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James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Hornet in a spectacular surprise attack that caused little damage but boosted Allied morale. The raid prompted the Japanese to retain four army fighter groups in Japan during 1942 and 1943, when they were badly needed in the South Pacific. -
The Allies decided to move next against Italy, hoping an Allied invasion would remove that fascist regime from the war, secure the central Mediterranean and divert German divisions from the northwest coast of France where the Allies planned to attack in the near future.
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Rome liberated of Nazis
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On September 8, 1943, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower publicly announces the surrender of Italy to the Allies. Germany reacted with Operation Axis, the Allies with Operation Avalanche.
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Paris liberated of the Nazis
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The V-2 was first used in September, 1944. Like the V-1 Flying Bomb it carried a one ton warhead. However, this 14 metres (47 feet) long, liquid-fuelled rocket was capable of supersonic speed and could fly at an altitude of over 50 miles. As a result it could not be effectively stopped once launched. -
The Soviet Army ultimately captured Berlin. On 15 April 1945, the Soviet Union fired a massive barrage of some one million artillery shells, one of the largest in history, onto the German positions west of the Oder.
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On April 28, 1945, “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. -
Hitler commits suicide In the war with U.S.A -
The Soviet invasion came as a fulfilment of Stalin's promise – made to British and American leaders at the Tehran and Yalta conferences – to join the war against Japan following the defeat of Nazi Germany. But it also came in violation of the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact signed in 1941. -
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. -
On August 9, 1945, a second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender. The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. -
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the reason for Japan's surrender and the end of World War II.15 jul
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Douglas MacArthur, Commander in the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, also signed. He accepted the Japanese surrender "for the United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and in the interests of the other United Nations at war with Japan.