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World War II (1939-1945), was the most extensive and deadly conflict in human History. It involved many countries and was fought at battlefronts across Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The Allies defeated the Axis’ major powers of Germany, Italy, Japan led by Great Britain, Soviet Union, and USA.
World War II emerged partly from World War I’s resolution. The end of World War I saw peace conferences, but the defeated felt unfair treatment. The world’s economic depression of the 1920s that lasted well into the 1930s was a catalyst for totalitarian regimes to be established in Germany and Japan. As democracies struggled to agree upon a common, forceful plan to stop aggression in 1930s, war broke out. The conflict grew when the Soviet Union was added in June 1941 and then the United States in Dec 1941. In September 1945, millions died in war.
THE BUILD-UP TO A WORLDWAR II
On the 18th of September 1931, Japanese Kwantung Army declared that Chinese bandits had attacked the main track on the South Manchurian Railway. Japan then seized Manchuria within one year and established a puppet regime called Manchukuo. Japan invaded Inner Mongolia and Chinese provinces beyond the Great Wall. Militant hostilities escalated into war in July 1937. The conflict became a three-sided one after several years. In the end, China’s Nationalist forces, Chinese Communist Guerrillas and Japan faced off. Japan controlled populated eastern China and Yangzi (Chang) River Valley, while the Communists held Yanan as their base. Nationalists were located at Qongqing, Sichuan Province.
Japanese aggression may have encouraged other dictators and the League of Nations to be disregarded in Manchuria. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor for Germany, was elected in January 1933. He expanded the army, navy, and established a air force. Without any serious protest from France, Great Britain, or Great Britain, he reoccupied the Rhineland. Hitler made Germany and Austria unify in March 1938. After signing a peace agreement, which included France and Great Britain, Hitler received the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. German forces captured Memel, Lithuania in March 1939 and took control over the rest of Czechoslovakia. France and Great Britain approached Soviet Union in the summer 1939 to ensure Poland’s territorial integrity. But the shock of the USSR signing a treaty against Nazi Germany in August shocked the entire world.
War has broken out.
Hitler entered war. The German army launched a three-week-long blitzkrieg against Poland on 1 September 1939. After a winter pause Germany attacked Norway on September 1939, and destroyed the Danish army in three weeks. Germany threatened a moving movement through Low Countries, and then broke through the Ardennes forests, opening its army to attack the enemy. Germany drove several weeks to the English Channel with its panzer force behind it. Only the heroic efforts of British seamen, who raised more than 300,000. British soldiers and Allied soldiers at Dunkirk prevented a total German victory. Germany turned its back on France and forced France’s surrender. Hitler wanted Great Britain to be invaded, Operation Sea Lion revealed. The Luftwaffe took control of Britain’s skies. Germany’s Air Force was built to provide tactical support for the advancing ground forces. It did not have a strategy to invade Great Britain. The air offensive was abandoned by the end of summer 1940. Strangely, the German army did not launch any new offensives between late summer 1940 and spring 1941; perhaps this was a missed opportunity.
Germany’s next turn was east.
Germany invaded Yugoslavia, Greece and conquered them both on 7 April 1941. Hitler sent 3300 tanks, 7,700 artillery and 7,700 mortar pieces to Greece. He also sent 2,500 aircrafts and forces of satellite countries into the Soviet Union for Operation Barbarossa. Germany underestimated its opponent and did not have the right information. It looked like Germany would win the final blow in the early summer. While its Army Group North attacked Leningrad, Army Group Center smashed several encirclements with Soviet troops along the way to Moscow. Army Group South was nearing Kiev. Hitler ordered Army Group Center’s Panzer Forces to turn south and north to support these peripheral drives. Heinz Guderian and his tank forces, which were heading south, assisted in the capture of 665,000 Soviet soldiers close to Kiev. It was the biggest prisoner-ofwar captivity in history. The Soviet Union was prepared when Germany attempted to retake Moscow. Operation Typhoon ended in the Kremlin’s sight. The Soviets counterattacked and caught the German army totally unprepared. The Soviet attack on Germany in winter ended with Germany suffering severe losses. It seemed that the Soviet Union would survive.
WORLDWAR II IN PACIFIC
The Japanese defeat by Soviets at Battle of Nomonhan in Mongolia (Khalkin Gol), August 1939 led Japan to turn south for its raw materials. Japanese military leaders agreed on a centrifugal assault centered on the destruction of U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan attacked 7 December 1941. It then gained a series striking victories.
The “victory disease” that struck the Japanese leaders led them to keep going on their offensive. They sought to attack India and isolate Australia. In the end, the Japanese navy was fatally weakened by the fl awed Japanese attack on Midway in June 1942.
SOVIET UNION FIGHTS BACK
Hitler went back to the eastern front offensive in summer 1942. But Hitler was limited to attacking the south. He wanted to take out Stalingrad, and the Soviet oil facilities at the Caspian shore. The German logistical capabilities were overwhelmed by the distances, so General Friedrich Paulus decided to send the German Sixth Army into battle for Stalingrad. The Soviet Sixty-second army, under General Vasili Chugikov, engaged in a desperate, valiant defense, including house-to-house resistance and floor-tofloor resistance.
General Georgi (later Marshal), Georgi Zoukov, planned a counterattack. He placed huge Soviet forces along the German positions at Stalingrad’s flanks. The Soviets attacked on 12 November. A few days later, the spearheads met at Kalach, cutting off the Germans. After this victory, the Soviets launched an offensive to drive the Germans from Caucasia.
Hitler had plans for a double envelopment in order to destroy Soviet positions, which he did after the spring freeze stopped operations. Hitler delayed Operation Citadel several times while he waited for new heavy German tanks. This delay allowed Zhukov time to prepare for the German advance. On 5th July 1943, the most famous tank battle began. Hitler’s attempt to make a pincer move from the North quickly failed. However, Zhukov managed to plan for the expected German advance. Hitler was forced to suspend offensive operations by the Allies in Sicily. The Soviets took over the initiative, and the eastern Ukraine was freed from German forces by the beginning of fall 1943. From there, they advanced into winter 1943 into Ukraine and created a massive bulge on the German Army Group Center’s south flank.
The Soviet Union clearly won the Eastern Front due to its superior space and force ratios. German tactical superiority may have been able to overcome Soviet logistical superiority had Germany not attacked Kursk. Hitler lost valuable panzers, artillery and other equipment at Kursk. The Soviets stopped operations when they ran out of supplies.
Operation Bagration was launched on 20 June 1944 by Soviets
The Soviet military surprised the German commanders by fooling them into believing the attack would go south. The Soviets attacked German positions and advanced past them before the infantry could retreat or react. The advance spanned from Russia in pre-1939 to Warsaw, Poland in August. Soviet forces then outran their supply routes and halted.
IN AIR & SEA
The Axis forces retreated on other fronts while they waited. The United States and Great Britain launched an aggressive strategic bombing campaign in response to Soviet demands for a new front. The U.S. Eighth Air Force’s bombing at daylight caused heavy losses and the Royal Air Force’s nighttime bombardment did little damage to German industry targets. Hitler wanted to keep home front support so gradually he pulled out fighter squadrons from France and Italy. The Allies won the war after mid-1943, when long-range American fighter aircrafts appeared.
The Battle of the Atlantic was won by the United States in a similar manner. At first, the German U-boats had great success against America’s East Coast. They also enjoyed success in South Atlantic and Caribbean waters. Soon, the United States built more cargo ships that the Germans could sink. They also constructed escort plane carriers that only carried twenty aircraft. The U.S. Tenth Fleet was a group of these carriers and support vessels that harassed German submarines. They denied them open areas for operation and surface to charge their batteries. More than 80 percent were destroyed by the Allies.
THE CENTRAL WAR
The Western Allies finally began to challenge the German army. Operation Torch began in November 1942. It was a complement to the British Eighth Army’s attack against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps positions, near El Alamein, in the Western Desert Egypt. They overthrew the Axis forces in Africa at the beginning of May 1943. Operation Husky, their invasion of Sicily was launched on July 10. They crossed into Italy six weeks later. In September, most Italian army regiments collapsed after the surrender of Italy’s government. The Germans under Field Marshall Albert Kesselring protected well. However, progress up to the Italian peninsula wasn’t quick and costly. This was due to the fact that German commanders couldn’t rely on reinforcements from any other theaters. Operation Overlord was launched in 1944 by the Allies and commanded U.S. army chief Dwight Eisenhower. Three airborne divisions were able to land during the night. Five infantry units attacked five beaches in Gold, Sword and Juno. The Allies were able to bring men and equipment to the beachhead, despite the difficulties of Normandy’s hedgerows. Operation Cobra, a U.S. army operation, was launched late July 1944. American forces moved from the Cotentin Peninsula down to Avranches. After destroying the German defense, General George Patton’s U.S. Third Army became operational. The U.S. Third Army quickly expanded westward into Brittany and towards the Seine. German troops were attacked near Falaise. Operation Dragoon was an invasion of southern France that sent American and Free French troops to the Rhone River Valley in order to meet Patton’s forces close by Dijon. It ended German forces from France.
The United States won the war against Japan, taking the initiative after Midway. It was first the desperate fighting at Guadalcanal in August 1942 and February 1943. Then, the U.S. advanced with two axes. Admiral Chester Nimitz commanded the navy’s advance on Tarawa and Gilbert Islands in November 1943. Next, the Marshall Islands and Kwajalein were visited in February 1944. In June 1944, the Marianas were invaded by Tinian, Guam, Saipan and Tinian. Army general Douglas MacArthur led an army force that moved up Solomon Islands chain to overtake Japanese strongpoints on New Guinea’s coast. It also isolated the 100,000-strong Japanese Army in Rabaul, New Britain. MacArthur invaded Philippines in October 1944. However, fighting would continue until the end of war. The Central Pacific offensive also moved to Okinawa in Ryukyus, April 1945 and Iwo Jima on the Bonin Islands.
An Anglo Indian offensive drove the Japanese through Burma. But, due to the difficulty terrain, progress was slow. While the Japanese fell, Chinese government forces occupied many of the divisions. They also remained strong for the likely return to civil war with Communists.
VICTORY in EUROPE
Fall 1944 saw Germany under increasing pressure. While the German strategic bombing campaign resulted in many casualties and Albert Speer was able to produce a miracle of war goods production, it continued. The Red Army stood still in the middle, and moved into the Balkans to trap the Germans. The Soviets were near Budapest, Hungary and the 1939 German-Polish frontier by December 1944. They were waiting to resume their offensive. Eisenhower in the west ordered an end to winter operations due to shortages. Hitler took a desperate gamble and launched an attack against the Ardennes-based American forces. The aim was to drive towards Antwerp and cut off the British to force the Americans surrender. The German attack was not fuel-efficient. However, the Americans defended vigorously around Bastogne and when the skies cleared, Allied airpower pounded German formations. The Soviets launched winter offensive. Allies drove to Rhine. Zhukov was leading the Red Army’s assault on Berlin. Zhukov led Soviet forces and Marshal Ivan Koniev led Soviet forces. Zhukov won the race to Berlin at great cost. Late April saw elements from the U.S., Red and French armies meet at Torgau on Elbe. Germany was then split. Hitler committed suicide inside his underground bunker. German commanders surrendered at Rheims, France on 7 May 1945.
Japan officially ended the war by surrendering.
The Japanese refused to give up, and American experts foresaw a devastating attack on Japan’s home islands. Alamagordo New Mexico in July 1945 saw the initial atomic explosion. A few weeks later, however the United States dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, forcing Japan to surrender at Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. The end of World War II.
THE FOLLOW-UP OF WORLDWAR II
Many of the significant consequences of World War II’s end were intended to prevent similar conflicts in future. The Nuremberg Trials were a venue for the prosecution of war crimes committed against the Axis forces, including the Holocaust. With the express purpose of maintaining international security and peace, the United Nations was created. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees all human rights, was adopted. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were given greater control over the international financial and economy architecture. Israel became a state. While former colonies won independence, others states like Germany or Korea were divided politically and ideologically. Due to their contributions to war efforts, women found new and more important roles in society. Innovations, war-time technologies and management systems were put into good use in peacetime. Few things are more important than a jet engine and a now ubiquitous computer. Importantly, the Marshall Plan helped Europe (including Germany) to recover from its mistakes during World War II. Japan was also rebuilt and would soon become a major economic power.
