World War II

Allied troops and civilians celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands, by Allied forces, in 1945.

Seen here on 30 September 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain has just returned to London, England, from a meeting with German chancellor Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany. He holds the piece of paper with which he claimed to have won ‘peace in our time’. Within a year, Britain was at war with Germany.

Fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini inspect damage to Hitler's headquarters after an assassination attempt in 1944. Mussolini had hoped to limit Italy's participation in World War II to the Mediterranean area, but was forced by the more powerful Hitler to send his armies to defeat in Russia.

The 40-cm/16-in guns of USS Iowa were used primarily to bombard shore positions or to protect aircraft carriers. In World War II, the increased use of aircraft reduced the need for battleships like the USS Iowa.

The Japanese surrender at the end of World War II is accepted by Gen Douglas MacArthur on 2 September 1945, on board USS Missouri. This surrender announced the end of all fighting in World War II, and the beginning of the US occupation of Japan which continued until 1951.

US Marine dive bombers over the Pacific Ocean after Japan's attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, USA, in 1941.

The VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) parade drives through New York City, New York, on 8 May 1945. Celebrations were held in Europe and the USA, even though it was to be nearly another six months before the fighting was to end in the Far East.

Women working in a factory during World War II. The war exploded the myth that women were only suited to domestic work. When the men went away to fight, women proved themselves to be adept and competent at jobs previously only done by men.

US Army troops on board a landing craft preparing for the D-day invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Several beachheads were established, and it was from these that the British and American forces went on to liberate Paris, Brussels, and the rest of German-occupied Western Europe.

New York celebrates news of the surrender of Japan in 1945. Following the dropping of the US atomic bombs on Hiroshima (6 August) and Nagasaki (9 August), and the invasion of Manchuria by the Russian army, the Japanese government accepted the Allied terms for unconditional surrender on 14 August. The instrument of surrender was signed on board the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo on 2 September 1945, signalling the end of World War II.

The Atomic Bomb Dome, in Hiroshima. This building is all that remains of central Hiroshima after the atomic bomb that was dropped on it on 6 August 1945. It survived the blast because it was almost directly beneath the hypocentre of the explosion. It has been intentionally preserved as a reminder of the effects of nuclear warfare, and is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ration book with the serial number BK 761085 issued by the Ministry of Food, 1949–50. A system of rationing was set up by the British government during World War II to guard against shortages and as a means of distributing supplies more efficiently. The population was issued with ration books, which guaranteed food and other necessities on surrender of the appropriate coupon. The system persisted long after the war as the government struggled to repay its debts.

The Nazi concentration camp at Langerstein, Germany, showing freed prisoners with one of the liberating troops in 1945. At the end of 1944 inmates were working night and day to build tunnels to house German underground rocket factories. Many died because of the terrible working conditions, and those who survived were found at liberation to be suffering from disease or acute starvation.

The 4th Battalion of the Kentish Home Guard, in 1945, which had an average strength of 1,500 volunteers. Known at first as the Local Defence Volunteers, the British Home Guard grew to about 2 million volunteers who received basic training and some weapons to defend their home areas against the threat of invasion. Part-time service was eventually made compulsory for certain categories of civilians.

A World War II air-raid protection (ARP) warden in Chelsea, London, in 1939. In 1938, when war with Germany was imminent, the British government set up defence procedures to protect the civilian population against air attacks. At the height of the Blitz, London suffered 57 consecutive nights of bombing from German planes.

Clothing book with the serial number L 7961100 issued to a citizen by the British government, 1945–6. To regulate the retail trade during World War II, the British Board of Trade initiated clothes rationing to make sure that reduced supplies were fairly distributed. It operated on a flexible points system and continued for several years after the end of the hostilities.

National Registration Identity Card, first issued in Britain by the government during World War II as a basis for compulsory military service and then for rationing. The cards were used until 1960 in the call-up of men between the ages of 18 and 41 for peacetime national service.

War between Germany, Italy, and Japan (the Axis powers) on one side, and Britain, the Commonwealth, France, the USA, the USSR, and China (the Allies) on the other. An estimated 55 million lives were lost (20 million of them citizens of the USSR), and 60 million people in Europe were displaced because of bombing raids. The war was fought in the Atlantic theatre (Europe, North Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean) and the Pacific theatre (Far East and the Pacific).

It is estimated that, during the course of the war, for every tonne of bombs dropped on the UK, 315 tonnes fell on Germany.

In 1945 Germany surrendered (May), but Japan fought on until the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August).

Causes Tension had been rising in Europe throughout the 1930s as Nazi Germany first broke virtually all of its treaty obligations and then embarked on a programme of aggressive expansionism (see Hitler). The process was exacerbated by the prevarication of the Western powers in the face of flagrant breaches of international law by Germany so that finally each side reached a position from which it could not withdraw.

Invasion of Poland On 31 August 1939 it was reported that the German radio station at Gleiwicz had been raided by a group of Polish soldiers, who had conveniently all been shot dead. This ‘Polish aggression’ provided Hitler with the excuse he needed for the invasion of Poland on 1 September, precipitating the start of the war. In fact, the ‘Polish troops’ were German concentration camp prisoners, dressed in stolen Polish uniforms and shot by the SS. The invasion force comprised five German armies, a total of 1.5 million troops: Poland Army Group North struck from Pomerania into the Polish Corridor and Danzig; the 4th Army struck from East Prussia south to Warsaw and west to meet Army Group North and cut off the Polish Pomorze army; the 8th and 10th armies moved northeast from Silesia towards Warsaw; and the 14th Army struck from Slovakia towards Kraków. The Poles had placed their armies on the borders, so that once the initial blow had pierced their lines they were rapidly rolled up and destroyed in Europe's first experience of Blitzkrieg warfare.

As agreed in a secret clause in the Ribbentrop–Molotov pact, two Soviet armies marched into Poland from the east on 17 September and the country was divided between the two invaders, although small outposts continued to resist until early October. West Poland was divided; part was absorbed into Germany and part administered as the occupied gouvernement général.

East Poland became Soviet territory and has remained so ever since.

The ‘phoney war’ The six months following the collapse of Poland is often referred to as the ‘phoney war’ and the only serious fighting in this period was at sea, where the German U-boat campaign began on 3 September, the day war was declared, with the sinking of the liner Athenia without warning. The Allies' most conspicuous success at sea in this phase of the war was the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939 which led to the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.

Western Front, 1939 The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Field Marshal Gort was sent to the aid of the French army and took over a section of the French-Belgian frontier with its headquarters at Arras. During the Polish invasion the French made desultory attacks on the German ‘West Wall’, notably around Saarbrücken, but these came to very little and, generally speaking, the Western Front was quiet throughout the winter of 1939–40.

Finland, 1939–40 After the partition of Poland, the USSR sought to assert its authority over the Baltic States. Finland, however, refused to submit, and the Soviets invaded on 30 November 1939, ostensibly ‘in support of the Finnish People's Government’. The Finns were hopelessly outnumbered, but nevertheless put up considerable resistance, giving the Soviets some severe punishment before they were forced to surrender and hand over the territory around the isthmus by the Treaty of Moscow on 13 March 1940.

Denmark and Norway, April 1940 Germany launched a simultaneous Blitzkrieg against Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940. Denmark was attacked to provide airfields for Luftwaffe squadrons covering the invasion of Norway. Danish border troops resisted the first German moves but King Christian realized that further resistance was hopeless and surrendered the country without opposition.

Norway was invaded to ensure the supply of Swedish iron ore via Norwegian routes. There was some resistance but it was largely ineffective and much of what effort there was was undermined by an active group of Nazi sympathizers under the leadership of Vidkun Quisling: most of the principal ports and airfields were captured on the first day. British and French troops were hastily collected and landed at various points but they were not trained or equipped for warfare in the far north, whereas the Germans were well established, so they were unable to do much before they had to be evacuated. King Haakon and his government escaped to England and an active resistance movement was established.

The Low Countries, May 1940 The next targets for the Blitzkrieg treatment were the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg on 10 May. The Netherlands and Luxembourg were crushed in a few days, but Belgium appealed for Allied support. The French and British armies on the Belgian frontier wheeled northeast to the Dyle, but their main line, which ran through Antwerp, Louvain, and Namur, was soon compromised by the Germans striking at Sedan, the hinge of the Allied wheel. Maurice Gamelin, the French commander-in-chief, fell back on the line of the Schelde while German armour poured through a gap in the French 9th Army between Sedan and Mézières, outflanking the Maginot Line around which the entire French defence was built. The BEF and the French northern armies were now isolated from the rest of the Allied forces on the Western Front.

Fall of France, June 1940 The Allied armies were by now encircled and the French defensive strategy in tatters.

The remains of the Allied armies withdrew to the Channel coast and on 26 May the evacuation from Dunkirk began. While the evacuation was in progress, Maxime Weygand, who had replaced Gamelin as commander-in-chief, tried to reform the French armies on the Somme-Aisne line but to no avail. Nothing could halt the onrush of German armour which crossed the Seine near Rouen on 9 June. With France tottering, Italy declared war and attacked France from the south on 10 June and the Germans entered Paris on 14 June. The French government signed an armistice with Germany on 22 June and the country was divided into an occupied zone in the north while in the south the collaborationist Vichy regime was formally installed on 9 July.

Britain stands alone, 1940 With the fall of France, Britain was in a dangerous position. Not only was it on its own against the Axis powers, but it was also badly underarmed and ill-prepared for war. Only an enormous effort in the summer of 1940 ensured there were enough aircraft and anti-aircraft defences to get the country through the Battle of Britain 10 July–31 October 1940. Although the RAF was initially outnumbered, it made up for this deficiency in quality of aircraft and pilots. The Germans were unable to assert air superiority and their losses were too heavy for the Luftwaffe, and daylight raids were abandoned in favour of night raids. It became clear that the standard Blitzkrieg tactics could not be used against Britain and Operation Sealion, the German plan for the invasion of Britain, had to be postponed. France's surrender created other problems for Britain: the Germans could draw their submarine blockade tighter as they now held all the ports of Western Europe from the North Cape to the Pyrenees. The Royal Navy's efforts to break the blockade had mixed success over the ensuing years (see Battle of the Atlantic).

Meanwhile, Hitler was firming up his own alliances. Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Ten Year Mutual Assistance Pact in Berlin on 27 September 1940, bringing Japan into the Axis. The USSR was warned in early 1941 by the US government that it was Hitler's intention to invade, but the Soviet government cautiously declared that the Berlin Pact did not affect the relations of the USSR with any of the signatories and that their 1939 pact with Germany remained unchanged.

North Africa, December 1940–August 1941 Mussolini, confident that the Axis had virtually won the war, had declared war on both Britain and France in June 1940. Shortly after, the Italians launched a major offensive from Libya across the Egyptian frontier with 300,000 troops under Rudolfo Graziani. The British commander Archibald Wavell, reinforced by Commonwealth troops, launched a counteroffensive on 9 December, the first of three great thrusts in the Western Desert, which succeeded in driving the Italians not only out of Egypt but also out of Cyrenaica. However, Wavell's force was weakened by drafts sent to Greece and East Africa, while the Italians were reinforced by German Afrika Korps troops under Field Marshal Rommel and German aircraft based in Sicily. Under Rommel's leadership, the Axis forces advanced during 1941 and early 1942, recaptured Tobruk, and crossed the Egyptian border, before halting at El Alamein.

US Lend-Lease programme President Franklin D Roosevelt gradually shifted the USA from its traditional isolationist position of 1939 into ‘the arsenal of democracy’, and with this change the arms embargo became a ‘cash and carry’ system, mainly for the benefit of the British. The USA transferred 50 destroyers to Britain in September 1940 in exchange for the lease of naval and air bases. The system was formalized when the Lend-Lease Bill became law in March 1941 and many more such arrangements were made during the course of the war.

Balkan campaign, 1941 Italy invaded Greece from Albania in October 1940 but was driven back by the Greeks from November to December and pursued back into Albania. Italy had only taken Albania in April 1939 and now this no longer seemed secure. If Hitler's plan for an invasion of the USSR was to succeed he could not afford to have hostile forces operating on the southern flank in the Balkans. The Italian failure came on top of their defeats in North Africa and so Hitler began making plans for a German invasion of Greece through Bulgaria. An anti-Nazi coup in Yugoslavia on 27 March 1941 forced Hitler to modify the plans to incorporate the invasion of Yugoslavia and the dual invasion began on 6 April. The Yugoslav army, poorly armed and badly organized, surrendered on 17 April while the Greeks in Albania withdrew to meet the new threat, releasing the Italian forces there to aid the German invasion. The Germans passed through the gap between the Greek forces coming out of Albania and the remaining Greek armies, outflanking both forces. British troops sent to aid the Greeks could only conduct a fighting retreat to the Peloponnese, where the survivors were able to embark and escape to Crete. Greek forces surrendered on 23 April and the Germans had cleared Crete by the end of May. Although the Balkan campaign was a success in itself, it delayed the start of the German invasion of the USSR and so contributed to the failure of that far more important operation.

German invasion of the USSR, June 1941 The invasion of the USSR (see Operation Barbarossa) was launched on 22 June 1941, with the aid of Nazi satellite states in the Balkans as well as Hungarian and Finnish troops. The operation had been badly delayed by the Balkan campaign and some of the German High Command probably advised against such an ambitious invasion. The whole success of the operation depended on speed: the Germans had to knock out major Soviet centres quickly in the initial rush and then settle to clearing up operations. Initially, the plan worked and progress was rapid apart from a slight check to the southern army groups. However, the failure to take Moscow marked the death knell of the plan and the Germans were now committed to a prolonged hard-fought campaign on the Eastern Front which was to cost them dearly in troops and resources. Perhaps more importantly, it tied down huge sectors of the German fighting capacity, denying the Germans the flexibility they had previously been able to deploy in their Blitzkrieg campaigns. The failure of Barbarossa may ultimately be regarded as one of the most significant factors in Germany's eventual defeat.

Japan and the USA enter the war, 1941 What had until now been a largely European war, developed into a global conflict in late 1941. Following Japan's entry into the Axis alliance in September 1940, it had seized French Indo-China with the acquiescence of the Vichy government, as a base for its projected invasions of Burma and British Malaya. Japan felt that US trade restrictions imposed with increasing severity from late 1940 were designed to starve Japan of resources and so frustrate their plans for expansion in the Pacific, and the signing of the Atlantic Charter in August 1941 by British prime minister Churchill and US president Roosevelt served only to confirm this view. The Japanese were now convinced that US entry into the war was inevitable, and opted to strike a major blow to US fighting capacity. While a negotiations over the oil embargoes continued in Washington, Japanese carrier-borne aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, inflicting serious damage on the US fleet, and simultaneous attacks were launched on virtually every other US and British eastern base, including Hong Kong and Malaya.

Late 1941 and early 1942 saw a Japanese version of the Blitzkrieg in the Pacific theatre. Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on 25 December 1941, followed by Manila on 2 January 1942, while in the southwest Pacific Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies on 10 January, taking Rabaul on 23 January and landing in the Solomons the following day. Burma was invaded on 10 January, and the British gradually pushed back to India in a fighting retreat, incurring heavy losses. The Japanese took Rangoon on 8 March, and had overrun Burma by the end of April, closing the Burma Road (an important supply line for the Chinese). The British withdrew from Malaya to Singapore which fell on 15 February with most of the newly landed troops captured. By the spring of 1942 Japan stood on the eastern frontier of India and at the gateway of Australia and held the whole semicircular archipelago between, with the exception of New Guinea south of the Owen Stanley Range. The Japanese onslaught was only halted when their attempts at expansion further east were thwarted by the Battle of the Coral Sea 4–8 May, which was decided in the air, and the Battle of Midway 4–6 June, which broke the spearhead of Japanese naval and air striking power. These two naval victories marked a turning point in the war in the Pacific.

British naval losses, 1941–42 British losses in the Far East were serious enough, but further setbacks were in store in the Mediterranean. The carrier Ark Royal and the battleship Barham were sunk by U-boats in November 1941 and the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were seriously damaged by Italian limpet mines on 19 December. The Mediterranean fleet was reduced to one composed of cruisers and destroyers, supported by shore-based air forces. The Channel Dash of February 1942, when three German battle cruisers escaped through the Channel from Brest, could not have been prevented due to the weakness of British naval striking power, and the incident was a severe blow to British morale.

Eastern Front, 1942 In the USSR, the severe winter of 1941–42 brought a dramatic change as the German forces proved no match for the Soviets in the harsh winter conditions. Zhukov broke the siege of Moscow in December 1941 and the Germans were steadily forced back, but maintained strategic positions which were intended to serve as springboards for their projected offensive the following year. When the weather began to thaw the Germans reasserted themselves, finally securing a hold over the Crimea with the fall of Sevastopol on 2 July and pushing down into the Caucasus region. The notorious battle for Stalingrad was launched in August 1942 and the Germans initially appeared to be driving the Soviet defenders back, so that by October the Germans appeared to be once more in the ascendant, with their forces closely besieging Stalingrad, and advancing towards the Maikop oilfields.

Allied success in North Africa General Montgomery was appointed to the command of the British 8th Army in August 1942 and led them to a decisive victory over Rommel's forces at El Alamein 23 October–4 November 1942, followed by advances across Libya from Tunisia. US troops landed in French North Africa on 8 November, causing the Germans to occupy the nominally independent Vichy France, and the Allied armies converged on Rommel at Tunis. Hitler tried to stave off defeat by sending an army under von Arnim to aid Rommel in Tunisia, but after a last-ditch defence, the Axis contingent in North Africa was routed and surrendered in May 1943.

Casablanca Conference Encouraged by the turn-around in Allied fortunes, at the Casablanca Conference, 14–24 January 1943, Churchill and Roosevelt issued a demand for the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers, which only hardened the resolve of the Axis. They also made agreements on the Allies' strategic goals: to end the Battle of the Atlantic; on the Eastern Front, to aid the USSR; on the Western Front, to make joint preparations for an invasion of France and Sicily; and in the Pacific, to extend operations against the Japanese.

Pacific theatre, 1942–43 Despite the naval reverses at the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, Japan remained confident of victory and continued its attempts at expansion. The occupation of the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, in June 1942 was a great blow to US morale. However, an assault on Port Moresby in New Guinea failed after the defeat of a Japanese expeditionary force at Milne Bay on 31 August, and the tenacity of Australian forces in New Guinea. US forces delivered a blow on 7 August which was to reverse the whole progress of the Pacific war with the landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomons. The landing developed into a hard-fought campaign after US Marines captured an unfinished Japanese airfield and base. The airfield was of great strategic importance and the Japanese tried hard to recapture the island in a series of actions both on land and at sea. Both sides suffered heavy casualties in the fight for the control of Guadalcanal but the eventual US victory did much to end Japanese dominance in the south Pacific. The island was eventually secured by US troops in February 1943 and from there the Allies began clearing the rest of the Solomons, taking New Georgia in August, Choiseul in October, and Bougainville in November.

Eastern Front, 1943–44 The Soviets launched a major counteroffensive to relieve Stalingrad on 19 November 1942 and completely cut off the German 6th Army, which they set about destroying until the survivors finally surrendered on 31 January 1943. This released a great Soviet army for operations in southern Russia: Kursk was recaptured on 8 February, followed by Rostov on 14 February, and Kharkov on 16 February. A premature spring thaw brought some respite to the Germans and they were able to launch a strong counteroffensive which took Kharkov back on 15 March along with most of the Donets Basin. By April, the Germans were once more in a favourable position to resume the offensive. The German Spring Offensive of 1943 was aimed at a Soviet salient between Kharkov and Orel and marked a turning point in the Eastern Front campaign. The Germans launched an attack on Kursk on 5 July 1943 which became the greatest tank battle in history reaching its climax on 12 July and the German offensive was beaten back with enormous losses. By 10 July the Allies had landed in Sicily, so that reinforcements were needed for Italy, and the Soviets then opened a massive offensive north of the Kursk salient. Hitler terminated the Kursk battle on 17 July and German forces in the area were left to extricate themselves as best they could. The Soviets retook Orel on 4 August, and soon afterwards Kharkov was again recovered.

The Soviet armies now broadened their offensive taking Taganrog in the Caucasus on 30 August, Poltava in the Kharkov region on 23 September, and to the north, near the heart of the whole front, they took the rail centre of Bryansk. Smolensk fell on 25 September. By the end of October, the Germans had effectively lost the Crimea and Kiev was recaptured on 6 November, and Zhitomir a week later. In the following month, Soviet armies crossed three rivers in succession – the Bug, the Dniester, and the Pruth. Odessa was liberated on 10 April 1944, but the historic fortress of Sevastopol was not regained until 9 May, by which time German losses in the Crimea alone came to over 110,000 killed or captured.

Battle of the Atlantic Despite the improvement in the Allies' situation on land, at sea German U-boats were still taking a heavy toll of Allied shipping. Although the number of escort vessels was growing steadily, there was still a serious shortage of long-range aircraft available to protect convoys: by March 1943 nearly 508,000 tons of merchant shipping had been lost in the first months of the year. This brought the seriousness of the situation to a head and a large number of US Liberator aircraft were made available for convoy escort work. These long-range aircraft escorts produced a total change: the Germans lost 56 U-boats during April and May and Dönitz ordered the temporary withdrawal of all U-boats from the north Atlantic.

Italy surrenders Two months after the surrender of the Axis forces in North Africa at Tunis, the Allies launched a major invasion of Sicily spearheaded by General Patton's US 5th Army and Montgomery's British 8th Army on 10 July 1943. US forces landed on the southern coast and advanced northwest to take Palermo on 22 July, then turned east to clear the island. The British landed on the southeast tip and advanced north towards Messina. The island was strongly held by German troops who mounted a determined resistance and were able to evacuate the bulk of their troops to Italy before Messina fell on 17 August 1943 and from then the Allies began their progress. The Allied landing brought down Mussolini's fascist government: he resigned on 24 July and was arrested two days later.

A new government was formed under Marshal Badoglio which overtly pledged continued support for the Axis, but soon afterwards began secret negotiations with the Allies. The new government surrendered on 3 September 1943 but the armistice was not published until five days later. The surrender made little military difference as the German commander in Italy, Field Marshal Kesselring, began a spirited defence of the country, disarming all Italian units within reach and establishing a puppet fascist government in German-controlled areas. US and British troops landed at Salerno on 8 September and took Naples on 1 October, driving the Germans back onto the heavily fortified Gustav Line. The Allied advance was halted here and the Germans, having fallen back methodically, stabilized a strong front cutting right across this narrow part of the peninsula in the Apennines.

The mountainous terrain, made worse by unseasonable weather, made the Allied progress through Italy slow and they urgently needed to be able to make further landings in the north so, in an attempt to outflank the Gustav line, Allied troops were landed at Anzio on 22 January 1944. Although they succeeded in securing a beachhead, they were unable to break out and were penned in by strong German defences until after Allied troops advancing from the south overcame the German stronghold at Cassino early May. After this, breakthrough the Allied forces made rapid progress and Rome was finally liberated on 4 June 1944.

Battle of the Atlantic, 1943–44 During the last four months of 1943, 62 U-boats were sunk with the loss of only 67 Allied ships and the first quarter of 1944 offered no relief for the U-boats, despite several German attempts at concerted attacks on Gibraltar. The U-boat threat had by now been curtailed although not entirely ended and the Allies had all but won the Battle of the Atlantic.

Allied Pacific offensive, 1943–44 From early 1943, the Allied tactics had mainly been ‘island-hopping’, advancing from one captured vantage point to another. But by November 1943 the US naval presence had been greatly intensified and in a series of mainly carrier-based actions the Allies had established air superiority, allowing the Allies to develop a more systematic strategy, concentrating on key points while by-passing less important positions. The US forces continued to expand to the north and west from the Solomons, and by June 1944 reached the Mariana Islands, an important strategic target as they would provide airfields close enough to Japan to permit B-29 bombers to raid it. Operations in the area commenced with the invasion of Saipan on 15 June and ended with the capture of Guam on 10 August. An important turning point came in the operations around Saipan in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the last of the great carrier battles, which effectively broke the back of the Japanese navy.

Having taken the Marianas, US forces were now in range of the Philippines and bombing raids began against the islands as well as mainland Japan. General MacArthur, who had vowed to return when the USA lost the Philippines to Japan in 1942, led a large US expeditionary force to retake the islands on 20 October. The Japanese mobilized their fleet to prevent the landings and suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Leyte Gulf 17–25 October, but were unable to stop the landings and the USA secured Leyte island on 25 December 1944 and then took the rest of the Philippines one by one in early 1945.

Burmese campaign, 1943–44 One of the main subjects of the military discussions at the Québec Conference had been how best to help the nationalist army in China against the Japanese, and a separate Southeast Asia Command was formed in August 1943 to coordinate operations based on India and Ceylon against Japan. A joint Chinese-American force under Stilwell marched into north Burma in October 1943 and a British offensive was launched in the Arakan in January 1944; the Japanese responded vigorously but by this time the British had established air superiority and they inflicted a heavy defeat on the Japanese in the Battle of the Admin Box in February 1944. The Japanese struck back with an offensive in central Burma towards Imphal and Kohima. Imphal was besieged but, thanks to supplies from the air, held out against severe attacks. At Kohima the Japanese attack was stopped and then thrown back by the British, who then went on to relieve Imphal. Orde Wingate's airborne troops caused havoc behind the Japanese lines, more or less wrecking Japanese communications for three months from March 1944. The Japanese forces were left reeling by the wave of defeats and, starving and disorganized, they retreated behind the Chindwin River in December 1944, leaving 53,000 dead behind them.

Liberation of France By June 1944, the Allies were ready to launch Operation Overlord, the codename for the invasion of mainland Europe through France, opening a second front in Western Europe after the successes in Italy. A large-scale bomber offensive was launched against Germany, which forced the German air force onto the defensive as they pulled aircraft out of Western Europe to concentrate on Germany itself. Having prepared the way by establishing air superiority in France and disrupting the German lines of communication, the first landings were made in Normandy in the D-day operation of 6 June 1944. Having secured the beachheads at Normandy, Allied forces broke out through France and the Low Countries to Germany, while forces from Italy attacked from the south and Soviet forces attacked from the East.

The German 5th and 7th Panzer Armies were destroyed in the Falaise Gap during August 1944, and the remnants of the German forces in northern France fled headlong to the Seine. Meanwhile the US 7th Army had made landings in the south of France and was moving north to link with the Allied forces in the north. This wave of disaster encouraged a French national revolt and the Germans decided that France could no longer be held. As Allied forces closed in on Paris, Hitler ordered the commandant, General Cholitz, to hold the city at all costs. Cholitz, realizing the damage that would result, ignored the order and surrendered the city to General Leclerc's Free French Armoured Division on 25 August.

July Plot against Hitler Following the Allied advances in France and Italy a group of German officers launched the July Plot to assassinate Hitler and depose the Nazis. However, although the bomb designed to kill him did go off he survived the attempt and the plot gave the SS the excuse they wanted to launch a huge purge of German officers and their associates actually, or believed to be, implicated in the plot.

Allies enter Germany The Allied forces in France advanced through Belgium to begin their final assault on Germany. They comprised the Canadian 1st Army, British 2nd Army, US 1st Army, US 3rd Army, US 7th Army, and French Army. US troops took Soissons on 29 August and the Verdun on 1 September and Patton was soon on the outskirts of Nancy. Montgomery's advance was equally spectacular. Having established a bridgehead over the Seine on 29 August, his armour drove 400 km/250 mi north in a few days and established a line that isolated all the German forces in northeast France. Meanwhile US forces took Namur, Liège, and Ostend on 8 September. They crossed through Luxembourg, and finally entered Germany on 10 September and shelled Aachen.

Eastern Front, 1944 While the Germans were greatly preoccupied with Allied advances in the west and south of Europe, the Soviets launched a fresh offensive in the summer of 1944. Vitebsk fell on 26 June and in the course of the next month Soviet forces advanced through northwest Russia, taking Minsk, Vilna, and other strongholds. The German armies in the Baltic States were now under threat and the Germans began a partial withdrawal from the area. Soviet troops were just outside Warsaw by 1 August 1944 and the Polish Home Army, an underground resistance force, rose against the Germans in an attempt to help the anticipated Soviet attack on the city. Stalin cynically ordered Marshal Rokossovski to delay his advance so that the Poles and Germans would wear each other out and allow the Soviets to walk in unopposed. Fighting continued in Warsaw until 2 October when the Poles surrendered and only then did Rokossovski continue his advance, taking Warsaw easily. The Soviets made sweeping gains throughout Poland, taking many important towns and cutting off the last escape route into Germany from the more northerly Baltic States. This isolated the German Army Group North in the Kurland peninsula in Latvia. Hitler refused to allow the troops to evacuate in January 1945 as they were keeping Soviet forces occupied that might otherwise join the assault on Germany. The army group held out under intense pressure until the end of the war.

Battle of Arnhem The ill-fated Arnhem expedition in September 1944 was launched to secure bridges over the Maas, Waal, and Lower Rhine and open another route into Germany. Conceived as a rapid operation using a combination of ground and airborne forces, bad weather combined with well-organized defences to turn the expedition into a disaster. The element of speed and surprise were lost and the Allies were forced into months of methodical siege warfare against the chief German positions.

Battle of the Bulge In December 1944 Hitler saw an opportunity to isolate US forces in the Ardennes by pushing a German salient through the area (see Battle of the Bulge). The plan, code-named ‘Watch on the Rhine’, was implemented by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt between 16 December 1944 and 28 January 1945. The offensive made good progress in the direction of Liège in the first two weeks, but once they had recovered from the initial shock of an offensive on what had previously been known as the ‘ghost front’, the Allies launched a fierce counter-attack and the improvement in the weather conditions in late December allowed the superior Allied air strength to be brought into play. Although US troops were encircled for some weeks at Bastogne, the German counteroffensive failed and by the end of January 1945 the Allied line was reformed.

Balkans, 1944–45 Soviet forces moved into Romania in August 1944 and occupied most important towns 21–31 August. Romania capitulated later in the month, denying the Germans the vital Romanian oilfields. The Soviets used Romania as a base to move through the Balkans from the north, while the British advanced through Greece in the south, liberating Athens on 14 October. British troops arrived two days later and were principally needed to keep the peace between rival monarchist and communist factions. Street fighting ensued, but eventually both sides agreed to a British-controlled truce in January 1945. Meanwhile, Belgrade was taken by Tito's Yugoslav partisans backed by Soviet troops on 20 October and the Soviets moved on to invade Hungary.

Yalta Conference The Allied leaders Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met from 4 to 11 February 1945 at Yalta, a Soviet holiday resort in the Crimea, to finalize the plans for the defeat of Germany. Perhaps more importantly by now, they discussed post-war political settlements, agreeing on the allocation of administrative zones in Germany among the major Allies after the war. This meeting laid the foundations of the ‘spheres of influence’ which were to divide Europe for the next 45 years.

Final offensive: Eastern Front At the start of 1945 the USSR launched a grand final offensive on three main fronts: in the north Rokossovski moved through the Baltic states and Poland, in the centre Zhukov continued his advance out of the Ukraine; and in the south Konev pushed towards Berlin from the Balkans. Once he had secured Danzig in March 1945, Rokossovski turned to cooperate with Cherniakovsky's forces from the east in a combined assault on East Prussia, effectively sealing Germany's fate. Soviet armies crossed the Oder and the Neisse during April, taking Vienna on 13 April and Konev's southern force met up with the US advance on the Elbe on 25 April.

Final offensive: Western Front The final advance into Germany from the west was preceded on 22 February 1945 by a heavy bombing attack. After a fierce battle to clear the Reichswald Forest near the Dutch border in February 1945, the Allied armies in the north pushed towards the Rhine and fierce battles to establish crossings developed all along the river. Allied troops captured Cologne on 7 March and a US force crossed the Rhine at Remagen later the same day, cutting off German troops west of the Rhine. Patton's US 3rd army advanced rapidly, trapping the German armies in the Saar Basin and Palatinate, opening the way for the invasion of central and southern Germany: Mainz was taken on 20 March followed by Frankfurt on 26 March. Montgomery crossed the Rhine at Wesel and the US 9th Army at Rheinberg on 23 March. The Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, was encircled by the US 1st and 9th Armies in early April: 21 divisions were captured when the Ruhr fell on 18 April. By the time US forces met up with Konev's Soviet army on 25 April the Allied thrust through central Germany had advanced virtually to the Czech border and the Elbe had been crossed south of Magdeburg.

Germany surrenders Once the advances from west and the east joined, the Allies converged from all directions for the final battle for Berlin. Hitler ordered a final stand in the suburbs of Berlin itself, although the last days of the Third Reich are far from clear. In the final week of April, Himmler tried to negotiate a surrender with the Western powers but this attempt to split the Allies' offer was rejected. In Italy, Bologna fell on 21 April and Milan on 28 April and by now either the whole of northern Italy was held either by regular Allied forces or by Italian partisans. Mussolini was captured by partisans while trying to escape into Switzerland on 28 April and executed the following day. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April as the Soviets closed in – his death was announced on 1 May and the Soviet flag was raised over the Reichstag the following day. General Karl Weidling surrendered Berlin on 2 May and Admiral Dönitz, Hitler's successor as Führer, was left to negotiate Germany's final, unconditional surrender. All German forces in northwest Germany, Holland, and Denmark surrendered to Field Marshal Montgomery on 5 May, and Germany's final capitulation came into effect at midnight 8–9 May.

Defeat of Japan Japan had some successes in China during late 1944: Changsha was captured and in southern China Japanese forces seized the airfields from which the US Air Force had been raiding as far north as Manchuria. However, by December 1944 most of the Philippines had been retaken with US forces occupying Manila on 4 February 1945. US forces moved north into the outer edges of the Japanese islands, taking Iwo Jima in heavy fighting between 19 February and 16 March and Okinawa 1 April–21 June. Meanwhile, British troops were advancing through Burma, taking Mandalay on 14 March. The rest of the Japanese army in Central Burma was either destroyed or driven into the Shan Hills during March and April; the British entered Rangoon on 3 May.

By May the defeat of Japan was certain, but the fierce fighting during the capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa had taken a heavy toll in casualties, and the Allies feared that the war could be prolonged for months at a potentially huge casualty rate if an invasion of mainland Japan was attempted. In order to bring the war to a swift conclusion, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August, devastating the city, followed by a second bomb at Nagasaki on 9 August. The USSR took advantage of the opportunity to snatch more territory at the last minute and declared war on Japan on 8 August and invaded Manchuria. The Japanese government accepted the Allied terms for surrender on 10 August, and hostilities officially came to a close on 12 September.