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German Blitzkrieg
a German Blitzkrieg is a german term for lightning is a military tactic designed to create disorganization among energy forces through the use of mobile forces. -
Germany invasion of Poland
http://www.secondworldwarhistory.com/1939-ww2-events-timeline.asp The German Battleship Graf Spee leaves wilhelmshaven for the North Atlantic. She is commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff.
The supply ship is the altmark. Which also leaves wilhelmshaven. -
Fall of Paris
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-enter-parisOn this day in 1940, Parisians awaken to the sound of a German-accented voice announcing via loudspeakers that a curfew was being imposed for 8 p.m. that evening-as German troops enter and occupy Paris. By the time German tanks rolled into Paris, 2 million Parisians had already fled, with good reason. In short order, the German Gestapo went to work -
Operation Barbarossa
Adolf Hitler launched his armies to the east in a massive invasion on the soviet union. three great army groups with over three million German soldiers, 150 divisions, and three thousand tanks smashed across the frontier into Soviet territory. Barbarossa was the crucial turning point in World War II, for its failure forced Nazi Germany to fight a two-front war against a coalition possessing immensely superior resources. Cited Source: http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/operation-barbaros -
Pearl Harbor
December 7, 1941 just before 8 AM hundrerds pf Japanese fighters attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu Hawaii. The barrage only lasted 2 hours but the Japanese managed to destroy 20 naval vessels, 2,000 sailors and soldiers died that day. and another 1,000 were injured, Japanese allies Germany and Italy also declared war on the United States, and again Congress reciprocated. More than two years into the conflict, America had finally joined World War II.Source is in in the link -
Wannsee conference
Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's second in command of the SS, convened the Wannsee Conference in Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solution (Endlösung) in which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, an estimated 11 million persons. -
Bataan Death March
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-marchThe day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began. Within a month, the Japanese had captured Manila. For the next three months, the combined U.S.-Filipino army held out despite a lack of naval and air support. Finally, on April 9, with his forces crippled by starvation and disease, U.S. General Edward King Jr. (1884-1958), surrendered his approximately 75,000 troops at Bataan. -
Operation Gomorrah
On this day in 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.”
Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. -
Operation Gomorrah
On this day in 1943, British bombers raid Hamburg, GermanyBritain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid, German officials from this period describe a similar despair, as they sought to come to terms with defeat. -
Allied invasion of italy
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/allies-invade-italian-mainlandThe British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery begins the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8. -
D-Day (normandy invasion)
June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. By the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the Seine River, Paris was liberated and the Germans had been removed from northwestern France, effectively concluding the Battle of Normandy. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of the war -
Liberation of Concentration Camps
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005131s Allied troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they began to encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Many of these prisoners had survived forced marches into the interior of Germany from camps in occupied Poland. These prisoners were suffering from starvation and disease. -
Operation Thunderclap
http://ww2today.com/13-february-1945-operation-thunderclap-raf-start-firestorm-in-dresden‘Operation Thunderclap’ had been under discussion within the Allied Command for some time, the proposal was to bomb the eastern-most cities of Germany to disrupt the transport infrastructure behind what was becoming the Eastern front. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-iwo-jima Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast, was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign. -
Battle of Okinawa
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-okinawainvolved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties including 14,000 dead. The commanding generals on both sides died in the course of this battle: American general Simon B. Buckner by artillery fire, Japanese general Ushijima Mitsuru by -
Battle of the Bulge
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-the-bulge
In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. The Battle of the Bulge was the costliest action ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. -
VE Day
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/victory-in-europeOn this day in 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.The eighth of May spelled the day when German troops throughout Europe finally laid down their arms: In Prague, Germans surrendered to their Soviet antagonists, after the latter had lost more than 8,000 soldiers, -
Potsdam Declaration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_DeclarationThe Potsdam Declaration or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender is a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated -
Dropping of The Atomic Bomb
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/atomic-bomb-dropped-on-hiroshimaThe United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. -
VJ Day
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/v-j-dayOn August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.”Japan’s devastating surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, capped a decade of deteriorating relations between Japan and the United States and led to an immediate U.S. declaration of war the following day.
