World War 2
World War 2
World War 2
In September 1940, Italy began to invade British-held Egypt. In October, Italy invaded Greece, but that
resulted in only an Italian retreat to Italian-occupied Albania. Again, in early 1941, an Italian army was pushed
from Egypt to Libya in Africa, but Germany soon helped Italy. Under Erwin Rommel's command, by the end of
April 1941, the British were pushed back to Egypt again. Germany also successfully invaded Greece,
Yugoslavia and Crete by May. Despite the victories, Hitler decided to cancel the bombing of Britain after 11
May.
Meanwhile, Japan's progress in China was still not much, although the nationalist and communist Chinese
began fighting each other again. Japan was planning to take over European colonies in Asia while they were
weak, and the Soviet Union could feel a danger from Germany and so a non-aggression pact between the
Soviets and the Japanese was signed in April 1941. Germany kept preparing to attack the Soviet Union by
moving its soldiers close to the Soviet border.
War becomes global
On June 22, 1941, the European Axis countries attacked the Soviet Union. This opened a new
Eastern Front (World War II). During the summer, the Axis quickly captured Ukraine and the
Baltic regions, which caused huge damage to the Soviets. Britain and the Soviet Union formed
a military alliance in July. Although there was great progress in the last two months, when
winter arrived, the tired German army was forced to delay its attack just outside Moscow. That
showed that the Axis had failed its main targets, and the Soviet army was still not weakened.
This marked the end of the blitzkrieg stage of the war.
By December, the Soviet Red Army facing the Axis army had received more soldiers from the
east since it no longer feared the Japanese. The Soviets began a counterattack and pushed
the German army to the west. The Axis lost a lot of soldiers but still had most of the land that
it already controlled.
By November 1941, the British counterattacked the Axis in North Africa and got all the land
back that it had lost. However, the Axis pushed the Allies back again until it was stopped at El
Alamein.
War becomes global
In Asia, German successes encouraged Japan to call for oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies
. Many Western countries reacted to the occupation of French Indochina by banning oil
trading with Japan. Plans to take over European colonies in Asia to create a great defensive
area in the Pacific was made by Japan to give it more resources. However, before any future
invasion, Japan first had to destroy the American Pacific Fleet in the Pacific Ocean. On
December 7, 1941, it attacked Pearl Harbor as well as many harbors in several South East Asian
countries. That event led the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and the Western Allies
to declare war on Japan, but the Soviet Union remained neutral. Most of the Axis nations
reacted by declaring war on the United States.
By April 1942, many southeast Asian countries (Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and
Singapore) had almost fallen to the Japanese. In May 1942, the Philippines fell. The Japanese
Navy had many quick victories, but in June 1942, Japan was defeated at Midway. Japan could no
longer take the land because a large part of its navy was destroyed during the Battle of
Midway.
Allies advance
Japan then began its plan to take over Papua New Guinea again, and the United States
planned to attack the Solomon Islands. The fight at Guadalcanal began in September 1942
and involved many troops and ships from both sides. It ended with a Japanese defeat in early
1943.
On the Eastern Front, the Axis defeated Soviet attacks during summer and began its own
main offensive to southern Russia along Don and Volga Rivers in June 1942 to try to take over
oil fields in Caucasus, which were critical to the Axis for fuelling their war effort, and as well as
a great steppe. Stalingrad (now Volgograd) was in the path of the Axis army, and the Soviets
decided to defend the city. By November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad, but the
Soviets surrounded the Germans in the winter After heavy losses, the German army was
forced to surrender the city in February 1943. Even though the front was pushed back farther
than it was before the summer attacks, the German Army still had become dangerous to an
area around Kursk. Hitler devoted almost two-thirds of his armies to The Battle of Stalingrad,
which was the largest and deadliest battle at the time.
Allies advance
In August 1942, because of the Allied defense at El Alamein, the Axis army failed to take the
town. A new Allied offensive drove the Axis west across Libya a few months later, just after the
Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa forced it to join the Allies. That led to Axis
defeat during the North African Campaign in May 1943.
In the Soviet Union, on July 4, 1943, Germany started an attack around Kursk. Many German
soldiers were lost because of the Soviets' well-created defenses. Hitler cancelled the attack
before it had any clear outcome. The Soviets then started their counterattack, which was one
of the war's turning points. The Soviets, instead of the Germans, then became the attacking
force on the Eastern Front.
On July 9, 1943, affected by the earlier Soviet victories, the Western Allies landed on Sicily, which
resulted in the arrest of Mussolini in the same month. In September 1943, the
Allies invaded mainland Italy, following the Italian armistice with the Allies. Germany then took
control of Italy, disarmed its army, and built many defensive lines to slow the Allied
invasion. German special forces rescued Mussolini and created the German-occupied
puppet state of the Italian Social Republic.
Allies advance
In late 1943, Japan conquered some islands in India and began an invasion of the mainland
of India. The British Indian Army and other forces expelled it in early 1944.
In early 1944, the Soviet army drove off the German army from Leningrad (now Saint
Petersburg) and ended the longest and deadliest siege in history. After that, the Soviets began
a large counterattack. By May, the Soviets had retaken Crimea. With the attacks in Italy from
September 1943, the Allies succeeded in capturing Rome on June 4, 1944, and made the
German forces fall back.
War ends in Europe
On D-Day, on June 6, 1944, the Allies began the invasion of Normandy, France. The codename for
the invasion was Operation Overlord. The successful invasion led to the defeat of the German
forces in France. Paris was freed in August 1944, and the Allies continued eastward while the
German front collapsed. Operation Market Garden was the combined aerial invasion of the
Netherlands and was launched on September 17, 1944. The purpose was to seize a series of
bridges that included a bridge in Arnhem, which spanned the Rhine River. The airborne
invasion was called Market. The ground invasion, named Garden, reached the Rhine but could
not take the bridge.
On June 22, the Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front codenamed Operation Bagration,
destroyed almost all of the German Army Group Centre. Soon, the Germans were forced to
retreat and to defend Ukraine and Poland. The arriving Soviet troops caused uprisings against
the German government in Eastern European countries, but they failed to succeed unless
they were helped by the Soviets. Another Soviet offensive forced Romania and Bulgaria to join
the Allies. Communist Serbian partisans under Josip Broz Tito retook Belgrade with some help
from Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. By early 1945, the Soviets had attacked many German-
occupied countries: Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. The Soviets made Finland
switch to the Allies.
On December 16, 1944, the Germans tried one last time to take the Western Front by
attacking the Allies in Ardennes, Belgium, in a battle known as the Battle of the Bulge. It was the
last major German war attack, and the Germans were unsuccessful in their attack.
War ends in Europe
By March 1945, the Soviets had moved quickly from Vistula River in Poland to East Prussia and
Vienna, and the Western Allies had crossed the Rhine. In Italy, the Allies pushed forward while
the Soviets attacked Berlin. The Western Allies eventually met up with the Soviets at the
Elbe River on April 25, 1945.
Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, two days after Mussolini had been killed. In his will,
Hitler appointed his navy commander, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, to be his successor. Donitz
surrendered to the allies, and opposed Hitler for wanting Germany to continue fighting.
German forces in Italy surrendered on April 29, 1945. Germany surrendered to the Western
Allies on May 7, 1945, known as V-E Day, and was forced to surrender to the Soviets on May 8,
1945. The final battle in Europe ended in Italy, on May 11, 1945.
War ends in Pacific
In the Pacific, American forces arrived in the Philippines in June
1944. By April 1945, American and Philippine forces had cleared
many of the Japanese forces, but fighting continued in some
parts of the Philippines until the end of the war. British and
Chinese forces had advanced in Northern Burma and captured
Rangoon by May 3, 1945. American forces had taken Iwo Jima by
March and Okinawa by June 1945. Many Japanese cities were
destroyed by Allied bombings, and Japanese imports were cut
off by American submarines.
The Allies wanted Japan to surrender without conditions, but
Japan refused to do so. The United States dropped two
atomic bombs over Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki
(August 9, 1945). On August 8, 1945, the Soviets entered the
war against Japan and invaded Manchuria and quickly defeated
the primary Imperial Japanese Army there. On August 15, 1945,
Japan surrendered to the Allies. The surrender documents were
formally signed on board the USS Missouri on September 2,
1945, which ended the war.