aircraft were grounded. Stubborn U.S.
   resistance at St. Vith and by the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at
   Bastogne, an important crossroads, blunted the German advance. The
   arrival of the United States Third Army under General George Patton
   ended the German threat, and further counterattacks trapped many German
   units in the resulting pocket. The remaining Germans were forced to
   retreat back into Germany. It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. military
   history.

Pacific Theatre

   Central and southwest Pacific

   The American advance continued in the southwest Pacific with the
   capture of the Marshall Islands before the end of February. Some 42,000
   U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Marines landed on Kwajalein atoll on
   January 31. Fierce fighting occurred, and the island was taken on
   February 6. U.S. Marines next defeated the Japanese in the Battle of
   Eniwetok.

   The U.S. strategic objective was to gain airbases within bombing range
   of the new B-29s on the Mariana Islands, especially Saipan, Tinian and
   Guam. On June 11, the U.S. Naval fleet bombarded Saipan, defended by
   32,000 Japanese troops; 77,000 Marines landed starting the 15th, and
   the island was secure by July 9. The Japanese committed much of their
   declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but
   suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft. After the battle,
   the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective.
   With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29
   bombers.

   Guam was invaded on July 21 and taken on August 10, but the Japanese
   fought fanatically. Mopping-up operations continued long after the
   Battle of Guam was officially over. The island of Tinian was invaded on
   July 24 and was conquered on August 1. This operation saw the first use
   of napalm in the war.

   General MacArthur's troops liberated the Philippines, landing on the
   island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous
   defense and used the last of their naval forces in a failed attempt to
   destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23
   through October 26, 1944, the largest naval battle in history. This was
   the first battle that employed Japanese kamikaze attacks. The Japanese
   battleship Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built, was
   sunk by 19 American torpedoes and 17 bombs.

   Throughout 1944, U.S. submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese
   merchant shipping and deprived Japan's industry of the raw materials it
   had gone to war to obtain. The main target was oil, and Japan ran
   almost dry by late 1944. In 1944, submarines sank over two million tons
   of cargo, while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one
   million tons.

   Sino-Japanese War

   U.S. Marines attack a Japanese blockhouse on Kwajalein
   Enlarge
   U.S. Marines attack a Japanese blockhouse on Kwajalein

   In April 1944, the Japanese launched Operation Ichigo to secure the
   railway route across Japanese-occupied territories of northeast China,
   Korea, and Southeast Asia, and to destroy U.S. airbases in the area. In
   June 1944, the Japanese deployed 360,000 troops and invaded Changsha
   for the fourth time. This campaign involved more Japanese troops than
   any other in the Sino-Japanese war, and after 47 days of bitter
   fighting, the city was taken. By November, the Japanese had also taken
   the cities of Guilin and Liuzhou, which had served as U.S. airbases for
   bombing raids on Japan. However, the USAAF could still strike Japan
   from newly acquired bases. By December, Japanese forces reached French
   Indochina and achieved the purpose of the operation, but only after
   incurring heavy losses.

   Southeast Asia

   While the Americans steadily built the Ledo Road from India to China,
   in March 1944, the Japanese began their own offensive into India. This
   "march to Delhi" was instigated by local commanders, and the leadership
   of the Japanese auxiliaries, the Indian National Army. The Japanese
   attempted to destroy the main British and Indian forces at Imphal,
   resulting in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war. While the
   encircled allied troops were reinforced and resupplied by transport
   aircraft until fresh troops broke the siege, the Japanese ran out of
   supplies and starved. They eventually retreated losing 85,000 men, one
   of the largest Japanese defeats of the war.

End of war: 1945

European Theatre

   Berlin and Prague offensive on the Eastern Front, 1945.
   Enlarge
   Berlin and Prague offensive on the Eastern Front, 1945.
   Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov, leader of the Red Army
   Enlarge
   Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov, leader of the Red Army

   Soviet winter offensive

   On January 12, the Soviet Army was ready for its next big offensive.
   Konev's armies attacked the Germans in southern Poland and expanded out
   from their Vistula River bridgehead near Sandomierz. On January 14,
   Rokossovsky's armies attacked from the Narew River north of Warsaw.
   They broke the defences covering East Prussia. Zhukov's armies in the
   centre attacked from their bridgeheads near Warsaw. The German front
   was now in shambles.

   On January 17, Zhukov took Warsaw. On January 19, his tanks took Łódź.
   That same day, Konev's forces reached the German pre-war border. At the
   end of the first week of the offensive, the Soviets had penetrated 160
   kilometers (100 mi) deep on a front that was 650 kilometers (400 mi)
   wide. By February 13, the Soviets took Budapest. The Soviet onslaught
   finally halted on the Oder River at the end of January, only 60
   kilometers (40 mi) from Berlin.

   Allied winter offensive
   On January 14th, the XII Corps / 2nd British Army launched Operation
   Blackcock in order to clear the Roer Triangle, a German-held salient
   between the rivers Maas and Roer south of Roermond. By January 27th,
   the German forces were driven east of the Roer.

   Yalta Conference
   Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in
   1945.
   Enlarge
   Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in
   1945.

   Meanwhile, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin made arrangements for
   post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting
   resulted in many important resolutions:
     * An April meeting would be held to form the United Nations;
     * Poland would have free elections;
     * The borders of Poland were to be drastically moved westwards, at
       the expense of Germany.
     * Soviet nationals were to be repatriated;
     * The Soviet Union was to attack Japan within three months of
       Germany's surrender.

   Soviet spring offensive

   Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag
   in Berlin, Germany
   Enlarge
   Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag
   in Berlin, Germany

   The Red Army (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army) began
   its final assault on Berlin on April 16. By April 24, three Soviet army
   groups completed the encirclement of the city. As a final resistance
   effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers and the
   elderly, to fight in the Volkssturm militia against the oncoming Red
   Army. Those marginal forces were augmented by the battered German
   remnants that had fought the Soviets in Seelow Heights. The urban
   fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The
   Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as
   325,000, including civilians. Hitler and his staff moved into the
   Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April
   30, 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.
   U.S. General Omar Bradley led the advance into Germany
   Enlarge
   U.S. General Omar Bradley led the advance into Germany

   Allied spring offensive

   The Allies resumed their advance into Germany in late January. The
   final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine, which was crossed in
   late March 1945, aided by the fortuitous capture of the Ludendorff
   Bridge at Remagen.

   Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast
   towards Hamburg, crossing the river Elbe and moving on towards Denmark
   and the Baltic Sea. The U.S. Ninth Army went south as the northern
   pincer of the Ruhr encirclement, and the U.S. First Army went north as
   the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. These armies were
   commanded by General Omar Bradley who had over 1,300,000 men under his
   control. On April 4, the encirclement was completed, and the German
   Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in
   the Ruhr Pocket. Some 300,000 German soldiers became prisoners of war.
   The First and Ninth U.S. armies then turned east. They halted their
   advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet troops in
   mid-April.

   Italy
   Allied advances in the winter of 1944-45 up the Italian peninsula had
   been slow because of the mountains and troop re-deployments to France.
   By April 9, the British/American 15th Army Group broke through the
   Gothic Line and attacked the Po Valley, gradually enclosing the main
   German forces. Milan was taken by the end of April. The U.S. 5th Army
   continued to move west and linked up with French units. The New Zealand
   Second Division entered Trieste to confront Yugoslav partisans, who
   were intending to make the city part of Yugoslavia.

   A few days before the surrender of German troops in Italy, Italian
   partisans captured Mussolini trying to make his escape to Switzerland.
   He was executed, along with his mistress, Clara Petacci. Their bodies
   were taken to Milan and hung upside down on public display.

   Germany surrenders
   Marshals of the Soviet Union Zhukov (on the white horse) and
   Rokossovsky at the Victory Parade in Red Square on June 24, 1945.
   Enlarge
   Marshals of the Soviet Union Zhukov (on the white horse) and
   Rokossovsky at the Victory Parade in Red Square on June 24, 1945.

   Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government after the
   death of Hitler, but the German war effort quickly disintegrated.
   German forces in Berlin surrendered the city to Soviet troops on May 2,
   1945.

   The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, at General
   Alexander's headquarters, and German forces in northern Germany,
   Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4. The surrender in
   Italy was preceded by the controversial secret Operation Sunrise in
   March 1945, during which the Great Britain and the United States were
   accused by the Soviet Union of trying to reach a separate peace. The
   German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered
   unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Rheims, France.
   The western Allies celebrated " V-E Day" on May 8.

   The Soviet Union celebrated " Victory Day" on May 9. Some remnants of
   German Army Group Centre continued resistance until May 11 or May 12
   (see Prague Offensive).

   Potsdam
   The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of
   Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. During the Potsdam
   Conference, agreements were reached among the Allies on policies for
   occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional
   surrender of Japan.

Pacific Theatre

   Central and Southwest Pacific

   In January, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on Luzon, the main island of the
   Philippines. Manila was recaptured by March. U.S. capture of islands
   such as Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa (April through June) brought
   the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack.
   Amongst dozens of other Japanese cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and
   about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living
   conditions around production centres and the wooden residential
   constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the
   ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in
   Operation Starvation, which seriously disrupted the logistics of the
   island nation.

   The last major offensive in the South West Pacific Area was the Borneo
   campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the
   remaining Japanese forces in Southeast Asia and securing the release of
   Allied prisoners of war.

   Southeast Asia

   In Southeast Asia, during the monsoon from August to November 1944, the
   Japanese were pursued to the Chindwin River in Burma after their failed
   attack on India. With the onset of the dry season in early 1945, while
   the American and Chinese forces finally completed the Ledo Road,
   although too late to have any decisive effect, the British Fourteenth
   Army, consisting of Indian, British, and African units, launched an
   offensive into Central Burma. The Japanese forces were heavily
   defeated, and the Allies pursued them southward, taking Rangoon on May
   2 (see Operation Dracula).

   Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
   The mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear weapon known as Fat Man
   rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) over Nagasaki from the nuclear explosion
   hypocenter.
   Enlarge
   The mushroom cloud resulting from the nuclear weapon known as Fat Man
   rises 18 km (11 mi, 60,000 ft) over Nagasaki from the nuclear explosion
   hypocenter.

   President Harry Truman decided to use the new atomic super-weapon to
   bring the war to a swifter end. The battle for Okinawa had shown that
   an invasion of the Japanese mainland (planned for November) would
   result large numbers of American casualties. The official estimate
   given to the Secretary of War was 1.4 to four million Allied
   casualties, though some historians dispute whether this would have been
   the case. Invasion would have meant the death of millions of Japanese
   soldiers and civilians, who were being trained as militia.

   On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, dropped a
   nuclear weapon dubbed Little Boy on Hiroshima, destroying the city. On
   August 9, a B-29 named Bockscar dropped the second atomic bomb, dubbed
   Fat Man, on the port city of Nagasaki.

   Soviet offensive in the Far East

   On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima,
   the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan,
   attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to
   attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the war in
   Europe. The attack was made by three Soviet army groups. In less than
   two weeks, the Japanese army in Manchuria, consisting of over a million
   men, had been destroyed by the Soviets. The Red Army moved into North
   Korea on August 18. Korea was subsequently divided at the 38th parallel
   into Soviet and U.S. zones.
   Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing,
   to toast to the Chinese victory over Empire of Japan.
   Enlarge
   Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing,
   to toast to the Chinese victory over Empire of Japan.

   Japan surrenders

   The American use of atomic weapons against Japan and the Soviet
   invasion of Manchukuo prompted Hirohito to bypass the existing
   government and intervene to end the war. In his radio address to the
   nation, the Emperor did not mention the entry of the Soviet Union into
   the war, but in his "Rescript to the soldiers and sailors" of August
   17th, ordering them to cease fire and lay down arms, he stressed the
   relationship between Soviet entrance into the war and his decision to
   surrender, omitting any mention of the atomic bombs.

   The Japanese surrendered on August 14, 1945, or V-J day, signing the
   Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2. The Japanese troops in
   China formally surrendered to the Chinese on September 9, 1945.

Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities

   Casualties

   Some 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the
   war, though estimates vary greatly - about 25 million soldiers and 37
   million civilians. This total includes the estimated 12 million lives
   lost in the Holocaust. Of the total deaths in World War II,
   approximately 80% were on the Allied side and 20% on the Axis side.

   Allied forces suffered approximately 17 million military deaths, of
   which about 10 million were Soviet and 4 million Chinese. Axis forces
   suffered about 8 million, of which more than 5 million were German. The
   Soviet Union suffered by far the largest death toll of any nation in
   the war; around 23 million people died in the Soviet Union, including
   more than 12 million civilians. Some modern estimates double the number
   of Chinese casualties originally mentioned.

   The dead and missing among Allied uniformed personnel totaled about
   14.2 million, including about 10 million from the USSR, 3 million from
   China, 400,000 from the British Commonwealth, 400,000 from the U.S.,
   400,000 from Poland, 240,000 from Yugoslavia, and 212,000 from France.
   The Axis military lost about 8.5 million, including 5.5 million from
   Germany, 2.0 million from Japan, 300,000 from Italy, 300,000 from
   Romania, 300,000 from Hungary, and 200,000 from Yugoslavia.

   About 49 million deaths were civilians, who died as a result of
   disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust),
   massacres, and aerial bombing. One estimate is that 12 million
   civilians died in the camps, 1.5 million by bombs, 7 million in Europe
   from other causes, and 7.5 million in China from other causes. Allied
   civilian deaths totaled about 38 million, including the Soviet Union
   (12.5 million), China (7 million), Poland (5.5 million), and Yugoslavia
   (0.8 million). There were about 4-5 million civilian deaths on the Axis
   side, including Germany (2 million), Japan (0.6 Million), Italy
   (500,000), and Romania (500,000). The Holocaust refers to the organized
   state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews, 220,000 Roma people, and
   other ethnic minorities and political opponents carried out by the
   Nazis during the war.

   Genocide

   The Holocaust was the organized murder of an estimated twelve million
   people, including communists, trade unionists, homosexuals and at least
   six million Jews. Originally, the Nazis used killing squads known as
   Einsatzgruppen to conduct massive open-air killings, shooting as many
   as 33,000 people in a single massacre, as in the case of Babi Yar. By
   1942, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the Final Solution, or
   Endlösung, the genocide of all Jews in Europe, and to increase the pace
   of the Holocaust. The Nazis built six extermination camps specifically
   to kill Jews. Millions of Jews who had been confined to massively
   overcrowded ghettos were transported to these "Death-camps", in which
   they were either killed on arrival or put to work until the Nazis could
   find no more use for them, at which point they were disposed of through
   shootings or mass poisoning in gas chambers.

   Chemical and bacteriological weapons

   Despite the international treaties and a resolution adopted by the
   League of Nations on 14 May 1938 condemning the use of toxic gas by
   Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons.
   Because of fears of retaliation, however, those weapons were never used
   against Occidentals but only against other Orientals judged "inferior"
   by the imperial propaganda. According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi
   and Seiya Matsuno, the authorization for the use of chemical weapons
   was given by specific orders (rinsanmei) issued by Hirohito himself.
   For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375
   separate occasions during the invasion of Wuhan, from August to October
   1938.

   The bacteriological weapons were experimented on human beings by many
   units incorporated in the Japanese army, such as the infamous Unit 731,
   integrated by Imperial decree in the Kwantung army in 1936. Those
   weapons were mainly used in China and, according to some Japanese
   veterans, against Mongolians and Russian soldiers in 1939 during the
   Nomonhan incident.

   Slave labor

   According to a joint study of historians featuring Zhifen Ju, Mark
   Peattie, Toru Kubo, and Mitsuyochi Himeta, more than 10 million Chinese
   were mobilized by the Japanese army and enslaved by the Kôa-in for
   slave labor in Manchukuoand north China.<;ref>Zhifen Ju, "Japan's
   atrocities of conscripting and abusing north China draftees after the
   outbreak of the Pacific war", 2002</ref> According to Mitsuyoshi
   Himeta, at least 2.7 million died during the Sankō Sakusen operation
   implemented in Heipei and Shantung by General Yasuji Okamura.

   Concentration camps, labour camps, and internment
   Mistreated, starved prisoners in the Ebensee concentration camp,
   Austria.
   Enlarge
   Mistreated, starved prisoners in the Ebensee concentration camp,
   Austria.

   In addition to the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or labor
   camps, led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as
   Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of
   war (POW) and even Soviet citizens themselves who had been supporters
   of the Nazis. Japanese POW camps also had high death rates; many were
   used as labour camps, and starvation conditions among the mainly U.S.,
   British, Australian and other Commonwealth prisoners were little better
   than many German concentration camps. Sixty percent (1,238,000 ref.
   Krivosheev) of Soviet POWs died during the war. Vadim Erlikman puts it
   at 2.6 million Soviet POWs that died in German Captivity. Richard Overy
   gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POW and out of those 57% died or
   were killed.

   Furthermore, 150,000 Japanese-Americans were interned by the U.S. and
   Canadian governments, as well as nearly 11,000 German and Italian
   residents of the U.S.
   A survivor of German aerial bombardment, Siege of Warsaw.
   Enlarge
   A survivor of German aerial bombardment, Siege of Warsaw.

   War crimes

   From 1945 to 1951, German and Japanese officials and personnel were
   prosecuted for war crimes. Top German officials were tried at the
   Nuremberg Trials, and many Japanese officials at the Tokyo War Crime
   Trial and other war crimes trials in the Asia-Pacific region.

Resistance and collaboration

   Members of the Dutch Eindhoven Resistance with troops of the U.S. 101st
   Airborne in front of the Eindhoven cathedral during Operation Market
   Garden in September 1944.
   Enlarge
   Members of the Dutch Eindhoven Resistance with troops of the U.S. 101st
   Airborne in front of the Eindhoven cathedral during Operation Market
   Garden in September 1944.

   Resistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a
   variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation, and
   propaganda to outright warfare.

   Among the most notable resistance movements were the Polish Home Army,
   the French Maquis, the Yugoslav Partisans, the Greek resistance force,
   and the Italian Resistance in the German-occupied Northern Italy after
   1943. Germany itself also had an anti-Nazi movement. The Communist
   resistance was among the fiercest, since they were already organised
   and militant even before the war and they were ideologically opposed to
   the Nazis.

   Before D-Day, there were some operations performed by the French
   Resistance to help with the forthcoming invasion. Communications lines
   were cut; trains were derailed; roads, water towers, and ammunition
   depots were destroyed; and some German garrisons were attacked.

   There were also resistance movements fighting against the Allied
   invaders. The German resistance petered out within a few years, while
   in the Baltic states resistance operations against the occupation
   continued into the 1960s.

Home fronts

   During the war, women worked in factories throughout much of the West
   and East.
   Enlarge
   During the war, women worked in factories throughout much of the West
   and East.

   " Home front" is the name given to the activities of the civilians of
   the nations at war. All the main countries reorganized their homefronts
   to produce munitions and soldiers, with 40-60% of GDP being devoted to
   the war effort. Women were drafted in the Soviet Union and Britain.
   Shortages were everywhere, and severe food shortages caused
   malnutrition and even starvation, such as in the Netherlands and in
   Leningrad. New workers were recruited, especially housewives, the
   unemployed, students, and retired people. Skilled jobs were
   re-engineered and simplified ("de-skilling") so that unskilled workers
   could handle them. Every major nation imposed censorship on the media
   as well as a propaganda program designed to boost the war effort and
   stifle negative rumors. Every major country imposed a system of
   rationing and price controls. Black markets flourished in areas
   controlled by Germany. Germany brought in millions of prisoners of war,
   slave laborers, and forced workers to staff its munitions factories.
   Many were killed in the bombing raids, the rest became refugees as the
   war ended.

Technologies

   German Enigma machine for encryption.
   Enlarge
   German Enigma machine for encryption.

   Weapons and technology improved rapidly during World War II and played
   a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war. Many major
   technologies were used for the first time, including nuclear weapons,
   radar, proximity fuzes, jet engines, ballistic missiles, and
   data-processing analog devices (primitive computers). Every year, the
   piston engines were improved. Enormous advances were made in aircraft,
   submarine, and tank designs, such that models coming into use at the
   beginning of the war were long obsolete by its end. One entirely new
   kind of ship was the amphibious landing craft.

Industrial production

   Industrial production played a role in the Allied victory. The Allies
   more effectively mobilized their economies and drew from a larger
   economic base. The peak year of munitions production was 1944, with the
   Allies out-producing the Axis by a ratio of 3 to 1. (Germany produced
   19% and Japan 7% of the world's munitions; the U.S. produced 47%,
   Britain and Canada 14%, and the Soviets 11%).

   The Allies used low-cost mass production techniques, using standardized
   models. Japan and Germany continued to rely on expensive hand-crafted
   methods. Japan thus produced hundreds of airplane designs and did not
   reach mass-production efficiency; the new models were only slightly
   better than the original 1940 planes, while the Allies rapidly advanced
   in technology. Germany thus spent heavily on high-tech weaponry,
   including the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket, advanced submarines, jet
   engines, and heavy tanks that proved strategically of minor value. "The
   Allies did not depend on simple numbers for victory but on the quality
   of their technology and the fighting effectiveness of their forces...
   In both Germany and Japan less emphasis was placed upon the non-combat
   areas of war: procurement, logistics, military services," concludes
   historian Richard Overy.

   Delivery of weapons to the battlefront was a matter of logistics. The
   Allies again did a much better job in moving munitions from factories
   to the front lines. A large fraction of the German tanks after June
   1944 never reached the battlefield, and those that did often ran short
   of fuel. Japan in particular was notably inefficient in its logistics
   system.

Medicine

   Many new medical and surgical techniques were employed as well as new
   drugs like sulfa and penicillin, not to mention serious advances in
   biological warfare and nerve gases. The Japanese control of the quinine
   supply forced the Australians to invent new anti-malarial drugs. The
   saline bath was invented to treat burns. More prompt application of
   sulfa drugs saved countless lives. New local anesthetics were
   introduced making possible surgery close to the front lines. The
   Americans discovered that only 20% of wounds were cause by machine-gun
   or rifle bullets (compared to 35% in World War I). Most came from high
   explosive shells and fragments, which besides the direct wound caused
   shock from their blast effects. Most deaths came from shock and blood
   loss, which were countered by a major innovation, blood transfusions.

   The massive research and development demands of the war accelerated the
   growth of the scientific communities in Allied states, while German and
   Japanese laboratories were disbanded; many German engineers and
   scientists continued their weapons research after the war in the United
   States and the Soviet Union.

Aftermath

   German occupation zones in 1946 after territorial annexations in the
   East. The Saarland (in the French zone) is shown with stripes because
   it was removed from Germany by France in 1947 as a protectorate, and
   was not incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany until 1957.
   Historical Eastern Germany, not contained in this map was annexed by
   Poland, and the Soviet Union.
   Enlarge
   German occupation zones in 1946 after territorial annexations in the
   East. The Saarland (in the French zone) is shown with stripes because
   it was removed from Germany by France in 1947 as a protectorate, and
   was not incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany until 1957.
   Historical Eastern Germany, not contained in this map was annexed by
   Poland, and the Soviet Union.

   The war concluded with the surrender and occupation of Germany, Japan
   and Korea and recognition of the territory of Finland occupied by the
   Soviets. It left behind millions of displaced persons, prisoners of
   war, and resulted in many new international boundaries. The economies
   of Europe, China and Japan were largely destroyed as a result of the
   war.

   To minimize the future possibilities of the destruction and death
   caused by war and conflicts, the allied nations, led by the United
   States of America, formed the United Nations in San Francisco,
   California in 1945 with the hope of preventing (or at least minimizing)
   further conflicts.

   The end of the war brought the breakup of global empires of Britain,
   France and Holland and the formation of new nations and alliances
   throughout Asia and Africa. The Philippines were granted their
   independence in 1946 as previously promised by the United States.
   Germany's and Poland's boundaries were re-drawn and Germany was split
   into four zones of occupation in which the three zones under the
   Western Allies was reconstituted as a constitutional Democracy. The
   empire controlled by the Soviet Union increased as they took control
   over most of eastern Europe as well as incorporating parts of Finland
   and Poland into their new boundaries. Europe was informally split into
   Western and Soviet spheres of influence by Soviet distrust of anything
   not under their control, which heightened already existing tensions
   between the two camps and helped form the conflict known as the Cold
   War.

   In Asia, the Imperial Japanese Empire's government was dismantled under
   General Douglas MacArthur and replaced by a constitutional monarchy
   with the emperor as a figurehead. The defeat of Japan led to the
   independence of Korea which was split into two parts by the Russian and
   American forces, marked the continuation of China's civil war and the
   eventual creation of the Communist People's Republic of China (PRC) on
   the mainland (1949) and the Nationalist Chinese (KMT) retreating to
   Taiwan.

   World War II spawned many new technologies such as advanced aircraft,
   radar, jet engines, synthetic rubber and plastics, antibiotics like
   penicillin, helicopters, nuclear energy, rocket technology and
   computers. These technologies were applied to government, commercial,
   industrial, private and civil use.

   Occupation of Axis Powers

   Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation, coordinated by
   the Allied Control Council. The American, British, and French zones
   joined in 1949 as the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Soviet zone
   became the German Democratic Republic. In Germany, economic suppression
   and Denazification took place. Millions of Germans and Poles were
   expelled from their homelands as a result of the territorial
   annexations in Eastern Europe agreed upon at the Yalta and Potsdam
   conferences. In the West, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France, which
   also separated the Saar area from Germany.

   Austria was separated from Germany and divided into four zones of
   occupation, which were reunited in 1955 to become the Republic of
   Austria.

   Japan was occupied by the U.S, aided by Commonwealth troops, until the
   peace treaty took effect in 1952. In accordance with the Yalta
   Conference agreements, the Soviet Union occupied and subsequently
   annexed Sakhalin. Korea was divided between the U.S. and the Soviet
   Union, leading to the creation of two separate governments in 1948.

   Europe in ruins

   At the end of the war, millions of refugees were homeless, the European
   economy had collapsed, and 70% of the European industrial
   infrastructure was destroyed. The Soviet Union had been heavily
   affected, with 30% of its economy destroyed.

   The United Kingdom ended the war economically exhausted by the war
   effort. The wartime coalition government was dissolved; new elections
   were held; and Churchill was defeated in a landslide general election
   by the Labour Party under Clement Attlee.

   In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall devised the "European
   Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan. Effective during
   the years 1948 - 1952, it allocated 13 billion dollars for the
   reconstruction of Western Europe.

   Communist control of Central and Eastern Europe

   At the end of the war, the Soviet Union occupied much of Central and
   Eastern Europe and of the Balkans. In all the USSR-occupied countries,
   with the exception of Austria, the Soviet Union helped Communist
   regimes to power. Furthermore, it annexed the Baltic countries Estonia,
   Latvia, and Lithuania.

   China

   After China's victory against Japan in 1945, the truce between the
   U.S.-backed Kuomintang and the Soviet Union-backed Communists soon
   broke down and the Chinese Civil War resumed. The victorious Communists
   declared the People's Republic of China in 1949. The Kuomintang
   government fled to Taiwan.

   Decolonization

   The areas previously occupied by the colonial powers gained their
   freedom, some peacefully such as the Philippines in 1946, India and
   Pakistan in 1947. Others had to fight bloody wars of liberation before
   gaining freedom, such as against the French attempt to reoccupy Vietnam
   in the First Indochina War, and against the Netherlands' attempt to
   reoccupy the Dutch East Indies.

   United Nations

   Because the League of Nations had failed to actively prevent the war,
   the United Nations was created in 1945. The UN operates within the
   parameters of the United Nations Charter, and the reason for the UN’s
   formation is outlined in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter.
   One of the first actions of the United Nations was the creation of the
   State of Israel, partly in response to the Holocaust.

Names

   The term most used in the United Kingdom and Canada is "Second World
   War", while American publishers use the term "World War II". Thus the
   Oxford University Press uses The Oxford Companion to the Second World
   War in the United Kingdom, and The Oxford Companion to World War II for
   the identical 1995 book in the United States.

   The OED reports the first use of "Second World War" was by novelist
   H.G. Wells in 1930, although it may well have been used earlier. The
   term was immediately used when war was declared; for example, the
   September 3, 1939, issue of the Canadian newspaper, The Calgary Herald.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
