World War II

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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was the largest and deadliest war in history. Generally regarded as taking place between 1939 and 1945, with roots in earlier conflicts, it culminated in the dropping of the atomic bomb.

The Allied Powers, led by the British Empire and Commonwealth, the Soviet Union, and the United States, defeated the Axis Powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

The war was fought in response to the military aggression of Nazi Germany under the fascist dictator Adolf Hitler, and the imperial ambitions of Japan in Asia.

The majority of the fighting took place in and around Europe, where Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe and later the Soviet Union; and also in the Pacific where Japan invaded many countries around the Northern and Western Pacific.

It is believed that approximately 62 million people, or 2.5% of the world population, died in the war; estimates vary greatly. About 60% of all casualties were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust), massacres, and aerial bombing.

After World War II, Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.

In Asia, the defeat of Japan led to its democratization. China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The former colonies of the European powers began their road to independence.

Contents

Causes

Benito Mussolini (left) and Adolf Hitler.

Main articles: Causes of World War II, Events preceding World War II in Europe and Events preceding World War II in Asia

Commonly held general causes for WWII are the rise of nationalism, the rise of militarism, and the presence of unresolved territorial issues. Fascist dictatorships emerged during the global economic instability of the 1920s and came into their full authority during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In Germany, resentment of the Treaty of Versailles — specifically article 231 (the "Guilt Clause"), the belief in the Dolchstosslegende, and the onset of the Great Depression — fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler's militarist National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party). Meanwhile, the Treaty's provisions were laxly enforced from fear of another war. Closely related is the failure of the British and French policy of appeasement, which sought to avoid war but actually encouraged Hitler to become bolder and gave Germany time to re-arm, and the USSR's signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which freed Germany of fear of reprisal from the Soviet Union when Germany invaded Poland. The League of Nations, despite its efforts to prevent the war, relied too heavily on the Great Powers of Europe to enforce its resolutions, and was unable to prevent the start of The Second World War.

Japan in the 1930s was ruled by a militarist clique devoted to becoming a world power. Japan invaded China to bolster its meager stock of natural resources. The United States reacted by making loans to China, providing covert military assistance, and instituting increasingly broad embargoes of raw materials against Japan. These embargoes would have eventually forced Japan to give up its newly conquered possession in China because the Japanese would not have enough fuel to run their war machine; Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China or going to war with the United States in order to conquer the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies. It chose the latter, and went ahead with plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific.

Chronology

Main articles: European Theatre of World War II, Eastern Front (World War II), Middle East Theatre of World War II, Pacific War, Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, The Holocaust, End of World War II in Europe and Strategic bombing during World War II

War breaks out in Asia: 1937

Japanese artillery during the Battle of Shanghai

The Second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 when Japan attacked deep into China from its foothold in Manchuria. On July 7, 1937, Japan, after occupying Manchuria in 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing. The Japanese made initial advances but were stalled in the Battle of Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese in December 1937, and the capital city Nanking (now Nanjing) also fell. As a result, the Chinese government moved its seat to Chongqing for the remainder of the war. The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month. By 1940, the war had reached a stalemate with both sides making minimal gains. In time, this regional war would merge with the wider World War.

War breaks out in Europe: 1939

Appeasement and Pre-war alliances

Main articles: Appeasement, Kasprzycki-Gamelin Convention, Polish-British Common Defence Pact and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns to England after negotiating the Munich agreement

In an attempt to avoid another disastrous world war, the British and the French followed a policy of appeasment to placate Hitler. This policy eventually lead to the Munich Agreement, in which Czechoslovakia was partitioned in 1938. British PM Neville Chamberlain returned to Britain, having given the Sudetenland to Germany, and famously declared "peace in our time". A few months later, in March 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, killing appeasement and moving the world closer to the brink of war.

The failure of the Munich agreement demonstrated that deals made with Hitler at the negotiating table could not be trusted and that his aspirations for power and dominance in Europe went far beyond anything that the western democracies could tolerate. Poland and France pledged on May 19, 1939 to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The British had already offered support to the Poles in March. Then, on August 23, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Pact included a secret protocol which would divide Central Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest, including a provision to partition Poland. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, including military occupation. Hitler was now ready to go to war with Poland and, if necessary, with Britain and France. He claimed there were German grievances relating to the issues of the "free city" of Danzig and the "Polish corridor", but he planned to conquer all Polish territory and incorporate it into the German Reich. The signing of a new alliance between Britain and Poland on August 25 did not significantly alter his plans.

Enigma

On 25 July 1939 the Cipher Bureau revealed Poland's Enigma-decryption achievements to intelligence representatives of France and Britain. Former Bletchley Park mathematician-cryptologist Gordon Welchman has written: "Ultra would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military... Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use."

Invasion of Poland

Polish infantry during the Polish September Campaign, September 1939.

A flight of Stuka dive-bombers prepares to attack.

On September 1, Germany invaded Poland, using the pretext of a "Polish attack" on German border posts, the "attack" was in fact staged by German operatives to create a (rather flimsy) justification for the all-out German "response". Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The French mobilized slowly, and then mounted only a token offensive in the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British could not take any direct action in support of the Poles in the time available (see Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on September 9, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.

On September 17, the USSR, pursuant to its agreement with Germany, invaded Poland from the east, throwing Polish defences into chaos by opening the second front. A day later the Polish president and commander-in-chief both fled to Romania. On October 1 hostile forces, after a one-month siege of Warsaw, entered the city. The last Polish units surrendered on October 6. However, Poland never officially surrendered to the Germans. Some Polish troops evacuated to neighboring countries. In the aftermath of the September Campaign, occupied Poland managed to create a powerful resistance movement and contributed significant military forces to the Allies for the duration of World War II.

Phony War

After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as "the Phony War," or the "Sitzkrieg," because so little ground combat took place. During this period the British and French governments began to re-arm with the French completing the Maginot Line. British citizens were also prepared as rations were brought in and bomb shelters were given to the public. After the war, General Alfred Jodl commented that the Germans survived 1939 "only because approximately 110 French and English divisions in the West, which during the campaign on Poland were facing 25 German divisions, remained completely inactive".

Battle of the Atlantic

Main articles: Second Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of the River Plate

The U-Boat U-47 returns from sinking HMS Royal Oak, the battleship Scharnhorst is in the background

Meanwhile in the North Atlantic, German U-boats operated against Allied shipping. The submarines made up in skill, luck, and courage what they lacked in numbers. One U-boat sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether, the U-boats sank more than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war. The most damaging effect of the U-boats was in sinking transatlantic merchant shipping.

The battle of the Atlantic lasted for the majority of the war and was a decisive theatre of conflict. If the Atlantic had not been won, then the United Kingdom would have been unable to continue the war. Without England to serve as a base, the invasion of mainland Europe would have been much more difficult for the Western Allies.

As well as the U-boat threat the German Navy fought with fast, lightly armored surface ships known as Pocket Battleships, examples of which included the Scharnhorst and Admiral Graf Spee. In the South Atlantic, the Graf Spee sunk a number of British Merchant Navy vessels. She was then engaged by British cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Exeter in the Battle of the River Plate, and forced into Montevideo harbor. Rather than face battle again, Captain Langsdorff made for sea, and scuttled his battleship just outside the harbor.

Unlike the U-boat threat, which had a serious impact later in the war, German surface raiders had little impact because their numbers were so small.

War spreads: 1940

Soviet-Finnish War and Other Aggression by the Soviet Union

Main articles: Winter War, Occupation of Baltic Republics

The evolution of German plans for the invasion of France.

The Soviet Union demanded territory from Finland including part of the Karelian Isthmus, a naval base at Hanko (Hangö) peninsula and some islands in the Gulf of Finland. When Finland rejected these demands, the Soviet Union attacked on November 30, 1939, which started the Winter War. Despite outnumbering Finnish troops by over 2.5:1, the war proved embarrassingly difficult for the Red Army, although it concluded with the Soviet annexation of strategically important border areas, particularly those to the immediate north of Leningrad. The war triggered an international outcry and on December 14 the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations. Finland surrendered in March 1940 and signed the Moscow Peace Treaty (1940) in which the Finns made the minor territorial concessions mentioned above.

Later that year, in June the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.

Invasion of Denmark and Norway

Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, in Operation Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back, and was joined by British, French, and Polish (exile) forces landing in support of the Norwegians at Namsos, Åndalsnes, and Narvik. By late June, the Allies were defeated, German forces were in control of most of Norway, and what remained of the Norwegian Army had surrendered.

Invasion of France and the Low Countries

On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, ending the Phony War. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern Belgium and planned to fight a mobile war in the north while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic example in history of Blitzkrieg.

In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb (CACA), the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist raced through the Ardennes, a heavily forested region which the Allies had thought impenetrable for a modern, mechanized army. They broke the French line at Sedan, then drove west across northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two. Meanwhile Belgium (including the fortifications at Liege), Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of German Army Group B.

The BEF, encircled in the north, was evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. The operation was one of the biggest military evacuations in history as hundreds of thousands of British and French troops were transported across the English Channel, not just on warships but also on civilan vessels including fishing and rowing boats.

On June 10 Italy joined the war, attacking France in the south. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Fall Rot (Case Red), advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22 1940, leading to the direct German occupation of Paris and two thirds of France, and the establishment of a puppet state in southeastern France known as Vichy France.

Heinkel He 111 over London on 7 Sep. 1940

Battle of Britain

Following the defeat of France, Britain chose to fight on, so Germany began preparations in summer of 1940 to invade Britain in Operation Sea Lion, while Britain made anti-invasion preparations. The first step Germany saw necessary was to gain air control over Britain by defeating the Royal Air Force. The war between the two air forces became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command, but the results were not as expected, so the Luftwaffe later turned to terror bombing London. The Germans failed to defeat the Royal Air Force, and the Royal Navy was still firmly in control of the English Channel. Operation Sea Lion was postponed and eventually cancelled.

North African Campaign

The Italian declaration of war in June 1940, challenging the British supremacy of the Mediterranean, hinged on Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria. Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August. In September, the North African Campaign began when Italian forces in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The aim was to capture the Suez Canal, a vital link between the United Kingdom and India. British, Indian and Australian forces counter-attacked in Operation Compass, but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Australian and New Zealand forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack. However, German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin Rommel landed in Libya and renewed the assault on Egypt.

Italian Invasion of Greece

Italy invaded Greece on October 28, 1940, from bases in Albania after the Greek Premier John Metaxas rejected an ultimatum to hand over Greek territory. Despite the enormous superiority of the Italian forces, the Greek army forced the Italians into a massive retreat deep into Albania. By mid-December, the Greeks occupied one-fourth of Albania. The Greek army had inflicted upon the Axis Powers their first defeat in the war, and Germany would soon be forced to intervene.

War becomes global: 1941

European Theater

Lend-Lease

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act on March 11. This program was the first major step away from American isolationism, providing for substantial assistance to the UK, the Soviet Union, and other countries.

Rudolph Hess is Captured

On May 10 1941 Rudolph Hess, Hitler's second in command parachuted into Renfrewshire, Great Britain to try and negotiate a truce between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. Many high level Germans including Rudolph Hess and Joseph Goebbels disliked fighting Britain due to the fact they saw it as a fellow Aryan superpower and saw it as a great ally. Hess's aircraft crashed when he attempted to parachute into Britain and was captured by British Forces. He was kept under arrest at the Tower of London and was brought to trial at the end of the war.

German Invasion of Greece

On April 6 1941 Germany invaded Greece after the failure of the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940. Germany invaded through Bulgaria, which had joined the Axis Powers. Greek troops put up an incredibly brave and tenacious fight but the outnumbered and outgunned Greek army collapsed. However, the stubborn Greek resistance delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by six weeks, which proved disastrous when the German army froze on the outskirts of Moscow as a result of the Russian winter. The occupation of Greece would also be costly and difficult as guerrila warfare plagued the Axis Powers.

The Battle of Crete

See Main Article: Battle of Crete

German Paratroopers advance on a position in Crete

A month after the occupation of the Greek mainland, Germany invaded the Greek island of Crete. Crete itself was defended by an Anglo-Greek force of about 40,000 troops. The Germans invaded the island through airborne attack on Crete's three airfields of Maleme, Rethimno, and Heraklion. The invasion was carried out by the elite 7 parachutist division followed by the elite 5th Mountain division. After one day the Nazis failed to capture any of their objectives and had suffered their bloodiest day in the war. During the next several days the Germans gained a foothold on Maleme in the west and were able to reinforce their position. Allied forces inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans but were forced to give ground. Unable to defend Crete, the Allies evacuated their remaining forces by June 1st, 1941. The Germans however had suffered horrendous casualties, so much so that Hitler forbid further airborne operations.

Invasion of Soviet Union

Main articles: Operation Barbarossa, Eastern Front, Battle of Białystok-Minsk, Operation Typhoon and Battle of Rostov (1941)

From the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August, 1939 through almost the end of the first half of 1941, Stalin and the USSR fed and equipped Hitler and Germany as Germany invaded Western Europe and then attacked Great Britain by air. Notwithstanding this support, Germany betrayed its partner. On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in history, began. Three German army groups, an Axis force of over four million men, advanced rapidly deep into the Soviet Union, destroying almost the entire western Soviet army in huge battles of encirclement. Nevertheless, the Soviets dismantled as much industry as possible ahead of the advancing Axis forces, moving it to areas east of the Ural Mountains for reassembly to supply the Soviet armies which ultimately contributed mightily to the destruction of Germany. By late November, the Axis had reached a line at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov, at the cost of about 23 percent casualties. Their advance then ground to a halt as the harsh Russian winter set in. The German General Staff had underestimated the size of the Soviet army and its ability to draft new troops.

Soviet Siberian Soldiers fighting during the Battle of Moscow.

The British battlecruiser HMS Hood which was sunk on May 24 by the German battleship Bismarck

They were now dismayed by the presence of new forces, including fresh Siberian troops under General Zhukov, and by the onset of a particularly cold winter.

German forward units had advanced within distant sight of the golden onion domes of Moscow's Saint Basil's Cathedral, but then on December 5, the Soviets counter-attacked and pushed the Axis back some 150-250 kilometers (100-150 mi), which became the first major German defeat of World War II.

Meanwhile, on June 25, the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union began with Soviet air attacks shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

Allied conferences

The Atlantic Charter was issued as a joint declaration by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, at Argentia, Newfoundland, on August 14, 1941.

In December 1941, after America entered the war, Churchill met with Roosevelt again at the Arcadia Conference. They agreed that defeating Germany had priority over defeating Japan. The Americans proposed a 1942 cross-channel invasion of France which the British strongly opposed, suggesting instead a small invasion in Norway or landings in French North Africa. The Declaration by the United Nations was issued.

Mediterranean

Main articles: Operation Sonnenblume, Siege of Tobruk, Battle of Gazala, Battle of Crete and Syria-Lebanon campaign

In North Africa, Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. Two Allied attempts to relieve Tobruk were defeated, but a larger offensive at the end of the year (Operation Crusader) drove Rommel back after heavy fighting.

In June 1941, Allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon and captured Damascus on June 17. Later, in August, British and Soviet troops occupied neutral Iran in order to secure its oil and a southern supply line to Russia.

Hunt for the Bismarck

On May 24, the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser HMS Hood in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. The battleship HMS Prince of Wales was also damaged. The Royal Navy engaged in a massive hunt across the North Atlantic for the Bismarck. After an extensive chase, Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal struck the Bismarck, resulting in only minor damage to the ship, but causing her rudder to jam and allowing the pursuing Royal Navy Task Force to catch and sink her.

Enigma

On May 9, the British destroyer HMS Bulldog captures a German U-Boat and recovers a complete, intact Enigma Machine. This was a vital turn in favour of the Allies in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in their code-breaking efforts. The machine was taken to Bletchley Park where it was used to help decipher and understand German encryption techniques.

Pacific Theatre

The American Battleships USS West Virginia and USS Tennessee under attack at Pearl Harbor

Deadlock: 1942

European Theatre

On August 19, British and Canadian forces launched the Dieppe Raid (codenamed Operation Jubilee) on the German occupied port of Dieppe, France. The attack was a disaster but provided critical information utilized later in Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.

In the south, Soviet forces launched an offensive in May against the German Sixth Army, initiating a bloody 17 day battle around Kharkov which resulted in the loss of over 200,000 Red Army personnel.

In December German relief forces got within 50 kilometers (30 mi) of the trapped Sixth Army before they were turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, Sixth Army was in desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was only able to supply about a sixth of the supplies needed.

At the beginning of 1942, the Allied forces in North Africa were weakened by detachments to the Far East. Rommel once again attacked and recaptured Benghazi. Then he defeated the Allies at the Battle of Gazala, and captured Tobruk with several thousand prisoners and large quantities of supplies. Following up, he drove deep into Egypt.

The First Battle of El Alamein took place in July 1942. Allied forces had retreated to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. The Afrika Korps, however, had outrun its supplies, and the defenders stopped its thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3. Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery was in command of Allied forces known as the British Eighth Army. The Eighth Army took the offensive and was ultimately triumphant. After the German defeat at El Alamein, the Axis forces made a successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia.

Pacific Theatre

In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first U.S. air raid on Tokyo, boosted morale in the U.S. and caused Japan to shift resources to homeland defense, but did little physical damage.

In early May, a Japanese naval invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea, was thwarted by Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was both the first successful opposition to a Japanese attack and the first battle fought between aircraft carriers.

A month later, on June 5, American carrier-based dive-bombers sank four of Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway. Historians mark this battle as a turning point and the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Cryptography played an important part in the battle, as the United States had broken the Japanese naval codes and knew the Japanese plan of attack.

In July, a Japanese overland attack on Port Moresby was led along the rugged Kokoda Track. An outnumbered and untrained Australian battalion defeated the 5,000-strong Japanese force, the first land defeat of Japan in the war and one of the most significant victories in Australian military history.

In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalcanal, an amphibious Japanese attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea was met by Australian forces in the Battle of Milne Bay.

Japan launched a major offensive in China following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The aim of the offensive was to take the strategically important city of Changsha which the Japanese had failed to capture on two previous occasions. For the attack, the Japanese massed 120,000 soldiers under 4 divisions. The Chinese responded with 300,000 men, and soon the Japanese army was encircled and had to retreat.

War turns: 1943

European Theatre

On July 4, the Wehrmacht launched a much-delayed offensive against the Soviet Union at the Kursk salient. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, and they hastened to defend the salient with an enormous system of earthwork defenses. Both sides massed their armor for what became a decisive military engagement. The Germans attacked from both the north and south of the salient and hoped to meet in the middle, cutting off the salient and trapping 60 Soviet divisions. The German offensive was ground down as little progress was made through the Soviet defenses. The Soviets then brought up their reserves, and the largest tank battle of the war occurred near the city of Prokhorovka. The Germans had exhausted their armored forces and could not stop the Soviet counter-offensive that threw them back across their starting positions.

Early in November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital.

First Ukrainian Front attacked at Korosten on Christmas Eve. The Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Polish-Soviet border was reached.

Some historians consider this front the crucial turning-point of the war in which the Nazis experienced their first significant defeat, effectively losing the entire 6th Army in a devasting winter campaign reminiscent of the 1812 defeat of Napoleon. These same historians argue that the allies might have never been able to best the Nazi war machine if Hitler had secured the Russians' oil fields and other vast resources.

The surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia on May 13, 1943 yielded some 250,000 prisoners. The North African war proved to be a disaster for Italy, and when the Allies invaded Sicily on July 10 in Operation Husky, capturing the island in a little over a month, the regime of Benito Mussolini collapsed. On July 25, he was removed from office by the King of Italy, and arrested with the positive consent of the Great Fascist Council. A new government, led by Pietro Badoglio, took power and declared that Italy would stay in the war. Badoglio had actually begun secret peace negotiations with the Allies.

The Allies invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, as had been agreed in negotiations. The royal family and Badoglio government escaped to the south, leaving the Italian army without orders, while the Germans took over the fight, forcing the Allies to a complete halt in the winter of 1943-44 at the Gustav Line south of Rome.

The turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic took place in early 1943. Although two convoys suffered heavy losses, the U-Boats were also taking increasingly heavy casualties, and were forced to abandon their main offensive in the mid-Atlantic.

Pacific Theatre

American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9. Australian and U.S. forces undertook the prolonged campaign to retake the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war. The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943.

In November, U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theater. The high casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island. This led to the adoption of the "Island hopping" strategy, where the Allies bypassed some Japanese island strongholds and let them "wither on the vine".

A vigorous, fluctuating battle for Changde in China's Hunan province began on November 2, 1943. The Japanese threw over 100,000 men into the attack on the city, which changed hands several times in a few days but ended up still held by the Chinese. Overall, the Chinese ground forces were compelled to fight a war of defense and attrition while they built up their armies and awaited an Allied counteroffensive.

The Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese occupation of China but never truly allied against the Japanese. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though more implicitly. The Japanese and its auxiliary Indian National Army had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. This forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift, known as "flying the Hump". U.S.-led and trained Chinese divisions, a British division and a few thousand U.S. ground troops cleared the Japanese forces from northern Burma so that the Ledo Road could be built to replace the Burma Road.

Beginning of end: 1944

European Theatre

In the south, in March, two Soviet fronts encircled Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube's First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment.

In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front engaged German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South which had been left behind after the German retreat from the Ukraine. The battle was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea led to over 250,000 German and Romanian casualties.

During April 1944, a series of attacks by the Red Army near the city of Iaşi, Romania aimed at capturing the strategically important sector. The German-Romanian forces successfully defended the sector throughout the month of April. The attack at Târgul Frumos was the final attempt by the Red Army to achieve its goal of having a spring-board into Romania for a summer offensive.

With Soviet forces approaching, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no longer be a reliable ally.

Finland sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but would not accept the initial terms offered. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after three months, forced Finland to accept an armistice.

The Gustav line was anchored by Germans holding Monte Cassino, a historic Abbey founded in 524 by St. Benedict. On February 15 the Monastery, high on a peak overlooking the town of Cassino, was destroyed by American B17 bombers, and crack German paratroopers poured back into the ruins to defend it. From January 12 to May 18, it was assaulted four times by Allied troops, for a loss of over 54,000 Allied and 20,000 German soldiers.

Only after some months, the Gustav line was broken and the Allies marched north. On June 4, Rome was liberated, and the Allied army reached Florence in August. They then were held at the Gothic Line on the Tuscan Apennines during the winter.

Romania turned against Germany in August 1944, threatening German lines of retreat from the Ukraine. Bulgaria surrendered in September.

Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks, was launched on June 22. Its objective was to clear German troops from Belarus. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.

After the destruction of Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they cleared the Ukraine of German presence.

The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the battle was complete victory for the Red Army and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp.

In October 1944, General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Sixth Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. This was to be the last German victory in the Eastern front.

The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army Group Centre and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia.

From December 29, 1944 to February 13, 1945, Soviet forces laid siege to Budapest, which was defended by German Waffen-SS and Hungarian forces. It was one of the bloodiest sieges of the war.

The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, were unable to advance any further. The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.

In December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler sought victory similar to the 1940 Ardennes offensive, which he envisioned would drive back the Western Allies and force them to agree to a separate peace. At first, the Germans scored successes against the unprepared Allied forces. Poor weather during the initial days of the offensive favoured the Germans because Allied aircraft was grounded. Stubborn American resistance at St. Vith and by the surrounded 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, an important crossroads, blunted the German advance. The arrival of the United States Third Army under General George Patton ended the German threat, and further counterattacks trapped many German units in the resulting pocket. The remaining Germans were forced to retreat back into Germany. It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. military history.

Pacific Theatre

The main objective was the Mariana Islands, especially Saipan and to a lesser extent, Guam. The Japanese in both places were strongly entrenched. On June 11, Saipan was bombarded from the sea and a landing was made four days later; it was captured by July 9. The Japanese committed much of their declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea but suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft. After the battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective. With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29 bombers.

General MacArthur's troops liberated the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous defense and used the last of their naval forces in a failed attempt to destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23 through October 26, 1944, arguably the largest naval battle in history. The Japanese battleship Musashi, one of the two largest battleships ever built, was sunk. This was the first battle that had kamikaze attacks.

Throughout 1944, American submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese merchant shipping and deprived Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain. The effectiveness of this stranglehold increased as U.S. Marines captured islands closer to the Japanese mainland. In 1944, submarines sank three million tons of cargo, while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one million tons.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

End of war: 1945

European Theatre

On January 17, Zhukov took Warsaw. On January 19, his tanks took Łódź. That same day, Konev's forces reached the German pre-war border. At the end of the first week of the offensive, the Soviets had penetrated 160 kilometers (100 mi) deep on a front that was 650 kilometers (400 mi) wide. By February 13, the Soviets took Budapest. The Soviet onslaught finally halted on the Oder River at the end of January, only 60 kilometers (40 mi) from Berlin.

On January 14th the XII Corps / 2nd British Army launched Operation Blackcock in order to clear the Roer Triangle, a German held salient between the rivers Maas and Roer south of Roermond. By January 27th the enemy was driven east of the Roer.

Meanwhile, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting resulted in many important resolutions:

The Red Army (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army) began its final assault on Berlin on April 16. By April 24, three Soviet Army groups completed the encirclement of the city. As a final resistance effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers, to fight the oncoming Red Army in the Volkssturm militia. Those forces were augmented by the battered German remnants that had fought the Soviets in Seelow Heights. The urban fighting was heavy, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The Soviets sustained 305,000 dead; the Germans sustained as many as 325,000, including civilians. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April 30 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.

The Allies resumed their advance into Germany once the Battle of the Bulge officially ended on January 27, 1945. The final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine which was crossed in late March 1945, aided by the fortuitous capture of the Ludendorff Bridge.

Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg crossing the river Elbe and on towards Denmark and the Baltic Sea. The U.S. Ninth Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement and the U.S. First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. On April 4, the encirclement was completed and the German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. 300,000 soldiers became prisoners of war. The Ninth and First U.S. armies then turned east. They halted their advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet forces in mid-April.

Allied advances in the winter of 1944-45 up the Italian peninsula had been slow because of troop re-deployments to France. But by April 9, the British/American 15th Army Group, which was composed of the U.S. Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, broke through the Gothic Line and attacked the Po Valley gradually enclosing the main German forces. Milan was taken by the end of April. The U.S. 5th Army continued to move west and linked up with French units. The British 8th Army advanced towards Trieste and made contact with the Yugoslav partisans.

A few days before the surrender of German troops in Italy, Italian partisans intercepted a party of Fascists trying to make their escape to Switzerland. Hiding underneath a pile of coats was Mussolini. The whole party, including Mussolini's mistress, Clara Petacci, was summarily shot on April 28, 1945. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down on public display.

The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, at General Alexander's headquarters, and German forces in northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4. The German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Reims, France. The western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on May 8.

The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. During the Potsdam Conference, agreements were reached between the Allies on policies for occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Pacific Theatre

In January, the U.S. Sixth Army landed on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. Manila was re-captured by March. U.S. capture of islands such as Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa (April through June) brought the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack. Amongst dozens of other cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living conditions around production centres and the wooden residential constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in Operation Starvation, which seriously disrupted the logistics of the island nation.

The last major offensive in the South West Pacific Area was the Borneo campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the remaining Japanese forces in South East Asia and securing the release of Allied prisoners of war.

In South-East Asia, from August to November 1944, the 14th Army pursued the Japanese to the Chindwin River in Burma after their failed attack on India. The British Commonwealth, mainly Indian forces, launched a series of offensive operations back into Burma during late 1944 and the first half of 1945. On May 2, 1945, Rangoon, the capital city of Myanmar (Burma), was taken in Operation Dracula. The planned amphibious assault on the western side of Malaya was cancelled after the dropping of the atomic bombs, and Japanese forces in South East Asia surrendered soon afterwards.

President Harry Truman, advised by the U.S. military, decided to use the new super-weapon to bring the war to a more humane end. The battle for Okinawa had shown that an invasion of the Japanese mainland (planned for November), seen as an Okinawa-type operation on a far larger scale, would result in more casualties than the United States had suffered so far in all theatres since the war began. It would also result in many more Japanese deaths than use of the atomic bomb would cause.

On August 8, two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union, having renounced its nonaggression pact with Japan, attacked the Japanese in Manchuria, fulfilling its Yalta pledge to attack the Japanese within three months after the end of the wa