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Invasion of Poland
Poland was defeated by the German Blitzkrieg (lightning war). They put the Polish railway system out of action and destroyed the Polish air force. On September 29 it was divided up between Germany and the USSR (that had invaded the East) -
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Battle of the Atlantic
This was the struggle against German U-boats attempting to deprive Britain of food and raw materials. -
The phoney war
That's how the American press called the next five months. Russia took over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and invaded Finland. French and German manned their respective defences. Hitler seems to have hoped that thepause would weaken the resolve of Britain and France and encourage them to negotiatepeace. This lack of action pleased Hitler's generals, who were not convinced that the German army was strong enough to attack in the west. -
Invasion of Denmark and Norway
Hitler's troops occupied Denmark and landed at the main Norwegian port.Control of Norway was important for the Germans because Narvik was the main outlet for Swedish iron-ore, which was vital for the German armaments industry. The Germans were successful because the Norwegians had been taken by surprise and their troops were not even mobilized. -
Attack on Holland, Belgium and France
The attacks on Holland, Belgium and France were launched simultaneously. The Dutch surrendered after only four days. Belgium held out for longer, but her surrender at the end of May left the British and French troops in Belgium perilously exposed as German motorized divisions swept across northern France; only Dunkirk remained in Allied hands. Paris was captured on 14 June and France surrendered on 22 June. -
Battle of Britain
Lasted until 30 september. The Germans bombed harbours, radar
stations, aerodromes and munitions factories; in September they began to bomb London, in retaliation, they claimed, for a British raid on Berlin. The Royal Air Force inflicted heavy losses on
the Luftwaffe (1389 German planes were lost as against 792 British); when it became clear that British air power was far from being destroyed, Hitler called off the invasion. -
Italian invasion onf Egypt and Greece
Mussolini sent an army from the Italian colony of
Libya which penetrated about 60 miles into Egypt (September 1940), while another Italian army invaded Greece from Albania (October). However, the British soon drove the Italians out of Egypt, pushed them back far into Libya and defeated them -
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The Holocaust
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North Africa and Greece campaign
Hitler's first moves in 1941 were to help out his faltering ally. In February he sent Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps to Tripoli, and together with the Italians, they drove the British out of Libya.
In April 1941 Hitler's forces invaded Greece, the day after British, Australian and New Zealand troops had arrived to help the Greeks. The Germans soon captured Athens, forcing the British to withdraw, and after bombing Crete, they took the island and again the British were forced to evacuate. -
Operation Barbarrosa
Invasion of Russia. Hitler feared that the Russians might attack Germany while his forces were still occupied in the west. He hoped that the Japanese would attack Russia in the Far East: the more powerful Japan became, the less chance there was of the USA entering the war (or so Hitler thought). But above all there was his hatred of communism and his desire for Lebensraum (living space). -
The USA entered the War
The USA was brought into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (their naval base in the Hawaiian Islands).Japanese motives for the attack were tied up with their economic problems. There was no declaration of war: 353 Japanese planes arrived undetected at Pearl Harbor, and in two hours, destroyed 350 aircraft and five battleships; 3700 men were killed or seriously injured. -
Midway Battle
The Americans beat off a powerful Japanese attack. Midway proved to be a crucial turning point in the battle for the Pacific: the loss of their carriers and strike planes seriously weakened the Japanese, and from then on the Americans maintained their lead in carriers and aircraft, especially dive-bombers. -
Stalingrad Battle
At Stalingrad the southern prong of the German invasion of Russia was finally checked. The Germans had reached Stalingrad at the end of August 1942, but though they more or less destroyed
the city, the Russians refused to surrender. In November they counter-attacked ferociously, trapping the Germans, whose supply lines were dangerously extended, in a large pincer movement. With his retreat cut off, the Germans had no reasonable alternative but to surrender (2 February 1943). -
El Alamein Battle
At El Alamein in Egypt Rommel's Afrika Korps were driven back by the British Eighth Army. This prevented Egypt and the Suez Canal from falling into German hands, ended the possibility of a link-up between the Axis forces in the Middle East and those in the Ukraine and led on to the complete expulsion of Axis forces from North
Africa. -
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The fall of Italy
This was the first stage in the Axis collapse. British and American troops landed in Sicily from the sea and air (10 July 1943) and quickly captured the whole island. This caused the downfall of Mussolini, who was dismissed by the king. Allied troops crossed to Salerno, Reggio and Taranto on the mainland and captured Naples (October 1943). -
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Axis powers defeated
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Operation Overlord
The invasion of France. It was a remarkable operation: it made use of prefabricated 'Mulberry' harbours, which were towed across from Britain and positioned close to the Normandy coast. Within a few weeks most of northern France was lilberated (Paris on 25 August), putting out of action the sites from which the German rocket missiles had been launched with devastating effects in southeastern Britan. Belgium, Brussels and Antwerp were liberated in September. -
The assault on Germany
With the success of the Second Front, the Allies began to gather themselves together for the invasion of Germany itself. Early in 1945, Germany was being invaded on both fronts, from east and west. Hitler was commited to fight til the end. -
German surrender
Hitler commited suicide on April 30 and Germany surrendered seven days later. -
The defeat of Japan
the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing perhaps as many as 84 000 people and leaving thousands more slowly dying of radiation poisoning. Three days later they dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, which killed perhaps another 40 000; after this the Japanese government surrendered. The dropping of these bombs was one of the most controversial actions of the entire war.
