World War II was a large-scale armed struggle in which several nations from different continents were involved. These countries had different cultural, political, and economic backgrounds, with each one of them having their own geopolitical ambitions, which caused rivalry among them. This war comprised several war fronts and theaters of operations. All these belligerent countries were united into two opposing groups: the Allies (Great Britain, United States, Canada, Soviet Union, France, etc.) on the one side, and the Axis forces (Germany, Japan, Italy, etc.) on the other. It was fought from September 1, 1939, to August 15, 1945.
Cause
The main cause of WW2 was the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which had put an end to WW1. In this biased document, the victorious nations had deprived Germany of about 35% of her territory, also making her pay the whole cost of the Great War as France occupied the Saar region and took a large percentage of the German yearly coal production. This created economic depression, massive unemployment, hyperinflation, and starvation in the defeated nations and a deep resentment in the German population, who dreamed of a great leader that would take them out of the slimy pit of sordidness they found themselves trapped in.
Summary of WW2
1939
The Word War II began on September 1, 1939, when the German Army invaded Poland to liberate the city of Danzig and recover the Polish Corridor, a large piece of territory that had been taken away from her by the Treaty of Versailles. Using Blitzkrieg tactics, the German Polish Campaign was fast, encircling and trapping large numbers of Polish Army's units in pincers movements. On September 15, as the Non-Aggression Pact stipulated, the Soviet Union also invaded Poland from the east. By September 27, Poland had surrendered as the last pockets of resistance had been snuffed out. Thus, Hitler and Stalin established the Bug River as the boundary between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich.
On November 30, 1939, Josef Stalin attacked Finland to obtain Finnish territories, claiming they 'rightly' belonged to the Soviet Union, but in fact the invasion had been stipulated in the Non-Aggression Pact, which made of Finland part of the Soviet sphere of geopolitical influence. Although the Soviet Union defeated the Baltic country and obtained the Karelian Isthmus and the islands in the Gulf of Finland, it was a pyrrhic victory, at a great cost, for the Finnish Army was well-trained and accoutered to fight in the winter, causing large numbers of casualties in the Red Army.
1940
On April 8, 1940, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark to forestall the establishment of Allied military bases in those countries from which the Allies had planned to attack Germany. By mid June, 1940, not only had the Wehrmacht defeated the Norwegian Army, but also a strong British and French expeditionary force had been beaten. Also, the Skagerrak Strait, a passage way from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea, had been secured, which was strategically very important for the German submarines and merchant ships.
On May 10, 1940, the Third Reich attacked France and the Low Countries. The German invasion of France was carried out through two military operations: Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) and Fall Rot (Case Red). Using three Army Groups (A, B, and C), the Wehrmacht invaded France through three different points: the Low Countries (assigned to Army Group B), the Ardennes Forests at Sedan (Army Group A), and the Maginot Line in the south (Army Group C). In the same fashion the German forces had attacked Poland, they carried out the French Campaign, trapping the Allied divisions in pincers movements, with the air support of dive bombers (Junkers Ju 87), which were used as precise flying artillery. On June the 22, France surrendered as the armistice was signed at Campiegne on the same railways car the November 11, 1918's Armistice had been signed.
1941
On June 22, 1941, Germany set in motion Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. For the Russian Campaign, also three Army Groups were fielded: AG North, AG Center, and AG South. Having crossed the Bug River, the German advance was fast, encircling large numbers of Red Army's divisions at the battles of Bialystok, Minsk, and Smolensk, with AGS taking Kiev and AGN approaching Leningrad, which was besieged. Despite the lightning advance of the Wehrmacht, the German offensive ground to a halt at the gates of Moscow as the Russian winter set in.
On December 1, the German forces launched a third attack on Moscow, but it was also stopped by the Soviet defenses. Then, on December 5, the Red Army, reinforced by a Siberian division equipped with T-34 tanks, launched a powerful counteroffensive, forcing the Germans to fall back for about 150 km. By early 1942, the Eastern Front had been stabilized and the military situation there was a stalemate.
On December 7, 1941, a strong Imperial Japanese fleet, composed of several aircraft carriers, battleships and submarines, attacked the American Naval Base of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking an important number of US warships, which included battleships and cruisers. As a result, the Franklin Administration declared war on Japan on December 8. Bound by the Tripartite Pact (defensive agreements), Germany declared war on the United States of America.
1942
On May 4-8, 1942, the US Navy Task Force 17 met the Imperial Japanese Navy's fleet in the Coral Sea, South Pacific. Both fleets lost almost equal number of warships, with one carrier sunk on each side. In early June, the US Navy's fleet would clearly defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy at the battle of Midway, during which the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers. On August 7, 1942, the US Marines landed on Guadalcanal, Tulagi and Florida, initiating the long battle for Guadalcanal and the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific.
On June 28, 1942, the Wehrmacht would be on the offensive again on the Eastern Front, setting in motion Case Blue, a large military operation which had two objectives: 1) to seize the oil fields in the Caucasus (Army Group A); 2) to take Stalingrad to control the Volga navigation traffic (Army Group B). However, Case Blue was a huge waste of military and human resources as AG A's units could not secure the oil fields and AG B's 6th Army was defeated at the Battle of Stalingrad, with the Third Reich losing approximately 800,000 men.
On November 11, 1942, the Afrika Korps, under Rommel, was defeated at the 2nd Battle of El Alamein in North Africa. This defeat put an end to the Italians and German presence in that continent as Benito Mussolini's ambition of establishing an empire was shattered.
1943
On February 2, 1943, Friedrich von Paulus, the commander of the German 6th Army, surrendered to the Red Army, putting an end to the Battle of Stalingrad. In July, 1943, the Third Reich launched a powerful offensive at Kursk to punch and reduce a big salient in the Eastern Front line. However the Germans were defeated at the Battle of Kursk, the biggest tank battle in history, and, from then on, the Wehrmacht would constantly lose territory in the east as the Red Army would be on the offensive.
By 1943, the tide of the war had also changed in the Battle of the Atlantic, as the British Navy had developed sophisticated electronic equipment to detect and tract the German submarines, such as the Type 271 radar and the high-frequency, radio direction finding, called the Huff-Duff. Thus, depth charges were also more precise.
On July 9, 1943, a new front of war was opened when Allied forces landed on Sicily. The British 8th and the US 7th Army successfully carried out Operation Husky, fighting an Axis army of 250,000 Italian and German infantrymen. On September 3, the 15th Army Group, under Sir Harold Alexander, would land on the shores of Southern Italy and initiate the Italian Campaign, which would be long as it would be over at the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945.
On September 20, the US 2nd Marine Division landed on the beaches of Tarawa, an atoll of the Gilbert Islands. It was the second leap in the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific Theater of Operation. Although the Americans defeated the Imperial Japanese 6,000-strong force, it was at a high cost as 7 out 10 marines that landed on the beaches got killed.
1944
On June 6, 1944, the Allied 21st Army Group, under Montgomery, finally landed on the beaches of Normandy as they began Operation Overlord (D-Day). With Omaha Beach being the toughest to secure, it took the British and Americans two months to completely break out the beachheads and be able to advance deeply into French territory, towards Paris. The Battle of Caen and the Falaise Pocket were the most vicious military encounters of the Normandy Campaign.
On June 15, the US Marines and Army divisions landed on Saipan. Thus, the US Navy, US Marines, and US Army started the Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign, which included the invasion of Guam, on July 21; Tinian, on July 24; and Peleliu, on September 15. This amphibious military campaign was carried out successfully as all these Japanese-held islands were liberated and secured.
On June 23, 1944, the Red Army initiated Operation Bagration. It was a massive Soviet counter-offensive that began in Byelorussia, wiping out 28 divisions of the German Army Group Center. The Wehrmacht suffered about 430,000 casualties. By mid August, the Russians had recovered large tracts of Soviet territory, liberating the cities of Smolensk and Minsk.
On December 16, 1944, the Wehrmacht launched a massive counteroffensive in the Ardennes region, which was spearheaded by two Panzer Armies. Although the German advance was fast, most of their armored divisions ran out fuel and once the overcast skies cleared, the American and British ground-attack aircraft were able to fly to regain control of the skies as they destroyed large numbers of German tanks. Thus, the Battle of the Bulge ended on January 25, 1945, with an Allied victory.
1945
On February 19, 1945, the American forces continued their leapfrogging campaign in the Pacific Theater, landing on the beaches of Iwo Jima. The battle for this volcanic island was long and vicious, ending on March 26, with an American victory over the Japanese forces. This allowed the Allies to repair and use the island airfield for the USAF bombers to land and take off on their way to Japan.
On March 23, 1945, the Allied forces crossed the Rhine River as they began Operation Plunder. Having established bridgeheads and built pontoon bridges, the British 2nd Army and the US 9th Army moved deep into German territory, in the direction of Berlin. The US 1st Army had just taken Cologne on the Rhine in early March.
On March 26, the US Marines and US Army divisions began the invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa. The fighting was brutal as it took the American forces almost four months to take and secure the island, on July 2. It was strategically important because it was close to mainland Japan (the Japanese home islands).
On April 16, 1945, the Soviet 2nd and 1st Belorussian Front launched its final offensive in the direction of Berlin, attacking the Wehrmacht defensive positions on the Oder River, which was called the Battle of the Oder. Having breached the German lines, the Soviet forces pushed towards the capital of the Third Reich, which was surrounded on April 24. As the first Russian armored division made their way into its suburbs, the Battle of Berlin began. It was gory and ferociously fought. By May 2, Berlin had fallen in Soviet hands. Germany officially and unconditionally surrendered on May 7, 1945.
On August 6, 1945, a B29 bomber, Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. As Japan did not surrender, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, killing more that 80,000 civilians. Finally, Emperor Hirohito surrendered to the Allies through a speech he delivered by public radio on August 15, 1945.
A German soldiers from a mechanized infantry unit during Operation Barbarossa in 1941
Below, Russian soldiers at right before the Battle of Kursk
