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Smiling soldiers

WWII Timeline

By emmeryraerund

  • Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

  • The U.S. declares war on Japan, entering WWII.

    Japanese troops land in the Philippines, French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), and British Singapore. By April 1942, the Philippines, Indochina, and Singapore are under Japanese occupation.

  • Nazi Germany and Axis partners declare war on the U.S.

  • The British bomb Koln (Cologne)

    This brings the war home to Germany for the first time.

  • The British troops defeat the Germans and Italians in Egypt

    Sending the Axis forces in chaotic retreat across Libya to the eastern border of Tunisia

  • US and British troops land at several points on the beaches of Algeria and Morocco in French North Africa

    The failure of the Vichy French troops to defend against the invasion enables the Allies to move swiftly to the western border of Tunisia, and triggers the German occupation of southern France on November 11th.

  • Soviet troops counterattack

    Breaking through the Hungarian and Romanian lines northwest and southwest of Stalingrad and trapping the German Sixth Army in the city. Forbidden by Hitler to retreat or try to break out of the Soviet ring, the survivors of the Sixth Army surrender on January 30th and February 2nd, 1943.

  • Americans and Australians recapture Buna, New Guinea

  • The Casablanca Conference

  • Irag declares war on the Axis powers

  • USS Silversides

  • United States XIV Corps arrives in Pacific Theater

  • Battle of Rennell Island

  • Friedrich Paulus and his staff surrender to Soviet troops in Stalingrad

  • Rommel retreats farther into Tunisia

  • Essen is bombed

  • U.S. House of Reps. extend the Lend-Lease Plan

  • U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is selected to command the Allied armies in Europe

  • Soviet Union reconquers Kharkov

  • Battle of the Bismarck Sea

  • Battle of Medenine, Tunisia

  • German recapture Kharkov

  • RAF bombs Wuppertal, causing heavy civilian losses

  • American B-17's bomb Naples

  • Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies, ending the North African campaign

  • Japanese forces begin to evacuate Kiska Island in the Aleutians

  • Operation Cartwheel

  • General Wladyslaw dies

  • The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany goes into effect. The nominal military occupation of Germany by the Four Powers--the last vestige of the World War II Allies--ends, and German sovereignty is restored.

  • U.S. drops "Little Boy" on Hiroshima

  • U.S. drops "Fat Man" on Nagasaki

  • The last know Japanese holdout, Private Teruo Nakamura, surrenders to a search patrol