World War II (1939–45) - events

1939	UK	The evacuation of around 650,000 children from London to rural England begins. Some 1.5 million people in total will move to the country for part of the war.
1 September 1939	Germany, Poland, Italy	Germany invades Poland and annexes the free city of Danzig (now Gdansk). Italy declares its neutrality.
3 September 1939	UK, France, Germany, Poland, Australia, New Zealand	Britain and France declare war on Germany when it fails to respond to ultimatums following the German invasion of Poland. Australia and New Zealand also declare war on Germany.
17 September 1939	USSR, Poland	Red Army troops from the USSR invade Poland from the east, to effect the secretly agreed partition of Poland with Germany.
30 November 1939	USSR, Finland	The USSR invades Finland, with its main offensive to the north of Lake Ladoga. Finland responds by declaring war on the USSR.
13–17 December 1939	UK, Germany, Uruguay	The British heavy cruiser Exeter and light cruiser Ajax, and the New Zealand light cruiser Achilles engage the German ‘pocket battleship’ Graf Spee in the Battle of the Rio de la Plata (River Plate) in South America. It ends with the scuttling of the German warship off Montevideo, Uruguay.
12 March 1940	USSR, Finland	The Russo-Finnish war ends. Finland signs a peace treaty with the USSR, ceding the Karelian Isthmus, the shores of Lake Ladoga, the city of Viborg, and the Hango naval base. 200,000 Finns are evicted from the area.
10–13 April 1940	UK, Germany, Norway	Several naval battles are fought between British and German forces off the port of Narvik in northern Norway; ten German destroyers (from a total of twenty) are sunk. Their loss, added to the loss of three (out of eight) cruisers in the invasion of Norway itself severely weakens the German navy's offensive capability.
14–17 April 1940	UK, Norway	British forces land at Namsos (14 April), and Åndalsnes (17 April), Norway, to assist the Norwegians against the invading German forces. Units from Åndalsnes reach the city of Lillehamer (21 May) before withdrawing.
10 May 1940	France	German armoured forces begin to break through French and British defensive positions into northern France.
10–14 May 1940	Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg	German forces invade the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
26 May–4 June 1940	Germany, France, UK, Belgium	Over 338,000 British, French, and Belgian troops are evacuated from Dunkirk, France to England by an unprecedented armada of small British boats, following the German encirclement of Allied forces in northeastern France.
3 July 1940	UK, Algeria, France	Britain's Royal Navy destroys most of the French fleet at Mers el-Kebir, Algeria, to prevent them being commandeered by the Germans.
10 July–18 August 1940	UK, Germany	Bomber and fighter aircraft of the German Luftwaffe (air force) attack shipping convoys in British waters and English ports, in the first phase of the Battle of Britain.
13 August 1940	UK, Germany	The German Luftwaffe (air force) makes 1,786 sorties in the Battle of Britain, against 975 by the British Royal Air Force. It is known as ‘Adler Tag’ (Eagle Day), the most intense 24 hours of the Battle of Britain, and marks the beginning of ‘Adlerangraft’ (Eagle War), a two-week attack on RAF Fighter Command's aircraft, airfields, and installations.
23 August 1940	UK	An all-night German bombing raid on London, England, begins the period of intense bombing known as the ‘Blitz’.
3 September 1940	USA, UK, Newfoundland	The USA sells 50 veteran destroyers to Britain for use by the Royal Navy in World War II in return for a 99-year rent-free lease of bases in Newfoundland and the Caribbean.
25 September 1940	Norway	King Haakon of Norway is deposed, and Vidkun Quisling, leader of the Norwegian Nazi Party, is appointed prime minister by the German Reichscommissioner in Norway.
11–12 November 1940	UK, Italy	Twenty-one British Swordfish naval torpedo-bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious attack and cripple the Italian fleet at Taranto, southeast Italy, severally damaging the battleships Conte di Cavour, Littorio, and Caio Duilio.
1941	USA	The United Service Organization (USO) is formed in the USA to organize entertainments for Allied soldiers by performers such as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
1941	USSR	One thousand three hundred and sixty Soviet heavy industrial plants are moved further east to continue production after the German invasion of the USSR.
24 March 1941	Libya, Germany, Italy, UK, Egypt	German and Italian forces commanded by the German general Erwin Rommel take El Algheila in Libya from the British 8th Army, the start of an offensive that will clear British troops from all of Libya apart from the besieged coastal town of Tobruk.
6 April 1941	Yugoslavia, Greece, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria	German, Italian, and Bulgarian forces invade Yugoslavia, and German forces attack the Metaxas Line, Greece's main system of defences.
17 April 1941	Yugoslavia, Germany	Yugoslavia formally surrenders to the invading German forces.
21 April 1941	Greece, Germany, UK	The Greek army surrenders to the invading German forces; the last British forces are evacuated from mainland Greece on 28 April.
27 May 1941	Germany, UK	The German battleship Bismarck, on its first and only sortie into the Atlantic, is sunk, after a long hunt, by units of Britain's Royal Navy west of Brest, France.
29–31 May 1941	Greece, UK, Germany	British and allied forces evacuate the port of Iráklion, Crete, and withdraw to Egypt, leaving the Greek island of Crete under German occupation.
1 June 1941	UK	Clothes are rationed in the UK and ‘utility’ clothing and furniture are introduced.
22 June 1941	USSR	Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, begins.
29 July 1941	Romania, USSR	Romania reoccupies the territories of Bessarabia and Bukovina, which it had ceded to the USSR in June 1940.
5 December 1941–5 January 1942	USSR, Germany	Soviet armies of the Northwest, Volkhov, and Kalinin fronts, reinforced by units from Siberia, launch a counteroffensive north and south of Moscow to relieve pressure from the German Army Group Centre's advance on the Soviet capital.
7 December 1941	USA, Japan	Japanese naval aircraft make a surprise air attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four battleships and 140 aircraft are destroyed and 2,330 troops killed.
9–10 December 1941	Malaya	Japanese aircraft sink the British battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse off the east coast of Malaya, leaving the Allies with no active battleship in the Pacific and severely weakening the defences of Singapore.
1942–1945	USA	During the war, US women are recruited on a large scale for the war effort; between 1942 and 1945 the number of working women increases by 50%.
1942	USA	Civilian automobile production is halted in the USA for the duration of the war to allow for war production; petrol (gasoline) is also rationed from September.
January 1942	Philippines, USA, Japan	Japanese troops seize Manila, the capital of the Philippines, forcing the US general Douglas MacArthur to retreat to the Battan peninsula on the island of Luzon.
9 February 1942	USA	Clocks in the USA turn ahead one hour for daylight savings time, where they will remain for the duration of World War II.
15 February 1942	Malaya, Japan, UK	The strategic British colony and naval base of Singapore surrenders to Japanese forces, together with over 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers and airmen. British prime minister Winston Churchill later describes the event as ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’.
April 1942	Japan, Burma, China	Japanese forces overrun Burma, seize the town of Lashio near Mandalay, and close the Burma Road, the main supply route for China's war effort running from Lashio, Burma, to Kunming, China.
23–30 April 1942	UK, Germany	In the Baedeker raids, named after the German tourist guidebooks, German aircraft bomb Exeter, Bath, and other historic cities in Britain in reprisal for British raids on Cologne and Lübeck.
May 1942–November 1943	Siam, Burma	Japan constructs the Kwai Railway between Bangkok in Siam (modern Thailand) and Moulmein in Burma. Over 15,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 native labourers die during its construction.
4–8 May 1942	USA, Japan	US naval forces narrowly succeed in preventing a Japanese attempt to take the Allied base at Port Moresby, Papua, in the first great carrier battle of the Pacific War, the Battle of the Coral Sea.
14 May 1942	USA	In the USA, women's military involvement in the war begins when Congress founds WAAC (Women's Auxiliary Army Corps).
3–6 June 1942	USA, Japan	US carrier planes sink the Japanese aircraft carriers Hiryu, Soryu, Kaga, and Akagi for the loss of the US carrier Yorktown in the Battle of Midway, off Midway Island in the Pacific. The naval balance in the Pacific war swings in the Allied favour.
10 June 1942	Czechoslovakia, Germany	The German Gestapo (secret police) destroys the village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi ‘protector’ of Bohemia and Moravia, by Czech resistance fighters; 198 men are shot, 184 women sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and 98 children deported.
13 June 1942	USA	The Office of War Information in the USA is created to manage the government's information activities.
1–4 July 1942	Egypt	The British 8th Army under General Claude Auchinleck halts the advance of German troops under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel into British-held Egypt at the First Battle of El Alamein.
24–26 October 1942	Pacific	Two US aircraft carrier task forces engage the Japanese South Seas fleet under Vice-Admiral Nobutaki Kondo off the Santa Cruz Islands, near Guadalcanal. The Japanese aircraft carriers Zuiho and Shokaku are damaged, but the US carrier Hornet is sunk, leaving the damaged Enterprise the only operational Allied aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
1943	USA	Meat rationing is introduced in the USA.
31 January 1943	USSR, Germany	The German 6th Army, commanded by Friedrich von Paulus, surrenders at Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in the USSR, to the Soviet armies encircling it. Over 200,000 Germans are killed and captured in a major blow for the Third Reich.
16 May 1943	Germany, UK	British bombers attack three dams in the Ruhr industrial region of Germany in Operation Chastise, using the rotating bouncing bombs designed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis. Two dams are breached.
5 July 1943	USSR, Germany	German forces of Army Group Centre and Army Group South mount their last major offensive on the Eastern Front against well-prepared Soviet positions north and south of a huge salient around Kursk, USSR. Kursk is the largest tank battle in history, and fatally weakens German forces on the Eastern Front.
23 August 1943	USSR, Germany	The Soviet army recaptures the city of Kharkov in the USSR from the Germans.
3 September 1943	Italy, Germany, USA, UK	Allied (British and US) forces land in mainland Italy; an armistice is signed between the Allies and the Italian government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the successor to the deposed dictator Benito Mussolini, on the same day.
15 September 1943	Italy	The former Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini establishes a new republican fascist government at Salò on Lake Garda, Italy.
1 December 1943	USA	Gas rationing begins in the USA.
27 January 1944	USSR, Germany	Soviet forces clear German troops from the Leningrad–Moscow railway line, ending the German siege of Leningrad after 900 days and over 1 million civilian deaths from starvation and enemy action.
19–26 February 1944	Germany, UK	German aircraft make their heaviest raids (known as the ‘Little Blitz’) on London, England, since May 1941.
20–27 February 1944	Germany	During ‘Big Week’, a combined US–UK air assault on German aircraft-making capability, 18,874 tonnes/20,799 tons of bombs are dropped on selected targets in Germany.
20 February 1944	Norway	Saboteurs blow up a ferry on Lake Tinnsjo, Norway, destroying Germany's entire supply of ‘heavy water’ (for use in atomic research).
11–18 April 1944	USSR, Germany	Soviet forces clear all of the Crimea, apart from the port of Sevastopol, of German troops.
11–18 May 1944	Italy, Germany, Poland	Allied forces finally break through the German Gustav Line at Monte Cassino, Italy, with Polish troops storming the monastery on 18 May. The German defeat enables Allied troops at Anzio to break out of the beachhead, and clears the way to Rome.
6 June 1944	France, UK, USA, Canada, Germany	D-day marks the start of Operation Overlord. Allied forces (British, US, and Canadian) land on five beaches in Normandy, northwest France, against heavy German opposition.
13 June 1944	UK, Germany	Germany launches the first V1 (Vergeltungswaffen, ‘retribution weapon’) pilotless flying-bombs from mainland Europe against London, England, in retaliation against Allied bombing of German cities.
20 July 1944	Germany	An abortive assassination attempt is made on the German Führer Adolf Hitler in his Rastenburg headquarters. The planter of the bomb, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, is shot the same evening.
28 July 1944	USSR, Poland, Germany	Armies of the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front recapture the city of Brest-Litovsk (now Brest), on the Polish-Soviet border, concluding Operation Bagration. The huge Soviet offensive has virtually destroyed German field marshal Ernst Busch's Army Group Centre.
21 August 1944	France, Germany	Allied troops encircle a large concentration of German armoured forces to the south of the town of Falaise, northwest France, as US forces link up with the steady British and Canadian advance southwards. Some 50,000 Germans are captured.
17–28 September 1944	Netherlands, USA, UK	In Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, US airborne troops land at Eindhoven and Nijmegen to seize bridges over the rivers Maas, Waal, and Rhine (Market), while British troops land at Arnhem on the Rhine to open a route to the Ruhr region in Germany (Garden). The landing at Arnhem is a disaster.
20 October 1944	USSR, Yugoslavia	Soviet and Yugoslav troops capture Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, from the occupying German forces.
20 October 1944	Philippines, USA	General Douglas MacArthur of the USA, forced to evacuate the islands on 12 March 1942, fulfils his celebrated promise to return to the Philippines.
12 November 1944	Norway, UK, Germany	British bombers sink the last German battleship, Tirpitz, in the Tromsö fjord, Norway, enabling Britain's large ships to be released for service in the Pacific.
16 December 1944	Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium	German forces launch the Battle of the Bulge, or Ardennes offensive, against the Allies in the Ardennes, a wooded plateau in Luxembourg and Belgium. It is the last major German offensive of World War II
1945	UK	William Joyce, the Nazi propagandist known as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’, is captured and convicted in the UK of treason; he is hanged on 3 January 1946.
3 January 1945	Burma, UK	The British 14th Army begins a new offensive in Burma, aimed at clearing Japanese forces from the remainder of the country.
13–15 February 1945	Germany, UK, USA	British and US aircraft bomb the city of Dresden in eastern Germany, ostensibly to disrupt the transfer of German troops to the Soviet front. Over 60,000 people are killed and the city's historic centre is destroyed.
19 February–24 March 1945	Japan, USA	US marines capture the Japanese island of Iwo Jima after fierce fighting, which results in over 21,000 US casualties.
29 April 1945	Germany	The German Führer Adolf Hitler marries his mistress, Eva Braun, in their Berlin bunker.
8 May 1945	Germany, France	General Alfred Jodl signs the official surrender of Germany in World War II in Reims, France, at 2:41 a.m., in the presence of US general Dwight D Eisenhower and other Allied officers. 8 May is celebrated as VE (Victory in Europe) Day in Western Europe and the USA.
6 August 1945	Japan, USA	The US B-29 bomber Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, destroying two-thirds of the city.
9 August 1945	Japan, USA	The US B-29 bomber Bock's Car drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, destroying half the city.
14 August 1945	Japan	The Japanese emperor Hirohito proclaims Japan's acceptance of the Allies' terms for ending World War II in the Pacific and urges his people to accept the surrender.
15 August 1945	USA	Rationing of petrol and fuel oil in the USA comes to an end.
23 November 1945	USA	All rationing stops in the USA, with the exception of sugar. Food remains scarce everywhere else and the black market continues to exist throughout Europe.
11 June 1947	USA	Sugar rationing comes to an end in the USA.