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Battle of the Atlantic
Germany had waged a similar campaign in World War One, and in 1917 had come close to defeating Britain. But in spite of this experience neither side was well prepared in 1939. Germany had underestimated the impact of U-boats, and was fighting with only 46 operational vessels, using mostly surface vessels - rather than submarines - to prowl the Atlantic. However, on 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, the British liner Athenia was torpedoed by a U-boat. This marked the begi -
Invasion of Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. From East Prussia and Germany in the north and Silesia and Slovakia in the south, German units, with more than 2,000 tanks and over 1,000 planes, broke through Polish defenses along the border and advanced on Warsaw in a massive encirclement attack. After heavy shelling and bombing, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27, 1939. -
War in Africa
When Italy entered World War II in June 1940, the war quickly spread to North Africa, where her colony of Libya bordered the vital British protectorate of Egypt. On 7 September 1940, Marshall Graziani’s troops began a land offensive. Their numerical supremacy won them initial success. -
Events leading up to and the events of Dunkirk.
Although it was a triumph in terms of morale it was only that because of the spin put on events. The rout of British regular troops all the way to Dunkirk was a severe dent to the pride of Britain drawing comparisons with the Old Contemptibles, the destruction of most of the French First Army and well-respected regular British units, including most of the Highland Division, as Churchill put it “the whole root, the core, and brain of the British Army” was trapped on the Dunkirk beach, too much of -
The Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the Second World War air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940 -
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia on June 22nd 1941. Barbarossa the largest military attack of World War Two and was to have appalling consequences for the Russian people. -
Pearl Harbour
It all happened so quickly. At 7.55am on Sunday 7 December 1941, the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft began their deadly attack on the US Pacific Fleet, moored at Pearl Harbor on the Pacific island of Oahu. Within two hours, five battleships had been sunk, another 16 damaged, and 188 aircraft destroyed. Only chance saved three US aircraft carriers, usually stationed at Pearl Harbor but assigned elsewhere on the day. The attacks killed under 100 Japanese but over 2,400 Americans, with anot -
D-Day
On 6 June 1944, just after midnight, the Allied assault upon Hitler’s ‘Fortress Europe’ began. The operation caught the German military high command unaware. Low tides and bad weather – combined with Allied deception plans – had convinced the Germans that an attack was unlikely at that time. As more than 1,000 British bombers began to pummel Normandy’s coastal defences, Rommel, commanding German defences in France, was in Germany celebrating his wife’s birthday. -
The dropping of the atomic bombs
At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. The dropping of the bombs, which occurred by executive order of US President Harry Truman, remains the only nuclear attack in history. In the months following the attack, roughly 100,000 more people died slow, horrendous deaths as a result of radiation
