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Japan, which joined Germany in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, which was directed against the Soviet Union was outraged when Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. However, in September 1940, Japan joined with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact that created the Axis Powers. -
After the Germans conquered Poland, they began a systematic destruction of Polish intellectuals and the ruling classes, and by the end of World War 2 had killed a total of three million Poles (in addition to an equal number of Polish Jews) -
The British and French had given Poland Guarentees of military support in the events of an attack by Germany
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Invading France on May 10, the Germans made an effective use of mechanized forces air power to rapidly defeat the French; German troops entered Paris on June 14
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In the summer of 1940, as a result of an agreement with the pro- Germany Vichy government of France, Japan gained access to raw materials from French Indochina.
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For “Operation Barbarossa” their campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans assembled the largest invasion force in history. -
In November 1937, people in Shanghai watch their city burn following Japanese bombardment. By late December, the city had fallen. -
Japan intended the attack as a preventive action. Its aim was to prevent the United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with its planned military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and those of the United States. -
After a rapid advance across North Africa toward British-held Egypt, a German offensive was halted at el-Alamein during the Summer of 1942. By mid-October, a British counteroffensive began to push the Germans Back. In November, “Operation Torch” an Allied amphibious invasion, landed on the coasts of Morocco and Algiers. By May 1943, all of North America was in Allied Control.
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American naval dive bombers fly in formation over the Midway atoll. -
The Japanese continued their occupation of china until the end of World War 2
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Almost immediately after France fell to the Nazis in 1940, the Allies planned a cross-Channel assault on the German occupying forces, ultimately code-named Operation Overlord -
Intensive attacks using incendiaries were made against the Japanese positions on Iwo Jima, but the defenders were so well dug into the island’s caves that the bombing raids produced little effect. -
In mid- December 1944, a German counteroffensive halted the allied drive toward the German frontier at the Rhine River, resulting in the so-called “Battle of the Bulge”. By mid -January 1945, the Germans had been forced to withdraw, and the Allies continued their advance toward the Rhine, which they crossed in Match
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Austrian SS chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner oversaw the Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe. Captured by a U.S patrol shortly after the German surrender, he was indicted on August 29, 1945 by the international military tribunal at Nuremberg on charges of war crimes. Here Kathlenbrunner is show addressing the court during his trial. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed on October 16, 1946 -
The atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima killed 70,000 people immediately; by the end of 1945 an additional 30,000 had died. -
The combination of the threat of further U.S attacks with atomic weapons, together with the soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan on August 8, caused the Japanese to surrender.