world war II
The Second World War is a Spartacus Educational website and enables one to research individual people and events of the war in detail. The sources are “hypertexted” so that the visitor can research the newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the source. There are several subsections including those on: Background to the War; Nazi Germany, Chronology of the War, Political Leaders, European Diplomacy, Major Offensives, British Military Leaders, USA Military Leaders, German Military Leaders, Japanese Military Leaders, The Armed Forces, The Air War, The Resistance, Scientists & Inventors, War at Sea, Resistance in Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, War Artists, Weapons and New Technology.
Hyper War is a “hypertext” history of the second World War and features
diplomatic and political documents. The content is made up, primarily,
of “public domain” (non-copyright) materials in English: Official
government histories (United States and British Commonwealth/Empire);
Source documents (diplomatic messages, Action Reports, logs, diaries,
etc.); and Primary references (manuals, glossaries, etc). Wherever
possible, hyperlinks between these histories and documents have been
included.
The principal belligerents were the Axis Powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the united States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled by World War I.
The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World War II make it the
bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.
Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of
20th-century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the
Soviet Union’s power to nations of eastern Europe,
enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve power in China, and
marked the decisive shift of power in the world away from the states of
western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union.
Covers various topics of the war such as campaigns and battles,
politics, home front, and the holocaust. Multimedia zone offers
interactive maps, photographs and audio and video clips. WW2 People’s
War is a new website from BBCi History, aspiring to create a new
national archive of personal and family stories from World War Two.
The 20 Most Important Battles of World War II
World War II was the greatest conflict in history, carried out on a
scale almost impossible to grasp. In many ways it was the first modern
war, in which airpower played a vital role both on land and at sea, but
many actions were ultimately won by the determination and grit of the
foot soldier. Here's the whole vast panoramic epic of the Second World
War presented in 20 of its most significant battles.
When Britain and France declared war on Germany following the Nazi
invasion of Poland, many expected that war to be a retread of the
infantry tactics actions of WWI. That line of thinking clearly led to
the French strategy of constructing the heavy concrete fortifications of
the Maginot Line. Those expectations where shattered in May 1940 when
the Germans launched a fast-paced "Blitzkreig" ("lightning war")
spearheaded by Panzer tanks. Lacking heavy artillery, the Germans
attacked French positions at Sedan with massed Stuka dive bombers. The
intense air assault quickly demoralized the defenders and the German
forces easily broke through. France fell soon afterwards.
By late 1940 Britain faced the threat of a German invasion, but the
incursion would succeed only with air superiority. What followed was the
first major campaign fought by opposing air forces. For four months the
German Luftwaffe carried out attacks on British airfields, radar
stations, and aircraft factories, and bombed British cities, too. But
the Stukas proved too vulnerable to being intercepted and the Germans
couldn't mass enough planes to defeat the fighter pilots of the Royal
Air Force in their Hurricanes and Spitfires. Heavy casualties forced the
Luftwaffe to scale down operations. Hitler's invasion plans were put on
hold indefinitely.
Submarine warfare had some impact in the First World War but became
vastly more significant in WWII as the German U-boat packs aimed to
blockade Europe. Merchant ships took to sailing in large convoys,
protected by screens of destroyers and corvettes armed with depth
charges and sonar. Daring U-Boat commanders carried out torpedo attacks
within the defensive screen, and when several submarines attacked at
once, the defenders had little chance of striking back. In the end, the
Battle of the Atlantic was eventually won by technology. Radar to detect
U-Boats from the surface, radio interception, and code-breaking all
played a part. By the end of the war more than 3,000 merchant ships had
been sunk, as well as almost 800 U-Boats.
Hitler's plan to attack Soviet Russia was called Operation Barbarossa,
and it sure looked insane on paper given the Russian numerical
superiority and the ignominious history of enemy forces invading Russia.
Hitler, however, believed the Blitzkrieg was unstoppable, and the
Battle of Brody in western Ukraine would prove him right—for a time.
Seven hundred and fifty German panzers faced four times as many Russian
tanks. But the Russian air force had been annihilated on the ground and
the German Stukas were able to dominate the area. In addition to
destroying tanks, they targeted Russian fuel and ammunition supplies and
disrupted communications. The confused Russian forces were completely
out manoeuvred and their numerical superiority made no difference.
One of the most audacious operations in the German conquest of Europe
was the air assault on the Greek island of Crete, the first action in
which paratroopers were dropped in large numbers. Crete was defended by
British and Greek forces who had some success against the lightly armed
German soldiers jumping out of the sky. However, delays and
communication failures between Allies allowed the Germans to capture the
vital airfield at Maleme and fly in reinforcements. Once the Nazis
gained air superiority, landings by sea followed. The Allies surrendered
after two weeks of fighting.
After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese aimed to invade New Guinea and the
Solomon Islands. U.S. forces, aided by some Australian ships, moved to
intercept them. This produced the first naval battle fought at long
range between aircraft carriers. Dive bombers and torpedo bombers
attacked ships protected by screens of fighters. It was a novel and
confusing form of warfare, with both sides struggling to find the enemy
and unclear about what ships they had seen and engaged. The most serious
loss was the American carrier USS Lexington, scuttled after catching
fire. The fight forced Japan to call off its invasion plans.
Stalin aimed to drive back the invading German armies with an offensive
that included more than a thousand tanks backed by 700 aircraft. But
Germany blunted the attack by air power when it flew more than 900
planes into the area. The Germans then went on the attack and encircled
the Russian forces with several Panzer divisions. Trapped, surrounded,
and with German bombers raining explosives down on them, Russians
soldiers surrendered in large numbers. More than a quarter of a million
Russian soldiers were killed, injured, or captured, 10 times the number
of German casualties.
More than a million German troops were thrown into the attack on Moscow
as Hitler ordered that the city should be razed to the ground rather
than captured. At first the German progress was rapid; by November 15 of
1941 they had fought to within 18 miles of the city. Then they were
slowed by the Russian resistance, and an early winter set in, with
temperatures dropping well zero Fahrenheit. The German supply chain
failed and Russian marshal Zhukov threw his reserve of Siberian
divisions into a counterattack. The Germans were pushed back by more
than 100 miles by January. Russian casualties were heavy, but the German
momentum was broken.
Midway was a catastrophic defeat from which the Imperial Japanese Navy
never fully recovered. Much of the credit goes to the codebreakers who
revealed the Japanese plan to ambush U.S. forces in time for the Allies
to plan a counter-ambush. The Japanese plan to split American forces
also failed. The U.S. then launched a major air assault on the Japanese
carriers. The TBF Avenger torpedo bombers were intercepted by Japanese
Zeroes and decimated, but the SBD Dauntless dive bombers attacking
afterwards got through. They arrived just as the Japanese planes were
refuelling and rearming on deck. Three of four Japanese carriers were
destroyed, tilting the course of the war against Japan.
In contrast to the great sweeping tank battles elsewhere on the Eastern
Front, Stalingrad was protracted and bloody urban warfare fought from
street to street, house to house, and room to room as the Red Army
resisted German attempts to take the city. Russia's defenses were based
on thousands of strongpoints, each manned by an infantry squad, in
apartments, office buildings, and factories, all with strict orders
forbidding retreat. German artillery and airpower virtually demolished
the city but failed to dislodge the defenders. Eventually the German
force was itself surrounded. The total number of casualties may have
been as many as two million including civilians.
Operation Citadel was the final German offensive on the Eastern front,
and Kursk is considered the greatest tank battle of the war. At Kursk,
the Nazis aimed to repeat their earlier successes by surrounding and
destroying Russian forces. Thanks to Allied codebreakers, though, the
Russians got advance warning and built up defensive lines of ditches and
minefields to absorb the German attack. In the air, Stukas armed with
37mm gun pods faced Russian armored Sturmoviks dropping dozens of
anti-tank bombs. As the German offensive stalled, Marshal Zhukov
launched his counterattack and drove the Germans back with heavy losses.
The largest amphibious operation in history involved more than 5,000
ships landing Allied troops on a heavily-defended 50-mile stretch of
Normandy coastline, while thousands more took part in an airborne
assault. A major deception operation fooled the Germans into thinking
that the landings were a feint, and resistance was light at four out of
five landing sites. On the fifth, Omaha Beach, U.S. forces came under
heavy fire and 2,000 died as they fought to break out of the beachhead.
The Germans failed to organize rapidly to meet the threat. Within a week
the Allies had landed more than 300,000 troops in Normandy.
The Allies invaded Italy in 1943 but by 1944 had progressed only as far
as the Gustav Line south of Rome. So the Allies staged a massive
amphibious operation to force the defenders to split their forces or be
surrounded, but quick success depended on a rapid break-out from the
beachhead. Some 36,000 men landed to the enemy's considerable surprise,
but while the Allies consolidated, the Germans surrounded the area with
equivalent forces and dug defensive positions. After heavy fighting and
failed advances, in February the Allies were pushed back almost to the
beachhead. It took more than 100,000 more reinforcements and five months
of fighting to finally break out of Anzio.
The last great carrier battle of WWII, the Battle of the Philippine Sea
happened as U.S. forces advanced across the Pacific. A Japanese force
including five large fleet carriers and four light carriers, plus some
land-based aircraft, fought seven U.S. fleet carriers and eight light
carriers. The U.S. enjoyed not only numerical superiority but also
vastly better aircraft. The new Grumman F6F Hellcats outclassed the old
Japanese Zeroes. This disparity led to the action being nicknamed "the
Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," with about four times as many Japanese
planes downed as American.
After Anzio, the Germans occupied defensive positions known as the
Winter Line, consisting of bunkers, barbed wire, minefields and ditches.
The four successive Allied assaults on these positions became known as
the Battle of Monte Cassino. The fight resembled a WW1 battle, with
artillery bombardments preceding bloody infantry assaults on fixed
positions. Success was bought at the cost of more than 50,000 casualties
on the Allied side. Today, the battle is mainly remembered for the
destruction of the abbey of Monte Cassino (which was sheltering
civilians) by more than a hundred B-17 Flying Fortresses, when the
Allies mistakenly believed the abbey to be a German artillery
observation position.
The largest naval battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf off the
Philippines was another step in the U.S. advance toward the Japanese
home islands. All available Japanese forces were thrown into the area
but the separate units failed to unite, resulting in several actions
scattered over a wide area. All four Japanese light carriers were sunk,
as were three battleships. Leyte Gulf also marked the first use of a
desperate new tactic: The escort carrier USS St. Lo was sunk after a
Japanese kamikaze carrying a bomb deliberately crashed on its deck.
The Battle of Iwo Jima is an iconic event, thanks largely due to Joe
Rosenthal's photograph of the American flag being raised. But military
analysts still argue whether the island's limited strategic value
justified the costly action. Twenty thousand Japanese defenders were dug
in to an elaborate system of bunkers, caves, and tunnels. The attack
was preceded by a massive naval and air bombardment lasting several days
covering the entire island. Although outnumbered five to one and with
no prospect of victory, the Japanese put up strong resistance and
virtually none surrendered. Many positions could be cleared only out by
hand grenades and flamethrowers, including the fearsome M4A3R3 Sherman
"Zippo" flamethrower tanks.
Following the D-Day invasion of June 1944, the Allies broke out of
Normandy and advanced rapidly across France and Belgium. Hitler aimed to
halt them by a surprise Blitzkrieg. Several armored divisions massed in
the Ardennes with the goal of breaking through Allied lines. American
forces held on stubbornly in spite of heavy casualties— more than 19,000
died. The Germans had limited supplies and could only fight for few
days to before fuel and ammunition ran out, so the offensive soon ran
out of steam. Allied lines bulged but did not break, and hundreds of
thousands of reinforcements poured into the area. Afterwards Germany
lacked resources for another offensive and the end was inevitable.
Luzon, the largest of the Philippine islands, fell to Japan in 1942.
General Douglas Macarthur had famously vowed to return to the
Philippines, which he saw as strategically vital, and commanded the
invasion force in 1945. The Allied landings were unopposed, but further
inland there was heavy fighting against scattered enclaves of Japanese
troops. Some of them withdrew to the mountains and continued fighting
long after the end of the war. Japanese suffered extreme losses, with
more than 200,000 killed compared to 10,000 Americans, making it the
bloodiest action involving U.S. forces.
To those in the West, the Battle of Berlin may seem like an
afterthought, the death throes of a war already decided. In fact it was a
massive and extreme bloody action as three quarters of a million German
troops, under the personal command of Hitler, fought a desperate final
defense against the encroaching Red Army. The Russians had the advantage
in tanks, but armored vehicles were vulnerable to new portable
anti-tank rockets that destroyed 2,000 of them. Like Stalingrad, the
Battle of Berlin was an infantry action fought at close quarters;
artillery demolished defensive strongpoints in a city already devastated
by heavy bombing. Casualties were heavy, including thousands of
civilians. On the 30th of April Hitler killed himself rather than
surrender, effectively ending the war in Europe.
The outbreak of war
By the early part of 1939 the German dictator adlof Hitler had become determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbour. Secret negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German - Soviet Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being taken over by the U.S.S.R.
Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which
stupefied Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler
thought that Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or
British intervention and gave orders for the invasion to start on August
26. News of the signing, on August 25, of a formal treaty of mutual
assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to supersede a previous
though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the start of
hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore
the diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally,
at 12:40 pm on August 31, 1939,
Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next
morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 am and at 5:00 pm, respectively. World War II had begun.
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