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Japanese Invasion of China
Massive changes were unleashed in Japan by the Meiji restoration - a period of radical modernisation - in 1868, and out of these emerged the desire for wealth, power and prestige as a way of redressing the imposition of unequal treaties that had been placed upon Japan by western powers in the past. Victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 also gave Japan its first real foothold on the Asian continent, forcing China to recognise Korean 'independence' and cede Taiwan (Formosa) and the Liaotung. -
Rape of Nanking
The first troops of Japan's Central China Front Army, commanded by General Matsui Iwane, entered the city. Even before their arrival, word had begun spreading of the numerous atrocities they had commited on their way through China, including killing contests and pillaging. Chinese soldiers were hunted down and killed by the thousands, and left in mass graves. Entire families were massacred, and even the elderly and infants were targeted for execution, while tens of thousands of women were raped -
Rape of Nanking Part 2
Bodies littered the streets for months after the attack. The Japanese looted and burned at least one-third of Nanking's buildings. The Japanese initially agreed to respect the Nanking Safety Zone, ultimately not even these refugees were safe from the attacks. In January of 1938, the Japanese declared that order had been restored to the city and dismantled the safety zone. Killings continued until the first week of February -
German Invasion of Poland
Adolf Hitler devised his plans apart from Britain and French involvement and the plans were finalized by his commaders on August 26, 1939. A nonaggression pact had already been signed with Soviet Union that same month and the final order to invade was given on August 31, 1939. On September 1, 1939, German forces crossed into Polish territory to officially begin WWII -
Fall of Paris
By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians and already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work: arrests, interrogations, and spying were the order of the day, as a gigantic swastika flew beneath the Arc de Triomphe. While Parisians who remained trapped in their capital despaired, French men and women in the west cheered- as Canadian troops rolled through their region, offering hope for a free France yet. -
German Blitzkrieg
Shocked by their experience, the Allied military observers who had survived the fall of France attributed their defeat to the completely new form of warfare pioneered by the Wehrmacht - the blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg seemed to be based around the pervasive use of new technology. -
Operation Barbarossa
In accordance with Hitler's grand vision, the Soviet Union and its varied people were to be subdued if a new "German Empire" was to be realized. The captured lands would serve to feed Army advances and slave labor would provide Germany with the necessary manpower for victory and a long-standing existence after the war. On June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa was launched to begin the East Front-- the German invasion of the Soviet Union. -
Pearl Harbor Part 2
The second wave hit at 9:00 AM, facing more of a resistance than the first wave but the damage was done. The only thing that ended the attack was a lack of visible targets and the fear that the Japanese warplanners had of how close the American carriers might be. -
Pearl Harbor
A large Japanese fleet, complete with 6 carriers loading some 450 aircraft, set sail from Japan towards Hawaii. Japanese diplomats were sent to Washington with a formal declaration of war, this to be delivered at a specific time in the day. The first wave attacked at 7:55 AM, concentrating fire on "Battleship Row", taking American sailors and civilians by complete surprise, while putting the 6 airfields out of commission. -
Wannsee Conference
The "Wannsee Conference" was a high-level meeting of Nazi officials that took place in Berlin on January 20, 1942, to discuss the "Final Solution" of the Jewish Question. -
Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March. -
Operation Gomorrah
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid. -
Operation Gomorrah part 2
Britain lost only 12 aircraft in this raid (791 flew), thanks to a new radar-jamming device called “Window,” which consisted of strips of aluminum foil dropped by the bombers en route to their target. These Window strips confused German radar, which mistook the strips for dozens and dozens of aircraft, diverting them from the trajectory of the actual bombers. Operation Gomorrah proved devastating to Hamburg and to German morale. -
D-Day (Normandy Invasion)
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap envisaged a massive attack on Berlin in the belief that would cause 220,000 casualties with 110,000 killed, many of them key German personnel, which would shatter German morale. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Following elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment, three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island in February 1945. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign (April 1—June 22, 1945) involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties—including 14,000 dead. -
VE Day
In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, and the Germans considerably more; in Copenhagen and Oslo; at Karlshorst, near Berlin; in northern Latvia; on the Channel Island of Sark—the German surrender was realized in a final cease-fire. More surrender documents were signed in Berlin and in eastern Germany. -
Dropping of the Atomic Bombs
On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped a five-ton bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A blast equivalent to the power of 15,000 tons of TNT reduced four square miles of the city to ruins and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died in the following weeks from wounds and radiation poisoning. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people. A few days later, Japan announced its surrender. -
VJ Day
On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan’s capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close. -
Battle of the Bulge
On December 16, three German armies (more than a quarter-million troops) launched the deadliest and most desperate battle of the war in the west in the poorly roaded, rugged, heavily forested Ardennes. The once-quiet region became bedlam as American units were caught flat-footed and fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and, later, Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division. -
Battle of the Bulge Part 2
The inexperienced U.S. 106th Division was nearly annihilated, but even in defeat helped buy time for Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke’s brilliant defense of St.-Vith. A crucial German shortage of fuel and the gallantry of American troops fighting in the frozen forests of the Ardennes proved fatal to HItler's ambition to snatch at least a draw with Allies in the west.
