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Narrator: In the Second World War, you could be in serious danger even if you weren't fighting at the front.

In September 1940, German bombers began targeting key cities across Britain. From London, Coventry and Manchester in England. Cardiff and Swansea in Wales, through to Belfast in Northern Ireland and Clydebank in Scotland.

This period of intensive bombing carried on for eight months and became know as the blitz. The bombing during the blitz was incredibly damaging. Historic buildings like Coventry Cathedral were flattened and large parts of cities had to be re-built.

Those who stayed in the cities had to live by strict rules. Every night when it got dark, the cities would go into blackout. All the street lights were switched off and special thick black curtains and paint covered every window, to make sure cities could not be seen from aeroplanes overhead.

If you had a garden, you might have an air raid shelter made from iron buried in the ground, where you would have to sit for hours during a raid, until the all clear was sounded. Other people used communal shelters. In London, many people used the underground to shelter from bombs.

Many men and women responded to the bombings by volunteering to work as air raid precautions, or ARP Wardens, or as extra ambulance drivers, to keep people and communities as safe as possible.

However, thousands of people had already been evacuated to the safer countryside, when war was first declared. Most of these were children separated from their parents.

Kitty was evacuated on September the first 1939, which also happened to be her ninth birthday.

Kitty: Mother said you are going on a trip and I really thought it was a birthday trip. We were all given this little cardboard box and I opened it and inside was a rubber gas mask. All the boys are putting them on and making funny noises and we were all in fits of laughter we really thought it was a joke, we really thought we were going out for a day.

Got to the school, all happy happy with this cardboard box. Label was put on us. All of us enjoying it. Coach came, on the coach, singing away. And then on the train.

Narrator: Once the children arrived in the countryside, they were taken to a school and told to stand in a line.

Kitty: In came lots of strange-looking people, they had like walking sticks and some had dogs and funny hats on and they walked by and they said, 'that one'. Teacher said: 'Off you go Bob, off you go with that lady.' One by one we were all picked off, and sent away.

Narrator: Kitty was separated from one of her sisters and sent to live in a horrible place.

Kiity: We went down into a basement and we looked down and she said there were these sort of cobbled steps she said, 'go down there, that's your room.' And we walked down and it was a mattress on a floor and we were so tired we didn't care. It was like bricks on the wall, it wasn't a wall, a plastered wall. it was just bricks, I had never seen it before. With a little opening with bars on it.

Narrator: But even if the evacuations were upsetting, at least it was safer than being in the cities. Especially, when the Germans sent over flying bombs and rockets towards the end of the war.

Bernard remembers these flying bombs.

Bernard: Well, they had a ramjet engine and it went mmmmmmmh and it got to London and most of them ran out of fuel. Some power dived but most didn't. So, you got this coming along and it stopped and it's got little stubby wings, so it didn't fall down vertically, it glided. So in five seconds you knew whether you were going to be killed or not.

Narrator: Did you know? Throughout the blitz, the King and Queen remained in Buckingham Palace in London, to show the public they were all in it together. On the first night of the blitz, many hundreds of people were killed in the East End of London.

About a week later, two bombs fell on Buckingham Palace and the King and Queen only just avoided death. Afterwards, the Queen said, 'I am glad we have been bombed, it makes me feel we can look the East End in the face.'

By the end of the blitz millions of buildings had been destroyed and thousands of people had died.

But had Britain not been prepared or had so many children not been evacuated to safety, the number of people killed could have been far greater.

However, the blitz was not the only time Britain was bombed. After the allied success on D-Day in 1940, Germans started launching their new weapons. Flying bombs and rockets called the V1 and the V2. They wouldn't stop until a few months before the end of the war.

And until then, ordinary people across Britain just had to hold on.

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This short film offers a digestible insight into the blitz and how the British people responded.

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This short film contains a number of elements that could be incorporated into different subjects as part of a cross-curricular lesson.

Pupils could grow vegetables in a kitchen garden and use them to cook.

They could cook recipes using 'rations' and vegetables.

Your class could plan a week's worth of meals using rations and vegetables that could be grown during World War Two.

This touches on the following parts of the national curriculum in England under 'Cooking and Nutrition':

Understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet.

Prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques.

Understand seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed.

Pupils could be given a hypothetical budget and use it to purchase food at a 'shop'.

Your class could compare prices, add up amounts and work out change when purchasing different items.

Using a 1940's style shop pupils could weigh and measure ingredients, converting between imperial and metric measures.

This falls under Money for years 3 and 4 and Measurement (conversion) for years 5 and 6 in the national curriculum in England:

Y3 - add and subtract amounts of money to give change, using both £ and p in practical contexts.

Y4 - estimate, compare and calculate different measures, including money in pounds and pence.

Y5 - understand and use approximate equivalences between metric units and common imperial units such as inches, pounds and pints.

Y6 - use, read, write and convert between standard units, converting measurements of length, mass, volume and time from a smaller unit of measure to a larger unit, and vice versa, using decimal notation to up to three decimal places

Additional fact for the class:
A study has found that children who grew up in World War Two became more intelligent than those born 15 years earlier. The theory is that rationing made those growing up in the war cut out rich, sugary and fatty foods, which had a positive impact on their growing brains.

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This short film explains rationing in simple terms, offering a glimpse of a world that pupils may not be accustomed to.

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This short film provides insight into the scope of the war and how many countries were involved.

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Pupils could learn about degrees of turn, angles and coordinates and how these can be used to locate people and places.
This falls within the "Properties of shapes/Position and direction" section of the national curriculum in England in the following years:

Recognise angles as a property of shape or a description of a turn.

Identify right angles, recognise that two right angles make a half-turn, three make three quarters of a turn and four a complete turn; identify whether angles are greater than or less than a right angle.

Describe positions on a 2-D grid as coordinates in the first quadrant.

Describe movements between positions as translations of a given unit to the left/right and up/down.

Identify, describe and represent the position of a shape following a reflection or translation, using the appropriate language, and know that the shape has not changed.

Describe positions on the full coordinate grid (all four quadrants).

Additional fact for the class:
During the war, Britain built an incredible 132,500 aircraft and over a million military vehicles.

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This short film highlights the importance of technology in the war effort and the key roles that tanks, planes and ships played.

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History KS2: How propaganda was used during World War Two

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This short film explains how people were persuaded to join the war effort, and the importance of motivational campaigns.

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This short film could be used as part of a cross-curricular lesson in PE. Your pupils could direct each other using instructions to explore the role of radar in the Battle of Britain. This falls within the following part of the national curriculum in England:

Pupils should enjoy communicating, collaborating and competing with each other.

Pupils should develop an understanding of how to improve in different physical activities and sports and learn how to evaluate and recognise their own success.

Pupils should be taught to take part in outdoor and adventurous activity challenges both individually and within a team.

Additional fact for the class:
Buckingham Palace was very nearly destroyed. RAF Sergeant Ray Holmes spotted a German bomber heading in the direction of the palace, but Ray was out of ammo to fire it down. So, instead he steered his aircraft straight into the enemy aircraft and rammed it with his wing.

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History KS2: The Battle of Britain and beyond

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This short film explains what the Battle of Britain was, who was involved and how radar was used throughout the battle.

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We hear from an eye-witness called Moya, who recalls practicing being evacuated and being issued with a gas mask the year before war was declared.

Moya's account of her childhood should be particularly interesting for children of the same age.

The 'Did You Know' section looks at how people prepared for war.
Created in partnership with Imperial War Museums. This short film contains a number of great starting points for writing:

Your pupils could write a diary entry from the point of view of a British child during the war.

They could write their own announcement informing the country that Britain is at war.

Your class could prepare a newspaper article for the day after war was announced.

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History KS2: Britain declares war on Germany

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This short film offers an overview of the events that led to Britain declaring war on Germany in 1939.

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An eye-witness called Peter tells us about hearing about the success of D-Day. This story of a young child's experience of the war may be particularly interesting to young pupils, and should help them relate to the material.

The 'Did You Know' section explains how D-Day is actually a general term for the start date of any military operation.
Created in partnership with Imperial War Museums. This short film could inspire the following lesson in English:
Your pupils could write from different points of view - for example, as a civilian hearing about the turning point in the war, and what it means for them.

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This short film explores the significance of D-Day as well as highlighting what took place that day.

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Pupils could complete some problem solving activities based on the Enigma code.
This would be part of the following section of the national curriculum in England:
Solve problems by applying their mathematics to a variety of routine and non-routine problems with increasing sophistication, including breaking down problems into a series of simpler steps and persevering in seeking solutions.
Additional fact for class:
Bletchley Park was the centre of British code-breaking during the war. Women were initially brought into Bletchley Park to provide administrative support. However, as the war advanced, women were increasingly recruited for their linguistics, physics and mathematical ability. Critically, women went from having their intellect dismissed, to ultimately playing a key role in code-breaking. Before the invention of electronic computers, "computer" was a job description, not a machine. Both men and women were employed as computers, but women were more prominent in the field.

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History KS2: Codebreaking during World War Two

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This short film explains how cracking Nazi Germany's coded messages helped win World War Two.

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Women were praised for their wartime work, but expected to make way for the returning troops. As after WW1, there was an assumption that their temporary roles had been specifically linked to wartime. The government encouraged a return to domesticity. By 1951 the number of working women had returned almost to the pre-war level and a bar on married women working continued in many jobs. Trade unions still defended higher wages for men, despite an increase in women's union membership.

The Women's Land Army continued until 1950 - due to post-war food shortages. Permanent Women's Services had been created the previous year, with a primarily supporting role. They could not fly aircraft, command ships or fire weapons.

A lasting legacy?

Mothers told their daughters what they had done during the war, and how their horizons had been limited afterwards. The 60s and 70s saw the emergence of feminist groups and heightened awareness of gender inequality - campaigning for more rights and greater opportunities saw very many more women aware of their potential and the need for change.

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When WW2 broke out, the women of Britain kept the country moving once again. In an age of total war, how did the conflict change their lives? And did it last?

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The story of animals both on active service and on the home front during the Second World War is a deeply moving one.

They had no choice but demonstrated loyalty, determination and bravery time and again, be they dogs trained to locate air raid victims buried under rubble, the pigeons that flew over dangerous enemy territory to get vital messages through, or the mules that carried ammunition and supplies through the sweltering jungles of the Far East. The contribution of these and other animals during the war were pivotal to the success of many military operations.

The reliance soldiers placed upon their animal comrades could literally mean the difference between life and death. When asked why they thought such special bonds were formed between them and their animals, the servicemen who worked during the conflict would laugh - thanks to conscription being introduced in Britain when war broke out in 1939 they didn't have a choice either, so man and animal in the military had something in common to start with.

Here, in no particular order, are some stories of 10 animals that played important roles during the Second World War.

1. Mules

Mules provided the backbone of British Army logistics over difficult terrain transporting ammunition, equipment, medical panniers and even the wounded over what amounted to thousands of miles during the course of the war. The first of some 3,000 mules to serve with the British Expeditionary Force landed in France in December 1939 in the charge of Royal Indian Army Service Corps and Cyprus Regiment troops.

Mules served in every theatre of war in every climate, from the snowy passes of Lebanon and the deserts of Ethiopia, to the mountain country of Italy. Mules provided notable service for the deep penetration missions of the Chindits deep into the jungles of Burma between 1943-44.

2. Dogs

Dogs performed a variety of roles during the war including as watch dogs who, using their keen senses of hearing and smell, would bark at the approach of troops.

Combat dogs were trained to directly tackle the enemy and rescue dogs carried medical supplies out to stranded soldiers under fire. Other dogs were used to carry messages or were specially trained to sniff out land mines or casualties buried under rubble in places that had been bombed.

3. Pigeons

Over 200,000 homing pigeons were supplied by the National Pigeon Service during the war for the British military in a variety of roles. They fulfilled tasks from being message carriers to having a camera strapped to their chests to take aerial reconnaissance photographs as the bird flew over enemy territory.

Pigeons were also carried in special cases aboard RAF bombers on missions deep over enemy territory, in case the aircraft was shot down and their radios damaged - pigeons could still carry the message back and an appropriate rescue team could be despatched to help them.

4. Horses

Around the world, thousands of horses were used by both army and partisan messengers, scouts, or fighting troops in areas of difficult terrain such as the mountainous regions or jungles where motorised vehicles would find it difficult or even impossible to pass and soldiers needed to travel quickly.

Some 9,000 horses were required for the British mounted regiments deployed to peacekeeping duties in Palestine during the Arab revolt in 1939. Mounted troops were later deployed to the Syrian campaign after which the Cheshire Yeomanry had to give up its horses in 1941 and the Yorkshire Dragoons, the last mounted Yeomanry unit in the British Army, bade a final farewell to their mounts in 1942.

5. Elephants

Elephants were widely used in Africa and India for transport and heavy lifting during the war. One group of elephants stands out, those of Mr Gyles Mackrell of Shillong, Assam who had his own elephant transport business before the outbreak of war.

When Mackrell heard that a group of refugees, Sepoys and British soldiers were having difficulty crossing the Chaukan Pass he set out to help with his elephants, in foul weather over a route considered impassible. He eventually reached the starving and exhausted group and his team of elephants carried them all back to safety, saving over 100 lives.

6. Camels

Even in an age of automatic weapons, camel-mounted fighting troops maintained a fearsome reputation. A number of British Imperial units employed camels during the Second World War, such as the Sudan Defence Force who used their camels on mounted armed patrols of the Upper Nile, the Arab Legion, Egyptian Camel Corps and Bikaner Camel Corps of Indian troops who had artillery support provided by the camel-mounted Bijay Battery, and the British organised Druze Regiment.

In one incident on the Tunisia-Tripoli borders at Tamout Meller, 25 miles east of Tieret in December 1942, it was reported The Free French Camel Corps charged Italian forces estimated to number around 400. With swords drawn and slashing they accounted for 150, and sent the rest fleeing in terror.

7. Mongoose

The mongoose is one of nature's fighters but soldiers in India and Burma soon found they made a very useful pet, earning their keep fighting off poisonous snakes. A good mongoose would also curl up near their army pals at night and would become restive if enemies were around, saving many lives with their early warning of the approach of intruders under cover of darkness.

8. Cats

Cats were always useful in stores, barracks, and on ships to tackle vermin. One of the luckiest ship's cats was picked up by the British destroyer Cossack as he floated on some of the wreckage of the infamous German battleship Bismarck after it was sunk in May 1941. The cat was rescued and named Oskar, but just as he was settling in Cossack was torpedoed. True to form, Oskar survived the sinking and was rescued by HMS Legion who took him to Gibraltar.

Oskar then joined the famous aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal where he was nick-named 'Unsinkable Sam'. After Ark Royal was attacked in November 1941, one of the ships going to her aid from Gibraltar received a signal from a destroyer on the scene stating a piece ofboard had been spotted with a cat on it.

The location was given and sure enough there was Oskar balanced on it, he was promptly rescued and returned to Gibraltar and given a home on dry land at the Governor's offices.

9. Mouse

A small animal to care for such as a mouse would often bring much-needed comfort to those on active service. Some became mascots, with once such a piebald mouse named 'Eustace' adopted by the crew of LCT 947 - he was with them when they landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944.

10. The Desert 'Rat'

The greatest animal symbol of the Second World War is the red 'rat' of the Desert Rats, proudly emblazoned on vehicles and uniform insignia of the 7 th Armoured Division. But it is actually a jerboa, an endearing and gregarious little creature, that was both a curiosity and pet to many soldiers during campaigns in the western desert.

Neil R. Storey is a social historian and lecturer specialising in the impact of war on society. He has written over 40 books, numerous articles for both national magazines and academic journals and features as a guest expert on television and radio programmes and documentaries. Neil is an animal lover and is the author of the companion volume 'Animals in the First World War', published by Shire Library.

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10 Animals That Played an Important Role in the Second World War

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The story of animals both on active service and on the home front during the Second World War is a deeply moving one. They had no choice but...

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A new research laboratory was opened at the Auschwitz Museum. It will allow specialized research on objects from the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz.

The new laboratory is equipped to carry out physicochemical research and molecular biology analysis, including microbiology and genetics.

New technologies in education about the history of Auschwitz and the Holocaust was the subject of an international conference held on June 27-29 at the Auschwitz Memorial. The conference was attended by almost 130 people from many European countries, as well as the United States, Israel, Canada and Australia. These are primarily people professionally involved in education at Memorial Sites and other similar museums and institutions.

From 15 June, visitors to the Auschwitz Museum are to use the new Visitor Services Center, which will be located at 55 Więźniów Oświęcimia Street. The visit to the Museum will begin at this point.

The travelling exhibition created by the Auschwitz Museum and the Spanish company Musealia was opened at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California's Simi Valley on 23 March. It is expected to be the most attended in the library's history.

On January 27, a group of 18 Auschwitz and Holocaust Survivors met at the former Auschwitz camp to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of this German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. The main theme of the anniversary was the process of planning, creating and expanding the system of dehumanisation and genocide at Auschwitz, which was particularly strongly defined by the words of survivor Marian Turski 'Auschwitz did not fall from the sky'.

In the official Auschwitz Memorial podcast "On Auschwitz," we discuss the details of the history of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp as well as our contemporary memory of this important and special place.

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A new research laboratory was opened at the Auschwitz Museum. It will allow specialized research on objects from the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. The new laboratory is equipped to carry out physicochemical research and molecular biology analysis, including microbiology and genetics.

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Auschwitz: Genesis of Death Camps

After the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the "Final Solution." Hitler was determined not just to isolate Jews in Germany and countries annexed by the Nazis, subjecting them to dehumanizing regulations and random acts of violence. Instead, he became convinced that his "Jewish problem" would be solved only with the elimination of every Jew in his domain, along with artists, educators, Romas, communists, homosexuals, the mentally and physically handicapped and others deemed unfit for survival in Nazi Germany.

Did you know? In October 1944, a group of Auschwitz "Sonderkommando," young Jewish males responsible for removing corpses from crematoriums and gas chambers, staged a revolt. They assaulted their guards, using tools and makeshift explosives, and demolished a crematorium. All were apprehended and killed.

To complete this mission, Hitler ordered the construction of death camps. Unlike concentration camps, which had existed in Germany since 1933 and were detention centers for Jews, political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state, death camps existed for the sole purpose of killing Jews and other "undesirables," in what became known as the Holocaust.

Auschwitz: The Largest of the Death Camps

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940. Its first commandant was Rudolf Höss (1900-47), who previously had helped run the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany. Auschwitz was located on a former military base outside Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland situated near Krakow, one of the country's largest cities. During the camp's construction, nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were forcibly ejected from their homes, which were bulldozed by the Nazis.

Auschwitz originally was conceived as a concentration camp, to be used as a detention center for the many Polish citizens arrested after Germany annexed the country in 1939. These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities. Once Hitler's Final Solution became official Nazi policy, however, Auschwitz was deemed an ideal death camp locale. For one thing, it was situated near the center of all German-occupied countries on the European continent. For another, it was in close proximity to the string of rail lines used to transport detainees to the network of Nazi camps.

However, not all those arriving at Auschwitz were immediately exterminated. Those deemed fit to work were employed as slave labor in the production of munitions, synthetic rubber and other products considered essential to Germany's efforts in World War II.

Auschwitz and Its Subdivisions

At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions. The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners. Those entering its main gate were greeted with an infamous and ironic inscription: "Arbeit Macht Frei," or "Work Makes You Free."

Auschwitz II, located in the village of Birkenau, or Brzezinka, was constructed in 1941 on the order of Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), commander of the "Schutzstaffel" (or Select Guard/Protection Squad, more commonly known as the SS), which operated all Nazi concentration camps and death camps. Birkenau, the biggest of the Auschwitz facilities, could hold some 90,000 prisoners.

It also housed a group of bathhouses where countless people were gassed to death, and crematory ovens where bodies were burned. The majority of Auschwitz victims died at Birkenau. More than 40 smaller facilities, called subcamps, dotted the landscape and served as slave-labor camps. The largest of these subcamps, Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III, began operating in 1942 and housed some 10,000 prisoners.

Life and Death in Auschwitz

By mid-1942, the majority of those being sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz were Jews. Upon arriving at the camp, detainees were examined by Nazi doctors. Those detainees considered unfit for work, including young children, the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm, were immediately ordered to take showers. However, the bathhouses to which they marched were disguised gas chambers. Once inside, the prisoners were exposed to Zyklon-B poison gas. Individuals marked as unfit for work were never officially registered as Auschwitz inmates. For this reason, it is impossible to calculate the number of lives lost in the camp.

For those prisoners who initially escaped the gas chambers, an undetermined number died from overwork, disease, insufficient nutrition or the daily struggle for survival in brutal living conditions. Arbitrary executions, torture and retribution happened daily in front of the other prisoners.

Some Auschwitz prisoners were subjected to inhumane medical experimentation. The chief perpetrator of this barbaric research was Josef Mengele (1911-79), a German physician who began working at Auschwitz in 1943. Mengele, who came to be known as the "Angel of Death," performed a range of experiments on detainees. For example, in an effort to study eye color, he injected serum into the eyeballs of dozens of children, causing them excruciating pain. He also injected chloroform into the hearts of twins to determine if both siblings would die at the same time and in the same manner.

Liberation of Auschwitz: 1945

As 1944 came to a close and the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allied forces seemed certain, the Auschwitz commandants began destroying evidence of the horror that had taken place there. Buildings were torn down, blown up or set on fire, and records were destroyed.

In January 1945, as the Soviet army entered Krakow, the Germans ordered that Auschwitz be abandoned. Before the end of the month, in what came to be known as the Auschwitz death marches, an estimated 60,000 detainees, accompanied by Nazi guards, departed the camp and were forced to march to the Polish towns of Gliwice or Wodzislaw, some 30 miles away. Countless prisoners died during this process; those who made it to the sites were sent on trains to concentration camps in Germany.

When the Soviet army entered Auschwitz on January 27, they found approximately 7,600 sick or emaciated detainees who had been left behind barbed wire. The liberators also discovered mounds of corpses, hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing and pairs of shoes and seven tons of human hair that had been shaved from detainees before their liquidation. According to some estimates, between 1.1 million to 1.5 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, died at Auschwitz during its years of operation. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Poles perished at the camp, along with 19,000 to 20,000 Romas and smaller numbers of Soviet prisoners of war and other individuals.

Auschwitz Today

Today, Auschwitz is open to the public as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. It tells the story of the largest mass murder site in history and acts as a reminder of the horrors of genocide.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Auschwitz: Concentration Camp, Facts, Location

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After the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the "Final Solution." Hitler was determined not just to isolate Jews in Germany and countries annexed by the Nazis, subjecting them to dehumanizing regulations and random acts of violence.

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An air raid siren will play automatically on this page.

It was dangerous living in a big city during the war. Cities were the target of enemy aircraft that flew over at night and dropped bombs.

At 4:56pm on 7 September 1940, the air raid sirens wailed as the German Air Force, the luftwaffe, launched a massive raid on London. Over 350 bombers flew across the Channel from airfields in France and dropped 300 tonnes of bombs on the docks and streets of the East End of London.

The bombs destroyed many buildings burying mother, fathers and children in the rubble

The enemy attacks from the Luftwaffe (the German air force) were called Air Raids.

What was the Blitz?

The heavy and frequent bombing attacks on London and other cities was known as the 'Blitz'. Night after night, from September 1940 until May 1941, German bombers attacked British cities, ports and industrial areas.

London was bombed ever day and night, bar one, for 11 weeks. One third of London was destroyed.

The bombs destroyed many buildings

What does 'Blitz' mean?

Blitz is a shorten form of the German word 'Blitzkrieg' (lightning war).

When did the Blitz start?

On the 7th September, 1940 the German air force changed its strategy of bombing the British air force ( Battle of Britain) and began to concentrate on bombing London. Nearly 2,000 people were killed or wounded in London's first night of the Blitz.

During the first month, German Air Force dropped 5,300 tons of high explosives on London in just 24 nights.

When did air raids take place?

Most air raids happened at night.

How were people warned that an air raid was about to take place?

Air Raid Sirens

People were warned of a likely air raid by loud sirens, positioned in different parts of towns and cities. During the blitz, they became an almost daily part of life.

The sirens made a very loud and long signal or warning sound. For an alert, the siren sound pitch rose and fell alternately. The All Clear was a continuous sound from the siren. Not every alert brought a raid, and sometimes raids happened when no alert had sounded.

When people heard the siren they would stop what they were doing and make for a shelter.

What other cities were bombed?

Other cities and towns were also heavily bombed, including Swansea, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Plymouth, Birmingham, Coventry and Liverpool.

One devastating raid on Coventry in November 1940 was the biggest air-raid the world had ever seen. 4,330 homes were destroyed and 554 people killed. At one point during the night 200 separate fires burned in the city.

How many people died during the World War Two Blitz in Britain?

During the Blitz 32,000 civilians were killed and 87,000 were seriously injured.

Two million houses (60 per cent of these in London) were destroyed in the Blitz.

What type of bombs were dropped?

Different types of bombs were dropped from the enemy planes. There were:

H.E. (High Explosive) bombs of various weights;

Incendiary Bombs, also termed Fire Bombs as they caused fires. and

Oil Bombs.

One in every ten bombs that fell was a 'dud'. which meant that it did not explode on impact. But some bombs had a delayed action fuse, which meant they could go off at any time. This meant that it was almost impossible to tell which bombs were which. People had to be evacuated until the bombs had been made safe.

From 1944, two new types of weapons were used, which had a rocket type of propulsion to launch a war head. They were known as flying bombs.

1. The V1 ( Doodlebug) - They had no pilot and made a droning noise. As soon as the droning noise stopped people had 15 seconds to escape from the powerful blast that followed. Many V1's fell short into the sea, others fell in the countryside. Almost 9,250 V1's were fired against London, but less than 2,500 reached their target. About 2,000 were destroyed by anti-aircraft gunfire; 2,000 by fighter planes, and almost 300 by barrage balloons. The first doodlebug exploded in Swanscombe in Kent.

2. The V2 - The V2's arrived without any warning sound. They also flew very fast and high up in the air; much too high to be shot down by the anti-aircraft guns of fighter aircraft.

How did people protect themselves from the bombs during an air raid?

Air Raid Shelters were built. To help prevent the Germans from seeing where the towns were, a blackout was rigorously enforced after darkness. This meant that all sources of light had to be blacked out.

What was life like during the Blitz?

Life was very hard during the Blitz and frightening too. London, in particular was very bad as it was bombed nearly every night. People in London spent most nights sleeping in Air Raid Shelters.

No one within any distance of a likely target such as a big city could sleep entirely easy in their beds. Sometimes German bombers made mistakes and dropped their bombs in entirely the wrong areas. At other times, returning from a raid, they would dump the remainder of their explosives at random in order to fly home in greater safety. Many bombs fell on the areas around the cities and in the Kent countryside, known as 'bomb alley' because it lay on the flight path to London.

It was difficult to move around at night time due to the Blackout and the problems it causes.

Families were separated with children being in evacuated.

Food and clothing were rationed and hard to get hold of because of shops being bombed.

How did the government try to protect cities from being bombed?

Barrage balloons were put up to force the german planes to fly higher - so their bombing would be less accurate. The Barrage balloons were tethered by steel cables strong enough to destroy any aircraft which flew into them.

Redsands Fort

To stop enemy bombers finding their way up the Thames estuary, in 1943 the army built Redsands Fort, a group of anti-aircraft platforms off the Kent coast.

Redsands Fort

When did the blitz end?

The Blitz ended in mid-May 1941, when much of the German air force was sent east to prepare for the invasion of Russia.

What next?

The next big air attacks came from the terrifying V-1 and V-2 attacks. These were flying bombs (doodlebugs) catapulted into the air from camouflaged launched sites in northern, Occupied Europe.

Further information

Images of the London Blitz (pictures)
Cabinet War Rooms 1
Cabinet War Rooms 2

A War time home (BBC)
Have a look around a home and see if you can spot ways people protected themselves during the blitz.

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An air raid siren will play automatically on this page. It was dangerous living in a big city during the war. Cities were the target of enemy aircraft that flew over at night and dropped bombs. At 4:56pm on 7 September 1940, the air raid sirens wailed as the German Air Force, the luftwaffe, launched a massive raid on London.

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Women were praised for their wartime work, but expected to make way for the returning troops. As after WW1, there was an assumption that their temporary roles had been specifically linked to wartime. The government encouraged a return to domesticity. By 1951 the number of working women had returned almost to the pre-war level and a bar on married women working continued in many jobs. Trade unions still defended higher wages for men, despite an increase in women's union membership.

The Women's Land Army continued until 1950 - due to post-war food shortages. Permanent Women's Services had been created the previous year, with a primarily supporting role. They could not fly aircraft, command ships or fire weapons.

A lasting legacy?

Mothers told their daughters what they had done during the war, and how their horizons had been limited afterwards. The 60s and 70s saw the emergence of feminist groups and heightened awareness of gender inequality - campaigning for more rights and greater opportunities saw very many more women aware of their potential and the need for change.

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When WW2 broke out, the women of Britain kept the country moving once again. In an age of total war, how did the conflict change their lives? And did it last?

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'Blitz' is an abbreviation of the German word 'blitzkrieg', meaning 'lightning war'. Its explosive sound describes the Luftwaffe's almost continual aerial bombardment of the British Isles from September 1940 to May 1941.
For eight terrifying months civilians across the country were in mortal danger. The Blitz made the home front the battlefront. It was not until the autumn of 1942 that the death toll of British soldiers exceeded the death toll of civilians.

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Blitz' is an abbreviation of the German word 'blitzkrieg', meaning 'lightning war'. This is a timeline of the almost continual bombardment of Britain from 7 September 1940 to 10 May 1941.

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the bear called wojtek ww1 - Search Videos

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how did the Enigma crack the German's code?

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how did the Enigma crack the German's code?

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It was thanks to ULTRA that we won the war.
Churchill to King George VI

During World War II, Germany believed that its secret codes for radio messages were indecipherable to the Allies. However, the meticulous work of code breakers based at Britain's Bletchley Park cracked the secrets of German wartime communication, and played a crucial role in the final defeat of Germany.

The Enigma story began in the 1920s, when the German military - using an 'Enigma' machine developed for the business market - began to communicate in unintelligible coded messages. The Enigma machine enabled its operator to type a message, then 'scramble' it using a letter substitution system, generated by variable rotors and an electric circuit. To decode the message, the recipient needed to know the exact settings of the wheels. German code experts added new plugs, circuits and features to the machine during the pre-war years, but its basic principle remained the same.

The first people who came close to cracking the Enigma code were the Polish. Close links between the German and Polish engineering industries allowed the Polish Cipher Bureau to reconstruct an Enigma machine and read the Wehrmacht's messages between 1933 and 1938. In 1939, with German invasion looming, the Poles shared their information with the British, who in turn established the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. Mathematicians and intelligence experts, with the help of primitive early computers, began the complex and urgent task of cracking the Enigma code.

The Germans, convinced their Enigma messages were unbreakable, used the machine for battlefield, naval, and diplomatic communications. Although the experts at Bletchley first succeeded in reading German code during the 1940 Norwegian campaign, their work only began to pay off meaningfully in 1941, when they were able to gather evidence of the planned invasion of Greece, and learn Italian naval plans for the Battle of Cape Matapan. In the autumn, the Allies gained advantage in North Africa from deciphering coded messages used by Rommel's Panzer Army. Information obtained from such high-level German sources was codenamed ULTRA.

The Germans also enjoyed some noteworthy code breaking successes. The B-Dienst (surveillance service) broke British Naval code as early as 1935, which allowed them to pinpoint Allied convoys during the early stages of the Battle of the Atlantic. Although the US altered its naval code in April 1942, the change came too late to prevent the havoc wreaked by Operation Paukenschlag, the German U-boat campaign off America's east coast early that year. The Germans also managed to crack Soviet and Danish code systems. But their efforts - fragmented and divided between rival cryptology departments - lacked the consistent success achieved at Bletchley Park.

From 1941 onwards, Bletchley's experts focused upon breaking the codes used by German U-boats in the Atlantic. In March 1941, when the German armed trawler 'Krebs' was captured off Norway complete with Enigma machines and codebooks, the German naval Enigma code could finally be read. The Allies could now discover where U-boats were hunting and direct their own ships away from danger.

The German Navy, rightly suspicious that their code had been cracked, introduced a fourth wheel into the device, multiplying the possible settings by twenty six. The British finally broke this code that they called 'Shark' in December 1942. Using ULTRA always presented problems to the Allies, because any too blatant response to it would cause the Germans to suspect their messages were being read. But neverthless Bletchley Park and its staff made a crucial and groundbreaking contribution to the defeat of the Axis.

Did you know?

The British tried hard to conceal their code breaking success from the Axis. In 1942, when five Italian ships bound for Africa were sunk due to ULTRA information, Churchill sent a telegram to Naples congratulating a fictitious spy and awarding him a bonus.

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History of WW2: How Bletchley Park cracked the Enigma Code

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Understand the crucial role that Bletchley Park played by cracking the Enigma code and its important use of Ultra during World War Two.

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Operation Barabarossa

Part of the Eastern Front of World War II

Date

June 22, 1941 - December 5, 1941

Location

Result

Axis conquers huge areas of the Soviet Union and causes heavy losses on the Red Army, but fails in its overall strategic goal of defeating the USSR in a Blitzkrieg campaign

Belligerents

Nazi Germany
Romania
Finland
Italy
Hungary
Slovakia
Croatia
Soviet Union

Commanders and leaders

Adolf Hitler
Franz Halder
Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb
Fedor von Bock
Gerd von Rundstedt
Ion Antonescu
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Giovanni Messe

Joseph Stalin
Georgy Zhukov
Aleksandr Vasilyevskiy
Semyon Budyonny
Kliment Voroshilov
Semyon Timoshenko
Markian Popov
Fedor Kuznetsov
Dmitry Pavlov
Ivan Tyulenev

Strength

~3 million
3,600 tanks,
4,389 aircraft
46,000 artillery pieces

~5.7 million
12,000-15,000 tanks,
35,000-40,000 aircraft (11,357 combat ready on 22 June 1941)

Casualties and losses

186,452 killed
40,157 missing
655,179 hurt
2,827 aircraft destroyed
2,735 tanks destroyed

802,191 killed
1,336,147 hurt
2,835,000 captured.
21,200 aircraft destroyed
20,500 tanks lost

Operation Barbarossa ( German: Unternehmen Barbarossa, named after Frederick I) was the code name for the European Axis's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II. It began on 22 June 1941. More than 3 million men attacked along the 2,900 km front, making it the largest military invasion in human history. It also involved 600,000 motor vehicles and 750,000 horses. Planning for the operation started in December 1940 and the attack was to start on May 15. Its main objective was to destroy the Soviet military power and included some Nazi ideological goals, as well as to make use of Russia's rich deposits of natural resources, which would be helpful to continue fighting the war against the Allies.

Even though the Soviets were in a terrible condition, the Axis did not complete its objectives. Tactically, the Germans held some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine. However, the Germans were pushed back from Moscow and could not start an attack as large and long as Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front again.

The winter of 1941-42 began unusually early. It was not noted as being particularly bad by the natives but German soldiers accustomed to warmer temperatures were ill prepared. German equipment broke down in the cold, and some men were still wearing summer uniforms which they stuffed with newspapers in an attempt to stay warm. Many German soldiers froze to death in the extreme cold. It was followed in 1942 by "Fall Blau" (Case Blue), intended to take the Caucasus region and its oilfields. This also failed.

The attack opened the Eastern Front of World War II. In Russia it is called the Great Patriotic War. A few years later, after pushing the German soldiers out of Russia, the Soviets were able to launch a counter-invasion into German occupied territories in Eastern Europe. They invaded Germany itself, and started the Battle of Berlin, the final battle before Germany's surrender. Although the Russians eventually repelled the Germans, it was at a tremendous cost. Around five times more Russians died than Germans.

Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation in human history, both by the number of men involved and by the number of people who died. The operation opened a theatre in which more men were involved than ever before in history.

Images for kids

In Spanish: Operación Barbarroja para niños

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Learn Operation Barbarossa facts for kids

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Eastern Front, (June 22, 1941-May 8, 1945), major theatre of combat during World War II that included operations in the Soviet Union, the Balkans, the Baltic States, and eastern and central Europe. The principal belligerents were the Soviet Union ( Allied powers) and Germany ( Axis powers). Minor Axis countries included Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.

Planning of Operation Barbarossa

The course of World War II changed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, just two days ahead of the anniversary of Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia. That move ultimately proved as fatal for Adolf Hitler as it had for Napoleon. The effect was most immediate on Britain's situation. Until then Britain's prospects had appeared grim, for its strategic position was far worse under modern conditions than it had been under Napoleon's Continental System blockade. Even if a German seaborne invasion never came to fruition, the concentration of submarine and air pressure on Britain's maritime supply lines could lead to eventual collapse.

Hitler unintentionally brought Britain relief by turning east just as the strain was becoming severe. That eastward turn was influenced by Britain's stubborn resistance but had deeper promptings. Hitler had always contemplated the overthrow of Soviet Russia. Though he had made the 1939 German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact as a matter of expediency, anti- Bolshevism was among Hitler's most profound convictions, arising from fear even more than ambition. It had been stirred up afresh before he even considered the question of invading Britain. Early in June 1940, while Germany was still engaged in the French campaign, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin seized the opportunity to occupy the three Baltic states. Then on June 26, again without notice to Hitler, Russia addressed a 24-hour ultimatum to Romania demanding the restoration of Bessarabia, together with the surrender of northern Bukovina. Russian forces poured in immediately as Romania yielded. That placed them ominously close to the Ploieşti oil fields on which Germany depended. Hitler became acutely suspicious of Stalin's intentions and began to feel that he could not afford to wait to complete the subjugation of the West before dealing with Russia.

A provisional plan for a stroke against the Soviet Union was worked out in the late summer of 1940 and elaborated in the autumn. Questions raised by Hitler's generals merely served to give this new turn of his mind a more definite bent. Their doubts suggested to him that they still distrusted his military judgment; Hitler felt that he must prove them wrong once again, and more strikingly. When they argued that it meant war on two fronts, he retorted that to overcome Britain would require an expansion of the air force and navy at the expense of the army and that this could not be risked while Russia remained a menace. In that mood he did not share his diplomats' moderate satisfaction over the result of the November discussions with Russian foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov in Berlin, only noting the Russians' hesitation to join the Axis. On December 18 he issued "Directive No. 21, Case Barbarossa," which opened with the statement: "The German armed forces must be prepared to crush soviet Russia in a quick campaign before the end of the war against England."

On February 3, 1941, Hitler approved the final draft of the plan and had it expounded by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel to a conference of his chief soldiers. Their anxieties were not diminished by Keitel's balance sheet, which showed that the invasion would have to be made with an inferiority of numbers, in tanks as well as troops, and must trust to an offsetting superiority of quality. That deficiency of strength became a handicap even before the offensive was launched. For Hitler was anxious to safeguard his Balkan flanks before striking at Russia and had hoped to secure this by power diplomacy alone, without fighting. That hope was impaired, to his annoyance, by Benito Mussolini's independent aggression against Greece, which opened up the prospect of a British army landing there. This threat led Hitler to decide that he must overcome Greece and clear out the British before he could proceed with his eastern plan. The effort entailed was much increased when Yugoslavia's adhesion to the Axis was upset by a military coup d'etat in that country on March 27. Larger forces now had to be sent south to crush Yugoslavia simultaneously with Greece. Both nations were quickly overrun while the British were driven back into their ships. Hitler's decision on April 1 to mount this double offensive had necessitated the postponement of the Barbarossa plan from the middle of May to late June. By the swiftness of his Balkan victories he was able to keep to this revised timetable, but the five weeks' delay went far toward forfeiting his subsequent chance of victory over Russia.

From the German invasion to the gates of Moscow (June-December 1941)

The German offensive was delivered on June 22, 1941, by three army groups under the same commanders as in the 1940 invasion of the west. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was on the right, in southern Poland. Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was in the centre, north of the Pripet Marshes. Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb was on the left and drove through the Baltic states. But this time the main weight, and the decisive role, was committed to Bock's army group. Two armoured groups (later rechristened "armies"), under Gen. Heinz Guderian and Gen. Hermann Hoth, were allotted to Bock's front compared with only one, under Gen. Paul Ludwig von Kleist, to Rundstedt's front. Once again the operation turned not on the infantry masses but on the armoured forces. These had now been increased from 10 panzer divisions to 19 but only by halving the number of tanks in each division. In total the Germans allotted almost 150 divisions containing a total of about 3 million troops, some 3,000 tanks, 7,000 artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft. It was in effect the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history.

Elated by this great success, Hitler decided to resume the advance on Moscow, while Kleist was again sent south to form the spearhead of a continued advance southeastward by Rundstedt from the Dnieper to the Don on the road to the Caucasus. Leeb's advance through the Baltic states had reached the outskirts of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), but Hitler canceled the intended assault, fearing that his armies would become entangled in city fighting. He deemed it wiser to rely on the German superiority of maneuver in the open, but he had lost the best two months of the summer, when the open country was good going. He also handicapped his chances by splitting his effort in divergent directions. Instead, the Germans cut off Leningrad and besieged it for nearly 900 days.

The renewed advance on Moscow began on October 2. Its prospects looked bright when Bock's armies executed a textbook blitzkrieg encirclement at Vyazma, where a further 600,000 Russians were captured. The road to Moscow was almost completely clear, but the Vyazma battle was not completed until the end of October. The German troops were tired, the country became a morass as the weather got worse, and fresh Russian forces appeared in their path as they plodded slowly forward. Most of the German generals wanted to break off the offensive and take up a suitable winter line. Hitler could not resist the temptation of Moscow, now so close, and was convinced that the Russians were on the verge of collapse. Bock, the commander at the scene, had a natural tendency to agree with Hitler. On December 2 a further effort was launched, and some detachments penetrated into the suburbs of Moscow, but the advance as a whole was held up in the forests covering the capital.

Russian winter counteroffensive (December 1941-March 1942)

This was the signal for a large scale Russian counteroffensive, prepared and directed by Gen. (later Marshal) Georgy Zhukov. It tumbled back the exhausted Germans, lapped around their flanks, and produced a critical situation. From generals downward, the invaders were filled with thoughts of Napoleon's sanguinary flight from Moscow. In that emergency Hitler forbade any retreat beyond the shortest possible local withdrawals. His decision exposed his troops to awful suffering in their advanced positions facing Moscow, for they had neither the clothing nor equipment for a Russian winter campaign.

In the south, Kleist's drive had reached Rostov near the mouth of the Don on November 23, but it had exhausted its fuel in plowing through the mud. The glamour of attaining this "gateway to the Caucasus" impelled Hitler to insist on staying there over Rundstedt's objections. Within a week the Germans were thrown back by a Russian counterstroke there, and Rundstedt was sacked and replaced by Walther von Reichenau. For a moment their situation looked grave, but the Germans managed to withdraw to the Mius River, the exact defensive line that Rundstedt had chosen before his removal.

The Red Army's winter counteroffensive continued for more than three months after its December launch, though with diminishing success. By March 1942 it had advanced more than 150 miles (241 km) in some sectors. The Germans maintained control of the main strongholds of their winter front-such cities as Schlüsselburg, Novgorod, Rzhev, Vyazma, Briansk, Orël ( Oryol), Kursk, Kharkiv, and Taganrog-despite the fact that the Russians had often advanced far beyond them, effectively cutting them off. In retrospect, it became clear that Hitler's veto on any extensive withdrawal served to restore the confidence of the German troops and probably saved them from a widespread collapse. Nevertheless, they indirectly paid a heavy price for that rigid defense. Its success encouraged the belief that it could be repeated in the more adverse conditions of the following winters. A more immediate handicap was that the strength of the Luftwaffe was drained in the prolonged effort to maintain supplies by air, under winter conditions, to the garrisons of these more or less isolated bastion towns.

The tremendous strain of that winter campaign on an army that had not been prepared for it had a serious delayed effect in other ways. Before the winter ended many divisions were reduced to barely a third of their original strength, and they were never fully built up again. The unfavourable aspects of the situation were realized by the German general staff, but its heads now had less power to influence Hitler's decisions. Hitler's will was too strong for them to resist, and the pressure of events was too strong for Hitler. He was compelled to go on and on. The weight of military opposition was weakened by the changes in the higher commands following the miscarriage of the 1941 campaign. When the failure of the whole campaign was plain to the world, the removal of Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch was announced. That act served the dual purpose of furnishing Hitler with a scapegoat and opening the way for him to take over direct command of the army.

German advance to the Caucasus (June-October 1942)

The plan to launch another great German offensive crystallized in the early months of 1942. Hitler's decision was influenced by pressure from his economists. They told him that Germany could not continue the war unless it obtained oil supplies from the Caucasus, a view that was proved mistaken by the fact that Germany failed to secure the Caucasus oil, yet managed to continue the war for three more years. Hitler also believed that another German offensive would so drain the Soviet Union's manpower that the U.S.S.R. would be unable to continue the war. His thinking was shared by his generals, who had been awed by the disregard with which the Soviets seemingly squandered their troops in the fighting of 1941 and the spring of 1942. By this time at least 4,000,000 Soviet troops had been killed, wounded, or captured, while German casualties totaled only 1,150,000. Hitler did, however, recognize the limitation of Germany's resources by narrowing the scope of his new offensive. The main effort was to be made on the southern flank near the Black Sea.

The pace of this early August advance beyond the Don was terrific, but it slowed down almost as suddenly as it developed. The prime causes were a shortage of fuel and an abundance of mountains. That dual brake was subsequently reinforced by the distant effect of the struggle for Stalingrad, which drained off a large part of the forces that might have been used to give a decisive impetus to the Caucasus advance. The first serious check occurred on reaching the Terek River, which covered the approaches to the mountain road to Tbilisi. Kleist then tried a maneuver to the east, downstream, and succeeded in forcing a passage near Mozdok in the first week of September, but his forces were held up again in the densely wooded hills beyond the Terek. Throughout September and October Kleist went on trying to push south from Mozdok by surprise attacks at different points. At each attempt he was blocked. The front was then stabilized, with the Germans still facing the mountain barrier that they had vainly tried to pierce. This final repulse in the central Caucasus coincided with the opening of the great Russian counteroffensive at Stalingrad.

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Eastern Front | World War II, Definition, Battles, & Casualties

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Eastern Front, (June 22, 1941-May 8, 1945), major theatre of combat during World War II that included operations in the Soviet Union, the Balkans, the Baltic States, and eastern and central Europe. The principal belligerents were the Soviet Union (Allied powers) and Germany (Axis powers). Minor

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Turingery and Delilah

In July 1942, Turing developed a complex code-breaking technique he named 'Turingery'. This method fed into work by others at Bletchley in understanding the 'Lorenz' cipher machine. Lorenz enciphered German strategic messages of high importance: the ability of Bletchley to read these contributed greatly to the Allied war effort.

Turing travelled to the United States in December 1942, to advise US military intelligence in the use of Bombe machines and to share his knowledge of Enigma. Whilst there, he also saw the latest American progress on a top secret speech enciphering system. Turing returned to Bletchley in March 1943, where he continued his work in cryptanalysis. Later in the war, he developed a speech scrambling device which he named 'Delilah'. In 1945, Turing was awarded an OBE for his wartime work.

The Universal Turing Machine

In 1936, Turing had invented a hypothetical computing device that came to be known as the 'universal Turing machine'. After the Second World War ended, he continued his research in this area, building on his earlier work and incorporating all he'd learnt during the war. Whilst working for the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Turing published a design for the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), which was arguably the forerunner to the modern computer. The ACE project was not taken forward, however, and he later left the NPL.

Legacy

In 1952, Alan Turing was arrested for homosexuality - which was then illegal in Britain. He was found guilty of 'gross indecency' (this conviction was overturned in 2013) but avoided a prison sentence by accepting chemical castration. In 1954, he was found dead from cyanide poisoning. An inquest ruled that it was suicide.

The legacy of Alan Turing's life and work did not fully come to light until long after his death. His impact on computer science has been widely acknowledged: the annual 'Turing Award' has been the highest accolade in that industry since 1966. But the work of Bletchley Park - and Turing's role there in cracking the Enigma code - was kept secret until the 1970s, and the full story was not known until the 1990s. It has been estimated that the efforts of Turing and his fellow code-breakers shortened the war by several years. What is certain is that they saved countless lives and helped to determine the course and outcome of the conflict.

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Until the release of the Oscar-nominated film The Imitation Game in 2014, the name 'Alan Turing' was not very widely known. But Turing's work during the Second World War was crucial. Who was Turing and what did he do that was so important?

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specific places for troops

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Feb 15, 2022 · A short film featuring THIRTY restored WWII warbirds flying in formation at the Flying Legends ...
Duration: 8:29
Posted: Feb 15, 2022

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Feb 15, 2022 · A short film featuring THIRTY restored WWII warbirds flying in formation at the Flying Legends ...Duration: 8:29 Posted: Feb 15, 2022

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Hello, my name's Clare and I work at Imperial War Museums. And this is my friend Rolly. And we're here today to help you learn more about history from home. Now Rolly is very good at digging but in my job as a public engagement producer I dig and seek out all the fascinating personal stories that we have in IWM's collections.

Now when I say collections, I mean all the interesting objects, documents, art, photographs, film that all help to tell the personal stories of war and conflict about real people and even some animals.

Now Rolly and I are going to tell you three fascinating stories about animals in wartime and we both really like this topic because no matter who you are, where you're from, whether you've got feet, wings or paws, everyone that has been affected by war and conflict has a story to share.

So, are we ready for our first story? I think Rolly is.

Our first story takes us back to the Second World War which happened over 70 years ago. Now if you watched my friend Craig's Adventures in History last week, you'll remember all about Grumpy the pilot and his very special pet dog Flash. Now we're going to talk to you about another very important dog from the Second World War but don't worry if you missed Craig's video you can go back and watch it on IWM's YouTube channel. But for now, we're going to talk about Rip.

Rip the dog was a very special dog indeed. What makes Rip so special is that he was a stray and that means he didn't have a family or a home before the Second World War. We also don't know what breed of dog he was either but that didn't matter because he had a very important job to do during the Second World War and the Blitz. Blitz is a bit of a funny word and it comes from the German word Blitzkrieg this means lightning war and when we say blitz we mean the attacks over British cities during the Second World War often at night time which meant that people had to stay safe in air-raid shelters and the ARP wardens or air raid precaution wardens had the really important job of making sure that everyone was safe during the Blitz. This included going out after the attacks to check if anyone was trapped in any rubble from buildings that had been destroyed. This was incredibly difficult and incredibly dangerous, often rubble was piled so high and there were lots of tight nooks and crannies so these ARP wardens really needed some helping hands - or should I say paws.

Introducing Rip. Now dogs like Rip are very good at two things in particular: the first is sniffing, dogs have a really good sense of smell they have over 300 million receptors in their little noses compared to just 6 million in our human noses. This means they're very good at sniffing out people that might be trapped under rubble during the Blitz. Dogs are also very good at listening. They have around 18 muscles in their furry little ears compared to just around 6 muscles in human ears, so this means they're really, really good at listening and hearing if anyone is trapped under rubble - and this is exactly what Rip did in London during the Blitz. Rip would sniff out and listen out for anyone that might be trapped under the rubble, and he would stay where he could hear or smell them and often, he would woof or bark to let the ARP wardens know that someone was trapped under the rubble.

Now Rip also had a very important job - not just saving people but something that dogs do even today. Can you guess what that might be? Well, that is keeping us humans company and making sure our spirits are kept up. So, Rip the dog would often go and visit children in air-raid shelters to make sure that they were all tucked up and safe and he even enjoyed a spot of gardening in his spare time helping ARP wardens grow cabbages in their 'Dig for Victory' garden.

Rip was such a brave dog that he was even awarded the Dickin Medal. The Dickin Medal is the highest medal of honour and bravery that an animal can receive in wartime, and it was founded during the Second World War by Maria Dickin, the animal welfare pioneer who founded the PDSA veterinary charity. Now lots of other animals have received the Dickin Medal including some other dogs, some horses some pigeons and even one cat. But Rip was so brave he was awarded his medal. So had it not been for the ARP wardens that took Rip in and trained him up, life would have been very different for Rip and the people that he met during the Second World War. Not bad for a stray.

For our next story we're heading back even further in time to the First World War. Now when we think about animals from the First World War, we often think of the very brave horses that carried equipment for soldiers and the very clever little pigeons that would fly around the trenches and deliver messages. But what if I were to tell you that all sorts of animals were involved in the First World War, from elephants carrying really heavy shells for the army, to a poor little tortoise called Tommy who ended up with a piece of shrapnel stuck in his shell after an air raid, to even a very special animal that lives in the desert.

The First World War took place over a hundred years ago and it affected the whole world and everyone in it including animals. Now some of you may know already that the First World War took place in trenches, but it also took place in some really faraway places like parts of Africa and the Middle East. Now if I were to say the word ANZAC to you, you might think of the delicious biscuit, but the word Anzac actually stands for something really important. Can you guess what that might be?

Shall we tell them Rolly?

Well, it stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and we recently had Anzac Day on the 25th of April, a day when we remember all the Australian and New Zealand soldiers that have fought in wars from the First World War to the present day. Now during the First World War lots of Anzac soldiers were stationed in parts of Africa and the Middle East. This meant they had to deal with some really difficult conditions like the desert where it would have been scorching hot and there would have been some creepy crawlies to deal with - yuck!

With such difficult conditions to deal with Anzac soldiers needed all the help they could get from a very special animal indeed - an animal so extraordinary that they couldn't trek for months in the desert without even needing a drop of water. Can you guess what animal it might be? Well, it's camels. Camels are extraordinary creatures and in 1916 the Imperial Camel Corps was founded. Camels have lots of special skills including carrying water in the two humps on their backs, this means they can trek for months at a time in the scorching hot desert without needing a drink. Pretty handy when you're in the desert. Camels are also very tall and sturdy animals this means they're strong enough to carry lots of equipment and food and medicine that would have just been too heavy for soldiers to carry. Camels are also very good at trekking in the sand. Now have you ever tried to run on sand? It's pretty tricky but camels have really special flat hooves which means it's much easier for them to trek in the desert. Camels are also incredibly brave animals - they would help to carry injured soldiers who were fighting on the front line all the way back to hospitals that were stationed further away from where the fighting was taking place. Camels are just such amazing animals and not only because they have some incredible skills that us humans just simply don't have but they were also so brave and helpful for Anzac soldiers in the First World War.

For our final story we're jumping forward in time back to the present day. Now you might think in more recent conflicts it all takes place with lots of high-tech modern equipment that's really complicated and really complex to use and needs lots of specially skilled people to operate - and you'd be right. But what if I were to tell you there's one very special little animal that's become one of the most bravest and smartest animals to be involved in recent war and conflict. Now this is an animal that often gets a bit of a bad reputation for being dirty or scary, but this unlikely animal is incredibly brave, and that animal is rats.

Now when we think of rats in wartime, we often think of the First World War and the horrible conditions of the trenches which a lot of rats were involved in. But in more recent conflict rats have become incredibly special indeed. You would think that when the fighting stops the war ends but often in places where fighting has happened there are reminders of the war for many years later, this could include bomb damage to buildings, it could also mean that some weapons are left behind. These weapons could be live which means they haven't exploded yet and could be a real danger to people living in these areas after the fighting stops.

In countries like Rwanda and Mozambique where the wars ended years ago there are still reminders of the fighting that took place - this includes landmines. Landmines are bombs buried in the ground that are triggered when you step on them. They're really difficult to spot which means they're very, very dangerous for people living in areas where fighting has taken place. It also means that specially trained people such as aid workers and soldiers have to work meticulously and very slowly, very carefully with high-tech specialist equipment such as metal detectors to make sure an area is clear of landmines stopping to inspect any suspicious ping.

Enter the African pouched rat. Now they might have bad eyesight, but these rats have an incredible sense of smell they're also light enough so that if they were to tread on a landmine, they wouldn't set it off. This means aid workers and soldiers can train up these clever rats to use their very clever noses to sniff out TNT the explosive that's often used in landmines that to us humans doesn't smell of anything but not for the African pouched rat.

Now these rats are so hard-working that they can even search up to 11 kilometres in just 20 minutes - that's an area that would take even the most specially skilled and trained person up to four days to search. This means that aid workers and soldiers who are working in places where recent conflict has happened can safely search for landmines and deactivate them which means the area will be safe for people to live in after the fighting has taken place. All thanks to the African pouched rat.

So, we've talked about lots of different animals involved in war from dogs to more unusual animals like camels and rats. But what is it that makes all these animals so amazing?

Well, the answer to that is that animals are already amazing - they can do things that even the most modern equipment and skilled humans just simply cannot do. They are also incredibly brave and this means us humans are very lucky to have them indeed.

Have a think about your favourite animal and what it is about them that makes them so amazing. Could it be that they can fly high in the sky, they can swim underwater or if they're anything like Rolly then they're very good at sleeping. Now have a go at designing your own Top Trumps card about your favourite animal including what it is that makes them so amazing.

We would love for you to share these with us on IWM's Facebook and Twitter accounts and if you head over there you can even see an example that I've made for Rolly. Hearing about these amazing animals in wartime might have left you with some questions so pop them in the comment section below or head over to IWM's Facebook and Twitter accounts.

In next week's IWM's Adventures in History, you'll meet my friend Vicky, who will be telling you all about VE Day. Now we can't wait to welcome you back to the five sites of Imperial War Museums soon but in the meantime look after each other, stay safe and take care. Bye!

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Join IWM expert Clare as she shares real life stories about courageous animal heroes.

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Winter War

Part of World War II

A Finnish machine gun crew during the Winter War

Date

30 November 1939 - 13 March 1940

Location

Territorial
changes

Cession of the Gulf of Finland islands, Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia, Salla, and Rybachy Peninsula, and rental of Hanko to the Soviet Union

Belligerents

Finland
Foreign volunteers

Soviet Union
Finnish Democratic Republic (A puppet state. Recognized only by USSR.)

Commanders and leaders

Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

Joseph Stalin
Kirill Meretskov
Kliment Voroshilov
Semyon Timoshenko
Otto Wille Kuusinen

Strength

337,000-346,500 men
32 tanks
114 aircraft

2,514-6,541 tanks
3,880 aircraft

Casualties and losses

25,904 dead or missing
43,557 wounded
1,000 captured
957 civilians in air raids
20-30 tanks
62 aircraft
70,000 total casualties

126,875 dead or missing
188,671 wounded, injured or burned
5,572 captured
3,543 tanks
261-515 aircraft
323,000 total casualties

The Winter War (30 November 1939 - 13 March 1940) was a conflict fought between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began when the Soviet Union tried to invade Finland soon after the Invasion of Poland. The Soviet military forces expected a victory over Finland in a few weeks, because the Soviet army had many more tanks and planes than the Finnish army.

However, the Finnish forces resisted both better and longer than expected. One reason the Finnish forces did better is because they had good winter clothes and they wore white coats which camouflaged them in the snow. As well, the Finnish soldiers moved around on skis, which made it easy for them to sneak up on the Soviet soldiers. The Soviet army did not have good winter clothes, and they wore dark green coats, which made them easy to see in the snow.

The defeated Finns had to give up 11% of their country. They tried to get it back in the Continuation War.

Related pages

Images for kids

Franco-British support was offered on the condition their forces could pass freely from Narvik through neutral Norway and Sweden instead of the difficult passage through Soviet-occupied Petsamo

In Spanish: Guerra de Invierno para niños

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The Importance of Women's History

The month of March has been designated Women's History Month. If you follow organizations like the National Archives or the Smithsonian Institute on social media, you'll often see them use the '#womenshistorymonth' hashtag throughout the month of March. Women's history is important and often overlooked. Sometimes in the discipline of history much attention is given to wars and politics. While it is interesting to learn about great generals and political figures, we should also be mindful of the role women have played in American society throughout the course of history. In this lesson we will look at women in the early 20th century, specifically before, during, and after World War I. Let's dig in!

Women Before World War I

Suffragettes

The Women's Suffrage Movement, a political movement aimed at granting women the right to vote, began in the 1840s and gained momentum throughout the second half of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. Popular early suffrage leaders, or suffragettes as they were called, included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. By the end of the 19th century, numerous states had passed laws granting women the right to vote. Western states were among the first states to grant women voting equality. Even so, it would be another two decades before women had 'the vote' nationwide.

The Victorian Era

While women were making gradual and modest strides toward equality in the area of voting, the late 19th century as a whole was a time with clearly defined gender roles and expectations. This time period is sometimes called the Victorian Era, after British Queen Victoria. This period lasted from 1837-1901. Victorian culture was not limited to Europe: It was alive and well in the U.S. Under the social mores of Victorian culture, women wore long dresses and corsets underneath them. Women were understood to be the keepers of the home. Their lives were centered around domestic affairs like cooking, cleaning, tending to children, and among the wealthy, entertaining. Most women, especially among the middle and upper classes, did not work outside the home and were generally not as educated as men.

All of this gradually began to change with the onset of the 20th century. Women were increasingly demanding greater political voice. They were even engaging in men's activities like riding a bicycle! By the early 1900s, the 'first-wave' of feminism was underway.

Women During World War I

War tends to disrupt traditional norms surrounding gender and sexuality, and the First World War between 1914-1918 was no exception. Keep in mind, the U.S. did not become involved in the war until 1917.

During World War I, many women entered the workforce for the first time. With significant numbers of men away in Europe, women were needed in various capacities. It is believed over 20,000 women worked as nurses during the war. Others worked in clerical positions for the U.S. Government. Telephone and radio operators were also common positions for women.

On the home front, women assumed greater responsibility in public life as significant portions of the male population were 'over there' (as Europe was referred to during that time). Women too young or unable to work helped the war effort in various ways, such as planting 'victory' gardens.

Women After World War I

Those Crazy Flapper Girls

World War I ended in 1918. Over the next few years, America underwent profound social changes. The decade of the 1920s has been called the 'Roaring Twenties' because it was a time of tremendous peace, prosperity, and energy. The American economy was roaring, and the culture was centered around a rejection of traditionalism and the embracing of modernity.

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The Role of American Women Before, During & After WWI | Study.com

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The month of March has been designated Women's History Month. If you follow organizations like the National Archives or the Smithsonian Institute on social media, you'll often see them use the '#womenshistorymonth' hashtag throughout the month of March. Women's history is important and often overlooked.

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It was thanks to ULTRA that we won the war.
Churchill to King George VI

During World War II, Germany believed that its secret codes for radio messages were indecipherable to the Allies. However, the meticulous work of code breakers based at Britain's Bletchley Park cracked the secrets of German wartime communication, and played a crucial role in the final defeat of Germany.

The Enigma story began in the 1920s, when the German military - using an 'Enigma' machine developed for the business market - began to communicate in unintelligible coded messages. The Enigma machine enabled its operator to type a message, then 'scramble' it using a letter substitution system, generated by variable rotors and an electric circuit. To decode the message, the recipient needed to know the exact settings of the wheels. German code experts added new plugs, circuits and features to the machine during the pre-war years, but its basic principle remained the same.

The first people who came close to cracking the Enigma code were the Polish. Close links between the German and Polish engineering industries allowed the Polish Cipher Bureau to reconstruct an Enigma machine and read the Wehrmacht's messages between 1933 and 1938. In 1939, with German invasion looming, the Poles shared their information with the British, who in turn established the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. Mathematicians and intelligence experts, with the help of primitive early computers, began the complex and urgent task of cracking the Enigma code.

The Germans, convinced their Enigma messages were unbreakable, used the machine for battlefield, naval, and diplomatic communications. Although the experts at Bletchley first succeeded in reading German code during the 1940 Norwegian campaign, their work only began to pay off meaningfully in 1941, when they were able to gather evidence of the planned invasion of Greece, and learn Italian naval plans for the Battle of Cape Matapan. In the autumn, the Allies gained advantage in North Africa from deciphering coded messages used by Rommel's Panzer Army. Information obtained from such high-level German sources was codenamed ULTRA.

The Germans also enjoyed some noteworthy code breaking successes. The B-Dienst (surveillance service) broke British Naval code as early as 1935, which allowed them to pinpoint Allied convoys during the early stages of the Battle of the Atlantic. Although the US altered its naval code in April 1942, the change came too late to prevent the havoc wreaked by Operation Paukenschlag, the German U-boat campaign off America's east coast early that year. The Germans also managed to crack Soviet and Danish code systems. But their efforts - fragmented and divided between rival cryptology departments - lacked the consistent success achieved at Bletchley Park.

From 1941 onwards, Bletchley's experts focused upon breaking the codes used by German U-boats in the Atlantic. In March 1941, when the German armed trawler 'Krebs' was captured off Norway complete with Enigma machines and codebooks, the German naval Enigma code could finally be read. The Allies could now discover where U-boats were hunting and direct their own ships away from danger.

The German Navy, rightly suspicious that their code had been cracked, introduced a fourth wheel into the device, multiplying the possible settings by twenty six. The British finally broke this code that they called 'Shark' in December 1942. Using ULTRA always presented problems to the Allies, because any too blatant response to it would cause the Germans to suspect their messages were being read. But neverthless Bletchley Park and its staff made a crucial and groundbreaking contribution to the defeat of the Axis.

Did you know?

The British tried hard to conceal their code breaking success from the Axis. In 1942, when five Italian ships bound for Africa were sunk due to ULTRA information, Churchill sent a telegram to Naples congratulating a fictitious spy and awarding him a bonus.

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It was thanks to ULTRA that we won the war. Churchill to King George VI During World War II, Germany believed that its secret codes for radio messages were indecipherable to the Allies. However, the meticulous work of code breakers based at Britain's Bletchley Park cracked the secrets of German wartime communication, and played a crucial role in the final defeat of Germany.

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The reasons for the epidemics and contagious diseases that prevailed in Auschwitz concentration camp included the dreadful living conditions, which varied during the years that the camp operated, and were different in each part of the camp. In Auschwitz I, prisoners lived in old brick barracks. Several hundred three-tier wooden bunk beds were installed in each building. The overcrowding in Auschwitz I forced basements and lofts into use as living quarters, as well.

Two types of barracks, brick and wooden, housed prisoners in Birkenau concentration camp. The brick buildings were erected in great haste, without suitable insulation, on marshy ground. More than 700 people were assigned to each barrack, although in practice the figure was sometimes higher. These barracks lacked any true heating; nor did they contain sanitary facilities.

The second type of accommodation for prisoners at Birkenau consisted of wooden stable-barracks (Pferdestallbaracken). The interiors, designed to hold 52 horses, were partitioned into stalls. The stalls contained three-tier wooden bunks. Several hundred prisoners lived in each such barrack.

Dampness, leaky roofs, and the fouling of straw and straw mattresses by prisoners suffering from diarrhea made difficult living conditions worse. The barracks swarmed with various sorts of vermin and rats. A constant shortage of water for washing, and the lack of suitable sanitary facilities, aggravated the situation.

Living and sanitary conditions in Auschwitz III (Monowitz) concentration camp and the several dozen branch camps resembled those described above.

Currency

One Auschwitz survivor described the cigarette currency used in the camp: "We had our own currency, whose value no one questioned: the cigarette. The price of every article was stated in cigarettes ... in 'normal' times, that is, when the candidates to the gas chambers were coming in at a regular pace, a loaf of bread cost 12 cigarettes; a 10 ounce package of margarine, thirty; a watch, eighty to 200; a 0.25-gallon bottle of alcohol, 400 cigarettes!"

Feeding the Prisoners

Prisoners in the camp received meals three times a day: morning, noon, and evening. Factors influencing the nutritional value of the food included the official nutritional norms in the Nazi concentration camps. In practice, Auschwitz prisoners with less physically demanding labor assignments received approximately 1,300 calories per day, while those engaged in hard labor received approximately 1,700. After several weeks on such starvation rations in the camp, most prisoners began to experience organic deterioration that led to the so-called "Muzulman" state, extreme physical exhaustion that ended in death.

Order of the Day

At Auschwitz, as in other concentration camps, the order of the day was strictly established. Prisoners spent over ten hours per day working, and the rest of the time was taken up by long roll-call assemblies, lining up for food rations or a place in the latrines or the washroom, removing dirt and pests from clothing, and disinfection.

A WVHA decree of March 31, 1942 established a minimum working day of eleven hours in all concentration camps. At Auschwitz, labor was one of the means used to destroy prisoners. They labored in various sectors of the economy. Initially, they worked at building the camp: leveling the ground, erecting new blocks and buildings, laying roads, and digging drainage ditches. Later, the industries of the Third Reich made increasing use of cheap prisoner labor. The pace of the work, the starvation rations of food, and constant beatings and abuse exacerbated the death rate. The German IG Farbenindustrie cartel, which built the Buna-Werke synthetic rubber and fuel factory at Monowice near Oswiecim, had priority in obtaining prisoner labor. The majority of the Auschwitz sub-camps were located near the mills, mines, and factories of Silesia. Prisoners dug coal, produced armaments and chemicals, and built and expanded industrial plants.

Executions

Executions were one means of physically liquidating prisoners and people brought from outside the camp. At first, people were shot to death in the pits near the camp from which gravel had been dug. From the autumn of 1941 until the autumn of 1943, most of the executions by shooting took place in the courtyard of Block No. 11 in the main camp. Most of the victims here were Poles, who received sentences of death by shooting from, for instance, the Gestapo summary court.

Soviet prisoners of war were also executed at Auschwitz concentration camp. Beginning in September 1941, executions were also carried out using poison gas.

At least 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war were put to death in this way. After the dismantling of the Death Wall in 1944, larger groups of Poles sentenced to death by the police summary court were executed in the gas chambers. Executions by hanging were carried out sporadically in the camp. As opposed to shooting or killing in the gas chamber, hanging was public. It was carried out in front of other prisoners, usually during roll call. The goal was to intimidate the witnesses, and the victims were most frequently prisoners caught trying to escape, or suspected of aiding escapers.

Sources: The State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Reprinted with permission;
Yuval Noah Harari,Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, (NY: Harper Perennial, 2018).

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Living Conditions, Labor & Executions at Auschwitz-Birkenau

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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casualties of World War II, World War II, the deadliest and most destructive war in human history, claimed between 40 and 50 million lives, displaced tens of millions of people, and cost more than $1 trillion to prosecute. The financial cost to the United States alone was more than $341 billion (approximately $5.8 trillion in 2023 dollars when adjusted for inflation). Nearly one-third of all homes in Great Britain and Poland were damaged or destroyed, as were roughly one-fifth of those in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia. In Germany's 49 largest cities, nearly 40 percent of homes were seriously damaged or destroyed. In the western Soviet Union, the destruction was even greater.

The human cost of the war can hardly be calculated. Civilian population centres were intentionally targeted by both the Axis and the Allies. Planes of the U.S. Army Air Forces burned scores of Japanese cities to the ground with incendiary bombs before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely destroyed with atomic weapons. Japan's troops in Asia enslaved some 200,000 women to act as sex workers (euphemistically called " comfort women") and often acted with a general disregard for human life, especially toward prisoners. Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army carried out horrific medical experiments on thousands of prisoners of war and civilians; men and women were subjected to chemical and biological agents and vivisected to survey the results.

The infographics below provide a proportional representation of the military casualties suffered by the various Allied and Axis powers. Mouse over the image to highlight casualty statistics for each country.

Kenny Chmielewski

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Casualties of World War II | Statistics, By Country, & Total

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Casualties of World War II, World War II, the deadliest and most destructive war in human history, claimed between 40 and 50 million lives, displaced tens of millions of people, and cost more than $1 trillion to prosecute.