World War II

File:Caen sniper.jpg

An allied soldier in the ruins of Caen, 9 July 1944

World War II was a global set of conflicts, beginning in 1931 in Asia, 1935 in Africa, and 1939 in Europe, all lasting until 1945, in which the Allied powers (led after 1941 by the United States and including the British Commonwealth, the Soviet Union, the Republic of China, and many other nations), totally defeated the Axis Powers (led by Nazi Germany, and including Italy, and Japan). Although Japan's war against China began in 1937, the main conflict started in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland (with support from the Soviets); Britain and France then declared war on Germany.

The conflict was the deadliest in human history with estimated deaths ranging from 50 million to over 70 million soldiers and civilians. It ended with the Soviet Union dominant in Eastern Europe, and the U.S. and its allies dominant in Western Europe, setting the stage for the Cold War.

Causes

see Causes of World War II

War Begins in Europe

By terms of a secret protocol to the Nazi-Soviet pact, Poland was partitioned with Germany and the USSR each occupying 200,000 square kilometers.

See also: Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

In the immediate run up to WWII, there were frequent reports of trespassing Polish troops. On August 31, 1939 German covert operatives staged a fake attack by Polish troops on a German radio station. WWII started on September 1, 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. Hitler justified this as a defensive act, pointing to the frequent border incidents, and said famously that from this moment on Germany would strike back.

The major tactical innovation of the war was the use of combined arms warfare, typified by the German doctrine of blitzkrieg. In this style of warfare armor, infantry, artillery and air power (see Luftwaffe) all coordinate to achieve overwhelming superiority at point on the enemy lines. Armor and fast-moving infantry units then exploit the gap and penetrate deep behind enemy lines. The objective is to cause a widespread collapse of the enemy's ability to fight. It was particularly effective during the early stages of the war, before the Allies developed effective countermeasures.

Partition of Poland.
Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY; Time magazine [1].

On September 17, 1939, Poland was invaded from the east by Hitler’s ally, Josef Stalin.

In 1939-1940, eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia were invaded and annexed into the Soviet Union proper. The Soviets lowered the local standard of living and disrupted and destroyed the prevailing socioeconomic structure. Local currencies were still legal tender but so was the Russian ruble. The occupying Russian soldiers were paid in rubles and the established exchange rate inflated the ruble by as much as 2000 to 3000 per cent. Overvaluing made the average Russian soldier extremely rich. This huge influx of rubles started a wave of inflation that natives did not notice at first. Eventually shortages were caused by Soviet purchasing agents that fanned out through the newly occupied nations, buying up wholesale goods in warehouses and the production of local factories.

Goods produced locally were shipped to Russia instead of resupplying the local market. Russian propaganda stated the goal was to raise the ordinary working person's standard of living. Prices were frozen, and wages raised by as much as ten times. Merchants and factory owners declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Shortages of food and other necessities introduced growing inflation, a black market, and discontent among the population. These deliberate Soviet policies raised the cost of living but not the actual standard of living. Once annexation was complete, local stores and industries were nationalized, their former owners arrested, stripped of their possessions, including their accumulated rubles, and shipped to the gulags of Siberia. Workers still employed were then paid in rubles.

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Soviet and German troops meet up in the town of Brześć on September 18, 1939.

The French and British were initially reluctant to honor promises to the Polish government, avoiding serious consideration of an invasion of Germany. The British failed to send land forces in time to support the Poles (see Western betrayal). The French mobilized slowly and then launched a token offensive in the Saar. The Meanwhile, on September 8, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses. On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the East.

War in the West

Following the completion of the invasion of Poland, German forces regrouped and Allied forces remained defensive, leading US commentators to dub it the Phoney War. May 10 1940 marked the end of any accusation of a phony war, with the invasion of France by Germany, via the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. Resistance by the British armies and French armies proved weak and the occupation of France began. British and French troops were routed and evacuated mainland Europe at Dunkirk. France was divided into the northern Occupied France and the collaborationist Vichy regime in the south of France, including Corsica.

The collapse and occupation of France, together with Germany's non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,, their alliances with fascist Italy, and an expansionist Japan, benevolent neutrality of fascist Spain, with little of Europe outside of Axis hands led many to assume that Britain had been defeated. Indeed it would appear that the, seemingly foolish, decision of the relatively weak Britain to continue the war took the Axis powers off guard. This decision ensured the remaining British Empire was still involved in the war, with Japan threatening many British possessions in Asia.

In 1940 Denmark and Norway were invaded by German forces, to preempt a British occupation of Norway and acquire Norway's coastline and ports for the German Navy. Norway also contained a source of Heavy water, potentially crucial in the construction of an atomic weapon. The operation was successful, but losses were heavy, especially to the Kriegsmarine. This was soon followed by the British troops invited by Iceland and American occupation of Greenland. (The need to prevent any increase in the range of German air activity, brought about the occupation of these lands - and of the Azores at the request of the Portuguese Government.)

With Britain the sole opposing European nation, the Battle of Britain commenced. The Luftwaffe attempted to achieve aerial dominance over the south of Britain, in order to allow a sea based invasion of Britain to proceed. From 10th July to the end of October the Royal Air Force and Luftwaffe fought for dominance, with the resilience of the RAF, with British, Canadian and London Polish exile pilots, and the use of radar and its associated early warning system had forced a rethink of German tactics. It was the first significant setback for the Germans in the War. They now concentrated on the great population centres, especially London, hoping that huge civilian casualties would weaken morale and lead to a lessening of the war effort by the populace. The period that followed, popularly known as the Blitz, lasted into May 1941. Around 40,000 civilians and civil defence workers died; but it failed in its objective and Hitler began concentrating on the impending invasion of Russia

With the pressure off their airbases the RAF was now able to increase its nightly raids on industrial sites in Germany and occupied lands. Because of the inability to correctly target these sites, the raids soon turned into “area bombing”, and German civilian casualties rose. These raids were to reach further into Germany as the war progressed and were greatly increased when American bombers began their sorties.

Finnish Wars

The Soviet Union invaded Finland, a neutral, on November 30 1939. This conflict came to be known as the "Winter War". Despite the overwhelming numbers of the Red Army, the Finnish resistance was strong and the battle was hard fought before the Soviet army took control. Outside powers (including the U.S.) considered intervention to help Finland; only a little aid trickled in and Finland was forced to sue for peace. The peace treaty signed in March 1940 favored the Soviets, but they paid heavily for their victory with 200,000 dead. Finland lost 25,000 dead, and had to absorb 400,000 refugees from areas turned over to the Soviets. In 1941 Finland joined Germany in attacking the Soviets, in the "Continuation War" (1941-44), but lost again. An armistice in Sept. 1944 stabilized the border, using March 1940 lines; in addition Finland had to pay heavy reparations and had to remain neutral in the Cold War.

Soviet-German War

1941 marked the major turning point in the war in Europe, when the Germans undertook Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin was repeatedly informed by his own spies and anti-German countries that Germany was about to attack; he rejected the accurate reports and paid dearly for the blunder.

In June--behind schedule because of diversions in the Balkans--the Germans launched their massive war against the Soviet Union (known as the "Great Patriotic War" in Russia). It was by far the largest, bloodiest, and most decisive phase of World War II. Outside observers in the first few months fgured that Germany would win easily. But the Nazi armies were split three ways, logistics became worse and worse as distances grew, and none met their objective by the time the extreme Russian winter of 1941-42 set in. Bltitkrieg had failed against the Soviets, and the Germans lacked the resources to fight a long war against a country with such vast areas and so many more people. The Luftwaffe, which promised to overcome the slowness of ground travel, failed to provide adequate support and was soon matched and outnumbered by the Soviet air force.

United States enters the War

American naval escort of British convoys carrying Lend-Lease aid lead to a shooting war with Germany. On October 17, 1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed; two weeks later, the destroyer Rueben James was blown to pieces with the loss of 115 lives. On November 10, an American escort of 11 vessels picked up a convoy of six vessels including America's three largest ocean liners with 20,000 British troops and guarded them from Halifax to India and Singapore. Many of the activities of the American Navy in the summer of 1941 were not known at all to the American public. In September, Roosevelt sought to repeal the Neutrality Act forbidding the arming of merchant vessels which was done on October 17. Two weeks later, all the essential points of the Neutrality Act were repealed.

The attack on Pearl Harbor officially brought the United States into World War Two. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Japanese Imperial Navy was against engaging with the United States, due to fear of "waking a sleeping giant". The United States recovered from the shell shock of the initial attack and plunged into the war with the slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor!".

War in Europe 1944

"The time of liberation is at hand. Poles, to arms! There is not a moment to lose!" This was broadcast on the Polish language radio station from Moscow on July 29, 1944, at 8:15 in the evening. A force of 40,000 responded. But the Red Army, for sixty-three days, denying they knew anything about it, refused to drop weapons and food to assist the Polish fighters for whose liberty the British government had gone to war in September 1939. The Polish resistance fighters were massacred methodically by the Germans. At the very time at which Prime Minister Mikolajczyk from the legitimate Polish Government in exile in London flew to Moscow, the Kremlin "recognized" the Comintern puppet regime, the Lublin Committee, as the new Polish "people's government."

While Romania was frantically imploring the West for assistance, the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) praised the Soviet Unions’ "new democracy" and the "innocent nature of Communism." By November, Andrey Vyshinsky, the legal mastermind who presided at the major show trials of Stalin's Great Purge, arrived to "restore internal order."

War in Europe 1945

See also Warsaw Uprising

On January 5, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that the Comintern affiliated Lublin Committee, with which it had dealt de facto ever since its birth, was now officially recognized as provisional government of Poland. "The Yalta Declaration," Soviet Deputy Commissar of Defense Nikolai Bulganin told the Lublin Committee on February 17, 1945 "is a scrap of paper.... You will be the Government of Poland, no matter how those elections turn out and whatever might happen in the meantime. Be steadfast and have faith in Stalin!"

On February 24, 1945, in violation of the Yalta pact -- which had been signed on February 11 -- the U.S.S.R. indicated her unwillingness to co-operate in the Allied Control Councils in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, and on February 27, Andrey Vyshinsky, in another violation of the Yalta pact, insisted by an official demarche that King Michael of Romania substitute Communists and Communist tools for certain members of his cabinet. Despite these Soviet manifestations of contempt for the agreements which had been signed at the Crimea Conference, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on March 1, 1945, told a joint session of Congress that "more than ever before, the major Allies are closely united."

On May 26 presidential adviser Harry Hopkins met Stalin at the Kremlin to discuss the fundamental relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Hopkins told Stalin that two months earlier there had been overwhelming sympathy among the American people for the Soviet Union and complete support for President Roosevelt's policies but now this body of American public opinion was seriously disturbed. Hopkins noted the deterioration of public opinion the previous six weeks had been so serious as to affect adversely the relations between the two countries.

Hopkins stated public opinion was alarmed and worried at the present trend of events and did not quite understand why, but it was obvious to them that if present trends continued unchecked the entire structure of world cooperation and relations with the Soviet Union would be destroyed. President Truman asked Hopkins to relay his great anxiety at the present situation and his desire to continue Roosevelt's policy, and intention to carry out all arrangements, formal and informal, which Roosevelt and Stalin made together. Hopkins said he wished to state as clearly and as forcibly as possible, the question of Poland had become a symbol of the U.S ability to resolve problems with the Soviet Union.

Stalin replied that at the Yalta conference it had been agreed that the existing Polish government was to be reconstructed and that anyone with common sense could see that this meant the Lublin Committee was to form the basis of the new government. Stalin said no other understanding of the Yalta Agreement was possible.

Stalin went on to declare that at Yalta it had been agreed that the three powers would sit on the Reparation Commission. Now the United States Government was insisting that France should be represented on the same basis as the Soviet Union. This, Stalin said, was an insult to the Soviet Union in view of the fact that France had concluded a separate peace with Germany and had opened the frontier to the Germans. To attempt to place France on the same footing as the Soviet Union looked like an attempt to humiliate the Russians.

At May 2 1945, Soviet forces capture Berlin, Germany. German forces in Berlin surrender to the Red Army. German surrender at Italy, the Italian campaign ended;

At May 7, 1945, General Alfried Jodl signs the unconditional German nation surrender document at Rheims, France, in order of the new Government Doenitz.

Far Eastern Theater

After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese juggernaut seemed unstoppable. In the south, they conquered the Philippines, the oil-rich Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, and extended their reach as far as the Solomon Islands. In the west, they seized Burma and the vital port at Rangoon, and even attacked British forces at Ceylon. The Japanese empire now reached as far as Wake Island in the east and the Aleutian Islands to the north. Attacks on Japanese targets, including the Doolittle raid, boasted American morale, but did little material damage. In May 1942, Japanese forces were finally halted at the Battle of the Coral Sea, which cost the Americans a precious aircraft carrier, but saved southern New Guinea. At the Battle of Midway a month later, the Japanese lost four of their best carriers, suffering a blow to their sea power from which they never recovered.

The Americans took the offensive in August with a landing on the island of Guadalcanal. The overall American offensive strategy was two-pronged. Forces in the south advanced up the Solomon island chain and New Guinea, while in the central Pacific, Marines took island after island, including Tarawa, Eniwetok, Saipan, and Guam. The two lines of attack came together at the Philippines.

Integral to the strategy was the policy of island hopping. Many Japanese strongholds were bypassed, allowing the American forces to concentrate on more strategically significant islands. For example, Truk and Rabaul were home to major Japanese air and naval bases, but once the bases were neutralized, there was no reason to take on the troops there. This policy not only saved thousands of American (and Japanese) lives, it shortened the war by at least several months.

The American invasion of the Philippines took place in late October of 1944 when Marines landed on Leyte Island. A few days later, the US Navy shattered what was left of Japanese naval power in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese fought hard, however, and Leyte took two months to secure. When the Americans landed on the other islands, they found the troops there equally unwilling to retreat, but with American superiority in almost every area, the outcome was never really in doubt. Manila was captured by March, and the American position had become solid enough that leaders could start preparing for the final stage: the invasion of Japan. The first step was taken when the island of Okinawa was captured in June after two months of heavy fighting. Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu, was scheduled for November 1945, followed by Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu, in March of 1946.

The Japanese, soldiers and civilians alike, were expected to put up a fierce defense. Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall believed that Japan would fight to the last man, and insisted on preparing for a land invasion of Japan with an army of 2,000,000 men anticipating a tremendous number of casualties. Some analysts estimated the number of projected casualties from Operation Olympic alone at 250,000 dead and wounded. For this reason, many considered Soviet assistance necessary to the success of the invasion.

Time Line of Pacific War

Japanese capitulation

On August 6, 1945, a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay piloted by Paul Tibbet, dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Then, on August 9, Bocks Car, a B-29 piloted by Frederick C. Bock dropped the second atomic bomb. On August 20 the Japanese government told the United States it was ready to accept the terms which the Allies proposed. The next day, the Allies replied, saying the authority of the emperor would be "subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers." On August 14 the Japanese government agreed to this.

The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, in reponse to urgent American requests. It invades manchuria, where the Japanese army disintegrated.

Then, September 2, 1945, the Japanese Emperor formally surrendered all Japanese forces to the Allies. Japanese delegates signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in a famous ceremony aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. This was the ending of World War II, after six years almost to the day.

Effects of war on empires

• Iron Curtain

The Red army conquered practically everything east of the "Iron Curtain," destroying independent national governments and making them all subservient to Moscow. The US grudging;y tolerated this imperialism until 1947, when it was Greece's turn. Then the US drew the line and adopted a policy of containment. Because of the geography of war, Yugoslavia and Albania escaped the Red Army. They fell under the control of independent Communists--Yugoslavia received American support, and Albania turned to Red China for help against the Soviets.

• British Empire

The war effectively bankrupted Britain, which soon gave up India (as well as Pakistan, Ceylon and neighboring states).

• French Empire

France saluted its overseas Empire as the savior of France, and wanted control back. That led to nasty large scale civil wars in Algeria and Vietnam, which France lost.

• the Netherlands and Indonesia

The Dutch returned to the Dutch East Indies to face an insurrection they could not handle. Dutch acknowledged in 1949 the sovereignty of Indonesia, a non-Communist state.

• Supremacy of the USA in the Western World

The war left the U.S. with a vastly stronger economy than anyone else. To save on budget deficits the military was demobilized, but the long-term strategy was in confusion after Roosevelt's death.

See also

Land war

Time Dec. 4, 1944

• Battle of the Bulge, Dec. 1944
• Battle of Okinawa, spring 1945
• Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-45
• Dwight D. Eisenhower, US general
• Omar Bradley, US general
• George S. Patton, Jr., US general

Air war

• Luftwaffe, German air force
• World War II in the Air
• Bombing of Japan
• Bombing of Germany

Naval

• Attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 1941
• Battle of Midway, June 1942
• Chester W. Nimitz, US Admiral

Homefronts

• Holocaust, killing the Jews

leaders

• Charles de Gaulle, France
• Adolph Hitler, Germany
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, US
• Winston Churchill, Britain
• Joseph Stalin, Russia
• Chiang Kai-shek, China
• Benito Mussolini, Italy
• William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada
• John Curtin, Australia

Further reading

for more detailed guide see Bibliography of World War II

• Dear, I. C. B. and M. R. D. Foot, eds. Oxford Companion to World War II (in Britain titled Oxford Companion to the Second World War (2005; 2nd ed. 2009). the best reference book; excerpt and text search
• Times Atlas of the Second World War (1995)
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, (1994) the best overall view of the war.

External Links

• United States Department of the Navy/Navy Historical Center's Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz
• World War II
• "On the Brink of World War II: Justus Doenecke’s Storm on the Horizon," by Ralph Raico
• Kursk: The Turning Point on the Eastern Front in World War II, by Roberto R. Padilla II
• World War II - Encyc
• "Government and the Economy: The World Wars," by Robert Higgs
• "How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century," by Robert Higgs
• Depression, War and Cold War, by Robert Higgs
• "Wartime Prosperity?", by Robert Higgs
• Pearl Harbor