Hist
143
Hunt
Tooley/Informational Handout
World War II:
Chronology and Phases
(Aug. 23, 1939--Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression
Pact. Hitler and
Stalin start the war together as Allies.)
Phase
I--Invasion of
Poland to the Blitzkrieg in Western Europe
1939
Sept. 1, 1939--Germany invades Poland.
Sept 17, 1939--Soviet Union invades Poland.
Autumn 1939--East Central Europe divided
between the two
totalitarian empires.
Nov. 1939--Soviets try to take territory from
Finland, which
fights back in the Winter
War (Nov.
30-Mar. 1940). Finland loses war and much territory but maintains
independence.
1940
Apr. 1940--Germany invades Norway. Britain
responds. Land
and sea battles for Norway. Germany wins.
May 1940--Germany invades France, the Low
Countries, and
Denmark in a Blitzkrieg --"Lightning
War."
The last resistance is the British Expeditionary Force trapped at
Dunkirk, and rescued in
June.
June--Italy enters the war on the Axis side.
Phase
II--From the
Occupation of France to Operation Barbarossa
Summer--In the south of France, a
collaborationist
government under France's WWI war hero, Philippe Henri Pétain,
with a temporary
capital at Vichy.
Sept. 1940--Italians invade British-controlled
Egypt.
1941
Apr. 1941--Axis invades Yugoslavia.
Phase
III--From
Operation Barbarossa to the Allied Invasion at Normandy
June 22,
1941--Operation Barbarossa.
Aug. 14, 1941--Atlantic
Charter signed by Churchill and Roosevelt.
Sep. 1941--Germans besiege Leningrad. The siege
will end
only in Jan. 1944.
Dec. 7, 1941--Pearl Harbor.
Dec. 10, 1941--The US is at war with both
Germany and Japan.
1942
Jan. 1, 1942—Allied Big Four—the Soviet Union,
China, the
United Kingdom and the United States—and many smaller or exiled
governments
issued the Declaration by
United Nations,
affirming the Atlantic Charter, and agreeing to not to sign a
separate peace
with the Axis powers.
Aug. 1942--The Soviet German Battle of Stalingrad. This will end in Feb. 1943 with the
complete defeat of
the Germans. This was the largest battle of World War II.
Nov. 1942--First large-scale American action as
the U.S. Army
invades Morocco and Algeria.
1943
Jan. 1943--Casablanca
Conference: Churchill and Roosevelt. Roosevelt announces
Allied policy of
"unconditional surrender."
Feb. 1943--Opening of the Battle of Kursk on
the Eastern
Front. Soviets will win by Aug. 1943. Continued furious fighting
on the Eastern
Front follows, as Germans dispute every Soviet gain. Casualties
are colossal.
Jul. 1943--Allied invasion of Sicily.
Jul. 1943--Mussolini was dismissed as prime
minister and
arrested. Marshal
Badoglio was installed
as prime minister. He
was imprisoned but
broken out by German paratroopers. He set up a short-lived Fascist
regime in
the north, the Social Republic of Italy. But at the end of the war
would be
captured and executed by the Italian Resistance.
Sep. 1943--Allied invasion of Italian mainland. Battle for Italy rages
on, with Germans
taking control of the front.
Sep. 1943-June 1944--Allies plan a
cross-channel invasion at
Normandy.
1944
Jan. 1944--Lifting of siege of Leningrad by Red
Army.
Germans retreat south and west.
Phase
IV--From Normandy
and Eastern Europe to Berlin
June 6, 1944--Normandy landings--Operation
Overlord.
Jul. 11, 1944--Assassination attempt at
Hitler's East
Prussian headquarters by the German Resistance.
Aug. 25, 1944--Paris liberated.
Sept. 1944--Allied "Operation Market Garden"
aiming at capturing Rhine bridges. Germans resist fiercely,
preventing full
Allied success.
Dec. 16, 1944--Battle of the Bulge in Belgium,
western
Germany, and Luxembourg, as the Germans tried to break the
American lines. Battle
rages until early January.
1945
Jan. 16, 1945--Hitler establishes his last
headquarters in
the "Bunker" by the Reich Chancellery building.
Feb. 1945--Yalta
Conference: the Big Three hold a summit in Crimea, setting
up plans for the
postwar occupation of Europe.
Aug. 1, 1945--Warsaw Uprising begins: Polish
underground
army fights German occupiers.
Nov. 1945--Soviet Army breaks into German
territory for the
first time, but is pushed back.
Full-fledged invasion of Germany follows in Jan. 1945.
Throughout East
Central Europe, Soviets carry out and encourage local regimes to
drive out
local German minorities, with great ferocity.
Jan. 18, 1945--Soviets capture Warsaw.
Jan. 27, 1945--Red Army liberates Auschwitz.
Jan. to April, 1945--Red Army fights its way to
Berlin.
Mar. 22--First Allied (American Third Army)
crossings of the
Rhine, around Oppenheim, south of Mainz.
April 16, 1945--Soviets launch the first
assaults of the
Battle of Berlin.
April 25, 1945--First meeting of American and
Soviet troops
at the Elbe River.
April 30, 1945--Hitler committed suicide in the
Bunker,
along with Eva Braun.
May 2/3, 1945--German Army commanders in Berlin
surrender to
the Soviets.
Jul./Aug. 1945--Potsdam Conference.
The
Pacific War and
Japanese Surrender
Launching assaults from China in 1941, the
Japanese Empire
captured Indonesia, French Indo-China, and many more Pacific rim
areas. Attacks
were characterized by much brutality and killing. The bombing of
the American
military installations at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii
brought the U.S.
into the war. American forces in the Philippines were defeated,
and the
Philippine and American prisoners were driven to POW camps in the
highly deadly
Bataan Death March.
The United
States and Allies opened up operations against the Japanese in the
Pacific
Theater of the war in April 1942. The war raged on small Pacific
islands held
by the Japanese, in New Guinea, the Philippines, and many other
places from
1942 to 1945.
Feb./Mar. 1945--Battle of Iwo Jima, 807 miles
from the
closest Japanese territory.
Apr./June 1945--Battle of Okinawa, even closer
to Japan.
Aug. 6, 1945--First atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima,
killing 70,000, most of them civilians, including some foreign
forced
laborers. On Aug. 9,
the U.S. dropped a
second bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing 35,000, again, mostly
civilians.
Aug. 8--Soviet Union declares war on Japan.
Aug. 15, 1945--Japanese surrender
announced. The surrender was signed on board the U.S.S. Missouri on Sept. 2.