WW2

By austinlegendwood

  • March 15 1939

    Czechoslovakia surrenders after Adolf Hitler annexes the country into the Third Reich. Although the Czechs had warmly welcomed the Germans when they entered the Sudetenland months earlier, they stood silently in despair when the Nazis entered Prague.

  • August 31, 1939

    Germany's Adolf Hitler signs the order for an assault on Poland. After the Germans stage a phony raid on a Gleiwitz radio station, they blame the Polish for the "unprovoked attack."

  • September 1, 1939

    Without declaring war, Germany invades Poland. The coordinated air-and-land attack is conducted with such brutal efficiency that "blitzkrieg" becomes a feared offensive tactic.

  • September 3, 1939

    Honoring their treaty with Poland, France and Great Britain enter the war against Germany.

  • September 5, 1939

    As war broke out in Europe, American sentiment heavily favored isolationism. With the nation still skeptical of Allied propaganda after it had lured the U.S. into the first World War, the United States declares its neutrality in the European War.

  • September 4, 1939

    Japan, engaged in war with China, declares its neutrality in the European War.

  • September 10, 1939

    Canada declares war on Germany.

  • September 27, 1939

    Warsaw, Poland, surrenders to German forces. Poland is partitioned by Germany and Russia.

  • October 16, 1939

    In the first attack on British territory, the Germans hit the Brits at the Firth of Forth. They damage cruisers South-Hampton and Edinburgh and the destroyer Mohawk.

  • November 14, 1939

    The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for its aggression against Finland.

  • March 19, 1940

    The British drop the first bombs on German soil as the RAF hits the seaplane base at Hornum.

  • April 10, 1940

    Germany invades Denmark and Norway with the first major airborne attacks on Allied forces.

  • May 10, 1940

    Germany invades Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Because of the failure of his appeasement policies, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns. Forming a coalition government, Winston Churchill replaces him. Standing alone, Churchill soon began conferring with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt for aid to the British cause.

  • March 12, 1940

    The Germans cross the French border.

  • June 4, 1940

    Leaving behind weapons and supplies at Dunkirk, the British evacuate over 338,000 soldiers from France.

  • June 10, 1940

    Italy joins the war as an ally of Germany.

  • June 11, 1940

    Italy declares war against the Allies. Great Britain, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India and South Africa declare war on Italy. General Hering, the military governor of Paris, declares the French capital an open city to prevent its destruction.

  • June 14 to July 3, 1940

    The Germans march into Paris. France accepts German armistice terms, establishing the Vichy Government under Marshal Petain. A British airborne attack sinks French vessels at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir to prevent them from passing into German possession.

  • August 13, 1940

    The Battle of Britain begins. The air war designed to destroy the RAF and ease the German invasion opens with the Luftwaffe outnumbering its opponent in operational aircraft: 2,669-to-704.

  • September 19, 1940

    The London Blitz starts as Germany, attempting to weaken the country's resolve, bombs the British capital.

  • October 16, 1940

    Close to 16 million American men between the ages of 21 and 36 are required to register at one of 6,500 draft boards across the country. Nearly 50 million men would register during the war.

  • March 11 1941

    Despite opposition from isolationists, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease act to provide aid to Great Britain.

  • March 21 1941

    The first all-black unit of the U.S. Air Corps — the 99th Pursuit Squadron — is activated. They became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

  • April 13, 1941

    Japan and Russia sign a neutrality pact.

  • June 22, 1941

    Unleashing its "Barbarossa" plan, Germany invades the Soviet Union without declaring war. Despite massing troops at the border, the Germans encounter little opposition. Hitler is now fighting a two-front war.

  • June 25, 1941

    Under threat of a forced march on Washington, Roosevelt signs Executive Order 8802. It combats discrimination against blacks and women in the hiring practices of defense jobs. It is the first federal gesture toward civil rights since Reconstruction.

  • July 12, 1941

    With Luftwaffe raids, Germany hits Moscow for the first time.

  • October 16 to October 19,1941

    The U.S. extends aid to the Soviet Union. October 16

    The Germans reach the gates of Moscow. Civilians flee the "Bolshoi Trap" amid panic and looting. October 19

    Soviet Premier Josef Stalin remains in Moscow, vowing that the city "will be defended to the last."

  • December 7, 1941

    At 7:55 AM on a Sunday, hundreds of Japanese warplanes, launched from aircraft carriers far out at sea, attack the American Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, based on a plan by Isoroku Yamamoto. Eight battleships, including the U.S.S. Arizona, three light cruisers, three destroyers and four other naval vessels are either sunk or damaged. One hundred-sixty-four American aircraft, mostly on the ground, are destroyed. And 2,403 Americans are killed.

  • December 8 to the 11, 1941

    The U.S. declares war on Japan. December 11
    Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.

  • January 20, 1942

    The Wannsee Conference in Germany establishes the "Final Solution" for Jews in Europe. The plan would attempt to exterminate an estimated 11 million people.

  • February 19, 1942

    U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066. Its neutral tone authorizes the War Department to designate "military areas" and then exclude anyone from them whom it felt to be a danger. But it has a specific target: the more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans, living along the West Coast. They were about to be forced from their homes and moved inland.

  • June 4-7, 1942

    The Battle of Midway is fought. TThe Japanese had hoped to smash what was left of the Pacific fleet, take Hawaii, hold its people hostage and force the United States to sue for peace. But American cryptographers had deciphered their plans and the Navy was waiting for them. The Japanese would lose 3,500 men, four carriers, a cruiser and 332 aircraft. The Americans would lose 307 men, the carrier Yorktown, one destroyer and 150 aircraft.

  • November 11, 1942

    The Russians launch a major counter-offensive at Stalingrad. It would end with the annihilation of the German 6th Army.

  • March 2-3 1943

    The Battle of the Bismarck Sea is fought for control of New Guinea. The decisive American victory forces the Japanese to re-enforce its troops by submarine — a defensive strategy employed to prevent the continued loss of transports and warships. The battle removes a threat to General Douglas MacArthur's invasion plans.

  • September 3-8, 1943

    The Allies land in Southern Italy. September 8
    Italy accepts Allied surrender terms. German troops move to take control of the country.

  • October 6, 1943

    Italy declares war on Germany.

  • October 14, 1943

    On the second strike against Schweinfurt, 60 Flying Fortresses are shot down and more than 600 men are lost on what is remembered as "Black Thursday."

  • November 18, 1943

    The Battle of Berlin begins. Bombing of the German capital will continue until March 24, 1944.

  • June 6, 1944

    D-Day arrives. The greatest invasion in history begins just after midnight as the first of 24,000 paratroopers -- flown over the Channel in more than 1,000 aircraft -- are dropped behind enemy lines in Normandy. More than 5,300 ships, carrying 176,000 men are streaming across the Channel. Allied commanders plan five coordinated landings along a 45-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline. Some 2,500 American soldiers lay dead on French soil.

  • July 25, 1944

    Operation Cobra, designed to create a gap in the German lines, mistakenly strikes Allied forces in the worst friendly-fire incident of the war. Among the 111 killed is Lt. General Leslie J. McNair. The commanding general of the Army Ground Forces is the highest-ranking U.S. casualty of the war.

  • July 27, 1944

    The First Army pours through the newly opened gap in the German lines and out into the countryside beyond the hedgerows. For weeks, the Americans on the ground had felt fortunate to gain 1,000 yards a day. Soon they would be covering up to 40 miles in the same amount of time. The Germans were reeling.

  • August 15, 1944

    American and Free French forces land in the south of France and begin driving northward. The following day, Hitler reluctantly agrees to pull his battered Seventh Army out of Normandy. It begins a desperate retreat toward Germany. The Allies catch them near the town of Falaise. For three days, the Allies pour fire into the fleeing men from the ground and from the air: 80,000 Germans ran the terrible gauntlet. At least 10,000 died, so many that the pilots of the

  • January 30, 1945

    Six weeks after the German offensive in the Ardennes began, the Allies regain all the ground they'd lost. It had been the biggest battle of the war on the Western Front. More than a million men took part; 19,000 Americans died; 60,000 more had been wounded or captured or listed as "missing." Hitler's enormous gamble ends in disaster. He had lost some 100,000 men and virtually all his tanks and aircraft.

  • February 7-12, 1945

    At the Yalta Conference, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin pledge to hold free elections after the war in Eastern Europe and divide Germany and Austria into three zones of occupation.

  • August 6, 1945

    Developed to drop on the Germans, the first atomic bomb tumbles through the bomb-bay doors of the Enola Gay. . With a single bomb, 40,000 men, women and children are obliterated in an instant. One hundred thousand more die within days of burns and radiation. Another hundred thousand would succumb to radiation poisoning over the next five years. Despite the devastation, the Japanese still would not accept the Allied surrender terms.

  • September 2, 1945

    WW2 has officially ended