World War II

World War II, or the Second World War, was a worldwide military conflict, the amalgamation of what had initially been two separate conflicts. The first began in Asia in 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War; the other began in Europe in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. This global conflict split the majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis Powers. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the death of over 70 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.^[1]

World War II involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. The war placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resources. This resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort; nearly two-thirds of those killed in the war were civilians. Nearly 11 million of these civilian casualties were victims of the Holocaust—which was conducted by Nazi Germany—largely in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.^[2] The financial cost of the war is estimated at about a trillion 1944 U.S. dollars worldwide,^[3][4] making it the most expensive war in capital as well as lives.

The Allies were victorious, and, as a result, the United States and Soviet Union emerged as the world's two leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in hopes of preventing another such conflict. The self determination spawned by the war gave rise to decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began moving toward integration.

[edit] Course of the war

[edit] Overview

See also: Timeline of World War II

Japan invaded Manchuria in September 1931, capturing it from the Chinese. Two years later in 1933, the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. Under Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Germany began to rearm and to pursue a new nationalist foreign policy. By 1938, Hitler was starting to make moves to expand Germany eastwards.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Germany—and to a somewhat lesser extent, Italy—increasingly became more aggressive in their foreign policies.

The British government under Neville Chamberlain however, regarded the Soviet Union as a greater threat to Europe. The United Kingdom and France eventually adopted a policy of appeasement, hoping to maintain a strong, anti-communist Germany to block Soviet expansion.

Finally, in September 1939, Germany invaded Poland in cooperation with the Soviet Union, and Europe was once again at war.

Initially, the French and British did not declare war against Germany, instead they tried to persuade Hitler through diplomacy, but Hitler did not respond. The United Kingdom and France then declared war, but during the winter of 1939–1940, there was little fighting done as neither side was willing to engage the other directly. This period is often referred to as the Phoney War.

In the spring of 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, followed by France and the Low Countries in early summer. Italy also declared war against Britain and France in June 1940.

An attack on the United Kingdom was then engaged, with the Germans attempting to cut the island off from vitally needed supplies and obtain air superiority in order to enable a sea borne invasion.

This sea borne invasion never happened, but the Germans continued to attack the British mainland throughout the war. Unable to engage German forces on the European continent, the United Kingdom instead concentrated on combating German and Italian forces in the Mediterranean Basin.

They had limited success however, as they failed to prevent the Axis' conquest of the Balkans and were stalemated in the Western Desert Campaign.

The British had greater success in the theater of the Mediterranean Sea, dealing severe damage to the Italian Navy, and inflicting the first major defeat on Germany at the Battle of Britain.

The extent of the war increased in June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, forcing them into an alliance with the United Kingdom. The German attack was initially highly successful, overrunning great tracts of Soviet territory, but by winter, it had begun to stall.

After invading mainland China and French Indochina in 1940, Japan was subjected to increasing economic sanctions by the United States, Great Britain and Netherlands. The Japanese were attempting to reduce these sanctions through diplomatic negotiations. These negotiations did not go well, and in December 1941 the war expanded once more when Japan launched nearly simultaneous attacks against the United States and British assets in Southeast Asia. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Germany also declared war on the United States. This brought the United States and Japan into the greater conflict and turned the previously separate Asian and European wars into a single global one.

Although Axis forces continued to make gains, in 1942 the tide began to turn. Japan suffered its first major defeat against American forces in the Battle of Midway, where four of Japan's aircraft carriers were destroyed. German forces in Africa were being pushed back by Anglo-American forces, and Germany’s renewed summer offensive in the Soviet Union had ground to a halt.

This was followed In 1943 by a German defeat in which they suffered devastating losses to the Soviets at Stalingrad, and then again at the Battle of Kursk, widely considered the greatest tank battle in military history. German forces were expelled from Africa, and Allied forces began driving northward up through Sicily and Italy. Italy was forced to sign the Italian Armistice in September 1943. The Japanese continued to lose ground as the American forces seized island after island in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1944, the course of the war had clearly become unfavourable for the Axis. Germany became boxed in as the Soviet offensive became a juggernaut in the east, pushing the Germans out of Russia and pressing into Poland and Romania. In the west, the Allies invaded mainland Europe, liberating France and the Low Countries and reaching Germany’s western borders. While Japan did launch a successful major offensive in China, their navy suffered continued heavy losses in the Pacific, as American forces captured airfields within bombing range of Tokyo.

The war finally ended in 1945; in Europe, the Battle of the Bulge, a final German counter-attack in the west, failed, while Soviet forces captured Berlin in May. These losses forced Germany to surrender. The Asian theater saw American forces capturing the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa while British forces in South East Asia managed to expel Japanese forces there. Though initially unwilling to surrender, Japan finally capitulated after the Soviet Union invaded Manchukuo and the United States dropped atomic bombs on mainland Japan.

[edit] European Theatre

Main article: European Theatre of World War II

[edit] Events leading up to the war in Europe

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

Germany and France had been struggling for dominance in Continental Europe for 80 years and had fought two previous wars, the Franco-Prussian War and World War I.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Communist revolutionary movements began spreading across Europe, briefly taking power in both Budapest and Bavaria. As a reaction to these movements, fascist and nationalist groups were born.^[5]

In 1922, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his fascist party took control of the Kingdom of Italy and set the model for German dictator Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, which, aided by the civil unrest caused by the Great Depression, took power in Germany and eliminated its democratic government, the Weimar Republic.

These two leaders began to re-militarise their countries and became increasingly hostile.

Mussolini first conquered the African nation of Abyssinia and then seized Albania, with both Italy and Germany actively supporting Francisco Franco's fascist Falange party in the Spanish Civil War against the Second Spanish Republic (which was supported by the Soviet Union).

Hitler then broke the Treaty of Versailles by increasing the size of the Germany’s military, and remilitarized the Rhineland.

He started his own expansion of Germany by annexing Austria and also the German-speaking regions (Sudetenland) of Czechoslovakia.

The British government under Neville Chamberlain saw the Soviet Union as a greater threat to Europe and he pursued a policy of appeasement towards Germany, hoping to maintain a strong, anti-communist Germany to block Soviet expansion.

This policy culminated in the Munich Agreement in 1938, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany.^[6][7] In March 1939, Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Mussolini also invaded and annexed Albania in April.

These events caused the United Kingdom and France to prepare for war against Germany. France and Poland pledged on May 19, 1939, to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The following August, the British guaranteed the same.

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which provided for sales of oil and food from the Soviets to Germany, thus reducing the danger of a British blockade such as the one that had nearly starved Germany in World War I. Also included was a secret agreement that 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.  

[edit] Germany’s war against the Western Allies

[edit] Blitzkrieg

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, using the false pretext of a staged "Polish attack" on a German border post. On September 3, the United Kingdom issued an ultimatum to Germany. No reply was received, and Britain, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany, followed later that day by France. Soon afterwards, South Africa, Canada and Nepal also declared war on Germany. Immediately, the UK began seizing German ships and implementing a blockade.

Despite the French and British treaty obligations and promises to the Polish government, both France and the UK were unwilling to launch a full invasion of Germany. The French mobilized slowly and then mounted only a short token offensive in the Saar; neither did the British send land forces in time to support the Poles. Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having ripped through the Polish defences. On September 17, the Soviet Union, pursuant to its prior agreement with Germany, invaded Poland from the east. Poland was soon overwhelmed, and the last Polish units surrendered on October 6.

After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period was referred to by journalists as "the Phoney War" because of the inaction on both sides. In Eastern Europe, the Soviets began occupying Baltic states leading to a confrontation with Finland, a conflict which ended with land concessions to the Soviets on March 12, 1940. In early April 1940, both German and Allied forces launched nearly simultaneous operations around Norway over access to Swedish iron ore. It was a two-month campaign that resulted in complete German control of Denmark and Norway, though at a heavy cost to their surface navy. The fall of Norway led to the Norway Debate in London, which resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was replaced by Winston Churchill.

On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded France and the Low Countries. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into Flanders and planned to fight a mobile war in the north, while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. This was foiled by an unexpected German thrust through the Ardennes, splitting the Allies in two. The BEF and French forces, encircled in the north, were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. Italy attacked France in the Alps in June 10 1940. France, overwhelmed by the blitzkrieg, was forced to sign 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 German puppet state headquartered in south-eastern France known as Vichy France.

With only the United Kingdom remaining as an opposing force in Europe, Germany began to prepare Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. Most of the British Army's heavy weapons and supplies had been lost at Dunkirk, but the Royal Navy was still stronger than the Kriegsmarine and kept control of the English Channel. The Germans then attempted to gain air superiority by destroying the Royal Air Force (RAF) using the Luftwaffe. The ensuing air war in the late summer of 1940 became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command aerodromes and radar stations, but Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Göring and Hitler switched their attention towards bombing British cities, an offensive which became known as The Blitz. This diversion of resources allowed the RAF to rebuild their airbases, eventually leading Hitler to give up on his goal of establishing air superiority over the English Channel; this in turn led to the permanent postponement of Operation Sealion.

With Germany and her allies having total control of the continent, the United Kingdom and its allies settled for strategic bombing and special forces operations in mainland Europe. Many of the conquered nations formed governments in exile and military units within the United Kingdom as well as domestic resistance movements. Germany, meanwhile, fortified its position by constructing the Atlantic Wall.

[edit] Battle of the Atlantic

Main article: Battle of the Atlantic (1939-1945)

The Battle of the Atlantic, a nautical campaign which lasted the duration of the war, started after the German invasion of Poland with the torpedoing of the British liner SS Athenia by a German submarine (U-boat). Having faced raids on shipping during the First World War, the British quickly implemented a convoy solution to protect merchant vessels; they were short of escort ships though, so many merchant ships had to sail without protection. At first, U-boats primarily operated within British waters while German surface vessels covered the Atlantic Ocean. The British attempted to counter the U-boat threat by forming anti-submarine hunting groups, which were ultimately ineffective because the U-boats proved too elusive.

With the German conquest of Norway and France by June 1940, U-boats enjoyed decreased resistance. The French Navy was removed as an Allied force, and additional ports in France on the Atlantic Ocean became available to the German Navy (Kriegsmarine), allowing them to increase the range of their vessels. The Royal Navy became severely stretched, having to remain stationed in the English Channel to protect against a German invasion, send forces to the Mediterranean Sea to make up for the loss of the French fleet, and provide escort for merchant vessels. This was somewhat mitigated by the Destroyers for Bases Agreement with the United States Navy in September 1940, in which the British exchanged several of their overseas bases for fifty destroyers which were then used for escort duties. The success of U-boats in this period led to an increase of their production and the development of the wolf pack technique.

The German surface navy, which had suffered substantial losses in the capture of Norway, had mixed results. While there were several successful merchant raids, such as Operation Berlin, they also suffered several losses, such as the heavy cruiser Graf Spee and battleship Bismarck. The loss of the Bismarck had deeper ramifications on naval policy though, because as a result Hitler ordered all heavy surface vessels to Norwegian waters[1], shifting them from raiding operations to protection from a potential Allied invasion of Scandinavia. While the Royal Navy also suffered the loss of capital ships, such as the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, the battleship HMS Royal Oak and the battlecruiser HMS Hood, their larger surface navy was better able to absorb the losses.

In May 1941, the British captured an intact Enigma machine, which greatly assisted in breaking German codes and allowed for plotting convoy routes, which evaded U-boat positions. In the summer of 1941, the Soviet Union entered the war on the side of the Allies, but they lost much of their equipment and manufacturing base in the first few weeks following the German invasion. The Western Allies attempted to remedy this by sending Arctic convoys, which faced constant harassment from German forces. In September, many of the U-boats operating in the Atlantic were ordered to the Mediterranean to block British supply routes. When the United States entered the war that December, they did not take precautionary anti-submarine measures; this resulted in shipping losses so great that the Germans referred to it as a second happy time.

In February 1942, several German capital ships that were stationed in the port of Brest, France, managed to comply with Hitler's earlier order and slipped through the English Channel to their home bases in German waters, dealing a significant blow to the Royal Navy's reputation. In June, the Leigh light allowed Allied aircraft to illuminate U-boats that had been detected by the aeroplanes radar, but this was soon negated by the Germans with Metox, a radar detection system that gave them advance notice of such an aircraft's approach. In American waters, the institution of shore blackouts and an interlocking convoy system resulted in a drop in attacks, and the U-boats shifted their operations back to the mid-Atlantic by August. In December, a strong German surface navy force engaged an Arctic convoy destined for the Soviet Union and failed to destroy a single merchant ship; this resulted in the resignation of Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) Erich Raeder, supreme commander of the Kriegsmarine. He was replaced by Commander of Submarines Karl Dönitz, and all naval building priorities turned to the U-boats.

In January 1943, the British developed the H2S radar system, which was undetectable by Metox. As before, this was followed by a counter-invention on the German side, the Naxos radar detector, which allowed German fighters to home in on Allied aircraft utilizing the H2S. In the spring, the Battle of the Atlantic began to turn in favour of the Allies with the pivotal point being Black May, a period where the Allies had fewer ships sunk and the Kriegsmarine lost 25% of their active U-boats. That December, the German surface fleet lost their last active battlecruiser in the Battle of North Cape. By this time, the Kriegsmarine was unable to regain the initiative; Allied production, such as the mass-produced Liberty ships, improved antisubmarine warfare tactics, sea route patrols with long range attack aircraft, and ever-improving technology led to increasing U-boat losses and more supplies getting through. This allowed for the massive supply build up in the United Kingdom needed for the eventual invasion of Western Europe in mid-1944.

[edit] Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East

Main articles: Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, Middle East Theatre of World War II, and African campaigns of World War II

Control of Southern Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and North Africa was important because the British Empire depended on shipping through the Suez Canal. If the canal fell into Axis hands or if the Royal Navy lost control of the Mediterranean, then transport between the United Kingdom, India, and Australia would have to go around the Cape of Good Hope, an increase of several thousand miles.

Almost immediately after declaring war on France and the United Kingdom in June 1940, Italy initiated the siege of Malta, an island under British control located in the Mediterranean between mainland Italy and its colony in Libya. Both sides initially placed minimal resources though, the Italians needing to reserve their strength for other planned invasions and the British not believing they could effectively defend it. As the importance of the campaigns in North Africa increased though, so did that of Malta and the disruptions of Axis supply lines that Allied forces stationed there could provide.

Following the French surrender, the British attacked the French Navy anchored in North Africa in July 1940, out of fear that it might fall into German hands; this contributed to a souring of British-French relations for the next few years. Soon following this action was the Battle of Calabria, the first large conflict between the Allied navies and the Italian Navy (Regia Marina).

With France no longer a threat, the Kingdom of Italy was able to relax its guard on its western possessions in Africa which bordered French territory and focus on the British Commonwealth forces in the east. In June 1940 the Italians made small incursions into British-protected Egypt, starting the North African campaign, and into Sudan and Kenya. In August, Italy invaded British Somaliland, located in the Horn of Africa, expelling British Commonwealth forces and enlarging the Italian Empire in Italian East Africa.

The Allies, including Free French Forces, under Charles de Gaulle, then attempted to replace Vichy control over French territories with that of the Free French. In September 1940, they made a failed attempt to capture French West Africa, though in November, they later succeeded in French Equatorial Africa. Between these attempts, the Italians launched their own offensive from Albania and attacked Greece.

Starting in November 1940, the Allies had a string of successful operations against Italian forces. On November 12 they launched the first all-aircraft naval attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto. Then, in December, British Commonwealth forces under General Archibald Wavell, launched Operation Compass, expelling Italian forces from Egypt and pushing them all the way west across Libya. Starting in January 1941, British Commonwealth forces began an offensive into Italian East Africa, culminating in an Italian defeat. Italy was also facing problems in the Balkans, where the Greek Army had pushed the Italians out of Greece and were now stalemated in southern Albania.

Alarmed by the Italian setbacks, Hitler authorized reinforcements, and sent German forces to Africa in February. British Commonwealth leader started redeploying their forces, sending soldiers from North Africa to Greece starting in early March; in an effort to secure their transportation lines, the Allied navies managed to engage the Regia Marina in the Battle of Cape Matapan, doing significant damage to the Italian fleet. The German forces in Africa, led by German General Erwin Rommel, however, launched an offensive against the now depleted British Commonwealth forces near the end of March. During this offense, the Allies also feared having their oil supply cut due to a coup d'état in Iraq in early April. They were further pressed when the Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. By the middle of April, Rommel's forces had pushed British Commonwealth forces back into Egypt with the exception of the port of Tobruk, which he encircled and besieged. Shortly after, the British responded to the coup in Iraq by invading and occupying the country. By the end of April, German forces (with Italian and other Axis Armies) had conquered Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and further captured the island of Crete, forcing a withdrawal of all British Commonwealth forces from the Balkans.

In June 8, British Commonwealth and Free French forces invaded Vichy controlled Syria and Lebanon due to the Vichy allowance of Axis forces to pass through the area and utilize military bases. A week later, Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe, which was intended to be a major offensive in the Western Desert, but resulted in the loss of nearly half of the British Commonwealth tanks in the region. Frustrated by the lack of success, Churchill had Wavell replaced with Claude Auchinleck in early July. In late August, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the British and the Soviets launched a joint invasion of Iran to secure its oilfields and the Persian Corridor supply route for Soviet use.

There was then a lull in activity. The Soviet-German war had significantly reduced the importance of the Mediterranean theatre to the Germans and the British Commonwealth armies were re-grouping. On November 18, the Allies launched Operation Crusader, an offensive in the Western Desert, which pushed Rommel back to his original starting point at El Agheila in Libya. The British suffered a significant blow in the Mediterranean sea though, losing several ships shortly after the First Battle of Sirte.

With the entry of Japan into the war in December 1941, the British Commonwealth forces were again forced to withdraw units in North Africa, transferring some to Burma.

Once again, Rommel took advantage of the situation, and on January 21, launched an offensive, which pushed the British Commonwealth forces back to Gazala, just west of Tobruk. There was another lull in activity as both sides built up their forces. In May, after the Japanese Indian Ocean raid, British Commonwealth forces invaded Vichy controlled Madagascar to prevent the Imperial Japanese Navy from using as launch point for further such attacks. Rommel (with his Afrika Korps and the Italian Army) launched his own attack in late May, overrunning successively the British position in the Western Desert (Battle of Tobruk) and chasing them well into Egypt, being halted at El Alamein. Shortly after, the Royal Navy suffered significant damage getting much needed supplies to Malta from the Italian Regia Marina.

Like Wavell before him, Auchinleck's perceived failures led to his replacement by Churchill, this time by Harold Alexander with Bernard Montgomery taking over Allied land forces in Egypt.

In late October, after building up his forces, Montgomery launched his offensive, pushing the Axis forces back and pursuing them across the desert. In November, Allied forces landed in Vichy-controlled Northwest Africa with minimal resistance; in retaliation, the Germans seized the remainder of mainland France, though they failed to capture the remainder of the French Navy. Soon, Rommel's forces were pincered in Tunisia and by May 1943, were forced to evacuate Africa entirely.

In July, the Italian Campaign began with the Allied invasion of Sicily. The continued series of Italian defeats led to Mussolini being dismissed by the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III and subsequently arrested. His successor, Pietro Badoglio, then began negotiating surrender with the Allies. On September 3 the Allies invaded Italy itself and the Italians signed an armistice. This was made public on September 8; the same day the Allies launched a subsequent invasion of the Italian held Dodecanese islands. Germany had been planning for such an event though, and executed Operation Achse, the seizure of northern and central Italy. A few days later, Mussolini was rescued by German special forces and before the end of September created the Italian Social Republic, a German client state.

From October until mid-1944, the Allies fought through a series of defensive lines and fortifications designed to slow down their progress. One of strongest of the German defensive lines, the Winter Line, was breached nearly simultaneously in May at Monte Cassino by British-led forces and at Anzio by the Americans; though the Allies could have encircled and potentially destroyed the bulk of German forces in Italy, the American forces instead moved towards Rome, capturing the city on June 4.

In August, Allied forces in Italy were divided, with a significant portion sent to southern France to assist in the liberation of Western Europe while the remainder pressed north to engage the remaining German forces, notably at the Gothic Line. On April 25, 1945, a little over a year and half after its creation, the Italian Social Republic was overthrown by Italian partisans; Mussolini, his mistress and several of his ministers were captured by the partisans while attempting to flee and executed. Fighting in Italy would continue until early May 1945, only a few days before the general German surrender.

[edit] Liberation of Western Europe

Main articles: Battle of Normandy, Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine, and Battle of the Bulge

By the spring of 1944, the Allied preparations for the invasion of France and the initial stages for the liberation of Western Europe (Operation Overlord) were complete. They had assembled around one hundred twenty Divisions, consisting of over two million men, of whom 1.3 million were Americans, 600,000 were British and the rest Canadian, Free French and Polish. The invasion, code-named Operation Neptune but commonly referred to as D-Day, was set for June 5 but bad weather postponed the invasion to June 6, 1944.^[9] Almost 85–90% of all German troops were deployed on the Eastern Front and only 400,000 Germans in two armies, the German Seventh Army and the newly-created Fifth Panzer Army, were stationed in the area. The Germans had also constructed an elaborate series of fortifications along the coast called the Atlantic Wall, but in many places the Wall was incomplete. The Allied forces under supreme command of Dwight D. Eisenhower had launched an elaborate deception campaign to convince the Germans that the landings would occur in the Calais area, which caused the Germans to deploy many of their forces in that sector. Only 50,000 Germans were deployed in the Normandy sector on the day of the invasion.

The invasion began with 17,000 airborne troops being dropped in Normandy to serve as a screening force to prevent the Germans from attacking the beaches. During the early morning, a massive naval flotilla bombarded German defenses on the beaches, but due to lack of visibility, most of the shots missed their targets. Additionally, most of the troop transport ships (with personnel, trucks, and equipment) were off-course, some as much as thousands of yards from their respective landing zone amongst the five beach areas (Utah, Omaha, Sword, Juno and Gold). The Americans in particular suffered heavy losses on Omaha beach due to the German fortifications being left intact. However, by the end of the first day, most of the Allied objectives were accomplished even though the British and Canadian objective of capturing Caen proved too optimistic. The Germans launched no significant counter-attack on the beaches, as Hitler believed the landings to be a decoy. Only three days later, the German High command realized that Normandy was the actual invasion, but by then the Allies had already consolidated their beachheads.

The bocage terrain of Normandy where the Americans had landed made it ideal ground for defensive warfare. Nevertheless, the Americans made steady progress and captured the deep-water port of Cherbourg on June 26, one of the primary objectives of the invasion. However, the Germans had mined the harbor and destroyed most of the port facilities before surrendering, and it would be another month before the port could be brought back into limited use. The British launched another attack on June 13 to capture Caen but were held back as the Germans had moved in large number of troops to hold the city. The city was to remain in German hands for another 6 weeks. It finally fell to British and Canadian forces on July 9.

Allied firepower, improved tactics, and numerical superiority eventually resulted in a breakout of American mechanized forces at the western end of the Normandy pocket in Operation Cobra on July 23. The allied advance to this point had been considerably slower than expected. Seven weeks after D-Day, U.S. First Army was holding an east-west line that ran from Caumont to Saint-Lô to Lessay on the Channel. Pre-D-Day projections had put the Americans on that line by D Plus Five.^[10] When Hitler learned of the American breakout, he ordered his forces in Normandy to launch an immediate counter-offensive. However the German forces moving in open countryside were now easily targeted by Allied aircraft, as they had initially escaped Allied air attacks due to their well camouflaged defensive positions.

The Americans placed strong formations on their flanks which blunted the attack and then began to encircle the 7th Army and large parts of the 5th Panzer Army in the Falaise Pocket. Some 50,000 Germans were captured, but 100,000 managed to escape the pocket. Worse still, the British and Canadians—whose initial strategic objective to draw in enemy reserves and protect the American flanks so as to promote a later turning movement north had been achieved^[11]—now began to break through the German lines. Any hope the Germans had of containing the Allied thrust into France by forming new defensive lines was now gone. The Allies raced across France, advancing as much as 600 miles (1,000 km) in two weeks.^[12] The German forces retreated into Northern France, Holland and Belgium.

By August 1944, Allied forces stationed in Corsica launched Operation Dragoon, invading the French Riviera on August 15 with the 6th Army Group, led by Lieutenant General Jacob Devers), and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and the Free French 2nd Armoured Division under General Philippe Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces on behalf of General von Choltiz from Paris and liberated the city on August 25.

Around this time the Germans began launching V-1's (known as the "buzz bomb"), the world's first cruise missile, at targets in southern England and Belgium. Later they would employ the much larger V-2 rocket, a liquid-fuelled guided ballistic missile. These weapons were inaccurate and could only target large areas such as cities; they had little military effect and were intended to demoralize and/or terrorize Allied civilians.

Logistical problems plagued the Allies as they fanned out across France and the Low Countries, advancing towards the German border. With the supply lines still running back to Normandy, and critical shortages in fuel and other supplies all along the front, the Allies slowed the general advance and focused the available supplies on a narrow front strategy. Allied paratroopers and armour attempted a war-winning advance through the Netherlands and across the Rhine River with Operation Market Garden in September (the goal was to end the war by Christmas). The plan was to land paratroopers near bridges on the Rhine River, hold the position, and wait for the armour to cut through enemy lines to reinforce them and then cross into Germany. The plan was conceived and led by British General Montgomery, and included British, American, Polish, and Canadian forces. Although the plan encountered some initial success, many of the bridges were blown up, and the advancing armoured columns ran into delays. As a result, the British 1st Airborne Division, holding the last bridge, was nearly annihilated. The Germans were able to entrench all along the front and the war continued through the winter.

In order to improve the supply situation, the Canadian First Army was assigned to clear the entrance to the port of Antwerp, the Scheldt estuary, which they successfully accomplished by late November 1944 making Canada the only country to successfully complete all D-Day objectives. In October, the Americans captured Aachen, the first major German city to be occupied.

Hitler had been planning to launch a major counter-offensive against the Allies since mid-September. The objective of the attack was to capture Antwerp. Not only would the capture or destruction of Antwerp prevent supplies from reaching the allied armies, it would also split allied forces in two, demoralizing the alliance and forcing its leaders to negotiate. For the attack, Hitler concentrated the best of his remaining forces in the west, launching the attack through the Ardennes in southern Belgium, a hilly and in places a heavily wooded region, and the site of his victory in 1940. Dense cloud cover denied the Americans the use of their reconnaissance and ground attack aircraft.

Parts of the attack managed to break through the thinly held American lines (about 4 divisions which were either new or refitting to cover about 70 miles (110 km) of the front-line), and dash headlong for the Meuse. However, the northern section of the line held, constricting the advance to a narrow corridor. The German advance was delayed at St. Vith, which American forces defended for several days. At the vital road junction of Bastogne, the American 101st Airborne Division held out, surrounded, for the duration of the battle. Patton's 3rd Army to the South made a rapid 90 degree turn and rammed into the German southern flank, relieving Bastogne.

The weather by this time had cleared unleashing allied air power as the German attack ground to a halt at Dinant. In an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched a massive air raid on Allied airfields in the Low Countries on January 1, 1945. The Germans destroyed 465 aircraft but lost 277 of their own planes. Whereas the Allies were able to make up their losses in days, the Luftwaffe was not capable of launching a major air attack again.^[13]

Allied forces from the north and south met up at Houffalize and by the end of January they had pushed the Germans back to their starting positions. Many German units were caught in the pocket created by the Bulge and forced to surrender or retreat without their heavy equipment. Months of the Reich's war production were lost whereas German forces on the Eastern front were virtually starved of resources at the very moment the Red Army was preparing for its massive offensive against Germany. 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 at Remagen. Also, Operation Varsity, a parachute-assault in late March, got a foothold on the east bank of the Rhine River. Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg, crossing the river Elbe and moving on towards Denmark and the Baltic Sea.

The U.S. 9th Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement, and the U.S. 1st Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. These armies were commanded by General Omar Bradley who had over 1.3 million men under his command (the 12th Army Group). On April 4, the encirclement was completed, and the German Army Group B, which included the 5th Panzer Army, 7th Army and the 15th Army and was commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model, was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket. Some 300,000 German soldiers then became prisoners of war. The 1st and 9th U.S. Armies then turned east, halting their advance at the Elbe river where they met up with Soviet troops in mid-April.

[edit] German-Soviet War

Main article: Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed the conflict in central and Eastern Europe from June 22, 1941 to May 8, 1945. It was the largest theatre of war in history in terms of numbers of soldiers, equipment and casualties and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. It was here that the bulk of the European war was fought; where the Red Army halted the Germans in 1941 and then inflicted the first major defeats at Stalingrad and Kursk in 1943. The fighting involved millions of German and Soviet troops along a broad front hundreds of kilometres long. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of World War II, with over 5 million Axis deaths; Soviet military deaths were about 10.6 million (out of which 2.8 - 3.5 million Soviet prisoners of war (of 5.5 million) died in German captivity^[14][15][16]), and civilian deaths were about 14 to 19 million.^[17] More people fought and died on the Eastern Front than in all other theatres of World War II combined; the German army suffered 80% to 93% of all its casualties there.^[18][19] Although the Soviet Union was victorious in the war, the cost to the nation was an estimated 27 million dead, about half of all World War II casualties and the vast majority of Allied deaths, and had devastated the Soviet economy in the struggle.^[20][21][22] In Soviet and Russian sources, the conflict is referred to as the Great Patriotic War.

[edit] Invasion of the Soviet Union

Main articles: Operation Barbarossa and Battle of Moscow

For the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Germans allotted three army groups, totalling approximately 3.3 million men, along with 1 million from other Axis countries. Among these were 19 panzer divisions, and in total the “Barbarossa” force had about 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft.^[23] It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history.^[23] Their Soviet opponents had just recently seen a drastic purge in 1933 that had crippled the Red Army, reducing its morale and efficiency just before the German invasion.^[24] With up to 50% of army officers executed, the result was that the Red Army officer corps in 1941 had many inexperienced senior officers.^[25]

The battle of Greece and the invasion of Yugoslavia delayed the German invasion of the Soviet Union by a critical six weeks, but on June 22, 1941, Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union.

Germany’s Army Group North was deployed in East Prussia. Its main objectives were to secure the Baltic states and seize Leningrad. Opposite Army Group North were two Soviet armies. The Germans threw their 600 tanks at the junction of the two Soviet Armies in that sector. The 4th Panzer Army's objective was to cross the Neman River and the Dvina River which were the two largest obstacles in route to Leningrad. On the first day, the tanks crossed the Neman and penetrated 50 miles (80 km). Near Rasienai, the panzers were counterattacked by 300 Soviet tanks; it took 4 days for the Germans to encircle and destroy the Soviets. The panzers then crossed the Dvina near Dvinsk, and approached Leningrad.

Army Group Centre was deployed in Poland. Its main objective was to capture Moscow. Opposite Army Group Center were four Soviet armies occupying a salient that jutted into German territory with its center at Bialystok. Beyond Bialystok was Minsk which was a key railway junction and guardian of the main highway to Moscow. 3rd Panzer Army punched through the junction of the two Soviet armies from the North and crossed the Neman River, and the 2nd Panzer Army crossed the Bug River from the south. While the panzers attacked, the infantry armies struck at the salient and encircled Soviet troops at Bialystok. The panzer armies' objective was to meet at Minsk and prevent any Soviet withdrawal. On June 27, 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies met up at Minsk advancing 200 miles (300 km) into Soviet territory. In the vast pocket between Minsk and the Polish border, 32 Soviet infantry and eight tank divisions were encircled and were destroyed. Soviet soldiers numbering 135,000 were killed or wounded, 290,000 were captured, while another 250,000 managed to escape.

Army Group South was deployed in southern Poland and Romania and also included two Romanian armies and several Italian, Slovakian and Hungarian divisions. Its objective was to secure the oil fields of the Caucasus. Opposite the Germans in the south were three Soviet armies. The majority of the Axis forces struck at the junctions of the Soviet armies but 1st Panzer Army struck right through the Soviet Army with the objective of capturing Brody. On June 26, Soviet commanders reacted to the German attack and mounted a massive counter-attack on 1st Panzer Army with five mechanized corps with over 1,000 tanks. The battle was among the fiercest of the invasion, lasting over 4 days. In the end the Germans prevailed but the Soviets inflicted heavy losses on the 1st Panzer Army. With the failure of the Soviet armoured offensive, the last substantial Soviet tank forces in the south were now spent.

On July 3, Hitler finally gave permission to proceed for the panzers to resume their drive east after the infantry armies had caught up. The next objective of Army Group Center was the city of Smolensk, which commanded the road to Moscow. Facing the Germans was an old Russian defensive line where the Soviets had deployed six armies. On July 6, the Soviets launched an attack with 700 tanks against the 3rd Panzer Army. The Germans, using their overwhelming air superiority, wiped out the Soviet tanks. The 2nd Panzer Army crossed the Dnieper River and closed on Smolensk from the south while 3rd Panzer Army, after defeating the Soviet counter-attack, approached Smolensk from the north. Trapped between their pincers were three Soviet armies. On July 26, the panzers closed the gap and then began to eliminate the pocket, which yielded over 300,000 Soviet prisoners, although 200,000 evaded capture. Hitler by now had lost faith in battles of encirclement and wanted to defeat the Soviets by inflicting severe economic damage which meant seizing the oil fields in the south and Leningrad in the north. Tanks from Army Group Centre were diverted to Army Group North and South to aid them. Hitler's generals vehemently opposed this as Moscow was only 200 miles (300 km) away from Army Group Centre and the bulk of the Red Army was deployed in that sector and only an attack there could hope to end the war quickly. However, Hitler was adamant and the tanks from Army Group Centre arrived and reinforced the 4th Panzer Army in the north which subsequently broke through the Soviet defenses on August 8 and by the end of August was only 30 miles (50 km) from Leningrad. Meanwhile the Finns had pushed southeast on both sides of Lake Ladoga reaching the old Finnish-Soviet frontier.

In the South by mid-July below the Pinsk Marshes, the Germans had gotten to within a few miles of Kiev. The 1st Panzer Army then went South while the German 17th Army, which was on 1st Panzer Army's southern flank, struck east and between them trapped 3 Soviet armies near Uman. As the Germans eliminated the pocket, their tanks turned north and crossed the Dnieper. Meanwhile, 2nd Panzer Army, which was diverted from Army Group Centre, had crossed the Desna River with 2nd Army on its right flank. This move resulted in the trapping of four Soviet armies and parts of two others. The encirclement of Soviet forces in Kiev was achieved on September 16. The encircled Soviets did not give up easily, a savage battle ensued, lasting for 10 days, after which the Germans claimed over 600,000 Soviet soldiers captured. Hitler called it the greatest battle in history. After Kiev, the Red Army no longer outnumbered the Germans and there were no more reserves. To defend Moscow, Stalin had only 800,000 men left.

The Red Army was outflanked and on September 8 1941, the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad and Hitler ordered the city to be besieged. The siege lasted for a total of 900 days, from September 8 1941 until January 27 1944. The city's almost 3 million civilians (including about 400,000 children) refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city.^[29] Food and fuel stocks were limited to a mere 1-2 month supply, public transport was not operational and by the winter of 1941-42 there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and very little food.^[29] In January 1942 in the depths of an unusually cold winter, the city's food rations reached an all time low of only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound) of bread per person per day.^[29] In just two months, January and February 1942, 200,000 people died in Leningrad of cold and starvation.^[29] Despite these tragic losses and the inhuman conditions the city's war industries still continued to work and the city did not surrender.

The Soviets had mounted an increasing number of attacks against Army Group Centre, but lacking tanks, it was in no position to go on the offensive. Hitler had changed his mind and decided that tanks be sent back to Army Group Center for its all out drive on Moscow. Operation Typhoon, the drive on Moscow began on October 2. In front of Army Group Center was a series of elaborate defence lines. The Germans easily penetrated the first line as 2nd Panzer Army, returning from the south, took Orel which was 75 miles (121 km) behind the Soviet first defence line. The Germans then pushed in and the vast pocket yielded 663,000 Soviet prisoners. Soviet forces now had only 90,000 men and 150 tanks left for the defense for Moscow.

Almost from the beginning of Operation Typhoon the weather had deteriorated steadily, slowing the German advance on Moscow to as little as 2 miles (3 km) a day. On October 31, the German High Command ordered a halt on Operation Typhoon, as the armies were re-organized. The pause gave the Soviets time to build up new armies and bring in the Soviet troops from the east as the neutrality pact signed by the Soviets and Japanese in April, 1941 assured Stalin that there was no longer a threat from the Japanese.

On November 15, the Germans resumed the attack on Moscow. Facing the Germans were six Soviet armies. The Germans intended to let the 3rd and 4th Panzer Armies cross the Moscow Canal and envelop Moscow from the North East. The 2nd Panzer Army would attack Tula and then close in on Moscow from the south and the 4th Army would smash in the center. However, on November 22, Soviet Siberian troops were unleashed on the 2nd Panzer Army in the South, which inflicted a shocking defeat on the Germans. The 4th Panzer Army succeeded in crossing the Moscow canal and on December 2 had penetrated to within 15 miles (24 km) of the Kremlin. However, by then, the first blizzards of the winter began and the Wehrmacht was not equipped for winter warfare. Frostbite and disease had caused more casualties than combat; dead and wounded had already reached 155,000 in 3 weeks. Some divisions were now at 50% strength and the bitter cold had caused severe problems for weapons and equipment. Weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe. Hitler's plans miscarried at the onset of severe winter weather; he was so confident of a lightning victory that he did not prepare for even the possibility of winter warfare. Yet, his eastern army suffered more than 734,000 casualties (about 23% of its average strength of 3,200,000 troops) during the first five months of the invasion, and on 27 November 1941, General Eduard Wagner, the Quartermaster General of the German Army, reported, "We are at the end of our resources in both personnel and materiel. We are about to be confronted with the dangers of deep winter." Newly built up Soviet troops near Moscow now numbered over 500,000 men and Zhukov on December 5 launched a massive counter attack which pushed the Germans back over 200 miles (300 km) but no decisive breakthrough was achieved. The invasion of the Soviet Union had so far cost the Germans over 250,000 dead, 500,000 wounded and most of their tanks.

[edit] Germany’s second offensive

Main articles: Second Battle of Kharkov, Operation Blue, Battle of Stalingrad, and Battle of the Caucasus

On January 6, 1942, Stalin, confident after his earlier victory, ordered a general counter-offensive. Initially the attacks made good ground as Soviet pincers closed around Demyansk and Vyazma and threatening attacks were made towards Smolensk and Bryansk. Despite these successes, the Soviet offensive soon ran out of steam. By March, the Germans had recovered and stabilized their line and secured the neck of the Vyazma Pocket. Only at Demyansk was there any serious prospect of a major Soviet victory. Here a large part of the German 16th Army had been surrounded. Hitler ordered no withdrawal and the 92,000 men trapped in the pocket were to hold their ground while they were re-supplied by air. For ten weeks, they held out until April when a land corridor was opened to the west. The German forces retained Demyansk until they were permitted to withdraw in February 1943.

In May, the Soviets attempted to retake the city of Kharkov, in Eastern Ukraine. They opened with concentric attacks on either side of Kharkov and in both sides broke through German lines and a serious threat to the city emerged. In response, the Germans accelerated the plans for their own offensive and launched it 5 days later. The German 6th Army struck at the salient from the south and encircled the entire Soviet army assaulting Kharkov. In the last days of May, the Germans destroyed the forces inside the pocket. Of the Soviet troops inside the pocket, 70,000 were killed, 200,000 captured and only 22,000 managed to escape.

Hitler had by now realized that his Armies were too weak to carry out an offensive on all sectors of the Eastern Front, but if the Germans could seize the oil and fertile rich area of the Southern Soviet Union this would give the Germans the means to continue with the war. Operation Blue attempted the destruction of the Red Army's southern front, consolidation of the Ukraine west of the River Volga, and the capture of the Caucasus oil fields. The Germans reinforced Arm