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Conscription Introduced
Location: Britain
Outcome: The British armed forces increased in number by more than 1.5 million The Military Training Act of 27 April 1939 responded to Hitler's threat of aggression in Europe. All British men aged 20 and 21 who were fit and able were required to take six months' military training. Even so, when war broke out the British Army could muster only 897,000 men, compared to France's five million. -
Germany and USSR signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact
In April 1939, Russia, Britain and France met to form an alliance to defend Poland - but by August 1939, Russia had swapped sides and made a pact with Germany! Through the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Stalin and Hitler agreed not to go to war with each other and to split Poland between them. -
Evacuation
Location: Britain
Players: British population, mostly children. Approximately three million people were evacuated from towns and cities that were in danger of being bombed, in an operation codenamed Pied Piper. -
Nazis invade Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland with 62 German divisions supported by 1,300 aircraft. Hiter was confident that the Invasion Of Poland would result in a short, victorious war. The Germans suddenly changed their tactics in aim to cause panic. -
Declaration of War on Germany
Location: Britain
Players: Neville Chamberlain (British Prime Minister), Edouard Daladier (French Premier) Britain and France were forced to declare war after Germany ignored their separate ultimatums, delivered on 3 September 1939, demanding the withdrawal of German troops from Poland. -
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Battle of the Atlantic
Location: Atlantic Ocean
Players: The US, British and Canadian navies versus the Axis navies, particularly German U-boats. As a struggle, the Battle of the Atlantic is symbolic of the scale of the global war in which nations had to fight against the enemy on land or sea thousands of miles from home. The successful transportation of troops and materials was as crucial as battle itself. -
Assassination attempt on Hitler fails
Hitler had made an annual ritual on the anniversary of his infamous 1923 coup attempt when just 12 minutes after Hitler had left the hall, along with important Nazi leaders who had accompanied him, a bomb exploded, which had been secreted in a pillar behind the speaker's platform. Seven people were killed and 63 were wounded. -
Ration Books Introduced
Location: Britain
Players: Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food The ration book contained food coupons and was issued to every home. Once a family had a ration book they had to register with a local grocer and butcher to obtain their rations. -
Tobruk in North Africa falls to the British and Australians.
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Nazis invade Denmark and Norway
Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany on April 9th 1940. Hitler had issued the order for the invasion of Norway on March 1st under the code word “Weserübung”.
Control of Norway’s extensive coastline would have been very important in the battle for control of the North Sea and easing the passage of German warships and submarines into the Atlantic. The control of Norway would also aid Germany’s ability to import iron ore from Sweden. -
Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister
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Evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk
At the end of May 1940, at the government's request, thousands of boats set sail to rescue almost a quarter of a million Allied troops who had retreated from Hitler's forces onto the shores of Dunkirk. It was a time when Britain faced the possibility of defeat. -
Germans enter Paris
Paris, 1940. In the midst of World War II, Parisians awaken to German troops taking over their city. France now belonged to Hitler. -
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Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain was the German air force's attempt to gain air superiority over the RAF from July to September 1940. Their ultimate failure was one of the turning points of World War Two and prevented Germany from invading Britain. -
Hitler declares a blockade of the British Isles
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The Blitz
Blitz, the German word for 'lightning', was applied by the British press to the tempest of heavy and frequent bombing raids carried out over Britain in 1940 and 1941. This concentrated direct bombing of industrial targets and civilian centres began on 7 September 1940, with heavy raids on London.
The scale of the attack rapidly escalated. In that month alone, the German Air Force dropped 5,300 tons of high explosives on the capital in just 24 nights. -
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Italy Invades Egypt
At the start of the war, Italian troops in Cyrenaica massively outnumbered British forces in Egypt. The Italians finally moved into Egypt in September 1940, leaving six divisions at Sidi Barrani. Two months later, the British attacked their camps there and intercepted a large column of retreating Italians at Buqbuq. In three days they took nearly 40,000 prisoners. -
Hitler plans Operation Sea Lion (The invasion of Britain).
The whole plan relied on Germany having complete control of the English Channel, which, in turn meant that Germany had to have control of the skies so that the Royal Air Force could not attack German ships crossing the Channel. Hence victory in the Battle of Britain was an integral part of the plan.
Operation Sealion looked simple in theory. Britain should have been an easy target. The Luftwaffe was very experienced in modern warfare, the Wehrmacht had experienced astonishing success since the -
First units of German 'Afrika Korps' arrive in North Africa.
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Battle for Crete
The Greek island of Crete was garrisoned by around 28,000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops, and a similar number of Greek soldiers. Any German attack was expected from the sea and Crete had little air support or even anti-aircraft guns. -
Sinking of the Bismarck by the British Navy
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Operation Battleaxe
While Operation Battleaxe was planned out in detail, the plan was based on a drastic underestimation of enemy capabilities. Rommel's expanding forces now included the 15th Panzer Division, trained and equipped for tank and anti-tank warfare; his Italian contingent had been redeployed to maintain the siege of Tobruk.
The 4th Indian Division rapidly took Fort Capuzzo and beat off a counter-attack, but elsewhere the news was bad. British tanks entering Halfaya Pass ran into a trap: a battery of 88 -
Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise air attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. After just two hours of bombing, more than 2,400 Americans were dead, 21 ships* had either been sunk or damaged, and more than 188 U.S. aircraft destroyed.
The attack at Pearl Harbor so outraged Americans that the U.S. abandoned its policy of isolationism and declared war on Japan the following day -- officially bringing the United States into World War II. -
United States and Britain declare war on Japan
Japan's aggressive attack at Pearl Harbor united Americans in a common desire for military victory. It made Americans willing to do whatever was necessary to win the war. And it pushed America into a kind of world leadership that its people had never known before. Japan's attack had brought America into the war. Japan declared war on both the U. S. and Britain when they launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. -
Declaration of the United Nations signed by 26 Allied nations
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First American forces arrive in Great Britain
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Anglo-Soviet Treaty
The Anglo-Soviet Treaty was preceded by tough negotiations before it was signed by the British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, on 26 May 1942.
Stalin's ambitions for Russian territorial expansion were never far from the surface, but his tactics had to vary as the country's war fortunes fluctuated. Like Germany and Japan, he wished to advance his empire, particularly into the Balkans. -
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First Battle of El Alamein
At 2.30am on 1 July, Rommel launched his attack. The Panzer Armee edged forward for hours, but by mid-afternoon a barrage of British artillery fire cut the Field Marshal off from his headquarters for more than two hours, and the Axis offensive ground to a halt.
Rommel reorganised and tried again the next day, but the British artillery and RAF put up some fierce resistance. -
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Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was fought July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943 during World War II. The Battle of Stalingrad is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in World War Two in Europe. The battle at Stalingrad bled the German army dry in Russia and after this defeat, the Germany Army was in full retreat. One of the ironies of the war, is that the German Sixth Army need not have got entangled in Stanlingrad. -
First all-American air attack in Europe.
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Massive German air raid on Stalingrad
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Second Battle of El Alamein
The bombardment started on the night of 23 October, but crumbling the German defences proved more difficult than expected. There was heavy fighting and the 8th Army slowly ground its way forward.On 25 October, Rommel returned from Germany to take command, after Von Stumme died of a heart attack during battle.On the night of 1 November, Montgomery launched the second phase of his attack, Operation Supercharge, which was designed to break through the last part of the German defences. -
Battle of the Barents Sea between German and British ships
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First bombing raid by Americans on Germany
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Germans surrender at Stalingrad
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Battle of Medenine
After El Alamein, the German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel withdrew to the west with the 8th Army in hot but fruitless pursuit. An attempt to repeat General O'Connor's 1941 tactic during Operation Compass by cutting off the German retreat into the western Libyan province of Tripolitania was unsuccessful.On 13 February Rommel entered Tunisia at the head of the Deutsches Afrika Korps; the following day he launched a two-pronged attack against the 1st Army positions south of Tunis. -
Waffen-SS attacks Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto.
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German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa
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Allies land in Sicily
Just before dawn on 10 July 1943, the British 8th Army and US 7th Army landed at Castellazo, on the south eastern tip of Sicily. It was the first European landfall by British troops since the fall of Crete two years earlier.
The Allies advanced north and west and controlled a quarter of the island within three days. -
Allies bomb Rome
On this day in 1943, the United States bombs railway yards in Rome in an attempt to break the will of the Italian people to resist—as Hitler lectures their leader, Benito Mussolini, on how to prosecute the war further. -
Americans capture Palermo, Sicily
Patton entered Palermo on 22 July. The 8th Army made slower progress, occupying Catania - midway up the east coast - on 5 August.
The difference between the progress of the two armies was due in part to the mountainous eastern terrain: north of Catania, the 8th Army had to skirt Mount Etna. However, the main factor hampering the advance of the 8th Army was the greater concentration of enemy forces in the east. -
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Hamburg Air Offensive
In February 1943 a directive issued by the Allied Chiefs of Staff in Casablanca set out the objectives for both Bomber Command and the USAAF: 'The progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of morale of the German people.'The destruction of Hamburg exemplified Harris's approach. On 24 July, 791 bombers dropped 2,000 tons of bombs on the centre of Hamburg, with the loss of only 12 aircraft. -
Mussolini arrested and the Italian Fascist government falls
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Germans evacuate Sicily
On this day in 1943, German forces begin a six-day evacuation of the Italian island of Sicily, having been beaten back by the Allies, who invaded the island in July.Over six days and seven nights, the Germans led 39,569 soldiers, 47 tanks, 94 heavy guns, 9,605 vehicles, and more than 2,000 tons of ammunition onto the Italian mainland. ( 60,000 Italian soldiers were also evacuated, in order to elude capture by the Allies.) -
Italian surrender to Allies is announced
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Germans rescue Mussolini
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Mussolini re-establishes a Fascist government
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Italy declares war on Germany
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Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet at Teheran
In Teheran, Iran, the first meeting of the 'Big Three.' From Left: Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin; U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt; and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Topics during the four-day conference included: Confirmation of the decision to invade Western Europe in the Spring of 1944; Plans for the invasion of Southern France; and a promise by Stalin to join in the war against Japan when Germany was defeated. -
D-Day landings on the northern coast of France
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. -
V-weapons Attack Britain
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Civil War in Greece
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VE Day
Victory in Europe celebrated by Britain and the western Allies. -
First Atomic Bomb
On the morning of 6 August 1945 an American B-29 bomber, the 'Enola Gay', dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.The bomb was dropped by parachute and exploded 580m (1,900ft) above the ground. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed instantly. The blast destroyed more than ten square kilometres (six square miles) of the city. -
Second Atomic Bomb
On the morning of 9 August, the Americans dropped a second, bigger atomic bomb. The original target was Kokura, but this was obscured by cloud so the bomb was dropped on nearby Nagasaki, an important port. About 40,000 people were killed instantly and a third of the city was destroyed. The final death toll was calculated as at least 50,000. -
VJ Day
The Allies celebrated victory over Japan on 15 August 1945, although the Japanese administration did not officially surrender with a signed document until 2 September. Both dates are known as VJ Day.
