World War II

Battle of Britain British planes fought German aircraft above Britain in 1940, preventing a German invasion. The Blitz For 37 weeks in 1940–41, German bombers targeted British towns with nighttime air raids.

Flash invasion Hitler invaded and conquered most of western Europe, including France, in three months in 1940. D-Day In 1944, Allied troops landed in Normandy to free Europe from German control (see pp142–43). Allied bombing raids From 1942, the Allies started bombing German cities.

EUROPE

Nazi persecution The German Nazi party forced Jewish people to wear a yellow star badge. From 1942, Jews and other victims were killed in extermination camps, mainly in Poland.

Battle of Stalingrad German expansion into eastern Europe was halted in January 1943, when their troops surrendered Stalingrad (see p141).

ASIA

Battle of the Atlantic German submarines sank thousands of ships carrying supplies to Britain, until the Allies stopped them in 1943, using better radar and antisubmarine ships.

Fighting in the desert As the war spread to North Africa in 1940, Axis and Allied forces fought with tanks, planes, and mines in the desert heat.

AFRICA

1939–1945 World War II

The Eastern Front Germany and the Soviet Union pushed the border back and forth in eastern Europe as they fought ferocious battles (see pp140–41).

Battle of Anzio After Italy’s leader, Mussolini, was removed from office in 1943, the Allies fought German troops for control of the country during 1944.

China in the war China had been partly invaded by Japan before the war, but the unoccupied part of the country joined the Allies. More civilians died here than in any other country.

Battle of Darwin The biggest attack on Australia was a Japanese air-strike of 242 planes over Darwin, in February 1942.

When Germany’s dictator, Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland in 1939, Britain and France declared war. As more countries joined in, the world was divided into Axis powers, led by Germany, Italy, and Japan; and the Allies, led by Britain, the US, and the Soviet Union. By the time war ended in 1945, millions of people had suffered and died, some while fighting, some from bombing raids at home, and others through the Holocaust (Hitler’s killing of certain groups, especially Jews).

KEY This map shows the world divided in mid-1942, at the height of Axis power.

Axis nation Axis-controlled country Allied nation Allied-controlled country Neutral country Major battle or fighting Eastern Front

The Holocaust

Adolf Hitler convinced many of his Nazi supporters that other peoples, such as Jews, were inferior to the German people. In countries under Nazi occupation, Jewish people were herded into tightly packed city districts called ghettos. In 1942, Hitler ordered the Final Solution—the murder of all Jews. He set up extermination camps, where 11 million Jews, Roma (Gypsies), disabled people, and members of other groups were killed in a horrific campaign now known as the Holocaust. In a final outrage, camp workers collected the personal possessions of the victims for recycling.

Artificial limbs of Holocaust victims, preserved as a memorial in a museum that was once an extermination camp.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In August 1945, US bombers dropped two atomic bombs on these Japanese cities. Japan surrendered a week later.

RALASIA

Battle of Midway An Allied victory in this 1942 sea battle ended Japanese expansion.

NORTH AMERICA

Pearl Harbor A Japanese surprise attack in 1941 destroyed this US navy base in Hawaii, prompting the US to join the war.

Battle of the Coral Sea Fought in 1942, this was the first sea battle ever fought between planes from aircraft carriers, rather than between ships.

War in the Pacific From 1941, Allied forces tried to stop Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Battles were fought at sea and on the many small islands. The war continued here for almost three months after it ended in Europe.

Brazil enters the war Most of South America stayed neutral, but Brazil declared war on the Axis countries in 1942, after its ships were sunk.

SOUTH AMERICA

“My God, what have we done?”

Robert Lewis, copilot of Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, 1945

Leaders of the Allied nations

Winston Churchill Prime Minister of Great Britain Joseph Stalin Dictator of the Soviet Union (USSR)

Leaders of the Axis nations

Benito Mussolini Head of government of Italy Hirohito Emperor of Japan Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States of America

Adolf Hitler Führer (dictator) of Germany and leader of the Nazi (National Socialist) party