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Japanese invasion of china
This war started on July 7, 1937 when Japan claimed they were fired at near the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. So using this as an excuse Japan led an attack on China using recently conquered Manchuria as a launching base for their troops. In November 1937, China's most iportant port, Shanghai, fell and also China's capital Nanjing in December that same year. All the major cities were captured by Japan by the end of 1937. -
Rape of Nanking
In December 1937 the Japanese Imperial army marched into Nanking and murdered 300,000 civilians and soldiers out of 600,000. Chinese soldiers in Nanking outnumbered the Japanese soldiers but they were unorganized and poorley led. The Japanese soldiers went into Nanking on December 1937 with orders to kill all the captives. They killed 90,000 soldiers and raped thousands of women. Even old women over the ge of 70 and young girls under the age of 8. More than 20,000 women got raped. -
Germany's invason of Poland
On september 1, 1938 abut 1.5 million German soldiers invaded Poland territory. They bombed Polish airfields and German U-boats attacked the Polish naval forces in the Baltic sea. Germany claimed it was a defensive act but that didnt convince Great Britain and France so they declared war with Germany on September 3rd. Germany invaded Poland so they can have more living space and also to grow more food for the people. And Hitler planned on enslavng the native people there. -
German Blitzkrieg
"Blitzkrieg" was a german term for "lightning war". It was a military tactic to disorganize the enemy forces through the use of mobil forces and concentrated firepower. The Germans used this tactic when they invaded Poland and also used this tactic when they invaded France. And the German commander Erwin Rommel also used this tactic in the North African campaign of World War II. -
Fall of Paris
On May 10, 1940 the Germans launched an attack on France and the Low countries. Just four days into the invasion the German troops had crossed the Meuse river and broke through the French lines. The allies tried to force counter attacks but they had had all failed. On June 14 the German troops made it to Paris and the French capital fell. About 200,000 British and 140,000 French troops were evacuated to England before the fall. -
Operation Barbarossa
On June 22nd Hitler launched an invasion on the Soviet Union. Over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks broke int the Soviet territory. The Russians had counter attacks but it was the weather that had actually prevented the nazis from continuing their invasin. The heavy rain turned the roads into morasses and the freezing temperatures had made the attack a lot slower than originally planned. The attack had failed. -
Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941 Japanese air forces attacked Pearl Harbor. The attack only lasted 2 hourse but did lots of damage. They had managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, eight enormous battleships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 American soldiers and sailors died in the attack and about 1,000 were wounded. The day after the attack the Unied States declared war on Japan. -
Wannsee Conference
On January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, second in command of the SS brought together the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats. He did this so they can discuss about the final situaton of exterminating the entire Jewish race in Europe. They used coded words as to not get caught just in case. There were about 11 million Jews in Europe at that time and their plan was to kill them all. -
Battle of Stalingrad
The battle of Stalingrad occured during July 17th-February 2nd. It was the succesful battle of Russians defending their capital Stalingrad from the German troops. Russans cnsider it t be their greatest patriotic battle. But it was one of the bloodiest battles in history includng combined military and civilian casualties of nearly 2 million. This battle was a turning point for WW 2. -
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
On the morning of April 19, 1943 all the Jewish residents in Warsaw were either in hiding or hiding in bunkers. There was going to be an uprising. Commander Mordecai Anielewicz led the Jewish fighters in the ghetto's uprising. They were armed with pistols, grenades, and some automatic weapons. They managed to force the German soldiers to retreat to the outside of the ghetto's walls. But the German soldiers razed the buildins making the remaining Jews come out of hiding and Anielewicz was killed. -
Operation Gomorrah
The Germans had severly damaged England by bombing them continuouly but the people of Britain finally got back their revenge. British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg. It killed about 1,500 German civilians in the first raid. british soldiers only lost about 12 palnes but had lots of help with a new device5of radar-jamming device called “Window -
Allied invasion of Italy
On September 3rd, 1943 the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery led the first allied invasion of Italy. But the Italian government actually seceretly agreed to the surrender but there was no public announcement until April 8th. In the spring of 1943 opposition groups in Italy were actually planning on overthrowing the Italian leader Mussolini but a strong German military presence prevented the act from happening. -
D-Day
June 6th, 1944 was the day that D-Day happened where 156,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers landed on Normandy to fight the German soldiers. It was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and took extensive planning to do. By the end of August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated and the following spring the allies had defeated the Germans. -
Battle of the Bulge
On December 16, 1944, the last battle of WWII occurred and it was called Battle of the Bulge. With this attack Hitler tried to break up the allies with a major attack against the American army. But ever since D-Day Germany's soldiers had been on retreat and needed supplies but Hitler made them still fight. The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle fought by Americans in WWII. 600,000 were in the about an about 81,000 men died and the Germans lost 100,000. -
Operation Thunderclap
Operation Thunderclap was a plan discussed with the allies about a proposal to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany so it would disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was going to happen in the eastern-front. And also to show that the air defences of Germany were no longer helpful and that Nazis were soon going to be stopped. And we did ended up bombing the city of Dresden in Germany. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The battle of Iwo Jima occured on February 19th, 1945 and was where the iconic photons American soldiers putting up a u.s. flag happened. There were about 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops through out the whole island. After a month of fighting the u.s. marines wiped out the Japanese troops. There were about 1,083 prisoners and two who didn't surrender until 1951. We lost 5,900 soldiers in that battle and 17,400 were wounded. -
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa which occured during April 1st-June 22nd was the last pacific island battle of WWII. It involved 287,000 u.s. troops of the tenth army and 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese thirty-second army. The Japanese used a new form of "special attack" which was a one-way suicidal attack called kamikaze. The commanding generals of both sides died in the course of this bottle which were America general Simon B. Buckner by artillery fire and Japanese general Ushijima Mitsuru by suicide. -
VE Day
On May 8th, 1945, this is the day Great Britain and the u.s. celebrate victory in Europe day. The eight of May was when German soldiers finally put their weapons down and surrendered. Many German soldiers were worried about being kept prisoner by the Soviet Union so they attempted to make a mass exodus to the west when the fighting in Czechoslovakia ended but we're stopped by the Russians and took got took captive. But the Russians took about 2 million German prisoners. -
Dropping of the atomic bombs
On August 6, 1945, the American bomber Ebola Gay dropped a bomb over 5 tons on the city Hiroshima in Japan. The blast was as strong as an explosion of 15,000 tons of tnt. It reduced four square miles of the city and killed 80,000 people immediately. Tens of others died from wounds and radiation poisoning. Then another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki which killed 40,000 more people. A few days later Japan surrendered. -
VJ Day
On August 15, 1945 it was announced that Japan had surrendered and that the war was now over. Both August 14 and August 15 have been known as "victory over Japan day" or just "VJ day". Japan did a formal surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.
