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The Battle of The Atlantic
As an island Britain needed to bring in a vast amount of food and military equipment to survive the war.A great deal of our raw materials came from America and therefore had to cross the Atlantic. In normal times this journey could be hazardous because of the weather but in the war the German submarines lead by Admiral Raeder provided a threat. They estimated they needed to sink 150 ships per moth to starve the British. Britain survived because torpedoes can't be used in bad weather. -
The Invasion of Poland
The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Polish garrison of the Westerplatte Fort, Danzig (modern-day Gdansk), in what was to become the first military engagement of World War Two. Simultaneously, 62 German divisions supported by 1,300 aircraft commenced the invasion of Poland. -
The Planning of Dunkirk
In planning, it was hoped that 45,000 men could be rescued over two days, as it was expected that German interference would force the end of the operation after forty-eight hours. The fleet arrived at Dunkirk. Due to time and space concerns, all heavy equipment had to be abandoned. While many were able to board ships directly from the harbor's mole, others were forced to wade out to waiting boats. Commencing on May 27, Operation Dynamo rescued 7,669 on the first day and 17,804 on the second. -
The Battle of Britain
Hitler ordered his forces to invade Britain. As a prelude to the cross-Channel invasion, the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) was to overpower Britain's air defenses. In the ensuing Air War between the German and Allied Air Forces, which lasted through the end of October 1940 and resulted in the defeat of the Luftwaffe, 1 in 8 of allied pilots was Polish, and the highest scoring squadron within the whole of Allied air forces was the Polish Air Force 303 (Kosciuszko) Squadron which -
The War in Africa
At the same time that war was going on in the European and Pacific theaters, conflict also escalated in North Africa, primarily as a result of Italy’s aggression in the region in 1940 and 1941. One of the primary flash points in North Africa was the key port of Tobruk, Libya, which changed hands between the Germans and the British several times and was the site of several major battles. Originally in Italy’s sphere of influence, Tobruk fell to the British on January 12, 1941, building upon the -
Operation Barbarossa
Germany began an invasion of the Soviet Union named Operation Barbarossa 4.5 million troops launched a surprise attack deployed from German-controlled Poland, Finland, and Romania. Although Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939, both sides remained suspicious of one another, and the agreement gave them time to prepare for a war.The Soviets were unprepared for the sudden attacks across a border that spanned nearly 2,900 km. Hitlers plan failed because winter came. -
Pearl Harbour
Japanese airplanes made a suprise attack on the US navy in Pearl Harbour.The attack on Pearl Harbor came as a complete surprise. Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes and bombers flew to Pearl Harbor and attacked. The bombers dropped bombs and torpedoes on the war ships, while the fighter planes attacked the US fighter planes on the ground so they could not take off and fight back. This event caused the U.S.A to join the war. -
D-Day
On 6 June 1944, just after midnight, the Allied assault upon Hitler’s ‘Fortress Europe’ began. The operation caught the German military high command unaware. Low tides and bad weather – combined with Allied deception plans – had convinced the Germans that an attack was unlikely at that time. As more than 1,000 British bombers began to pummel Normandy’s coastal defences, Rommel, commanding German defences in France, was in Germany celebrating his wife’s birthday. -
The Atomic Bomb
At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. The dropping of the bombs, which occurred by executive order of US President Harry Truman, remains the only nuclear attack in history. In the months following the attack, roughly 100,000 more people died slow, horrendous deaths as a result of radiation
