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WORLD WAR II
1939-1945
The Bloodiest War. Ever.
WWII set a record
as both, the largest war in history and the
bloodiest war in history.
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Main Opponents of World War II
The Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) fought the
Allies (France,
Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, China).
Issues behind WWII
After the unsatisfactory peace treaties of
 World War I and the
Great
Depression in the early
1930s, Germany, Italy, and Japan developed
into totalitarian regimes eager to expand
their national boundaries.
On a map, the world and Europe looked like
this before World War Two:
1919 World Map:
Political Realignment Following the First
World War
1919 Europe:
The
National Boundary Realignments Resulting
From the First World War |
What Started World War II?
After years of committing military acts of aggression,
see map below, Germany
invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Great Britain and France
declared war on Germany on September 3.
Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.
1936-1939 Europe:
German aggressions
What Ended World War II?
Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. This day became known as
VJ-Day (Victory over Japan Day).
Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.
Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943. Germany
surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945. This day became known as
VE-Day (Victory in Europe Day).
Check this event in the Timeline of WWII.
Check this event in the World War II
Timeline
Joe
Rosenthal was the guy who took the picture. He
died on August 20, 2006, age 94.
This was the second flag raising and
Alan Wood was the 22-year-old Navy officer who
provided the flag. Or, in other words, he gave this
37-square-foot flag to the Marine who asked for it, a flag
that he had found months before in a Pearl Harbor Navy
depot.
Alan Wood died on April 18,
2013, age 90.
Here is a quote from the May 2, 2000, NY Times article
Demystifying the Flag at Iwo Jima by Richard Bernstein:
Iwo Jima, an island that lay athwart the
main air route to Japan, was defended by
22,000 dug-in Japanese soldiers whose orders
were to kill 10 Americans each and then to
die. On the morning of Feb. 19, 1945, it was
invaded by 70,000 American marines, of whom
26,000 were to be killed or wounded as they
carried out the grim task of rooting out the
defenders, 21,000 of whom died by the time
it was over. "Death became demystified, an
occupational hazard," Mr. Bradley writes.
On the fourth day, according to Mr.
Bradley's careful reconstruction of the
battle, six men put up a flag on the
island's highest point. They were merely
replacing a smaller flag that had been
raised earlier by a different group of men.
Almost by accident, an Associated Press
photographer, Joe Rosenthal, snapped a
picture of the second flag-raising. He did
not, contrary to what is commonly said about
this historic moment, pose the photograph
beforehand. The picture was authentic, but
the sentiment that it aroused was not. In
fact, the second flag was basically
unnoticed by the marines on Iwo Jima, who
had cheered when the first flag went up.
Still, the picture -- The Photograph, as Mr.
Bradley aptly calls it -- became an icon of
American patriotism, and the act of raising
it was surrounded by a fabricated epic of
battlefield heroics.
Here is more about
Joe Rosenthal and the flag
at Iwo Jima
And here is the map
1945, February 19: The
Battle for Iwo Jima, February 19 - March 26,
1945. Allied Invasions of Iwo Jima and
Okinawa (Operation Iceberg) 1945.
See also
Stars and Stripes
Who Won and Who
Lost World War II?
The Allies were the victors of World War II.
Estimates of total
deaths caused by World War II vary from 40,000,000 to 60,000,000.
Germany was divided into four zones of occupation by UK, US, France,
and USSR forces. The country remained divided into two nations, East
and West Germany, until 1990.
Germany was divided into occupation
zones
which laid the foundation for the
Cold War
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Atomic bomb on Nagasaki |
Atomic Bomb
Made possible by the
Manhattan Project, on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped by the
United States on Hiroshima. It pulverized everything in the
explosion's immediate vicinity.
Four square miles were burned
out completely, 75,000 people were killed, and more than
70,000 were injured. |
Three days later a second atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki. It
killed 40,000 people, injured the same amount, and devastated
1.8 square miles.
Check here for
pictures of the first atomic bomb explosion, the Trinity Site
explosion July 16, 1945.
TRINITY SITE ATOMIC BOMB
JULY 16, 1945
The Allies in World War II
Here is a map of the allied operations in
WWII in Europe.
Allied Operations in
Europe and North Africa
1942-1945
The U.S. and
World War II
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
the declaration of war against Japan on December 8, 1941.
Check this event in the WWII Timeline.
Check Roosevelt's Day
of Infamy address in the Speech Archive.
And just FYI, here is a map of all US Battle Sites
United States Battle Sites 1689-1945
Click Map to enlarge
Check the
costs of major US wars in comparison.
Check the American war
casualties report
The U.S.S.R. and
World War II
The Soviets called WWII the
Great Patriotic War.
One of the reasons Russia's troops performed
badly against the invading Germans in June
1941, was Stalin's
Great Purges
which included the elimination of many
experienced military leaders.
All in all, the Soviet Union suffered an estimated total
of 18 million deaths in WWII, 7 million of which
were civilians.
Women in World War
II
Women war
workers of Marinship Corp., 1942
National Archives
Battles and
Events of World
War II
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July 10 - October 31, 1940 |
Battle of Britain |
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December 7, 1941 |
Pearl Harbor Attack |
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December 8-23, 1941 |
Battle of Wake Island
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January 23 - 25, 1942 |
Battle of Balikpapan |
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February 18 - 19, 1942 |
Battle of Lombok
Strait |
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February 27, 1942 |
Battle of the Java Sea |
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February 28 - March 1, 1942 |
Battle of Sunda Strait |
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April
9, 1942 |
Bataan Death March |
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May 4
- 8, 1942 |
Battle of the Coral
Sea |
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June 3
- 6, 1942 |
Battle of Midway |
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July
17, 1942 - February 2, 1943 |
Battle of
Stalingrad |
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July 5
- August 23, 1943 |
Battle of
Kursk |
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June
6, 1944 |
D-Day - Invasion of
Normandy
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October 23 - 26, 1944 |
Battle of Leyte Gulf
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December 16, 1944 - January 16, 1945 |
Battle of the Bulge,
also called
Battle of the Ardennes
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February 19 - March 26, 1945 |
Battle for Iwo Jima
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April
16 - May 2, 1945 |
Battle for Berlin
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Go here for the
Timelines of World War Two
World War II Trivia
Talk about unfinished business.
Japan wants its four islands back which Russia had taken at the end
of WWII. These guys still don't have a WWII peace document signed. Find more info
here.
If you visited Norway lately and your fish tasted a little bit
odd...
this might be the reason why.
Personalize your World War Two
experience. Now you can!
Read all about George Craxford
and his days in Montgomery's Battle of
El-Alamein.
And here is
John William Nessworthy's journal.
Here is more on
U.S. General Douglas MacArthur.
And here is more about the British
SAS (Special Air Service). Fine
history pages.
WWII Impact
on Humankind
Approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the
Holocaust.
The war paved the way for the
Cold War between the Western powers
(Capitalism) and the Eastern powers (
Communism).
World War
II Quotes
"Magnificent! Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor
shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so!"
George Patton
American specialist of tank warfare in World War II
"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."
Anne Frank
Holocaust victim
See also
American Timeline
Maybe, see also
Human Rights
More History
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