-
Period: to
German Blitzkrieg
Tested by the Germans during the Spanish Civil War in 1938 and against Poland in 1939, the blitzkrieg proved to be a formidable combination of land and air action. Germany’s success with the tactic at the beginning of World War II hinged largely on the fact that it was the only country that had effectively linked its combined forces with radio communications. Shocking enemy forces through the employment of surprise, speed, and superiority in matériel or firepower. -
Period: to
Operation Gomorrah
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid. British attacks on Hamburg continued until November of that year. -
Fall of Paris
In early September 1939, France began the limited Saar Offensive and by mid-October had withdrawn to their start lines. German armies invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France. France and the Low Countries were conquered, ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. -
Pearl Harbor
In July 1939 the U.S. announced the termination of the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan. Beginning in the summer of 1940, the U.S. began to restrict the export to Japan of materials useful in war. Between June 1940 and the fateful crisis of December 1941, the tension constantly mounted. Although Japan continued to negotiate with the United States up to the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, the government of Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki decided on war. -
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany. Held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by the director of the Reich Security Main Office Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish question. The Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to occupied Poland and murdered. -
Period: to
Battle of Stalingrad
The battle was marked by fierce close-quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians in air raids, with the battle being the epitome of urban warfare. The Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle to take place during WWII and is one of the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare, with an estimated 2 million total casualties. -
Period: to
Allied invasion of Italy
On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8. Rome fell in June 1944, at which point a stalemate ensued as British and American forces threw most of their resources into the Normandy invasion. In April 1945, a new major offensive began, and on April 28 Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans and summarily executed. -
D-Day
The Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. 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 the Normandy region. The victory at D-Day broke the Atlantic wall which was thought to be unbreakable. -
Period: to
Battle of the Buldge
Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault also called the Battle of the Ardennes, took place during frigid weather conditions, with some 30 German divisions attacking battle-fatigued American troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest. The Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle’s name. The battle proved to be the costliest ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. -
Liberation of concentration camps
The Red Army approached the camp, and almost 60,000 prisoners were forced to leave on a death march westward. They were forced into Holocaust trains and transported to concentration camps in Germany. The liberation of the camp was not a specific goal of the Red Army and happened as a consequence of their advance westward across Poland. The Red Army had already liberated concentration camps in the Baltic area, and other concentration camps continued to be liberated until the German surrender. -
Period: to
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima was an epic military campaign between U.S. Marines and the Imperial Army of Japan in early 1945. Located 750 miles off the coast of Japan, the island of Iwo Jima had three airfields that could serve as a staging facility for a potential invasion of mainland Japan. American forces invaded the island on February 19, 1945, and the ensuing Battle of Iwo Jima lasted for five weeks. -
Period: to
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa was the last major battle of World War II, and one of the bloodiest. On April 1, Easter Sunday, the Navy’s Fifth Fleet and more than 180,000 U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops descended on the Pacific island of Okinawa for a final push toward Japan. Though it resulted in an Allied victory, kamikaze fighters, rainy weather and fierce fighting on land, sea, and air led to a large death toll on both sides. -
VE Day
The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. -
Period: to
Dropping of the atom bomb
American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion immediately killed an estimated 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. A second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender to World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” -
VJ Day
On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victory over Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.