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Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany (Jan 30, 1933)

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Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany (Jan 30, 1933)

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Hitler was obsessed with having the superiority of a "pure" German race and joined the Nazi Party. He was imprisoned and a decade after his release he took the chance to rise from obscurity to power with his weakened rivals. He was named chancellor of Germany on Jan 30, 1933, and after President Hinderburg's death, he became Germany's supreme ruler, which ended in his dictatorship.

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Historical Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust-even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine.

The Enlightenment, during the 17th and 18th centuries, emphasized religious tolerance, and in the 19th century Napoleon Bonaparte and other European rulers enacted legislation that ended long-standing restrictions on Jews. Anti-Semitic feeling endured, however, in many cases taking on a racial character rather than a religious one.

Did you know? Even in the early 21st century, the legacy of the Holocaust endures. Swiss government and banking institutions have in recent years acknowledged their complicity with the Nazis and established funds to aid Holocaust survivors and other victims of human rights abuses, genocide or other catastrophes.

Hitler's Rise to Power

The roots of Adolf Hitler's particularly virulent brand of anti-Semitism are unclear. Born in Austria in 1889, he served in the German army during World War I. Like many anti-Semites in Germany, he blamed the Jews for the country's defeat in 1918.

Soon after World War I ended, Hitler joined the National German Workers' Party, which became the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), known to English speakers as the Nazis. While imprisoned for treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, Hitler wrote the memoir and propaganda tract " Mein Kampf " (or "my struggle"), in which he predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," and with the need for "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the decade after he was released from prison, Hitler took advantage of the weakness of his rivals to enhance his party's status and rise from obscurity to power.

On January 30, 1933, he was named chancellor of Germany. After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler anointed himself Fuhrer, becoming Germany's supreme ruler.

Concentration Camps

The twin goals of racial purity and territorial expansion were the core of Hitler's worldview, and from 1933 onward they would combine to form the driving force behind his foreign and domestic policy.

At first, the Nazis reserved their harshest persecution for political opponents such as Communists or Social Democrats. The first official concentration camp opened at Dachau (near Munich) in March 1933, and many of the first prisoners sent there were Communists.

Like the network of concentration camps that followed, becoming the killing grounds of the Holocaust, Dachau was under the control of Heinrich Himmler, head of the elite Nazi guard, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and later chief of the German police.

By July 1933, German concentration camps ( Konzentrationslager in German, or KZ) held some 27,000 people in "protective custody." Huge Nazi rallies and symbolic acts such as the public burning of books by Jews, Communists, liberals and foreigners helped drive home the desired message of party strength and unity.

In 1933, Jews in Germany numbered around 525,000-just one percent of the total German population. During the next six years, Nazis undertook an "Aryanization" of Germany, dismissing non-Aryans from civil service, liquidating Jewish-owned businesses and stripping Jewish lawyers and doctors of their clients.

Nuremberg Laws

Under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents was considered a Jew, while those with two Jewish grandparents were designated Mischlinge (half-breeds).

Under the Nuremberg Laws, Jews became routine targets for stigmatization and persecution. This culminated in Kristallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass" in November 1938, when German synagogues were burned and windows in Jewish home and shops were smashed; some 100 Jews were killed and thousands more arrested.

From 1933 to 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany did, while those who remained lived in a constant state of uncertainty and fear.

Euthanasia Program

In September 1939, Germany invaded the western half of Poland, starting World War II. German police soon forced tens of thousands of Polish Jews from their homes and into ghettoes, giving their confiscated properties to ethnic Germans (non-Jews outside Germany who identified as German), Germans from the Reich or Polish gentiles.

Surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, the Jewish ghettoes in Poland functioned like captive city-states, governed by Jewish Councils. In addition to widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger, overpopulation and poor sanitation made the ghettoes breeding grounds for disease such as typhus.

Meanwhile, beginning in the fall of 1939, Nazi officials selected around 70,000 Germans institutionalized for mental illness or physical disabilities to be gassed to death in the so-called Euthanasia Program.

After prominent German religious leaders protested, Hitler put an end to the program in August 1941, though killings of the disabled continued in secrecy, and by 1945 some 275,000 people deemed handicapped from all over Europe had been killed. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Euthanasia Program functioned as a pilot for the Holocaust.

'Final Solution'

Throughout the spring and summer of 1940, the German army expanded Hitler's empire in Europe, conquering Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Beginning in 1941, Jews from all over the continent, as well as hundreds of thousands of European Romani people, were transported to Polish ghettoes.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 marked a new level of brutality in warfare. Mobile killing units of Himmler's SS called Einsatzgruppen would murder more than 500,000 Soviet Jews and others (usually by shooting) over the course of the German occupation.

A memorandum dated July 31, 1941, from Hitler's top commander Hermann Goering to Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD (the security service of the SS), referred to the need for an Endlösung ( Final Solution) to "the Jewish question."

Yellow Stars

Beginning in September 1941, every person designated as a Jew in German-held territory was marked with a yellow, six-pointed star, making them open targets. Tens of thousands were soon being deported to the Polish ghettoes and German-occupied cities in the USSR.

Since June 1941, experiments with mass killing methods had been ongoing at the concentration camp of Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland. That August, 500 officials gassed 500 Soviet POWs to death with the pesticide Zyklon-B. The SS soon placed a huge order for the gas with a German pest-control firm, an ominous indicator of the coming Holocaust.

Holocaust Death Camps

Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young.

The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz.

From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Amid the deportations, disease and constant hunger, incarcerated people in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up in armed revolt.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 19-May 16, 1943, ended in the death of 7,000 Jews, with 50,000 survivors sent to extermination camps. But the resistance fighters had held off the Nazis for almost a month, and their revolt inspired revolts at camps and ghettos across German-occupied Europe.

Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of the camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible. Eyewitnesses brought reports of Nazi atrocities in Poland to the Allied governments, who were harshly criticized after the war for their failure to respond, or to publicize news of the mass slaughter.

This lack of action was likely mostly due to the Allied focus on winning the war at hand, but was also partly a result of the general incomprehension with which news of the Holocaust was met and the denial and disbelief that such atrocities could be occurring on such a scale.

'Angel of Death'

At Auschwitz alone, more than 2 million people were murdered in a process resembling a large-scale industrial operation. A large population of Jewish and non-Jewish inmates worked in the labor camp there; though only Jews were gassed, thousands of others died of starvation or disease.

In 1943, eugenics advocate Josef Mengele arrived in Auschwitz to begin his infamous experiments on Jewish prisoners. His special area of focus was conducting medical experiments on twins, injecting them with everything from petrol to chloroform under the guise of giving them medical treatment. His actions earned him the nickname "the Angel of Death."

Nazi Rule Ends

By the spring of 1945, German leadership was dissolving amid internal dissent, with Goering and Himmler both seeking to distance themselves from Hitler and take power.

In his last will and political testament, dictated in a German bunker that April 29, Hitler blamed the war on "International Jewry and its helpers" and urged the German leaders and people to follow "the strict observance of the racial laws and with merciless resistance against the universal poisoners of all peoples"-the Jews.

The following day, Hitler died by suicide. Germany's formal surrender in World War II came barely a week later, on May 8, 1945.

German forces had begun evacuating many of the death camps in the fall of 1944, sending inmates under guard to march further from the advancing enemy's front line. These so-called "death marches" continued all the way up to the German surrender, resulting in the deaths of some 250,000 to 375,000 people.

In his classic book Survival in Auschwitz, the Italian-Jewish author Primo Levi described his own state of mind, as well as that of his fellow inmates in Auschwitz on the day before Soviet troops liberated the camp in January 1945: "We lay in a world of death and phantoms. The last trace of civilization had vanished around and inside us. The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to conclusion by the Germans in defeat."

Legacy of the Holocaust

The wounds of the Holocaust-known in Hebrew as "Shoah," or catastrophe-were slow to heal. Survivors of the camps found it nearly impossible to return home, as in many cases they had lost their entire family and been denounced by their non-Jewish neighbors. As a result, the late 1940s saw an unprecedented number of refugees, POWs and other displaced populations moving across Europe.

In an effort to punish the villains of the Holocaust, the Allies held the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46, which brought Nazi atrocities to horrifying light. Increasing pressure on the Allied powers to create a homeland for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust would lead to a mandate for the creation of Israel in 1948.

Over the decades that followed, ordinary Germans struggled with the Holocaust's bitter legacy, as survivors and the families of victims sought restitution of wealth and property confiscated during the Nazi years.

Beginning in 1953, the German government made payments to individual Jews and to the Jewish people as a way of acknowledging the German people's responsibility for the crimes committed in their name.
Sources
The Holocaust. The National WWII Museum.
What Was The Holocaust? Imperial War Museums.
Introduction to the Holocaust. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Holocaust Remembrance. Council of Europe.
Outreach Programme on the Holocaust. United Nations.

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Holocaust: Definition, Remembrance & Meaning - HISTORY

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Anti-Semitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust-even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine.

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Kristallnacht | Definition, Date, Facts, & Significance + Holocaust: Definition, Remembrance & Meaning - HISTORY

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German Jew are stripped of rights (Sep 15, 1935)

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German Jew are stripped of rights (Sep 15, 1935)

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Nuremberg laws made Jews bigger targets for persecution. "Kristallnacht" or "Night of Broken Glass" was the night German synagogues were burned, Jewish houses and stores windows were smashed, and 100+ Jews were killed or arrested with racist, anti semitic intentions.

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Kristallnacht, the night of November 9-10, 1938, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property. The name Kristallnacht refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms. The violence continued during the day of November 10, and in some places acts of violence continued for several more days.

The pretext for the pogroms was the shooting in Paris on November 7 of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a Polish-Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan. News of Rath's death on November 9 reached Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, where he was celebrating the anniversary of the abortive 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. There, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, after conferring with Hitler, harangued a gathering of old storm troopers, urging violent reprisals staged to appear as "spontaneous demonstrations." Telephone orders from Munich triggered pogroms throughout Germany, which then included Austria.

Just before midnight on November 9, Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller sent a telegram to all police units informing them that "in shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with." Rather, the police were to arrest the victims. Fire companies stood by synagogues in flames with explicit instructions to let the buildings burn. They were to intervene only if a fire threatened adjacent "Aryan" properties.

In two days and nights, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or otherwise damaged. Rioters ransacked and looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses, killed at least 91 Jews, and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. The attackers were often neighbours. Some 30,000 Jewish males aged 16 to 60 were arrested. To accommodate so many new prisoners, the concentration camps at Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen were expanded.

After the pogrom ended, it was given an oddly poetic name: Kristallnacht-meaning "crystal night" or "night of broken glass." This name symbolized the final shattering of Jewish existence in Germany. After Kristallnacht, the Nazi regime made Jewish survival in Germany impossible.

The cost of the broken window glass alone came to millions of Reichsmarks. The Reich confiscated any compensation claims that insurance companies paid to Jews. The rubble of ruined synagogues had to be cleared by the Jewish community. The Nazi government imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million in 1938) on the Jewish community. After assessing the fine, Hermann Göring remarked: "The swine won't commit another murder. Incidentally...I would not like to be a Jew in Germany."

The Nazi government barred Jews from schools on November 15 and authorized local authorities to impose curfews in late November. By December 1938, Jews were banned from most public places in Germany.

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Kristallnacht | Definition, Date, Facts, & Significance

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Kristallnacht, the night of November 9-10, 1938, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property. The name refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms. After Kristallnacht, the Nazi regime made Jewish survival in Germany impossible.

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Germany invades Poland + World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts

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Hitler from Germany formed a pact with the Soviet Leader. France and Great Britain guaranteed military support for Poland, so after Hitler's long planned invasion against Poland was put into action, they declared war with Germany, beginning WWII. Texas gave financial support and transport aid to Poland.

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Germany invades Poland | September 1, 1939 | HISTORY

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On September 1, 1939, German forces under the control of Adolf Hitler invade Poland, beginning World War II.

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France falls to Nazi Germany as Hitler accepts the surrender in a train car (June 22, 1940)

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France falls to Nazi Germany as Hitler accepts the surrender in a train car (June 22, 1940)

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France's defense was attacked by Germany and Italy's dictator made an alliance with Hitler. Italy then declared war on Britain and France. An armistice was requested and France was divided with Germany controlling one side and France's WWI hero on the other.

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Leading up to World War II

The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and National Socialist German Workers' Party, abbreviated as NSDAP in German and the Nazi Party in English..

Did you know? As early as 1923, in his memoir and propaganda tract "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler had predicted a general European war that would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."

After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary "Lebensraum," or living space, for the German race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he secretly began the rearmament of Germany, a violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler's open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation.

Outbreak of World War II (1939)

In late August 1939, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, which incited a frenzy of worry in London and Paris. Hitler had long planned an invasion of Poland, a nation to which Great Britain and France had guaranteed military support if it were attacked by Germany. The pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not face a war on two fronts once he invaded Poland, and would have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland from the west; two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany, beginning World War II.

On September 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Under attack from both sides, Poland fell quickly, and by early 1940 Germany and the Soviet Union had divided control over the nation, according to a secret protocol appended to the Nonaggression Pact. Stalin's forces then moved to occupy the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and defeated a resistant Finland in the Russo-Finnish War. During the six months following the invasion of Poland, the lack of action on the part of Germany and the Allies in the west led to talk in the news media of a "phony war." At sea, however, the British and German navies faced off in heated battle, and lethal German U-boat submarines struck at merchant shipping bound for Britain, sinking more than 100 vessels in the first four months of World War II.

World War II in the West (1940-41)

On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as "blitzkrieg," or lightning war. Three days later, Hitler's troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse, Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of Steel, and Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.

On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal Philippe Petain (France's hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military occupation and the other under Petain's government, installed at Vichy France. Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of being separated from the Continent by the English Channel.

To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion), German planes bombed Britain extensively beginning in September 1940 until May 1941, known as the Blitz, including night raids on London and other industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain's defensive resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early 1941.

Hitler vs. Stalin: Operation Barbarossa (1941-42)

By early 1941, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Axis, and German troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April. Hitler's conquest of the Balkans was a precursor for his real objective: an invasion of the Soviet Union, whose vast territory would give the German master race the "Lebensraum" it needed. The other half of Hitler's strategy was the extermination of the Jews from throughout German-occupied Europe. Plans for the "Final Solution" were introduced around the time of the Soviet offensive, and over the next three years more than 4 million Jews would perish in the death camps established in occupied Poland.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Though Soviet tanks and aircraft greatly outnumbered the Germans', Russian aviation technology was largely obsolete, and the impact of the surprise invasion helped Germans get within 200 miles of Moscow by mid-July. Arguments between Hitler and his commanders delayed the next German advance until October, when it was stalled by a Soviet counteroffensive and the onset of harsh winter weather.

World War II in the Pacific (1941-43)

With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, taking the Americans completely by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan with only one dissenting vote. Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States.

After a long string of Japanese victories, the U.S. Pacific Fleet won the Battle of Midway in June 1942, which proved to be a turning point in the war. On Guadalcanal, one of the southern Solomon Islands, the Allies also had success against Japanese forces in a series of battles from August 1942 to February 1943, helping turn the tide further in the Pacific. In mid-1943, Allied naval forces began an aggressive counterattack against Japan, involving a series of amphibious assaults on key Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. This "island-hopping" strategy proved successful, and Allied forces moved closer to their ultimate goal of invading the mainland Japan.

Toward Allied Victory in World War II (1943-45)

In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini's government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy would continue until 1945.

On the Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest combat of World War II. The approach of winter, along with dwindling food and medical supplies, spelled the end for German troops there, and the last of them surrendered on January 31, 1943.

On June 6, 1944-celebrated as "D-Day"-the Allies began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his army into Western Europe, ensuring Germany's defeat in the east. Soviet troops soon advanced into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, while Hitler gathered his forces to drive the Americans and British back from Germany in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), the last major German offensive of the war.

An intensive aerial bombardment in February 1945 preceded the Allied land invasion of Germany, and by the time Germany formally surrendered on May 8, Soviet forces had occupied much of the country. Hitler was already dead, having died by suicide on April 30 in his Berlin bunker.

World War II Ends (1945)

At the Potsdam Conference of July-August 1945, U.S. President Harry S. Truman (who had taken office after Roosevelt's death in April), Churchill and Stalin discussed the ongoing war with Japan as well as the peace settlement with Germany. Post-war Germany would be divided into four occupation zones, to be controlled by the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France. On the divisive matter of Eastern Europe's future, Churchill and Truman acquiesced to Stalin, as they needed Soviet cooperation in the war against Japan.

Heavy casualties sustained in the campaigns at Iwo Jima (February 1945) and Okinawa (April-June 1945), and fears of the even costlier land invasion of Japan led Truman to authorize the use of a new and devastating weapon. Developed during a top secret operation code-named The Manhattan Project, the atomic bomb was unleashed on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. On August 15, the Japanese government issued a statement declaring they would accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and on September 2, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan's formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

African American Servicemen Fight Two Wars

World War II exposed a glaring paradox within the United States Armed Forces. Although more than 1 million African Americans served in the war to defeat Nazism and fascism, they did so in segregated units. The same discriminatory Jim Crow policies that were rampant in American society were reinforced by the U.S. military. Black servicemen rarely saw combat and were largely relegated to labor and supply units that were commanded by white officers.

There were several African American units that proved essential in helping to win World War II, with the Tuskegee Airmen being among the most celebrated. But the Red Ball Express, the truck convoy of mostly Black drivers were responsible for delivering essential goods to General George S. Patton's troops on the front lines in France. The all-Black 761st Tank Battalion fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and the 92 Infantry Division, fought in fierce ground battles in Italy. Yet, despite their role in defeating fascism, the fight for equality continued for African American soldiers after the World War II ended. They remained in segregated units and lower-ranking positions, well into the Korean War, a few years after President Truman signed an executive order to desegregate the U.S. military in 1948.

World War II Casualties and Legacy

World War II proved to be the deadliest international conflict in history, taking the lives of 60 to 80 million people, including 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Civilians made up an estimated 50-55 million deaths from the war, while military comprised 21 to 25 million of those lost during the war. Millions more were injured, and still more lost their homes and property.

The legacy of the war would include the spread of communism from the Soviet Union into eastern Europe as well as its eventual triumph in China, and the global shift in power from Europe to two rival superpowers-the United States and the Soviet Union-that would soon face off against each other in the Cold War.

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World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts

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World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. Rising to power in an unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination.

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Battle of Britain | History, Importance, & Facts + World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts

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battle of Britain begins (July 10, 1940)

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battle of Britain begins (July 10, 1940)

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Hitler started night raids and bombings in Britain. He only postponed the invasion of Britain because the RAF (Royal Air Forces) defeated the GAF (German Air Forces). They raised their defenses and because of the Lend-Lease act, they received much needed aid from the US.

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Battle of Britain, during World War II, the successful defense of Great Britain against unremitting and destructive air raids conducted by the German air force (Luftwaffe) from July through September 1940, after the fall of France. Victory for the Luftwaffe in the air battle would have exposed Great Britain to invasion by the German army, which was then in control of the ports of France only a few miles away across the English Channel. In the event, the battle was won by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command, whose victory not only blocked the possibility of invasion but also created the conditions for Great Britain's survival, for the extension of the war, and for the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany.

Shortly after the withdrawal of British forces from the European continent in the Dunkirk evacuation (late May-early June 1940), Germany's armoured forces completed their blitzkrieg invasion of France. The French government collapsed on June 16 and was replaced by a regime that immediately sued for peace. This left the British suddenly alone in their "island home" as the last bastion against "the menace of tyranny," in the words of their prime minister, Winston Churchill. Speaking before Parliament on June 18, Churchill announced:

What General [Maxime] Weygand [commander of the Allied armies in France] called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin....Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

On the German side, no plans had been made for an invasion of Britain before the Germans launched their offensive against France, nor were any made even when the collapse of France was assured. German leader Adolf Hitler evidently counted on the British government's agreeing to a compromise peace on the favourable terms he was prepared to offer, and so he had no desire to press the conflict to a decisive conclusion. The German army was given to understand that the war was over; leave was granted, and the Luftwaffe was shifted to other quarters. Even when Churchill's determination to continue the war was made manifest, Hitler still clung to the belief that it was merely a bluff, feeling that Britain must recognize "her militarily hopeless situation." That hope of his was slow to fade. It was not until July 2 that Hitler even ordered a consideration of the problem of invading England, and he still seemed to doubt its necessity when at last, on July 16, he ordered preparations to begin for such an invasion, christened Operation Sea Lion. Hitler stipulated that the expedition be ready by mid-August.

The German army was in no way prepared for such an undertaking. The staff had not contemplated it, the troops had been given no training for landing operations, and nothing had been done to build landing craft for the purpose. All that could be attempted was a hurried effort to collect shipping, bring barges from Germany and the Netherlands, and give the troops some practice in embarkation and disembarkation. The German generals were very apprehensive of the risks that their forces would run in crossing the sea, and the German admirals were even more frightened about what would happen when the Royal Navy appeared on the scene. They had no confidence in their own power to stop the enemy, and they insisted that the responsibility for doing so be placed on the Luftwaffe. Air Marshal Hermann Göring expressed confidence that his planes could check British naval interference and also drive the RAF out of the sky. So it was agreed that Göring would try his preliminary air offensive, which did not commit the other services to anything definite, while the time for the invasion attempt would be postponed to mid-September.

Beginning with bomber attacks against shipping on July 10 and continuing into early August, a rising stream of air attacks was delivered against British convoys and ports. Then, on August 13, the main offensive-called Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack") by Hitler-was unleashed, initially against air bases but also against aircraft factories and against radar stations in southeastern England. Although targets and tactics were changed in different phases, the underlying object was always to wear down Britain's air defense, and indeed the effort severely strained the limited resources of Fighter Command, under Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. The British disposed slightly more than 600 frontline fighters to defend the country. The Germans meanwhile made available about 1,300 bombers and dive-bombers and about 900 single-engine and 300 twin-engine fighters. These were based in an arc around England from Norway to the Cherbourg peninsula in northern coastal France. For the defense of Britain, Fighter Command was divided into four groups, of which the most hard-pressed during the Battle of Britain were Number 11 Group, defending southeastern England and London and headquartered at Uxbridge, Middlesex; and Number 12 Group, defending the Midlands and Wales and headquartered at Watnall, Nottinghamshire. The other two groups were Number 10, defending southwestern England, and Number 13, defending northern England and all of Scotland. Each group was divided into sectors, which received reports from group headquarters about approaching Luftwaffe formations and mobilized squadrons of planes from numerous airfields to fight them off. The British radar early warning system, called Chain Home, was the most advanced and the most operationally adapted system in the world. Even while suffering from frequent attacks by the Luftwaffe, it largely prevented German bomber formations from exploiting the element of surprise. To fight off the bombers, Fighter Command employed squadrons of durable and heavily armed Hawker Hurricanes, preferring to save the faster and more agile Supermarine Spitfire -unsurpassed as an interceptor by any fighter in any other air force-for use against the bombers' fighter escorts.

The British thus found themselves fighting with the unexpected advantage of superior equipment. German bombers (mostly lightly armed twin-engine planes such as the Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88) lacked the bomb load capacity to strike permanently devastating blows, and they also proved, in daylight, to be easily vulnerable to the British fighters. The Germans' once-feared Junkers Ju 87 " Stuka" dive-bomber was even more vulnerable to being shot down, and their premier fighter-the Messerschmitt Bf 109-could provide only brief long-range cover for the bombers, since it was operating at the limit of its flying range. By late August the Luftwaffe had lost more than 600 aircraft and the RAF only 260. Nevertheless, Fighter Command was losing badly needed fighters and experienced pilots at too great a rate to be sustained. Number 11 Group in particular was in a fight for its life-and, by extension, for Britain's life as well. Acknowledging that the country's fate hung on the sacrifice of its airmen, Churchill declared before Parliament on August 20, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

In addition to technology, Britain had the advantage of fighting against an enemy that had no systematic or consistent plan of action. At the beginning of September, the Germans dropped some bombs, apparently by accident, on civilian areas in London, and the British retaliated by unexpectedly launching a bombing raid on Berlin. This so infuriated Hitler that he ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from Fighter Command installations to London and other cities. Beginning on September 7, London was attacked on 57 consecutive nights. The bombing of London, Coventry, Liverpool, and other cities went on for several months, but it had the immediate benefit for the RAF of relieving the pressure on Number 11 Group and also bringing more German bomber formations into the sectors of the formidable Number 12 Group.

By mid-September, Fighter Command had demonstrated that the Luftwaffe could not gain air ascendancy over Britain. British fighters were shooting down German bombers faster than German industry could produce them. To avoid the deadly RAF fighters, the Luftwaffe shifted almost entirely to night raids on Britain's industrial centres. The " Blitz," as the night raids came to be called, was to cause many deaths and great hardship for the civilian population, but it contributed little to the main purpose of the air offensive-to dominate the skies in advance of an invasion of England. On September 3 the date of invasion had been deferred to September 21, and then on September 19 Hitler ordered the shipping gathered for Operation Sea Lion to be dispersed. On October 12 he announced that the operation was off for the winter, and long before the arrival of spring he decided to turn eastward against Russia. Plans for an invasion were definitively discarded; the campaign against Britain henceforth became purely a blockade of its sea approaches, conducted mainly by submarines and only supplemented by the Luftwaffe.

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Battle of Britain | History, Importance, & Facts

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Battle of Britain, during World War II, the successful defense of Great Britain against unremitting and destructive air raids conducted by the German air force from July through September 1940, after the fall of France. Learn more about the Battle of Britain in this article.

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Japanese attack the US at Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, 1941)

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Japanese attack the US at Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, 1941)

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The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor killed many people. The day after the devastating event, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

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Japan and the Path to War

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades.

The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan's increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor's territory and take over its import market.

To this end, Japan declared war on China in 1937, resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities.

American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

Instead, the sanctions made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., neither side would budge. It seemed that war was all but inevitable.

Where Is Pearl Harbor?

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan. No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina.

Because American military leaders were not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were squeezed onto adjacent airfields.

To the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was an irresistibly easy target.

USS Arizona

The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. That way, the Americans would not be able to fight back as Japan's armed forces spread across the South Pacific. On December 7, after months of planning and practice, the Japanese launched their attack.

At about 8 a.m., Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below. At 8:10, a 1,800-pound bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in her forward ammunition magazine. The ship exploded and sank with more than 1,000 men trapped inside.

Next, torpedoes pierced the shell of the battleship USS Oklahoma. With 400 sailors aboard, the Oklahoma lost her balance, rolled onto her side and slipped underwater.

Less than two hours later, the surprise attack was over, and every battleship in Pearl Harbor- USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Utah, USS Maryland, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee and USS Nevada-had sustained significant damage. (All but USS Arizona and USS Utah were eventually salvaged and repaired.)

Impact of the Pearl Harbor Attack

In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed. Most importantly, more than 2,000 people died.

But the Japanese had failed to cripple the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important naval vessel: Aircraft carriers were, and as it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet's carriers were away from the base on December 7. (Some had returned to the mainland and others were delivering planes to troops on Midway and Wake Islands.)

Moreover, the Pearl Harbor assault had left the base's most vital onshore facilities-oil storage depots, repair shops, shipyards and submarine docks-intact. As a result, the U.S. Navy was able to rebound relatively quickly from the attack.

How Many People Died in Pearl Harbor?

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. Additionally, 1,178 people were wounded. 129 Japanese soldiers were killed.

Half of the dead at Pearl Harbor were on the USS Arizona. Today the sunken battleship serves as a memorial to all Americans who died in the attack.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on December 8, the day after the crushing attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

He went on to say, "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again."

America Enters World War II

After the Pearl Harbor attack, and for the first time during years of discussion and debate, the American people were united in their determination to go to war.

The Japanese had wanted to goad the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions against them; instead, they had pushed their adversary into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan's first occupation by a foreign power.

Did you know? The single vote against Congress's declaration of war against Japan came from Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Rankin was a pacifist who had also voted against the American entrance into World War I. "As a woman," she said, "I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."

On December 8, Congress approved Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, Japan's allies Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.

For the second time, Congress reciprocated, declaring war on the European powers. More than two years after the start of World War II, the United States had entered the conflict.

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Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

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the U.S. bombed Tokyo as a counter to Pearl Harbor known as Doolittle’s Raid (April 18, 1942)

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the U.S. bombed Tokyo as a counter to Pearl Harbor known as Doolittle’s Raid (April 18, 1942)

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During WWII, the US bombed Tokyo as well as cities near there. Though it had little damage, the air raid boosted Allied morale.

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What was the Doolittle Raid?

Was the Doolittle Raid successful?

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Doolittle Raid, (April 18, 1942), during World War II, U.S. Army Air Forces bombing raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Lieut. Col. James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Hornet in a spectacular surprise attack that caused little damage but boosted Allied morale. The raid prompted the Japanese to retain four army fighter groups in Japan during 1942 and 1943, when they were badly needed in the South Pacific. The attack also compelled the Japanese to push beyond their originally planned defensive perimeter, thereby increasing the vulnerability of their supply lines.

The state of the war in 1942

The first months of 1942 were a grim time for the Allies. The war machine of the United States had not yet fully mobilized after the shock of Pearl Harbor. Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps was running riot in North Africa, and the Luftwaffe was subjecting Britain's cities to a sustained bombing campaign. On the Eastern Front, the Red Army and a harsh Russian winter had checked the German advance just outside Moscow, but German armies were poised to resume the offensive in the summer. The Allies were losing the Battle of the Atlantic, with German U-boat captains enjoying such success against Allied shipping that they dubbed the period "the second happy time." Japan's armed forces had amassed a virtually uninterrupted string of victories, expanding their sphere of control to include the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Throughout the Pacific theatre, the Allies were in retreat, with only Japan's Pyrrhic victory at Wake Island and the spirited but ultimately unsuccessful Filipino-American defense of Bataan to provide a glimmer of optimism.

These were crucial days, dominated by holding actions and desperate defensive strategies, but, in the immediate wake of Pearl Harbor, U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt tasked his military leaders with carrying out a strike against Japan that would boost American morale. The damage done to the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor obviously limited the scope of the U.S. response, but American planners nevertheless conceived of an audacious thrust against the heart of the Japanese empire. The U.S. would carry out an air attack on Tokyo itself. The primary purpose of the raid would be twofold: to cause material damage by destroying military targets and consequently hampering Japanese war production and to create fear in the Japanese populace, thus making it necessary for military leaders to recall combat equipment from other theatres for home defense. This would ease the pressure on Allied units elsewhere in the Pacific. It was also hoped that the raid would demonstrate American resolve to the other Allied powers, as well as give the American people a respite from the torrent of bad news from the fighting fronts.

Planning and training for the Doolittle Raid

In January 1942 U.S. Navy Capt. Francis S. Low approached Adm. Ernest King with the idea of launching U.S. Army Air Forces bombers from the deck of an aircraft carrier. King's staff briefed U.S. Army Air Forces commander Henry ("Hap") Arnold, and, with Arnold's approval, "Special Aviation Project No. 1" became a joint Army-Navy operation. Arnold tapped Doolittle to handle planning on the Army side, and both Doolittle and Low agreed that the only aircraft in the American arsenal that could possibly work would be the B-25. On February 3, 1942, Doolittle and Low demonstrated the feasibility of the plan when they launched two B-25 Mitchell bombers from the deck of the carrier USS Hornet while it was at sea off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia.

In the original plan for the raid, the bombers were to return to the carrier upon completion of the mission. However, in actual practice, it was found that although takeoff was comparatively easy, landing a bomber on a moving carrier flight deck was extremely difficult. It was thus decided that, after the aircraft had dropped their bombs, they would head for unoccupied China or the Soviet city of Vladivostok. While the latter destination was much closer to Japan, negotiations with the Soviets about possible landings in their territory were unsuccessful. This left China as the only alternative.

The aircraft and crews for the mission were selected from the 17th Bombardment Group. Before training could begin, the B-25s were subjected to an initial round of modifications to make them lighter and extend their range. The bombers' fuel capacity was almost doubled, their radios were removed, and their belly turrets were replaced with an additional gas tank. To make up for the removal of the defensive turret, a mock "tail gun" was crafted out of painted broomsticks, which, it was hoped, would deter Japanese fighters from attacking from the rear.

It was decided that the entire mission would be flown at extremely low altitude-treetop level on the approach to the target, 1,500 feet (roughly 460 metres) during the bombing run, and back down to treetop level during the departure. Each plane would carry 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of either incendiary or high explosive bombs, depending on the target assignment. Because the B-25's Norden bombsight was a heavily guarded secret and not especially effective at low altitude, a simplified replacement was devised by Capt. C. Ross Greening, one of the mission's pilots. Dubbed the "20-cent sight" due to the low cost of its materials, Greening's bombsight was also significantly smaller than the bulky Norden, an important consideration for a mission where fuel economy was a greater priority than bombing accuracy.

Some 140 men from the 17th Bombardment Group traveled to Eglin Field (now Eglin Air Force Base) in Valparaiso, Florida, to begin three weeks of intensive mission training in March 1942. White lines simulating a carrier flight deck were drawn on two runways of an auxiliary field near Eglin, and pilots practiced getting the fully loaded bombers into the air in the required distance. Crews received instruction in cross-country flying, night flying, low-altitude bombing, and navigation. Flights over the Gulf of Mexico were scheduled to permit pilots and navigators to become accustomed to flying without visual landmarks or radio guidance. Gunners received rudimentary training with their weapons, as there was not time to perform air-to-air drills with towed targets. Although Doolittle himself acknowledged that additional preparation would have been ideal, time was of the essence, and the raiders departed for California at the end of March.

On April 1, 1942, 16 modified B-25s were loaded onto the flight deck of the Hornet at Naval Air Station Alameda, and the carrier steamed out of San Francisco Bay under the cover of a heavy fog the following day. Accompanying the Hornet were the cruisers USS Nashville and USS Vincennes, the oiler USS Cimarron, and four destroyers. The flotilla was collectively named Task Force 18. It was to rendezvous with the carrier USS Enterprise and William ("Bull") Halsey's Task Force 16 and then proceed to the launch area some 400 miles (640 km) off the coast of Japan. Because Halsey outranked Hornet skipper Capt. Marc Mitscher, he would take overall command of the naval force. The Hornet's flight deck was covered with the raiders' B-25s, so aerial patrolling and reconnaissance was left to the aircraft of the Enterprise.

The raiders' training regimen continued aboard the Hornet, with gunners engaging in turret practice using kites flown from the ship as targets. Crews were thoroughly briefed about their specific primary and secondary targets. Each flight of three planes was assigned to a specific course, but the raiders' approach was spread over a 50-mile (80-km) front. This was done to create the impression that more aircraft took part in the raid than were actually used and to dilute the effectiveness of Japanese air defenses. The five flights were assigned as follows: the first flight, led by Lieut. Travis Hoover, was to target the northern part of Tokyo; the second flight, led by Capt. David M. Jones, would cover central Tokyo; the third flight, led by Capt. Edwin J. York, would attack southern Tokyo and the north-central part of Tokyo Bay; the fourth, led by Capt. C. Ross Greening, would strike Yokohama and the Yokosuka navy yard, and the fifth flight was to veer south of Tokyo, proceed to Nagoya, and break up, with one plane each targeting Nagoya, Ōsaka, and Kōbe. Doolittle, in the lead aircraft, would target central Tokyo.

The timing of the attack was subject to much debate, and the initial plan was for the raiders to take off several hours before daybreak. This would have put the B-25s over their targets near dawn, maximizing surprise and providing good visibility for bombing, as well as permitting the raiders to arrive at their destinations in China well before dusk. This plan was scuttled by the Navy, which felt that a nighttime takeoff was inadvisable and that lighting up the flight deck of a carrier while in enemy waters was an invitation to disaster. A second plan was for a dawn takeoff, an early morning bombing, and landings in China before dark. This plan was discarded as it was believed that a significant amount of daylight flying over Japan would surrender the element of surprise. The final attack plan called for the B-25s to take off at dusk, bomb their targets at night, and proceed to Chuchow ( Quzhou) in unoccupied China in the morning. Doolittle's plane was to take off ahead of the others and strike military targets in central Tokyo with incendiary bombs, illuminating the area for the rest of the raiders. As the naval force traveled west, however, events would reinforce the often repeated military maxim that no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

The raid on Tokyo

At 3:10 am on April 18, American radar operators on the Enterprise detected a Japanese picket boat far outside the expected patrol area. The course of the task force was changed as each new Japanese vessel appeared on the radar screen. Finally, at about 7:38 am, lookouts on the Hornet spotted a Japanese patrol craft just 20,000 yards (18 km) from the carrier. Although the USS Nashville quickly sank the ship, the Hornet radio room intercepted an outgoing message alerting the Japanese military to the presence of the Americans. While Doolittle had hoped to launch aircraft at a distance of 400-600 miles (640-965 km) from the target, Halsey was unwilling to risk his valuable carriers by pushing deeper into the Japanese defensive perimeter. Halsey dispatched an order to the Hornet: "LAUNCH PLANES. TO COL. DOOLITTLE AND GALLANT COMMAND, GOOD LUCK AND GOD BLESS YOU." At the same time, Halsey launched his own aircraft to engage the Japanese surface vessels in the area. At this point, the Hornet was more than 820 miles (1,320 km) from Tokyo.

Final instructions were given to the flight crews: nonmilitary targets were to be avoided at all costs, especially the Imperial Palace complex in central Tokyo (it would be almost entirely razed in an American firebombing attack in May 1945). If it proved impossible to make it to the Chinese coast, pilots were ordered not to divert to the Soviet Union, but to proceed as far west as possible, ditch their planes at sea, and make their way to shore in rubber boats. This would prove unnecessary for most of the aircraft, as they were aided by a 25 mile-per-hour (40 km-per-hour) tailwind throughout the last 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of their journey. After this final briefing, the crews boarded their B-25s, and Doolittle's plane was the first to lift off from the deck of the Hornet at 8:20 am. Despite heavy seas, the remaining B-25s took off without mishap, and within an hour all of the raiders were airborne.

The approach to the target was uneventful. About an hour into the flight, the raiders spotted a vessel that they took to be a camouflaged light cruiser, and an hour later they crossed paths with a multi-engine land-based plane. From that point they tried to avoid contact with various civilian and military craft that appeared on the water. Landfall was made north of Cape Inubō, a short distance from the mission's intended course.

With the other flights proceeding according to their instructions, Doolittle's group approached Tokyo from the north. The raiders flew as low as the terrain would permit and spotted several small biplanes, evidently trainers, in the air above them. Roughly 10 miles (16 km) north of Tokyo, nine Japanese fighters (in three flights of three planes) were spotted, but they did not move to engage the B-25s. As they neared their targets, the raiders climbed to a bombing altitude of 1,200 feet (366 metres). They released their bombs, dipped back to treetop level, and flew west over the outskirts of the city.

An estimated 14 tons of bombs were dropped on the Japanese mainland during the raid, and air crews claimed hits on virtually all of the assigned primary targets. Several of the planes reported seeing large fires as a result of incendiary bombs, while high explosive ordnance did visible damage to factories, ammunition dumps, naval facilities, and military barracks. After the mission, crews stated that antiaircraft fire was intense but inaccurate. While the Japanese gunners judged altitude well, the bursts were to the right or left of the planes, and the raiders did not lose any aircraft or personnel to flak.

Aftermath and significance of the Doolittle Raid

After leaving Tokyo, most of the raiders turned south and headed out to sea, bound for the China coast. Although skies had been clear over Japan, bad weather set in over the East China Sea. The pilots attempted to climb to get over the storm, and by the time the aircraft reached the Chinese coast, they were at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1.8 km). At that point, visibility was almost zero, and the raiders were flying entirely on instruments. Doolittle, whose plane had retained its command radio, attempted to reach Chuchow but received no response. With his fuel almost gone, he ordered his crew to bail out. After setting the aircraft's automatic pilot, Doolittle followed, but not before glancing at the clock on the instrument panel-it was 9:20 pm, exactly 13 hours since he had taken off from the Hornet.

Everyone in Doolittle's plane landed safely in friendly territory, and they quickly made contact with local Chinese authorities. Doolittle asked Gen. Ho Yang Ling (He Yangling), director of the branch government in western Chekiang ( Zhejiang) province, to keep a lookout along the coast for planes that might have gone down or boats that had reached the shore. Doolittle's crew was initially taken to Chuchow and, after a few days, eventually reached Chungking ( Chongqing). By the early morning of April 20, four additional planes and crews had been located, and Doolittle wired Arnold from the embassy in Chungking: "Tokyo successfully bombed. Due to bad weather on China coast, believe all airplanes wrecked. Five crews found safe in China so far." Among the crews who reached China, there were three fatalities from accidents during bail-outs or crash landings: Corp. Leland Faktor, Sgt. William Dieter, and Corp. Donald Fitzmaurice.

Only 3 of the 16 crews failed to reach Chungking. Capt. Edwin J. York, who had led the third flight of planes into Tokyo, was desperately short of fuel and was forced to land near Vladivostok. He and his crew were interned by the Soviets in various locations for more than a year before they managed to "escape" into British- and Soviet-occupied Iran. Their "escape" was, in fact, an elaborate NKVD operation that had been staged to repatriate the Americans while giving the Soviets plausible deniability with the Japanese, with whom they were still nonbelligerent. Two crews were captured by Japanese forces in China after bailing out, one near the coast and one near Lake Poyang. The Chinese attempted to purchase the freedom of the captured air crews, but they were unsuccessful. Four of the raiders remained prisoners of the Japanese until the end of the war. One, Lieut. Robert J. Meder, died of dysentery in 1943. Three-Lieut. Dean Hallmark, Lieut. William Farrow, and Sgt. Harold Spatz-were executed by the Japanese in October 1942.

The bombing did comparatively little physical damage, but it had an enormous psychological effect in both the United States and Japan. Doolittle was promoted to brigadier general and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the Army Air Forces used the raid as an effective recruiting tool. Capt. Ted W. Lawson, a pilot involved in the mission, would write Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1943), a best-selling account of the raid that would be adapted as a feature film starring Spencer Tracy in the role of Doolittle. While Japanese planners had not ruled out the possibility of a strike on the home islands, the reality of American bombers in Tokyo's skies forced them to accelerate the expansion of their defensive perimeter. This would culminate in the planned invasion of the Midway Islands in the central Pacific. U.S. cryptanalysts had penetrated the Japanese JN25 naval code, however, and Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Chester Nimitz ordered his carriers to intercept the Japanese naval force. At the subsequent Battle of Midway (June 3-6, 1942), U.S. naval air power destroyed Japan's first-line carrier strength and reversed the tide of the war in the Pacific.

While the Japanese navy was fighting for its survival, the Japanese army was carrying out a terrifying campaign of reprisals in southeastern China. The Second Sino-Japanese War had reached something of a stalemate in 1942, but the Doolittle Raid highlighted the threat posed by airfields in Nationalist-controlled territory along the Chinese coast. Within days of the raid, Japanese planners began formulating a campaign to neutralize the airfields and punish those who had aided the Americans. In early June 1942 the Japanese launched an offensive into Chekiang and Kiangsi ( Jiangxi), and the brutality directed at the civilian population drew comparisons to the Nanjing Massacre. Trinkets and souvenirs left by grateful Americans-parachutes, cigarettes, pieces of military kit-doomed entire villages, as the Japanese would judge all the residents as having been complicit. Japanese bombers devastated Chuchow, and Kiangsi's provincial capital of Nancheng ( Nanchang) was razed, its population annihilated. It was estimated that some 250,000 civilians were killed during the three-month reprisal campaign. As the Japanese army prepared to withdraw from Chekiang and Kiangsi, members of its infamous germ warfare program, Unit 731, moved in. They seeded the area with dysentery, typhoid, and cholera, and disease ravaged those who had survived the initial Japanese attacks. In 2018 a museum commemorating the Doolittle Raid and celebrating the Chinese villagers who had aided the American air crews was opened in Chuchow (Quzhou).

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Michael Ray.

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Doolittle Raid | Date, Casualties, Summary, Facts, Map, Video, & Plane

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Doolittle Raid (April 18, 1942), during World War II, U.S. Army Air Forces bombing raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers from the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Hornet in a spectacular surprise attack that caused little damage but boosted Allied morale.

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The Blitz was a period of time where Germans raided London. The bombs killed many people. They also bombed cities near there.

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On September 7, 1940, 300 German bombers raid London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This bombing " blitzkrieg " (lightning war) would continue until May 1941.

After the successful occupation of France, it was only a matter of time before the Germans turned their sights across the Channel to England. Hitler wanted a submissive, neutralized Britain so that he could concentrate on his plans for the East, namely the land invasion of the Soviet Union, without interference. Since June, English vessels in the Channel had been attacked and aerial battles had been fought over Britain, as Germany attempted to wear down the Royal Air Force in anticipation of a land invasion. But with Germany failing to cripple Britain's air power, especially in the Battle of Britain, Hitler changed strategies. A land invasion was now ruled out as unrealistic; instead Hitler chose sheer terror as his weapon of choice.

British intelligence had had an inkling of the coming bombardment. Evidence of the large-scale movement of German barges in the Channel and the interrogation of German spies had led them to the correct conclusion-unfortunately, it was just as the London docks were suffering the onslaught of Day One of the Blitz. By the end of the day, German planes had dropped 337 tons of bombs on London. Even though civilian populations were not the primary target that day, the poorest of London slum areas-the East End-felt the fallout literally, from direct hits of errant bombs as well as the fires that broke out and spread throughout the vicinity. Four hundred and forty-eight civilians were killed that afternoon and evening.

A little past 8 p.m., British military units were alerted with the code name "Cromwell," meaning the German invasion had begun. A state of emergency broke out in England; even home defense units were put to the ready. One of Hitler's key strategic blunders of the war was to consistently underestimate the will and courage of the British people. They would not run or be cowed into submission. They would fight.
READ MORE: Meet the Night Witches, the Daring Female Pilots Who Bombed Nazis By Night

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The Blitz begins as Germany bombs London

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On September 7, 1940, 300 German bombers raid London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. This bombing " blitzkrieg " (lightning war) would continue until May 1941. After the successful occupation of France, it was only a matter of time before the Germans turned their sights across the Channel to England.

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the allied forces invaded the beaches of Normandy, France that became known as D-Day (June 6, 1944)

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the allied forces invaded the beaches of Normandy, France that became known as D-Day (June 6, 1944)

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The invasion was to trick Germany into a misleading target. Over 100, 000 Allied troops made it to the Normandy Beach but not with a couple thousand soldiers' lives lost. Germany sent out reinforcements but the Allies had efficient naval and air support. Germans removed from France concluded the battle.

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D-Day - Normandy Invasion, Facts & Significance

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Codenamed Operation Overlord, the invasion began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region during World War II. The operation was one of the largest amphibious mil…

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Victory in Europe Day: Time of Celebration, Reflection + World War II: Summary, Combatants & Facts

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victory in Europe (VE), day is celebrated (May 8, 1945)

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victory in Europe (VE), day is celebrated (May 8, 1945)

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Before Hitler died, he advanced into many countries. The Allied planned invasions on Germany, and on May 8, Germany surrendered. But the troops already invaded most of the countries and Hitler was dead.

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There were two surrender signings. The first was on May 7, 1945, when German Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl signed Germany's surrender on all fronts in Reims, France.

The second signing - insisted upon by Soviet Premier Josef Stalin - was by German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel the next day in Berlin. Jodl and Keitel were later found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, and both were subsequently executed.

The conflict began in 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Among the dead were about 6 million Jews who were murdered by Nazi Germany. Some 250,000 U.S. troops were also killed in the fighting in the European theater.

After the many deaths during the war in Europe, V-E Day was cause for worldwide celebration.

Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of New York, New Orleans, London, and cities in Canada, Australia and other Allied nations. There was also a massive celebration in Paris. U.S. forces participated in the celebrations in France, a nation that had borne much of the brunt of the fighting. The Soviets celebrated their own "Victory Day" on May 9.

President Harry S. Truman announced V-E Day to the American people, saying in a radio address: "Our rejoicing is sobered and subdued by a supreme consciousness of the terrible price we have paid to rid the world of Hitler and his evil band. Let us not forget, my fellow Americans, the sorrow and the heartache, which today abide in the homes of so many of our neighbors - neighbors whose most priceless possession has been rendered as a sacrifice to redeem our liberty."

Although fighting ended in Europe, it continued in the Pacific, where U.S. and Allied forces fought the Japanese in Okinawa, the Philippines and other places. The areas of Western Europe liberated by Allied forces would become thriving democracies, while those liberated in the East would be occupied for decades by Soviet forces.

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Victory in Europe Day: Time of Celebration, Reflection

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There were two surrender signings. The first was on May 7, 1945, when German Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl signed Germany's surrender on all fronts in Reims, France. The second signing - insisted upon by Soviet Premier Josef Stalin - was by German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel the next day in Berlin.