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Japanese invasion of China (1937)
In 1937 skirmishing between Japanese and Chinese troops on the frontier led to what became known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. This fighting sparked a full-blown conflict, the Second Sino-Japanese War. Under the terms of the Sian Agreement, the Chinese Nationalists (KMT) and the CCP now agreed to fight side by side against Japan. The Communists had been encouraged to negotiate with the KMT by Stalin, who saw Japan as an increasing threat on his Far Eastern border. -
Germany's invasion of Poland (1939)
Britain and France essentially acquiesced to Germany's rearmament (1935-1937), remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936), and annexation of Austria (March 1938). In September 1938, after signing away the Czech border regions, known as the Sudetenland, to Germany at the Munich conference, British and French leaders pressured France's ally, Czechoslovakia, to yield to Germany's demand for the incorporation of those regions. Despite Anglo-French guarantees of the integrity of rump Czechoslovakia, th -
German Blitzkrieg (1939-1940)
Blitzkrieg first appeared in the form of elite infantry units known as “Sturmtruppen”, or Storm Troops, designed to rapidly overrun enemy positions using momentum and speed. Later, Blitzkrieg evolved into modern mobile warfare. Heavily armored tanks supported by infantry, motorized infantry, artillery and air power, would rapidly drive through enemy lines to capture strategic enemy positions or to encircle the enemy. Blitzkrieg accounted for most of Germany’s military victories from 1939 to 1942 -
Operation Barbarossa (1941)
On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler launched his armies eastward in a massive invasion of the Soviet Union: three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. The invasion covered a front from the North Cape to the Black Sea, a distance of two thousand miles. By this point German combat effectiveness had reached its apogee; in training, doctrine, and fighting ability, the forces invading Russia re -
Pearl Harbor (1941)
just before 8 a.m. on December 7, 1941, hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked -
wannsee confernce
In July 1941, Herman Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” -
Operation Gomorrah (1943)
The final attack of Operation Gomorrah, the co-ordinated bombing of Hamburg, took place on the night of 2nd August. The bomber force hit a thunderstorm as it approached the target area, Pathfinder marking could not take place and the the eventual bombing was widely dispersed. Yet a final attack was hardly needed after the firestorm of the night 27th-28th. Hamburg had been devastated in a shocking blow. The message had been delivered. - See more at: http://ww2today.com/4th-august-1943-the-horror- -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion - 1944)
During World War II (1939-1945), 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 France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in hi -
Battle of the Bulge (1945)
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Operation Thunderclap
Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur T. Harris was a chunky, forceful and energetic man of fifty-three who had enlisted at the outbreak of World War I as a bugler in the Rhodesian Infantry....Now he headed Bomber Command, and that night the men were scheduled to launch an attack on Dresden; this was to be the first in a series of large bombing raids on the principal cities of eastern Germany, designed to deliver the final blows to German morale. Operation "Thunderclap," the code name for all the raids, -
Battle of Iwo Jima (1945)
Battle of Iwo Jima. The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces landed and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. -
Battle of Okinawa (1945)
The conflict with the Axis Powers confronted the United States Army with problems on a scale never faced before-problems as great in administration, training, supply, and logistics as in strategy and tactics. THE UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II sets forth in detail the nature of the problems faced, the methods used to solve them, and the mistakes made as well as the success achieved. The object is to provide a work of reference for military and civilian students as well as a record of achieve -
VE Day (1945)
On this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs (1945)
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. -
VJ Day (1945)
After Germany’s defeat in May 1945, the United States embarked upon a huge logistical effort to redeploy to the Pacific more than a million troops from Europe, the United States, and other inactive theaters. The aim was to complete the redeployment in time to launch an invasion of Japan on 1 November.
