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Japanese Invasion of China
China began a full-scale resistance to the expansion of Japanese influence in its territory. Anti-Japanese disturbances broke out in Shanghai, the Japanese then bombed the unprotected city. When allied counter attacks in the Pacific and on Japan's home islands, Japan surrendered. -
Rape of Nanking
Six week period where the Imperial Japanese Army brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people, citizens and soldiers. Between 20,000 and 80,000 women were sexually assaulted. Chinese soldiers were hunted down, killed, and left in mass graves. Entire families were killed, elderly and infants were targeted for execution while thousands of women were raped. The Japanese looted and burned 1/3 of the buildings. -
German Blitzkrieg
"Lightening war"-military tactic designed to create disorganization among enemy forces through the use of mobile forces and locally concentrated fire power. It was successfully used against Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece because it allowed tanks to drive a breach in enemy defenses making the tanks able to roam enemy grounds freely which caused shock and disorganization among enemy defenses. -
Germany's Invasion of Poland
Germany signed a nonaggression pact with Poland in January 1934, but broke it in 1939. The Polish army was defeated within weeks. Germany had more than 2,000 tanks and 1,000 planes that broke through Polish defenses along the boarder. Britain and France declared war on Germany September 3, 1939. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Poland until January 1945. -
Fall of Paris
Paris was awoken with a German-accented voice announcing through loud speakers that a curfew was imposed for 8pm which is when the German troops entered and started to occupy Paris. By then 2 million Parisians had already fled. The German Gestapo started arrests, interrogations, and spying. -
Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes damaged 20 American naval vessels, 300 air planes, more than 2,400 Americans died and another 1,000 were wounded. A 1,800 pound bomb smashed through the deck of battle ship USS Arizona causing it to explode and sink with over 1,000 men trapped inside. Torpedoes pierced the USS Oklahoma causing it and the 400 men aboard to sink. -
Bataan Death March
75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make a 65-mile march to prison camps. Thousands of troops died because their captors brutality. The beat, starved and even bayoneted those to weak to walk, at the camps thousands more died from mistreatment, disease, and starvation. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The bloodiest battle in history, there were over two million causalities. This stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the tide of war in favor of the allies. -
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
SS forces were sent to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, several hundred fought back with a small cache of weapons. The Germans went block to block destroying bunkers where many residents were hiding, by May 16 the ghetto was firmly under Nazi , on that same day, as a symbolic act, the Germans blew up Warsaw's Great Synagogue. An estimated 7,00 Jews died in the uprising while the 50,000 "survivors" were sent to extermination or labor camps. -
Operation Gomorrah
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. -
D-Day
The British and Canadians captured beaches code-named Gold, Juno, and Sword. By the end of the day the allied troops stormed Normandy's beaches, there were over 2,000 American troops and 4,000 allied troops that died. On June 11, the beaches were secure, over 326,000 troops, 50,000 vehicles, and 100,000 tons of equipment landed at Normandy. By the end of June the allies seized Cherbourg, landed 850,000 man and 150 vehicles in Normandy and were ready to continue to march across France. -
Battle of the Bulge
On December 16, more than a quarter-million German troops launched the deadliest battle of the war in the heavily forested Ardennes. The inexperienced U.S. 106th Division was nearly annihilated, but even in defeat helped buy time for Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke’s defense of St.-Vith. As the German armies drove deeper into the Ardennes trying to secure vital bridgeheads west of the River Meuse quickly, the line defining the Allied front took on the appearance of a large protrusion or bulge. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
The Japanese sought to converge three naval forces on Leyte Gulf, and successfully diverted the U.S. Third Fleet with a decoy. At the Suriago Strait, the U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyed one of the Japanese forces and forced a second one to withdraw. The third successfully traversed the San Bernadino Straight but also withdrew before attacking the Allied forces at Leyte. -
Operation Thunderclap
The single most destructive bombing of the war, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to make matters worse, little, if anything, was accomplished since the German's were already on the verge of surrendering. More than 3,400 tons of explosives were dropped by 800 American and British aircraft. Eight square miles of the city was ruined and between 35,000 and 135,000 people died. -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp, where they found over 6,00 emaciated prisoners, discovered hundreds of thousands of suits, 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 140,000 tons of human hair. In Bergen-Belsen 60,000 prisoners were found, most in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic. More than 10,000 died from nutritional or disease within weeks. Inmates resembled skeletons because of demands of forced labor and lack of food. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima was protected by 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops who fought from caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations. The US Marines wiped out the defending forces in a month. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Navy's Fifth Fleet, more than 180,000 US Army and US Marine corps troops arrived on the Pacific island of Okinawa. On April 7, Japan launched Yamato to attack the Fifth Fleet but the allies spotted Yamato and alerted the fleet who sunk Yamato. The Kamikaze suicide pilot was Japan's most ruthless weapon, some drove planes into ships at 500 mph. The Fifth Fleet suffered 36 sunken ships, 368 damaged ships, 4,900 men killed/drowned, 4,800 men wounded, and 763 lost aircraft. -
VE DAy
After Hitler committed suicide on April 30, Grand Admiral Donitz surrendered on May 7. The next day people rejoiced by having parades, got drunk, sang/danced in the streets and went to church to thank God. -
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
A B-29 bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima wiping out 90% of the city and killing 80,000 people immediately, thousands more from radiation. Another B-29 bomber dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki killing 40,000 people. Japan surrendered August 15. -
V-J Day
"Victory over Japan Day" or "V-J Day" celebrations spread across the US. Citizens of the allied nations felt an overwhelming sense of relief and exhilaration after the long bloody conflict.