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The Invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany lasted from 1st September to 6th October 1939, this marked the start of World War II.

Germany launched their forces in a surprise attack on the peninsula of Westerplatte Fort in Danzig, which is currently known as Gdansk in the present day.

The invasion began with a predawn shelling at 4:45 am from their German battleship Schleswig-Holstein. The Army groups were split into 2, North and South. The North attacked from Pomerania, and the South attacked from Slovakia.

Both Jewish and non-Jewish refugees quickly fled Germany as the attack advanced, they were hopeful that the Polish army could stop the German advance.

Germany’s equipment and forces outnumbered Poland, so they stood no chance, particularly because they were deployed too close to the German frontier, which later unintentionally helped Germany’s strategy to seize their Polish enemies.

Germany’s forces finally defeated Polish defences all along the border, later hitting Poland’s capital city, Warsaw.

Britain and France were prompted by this attack on Poland, to declare war on Germany 2 days later.

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'The dreaded ‘Stuka’ dive bombers, one of the symbols of Blitzkrieg' (English Heritage)

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The Battle of France took place between 9th May and 22nd June 1940, where German forces succeeded in assaulting north-west Europe by invading not only France but 3 other countries; Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Germany used Hitler’s tactics called Blitzkrieg, meaning they gathered combat groups to use fast-moving tanks, motorised artillery and dive bombers to capture, surround and disrupt the main enemy troops, leading to their surrender or destruction.

‘The defeat of the French Army was the consequence of German superiority in strategic planning, in organisational effectiveness, in tactical innovations such as massed tanks, and in tank-air cooperation.’ (Donald Armstrong, 1960.)

Disorientation was a key factor of the Blitzkrieg tactics, to prevent enemies counterattacking. The Germans held the upper hand in the sense that were able to surround and destroy the Allies due to the Allies' confusion and lack of planning, meaning they could not act in unison.

Eventually, on 22nd June 1940, France surrendered to Germany.

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The Battle of Britain officially occurred on 15th September 1940 but had been ongoing since July.

This Battle was where Great Britain’s RAF Fighter Command successfully defended their country against air raids conducted by Germany’s air forces, following the fall of France.

An air defence network that Britain had developed was called The Dowding System, named after Fighter Command's Commander-in-Chief Sir Hugh Dowding, this gave them a critical advantage in the Battle of Britain, as it unified a system of defence due to the technology.

Winston Churchill, Britain's new prime minister at the time, was eager and prepared to fight whatever may come. ‘Of course, Churchill and Britain's war leaders would have felt a great deal more confident during those dark days had they known the true state of German affairs. Despite the propaganda that portrayed German military might as an invincible Goliath, Hitler's forces had begun the Blitzkrieg with fewer men, fewer and more lightly armed tanks, and fewer artillery pieces than the French alone.’ (James Holland, 2010)

Britain’s advantage was that their enemy had a lack of systematic planning of action. In September 1940, Germany, supposedly, made the accident of dropping some bombs on civilian areas in London. After this, the British retaliated by surprising the city of Berlin with a bombing raid.

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RAF and Luftwaffe continue the Battle of Britain (1940)

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Invasion of the Soviet Union map (Holocaust Encyclopedia)

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22nd June 1941, was the day Hitler launched Operation ‘Barbarossa’, where the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, creating the beginning of a campaign that decided the Second World War.

German troops failed to defeat Soviet forces in the campaign, signalling a vital turning point in the war.  Throughout this operation, over three and a half million German troops were on the attacking front, in a total of 148 divisions. Still to this day, the invasion of the Soviet Union was the largest invasion known.

There were 17 panzer divisions, this refers to a division which is armoured and has multiple tanks. They each formed into 4 panzer groups, with 3,400 tanks, and 2,700 aircraft of the Luftwaffe to support them.

‘Very little remained to the Soviet high command for survival. The constituted operational armies of June 22, 1941, had been beaten, with nothing remaining to the Soviets but strong reserves of manpower and the potential for further ruthless expenditure of forces.’ (Russel H. S. Stolfi, 1982)

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Newspaper front page, the day Japan attacked the US naval base.(Grand Island Daily Independent, 1941)

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Japan attacked the US naval base located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the morning of 7th December 1941.

Due to the Pearl Harbor being a massive oil and fueling station for planes and ships, this encouraged Japan to attack as they knew it was a major asset to the United States, that would cripple their military.

Japanese air forces launched a surprise attack on the US using 300 aircraft, resulting in 18 US naval vessels sinking or becoming badly damaged. As well as this, 8 battleships succeeded in destroying or damaging 300 US aircraft, killing 2,403 men.

Although, this attack did not result in Japan's favour, as it was a huge gamble which did not pay off. Japan had certain expectations of how the US would respond to their attack, except in the end, they didn't react at all.

Despite this, the US decided to avoid isolating themselves from the current attack and instead geared themselves up for total war, leading to Japan’s downfall.

The Pearl Harbor Attack failed its main objective which was in place to destroy the US Navy, majorly due to the Japanese tanks being unable to compete with their opposite numbers, as well as this, the Japanese Empire’s logistical base was severely undeveloped compared to modern warfare.

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'Crewmen aboard the USS Enterprise in the Pacific Ocean are shown unfolding the wings of torpedo bombers in preparation for a raid on Japanese forces' (Richard Worth, 2002)

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From 3rd to 6th June 1942, a 5-day naval battle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, occurred between naval forces from the United States and Japan, resulting in the course of the war in the Pacific to be changed.

The battle was fought almost completely with aircraft, where the US destroyed Japan’s first-line carrier strength, along with its best naval pilots.

Japan’s goal throughout World War II was to remove the United States as a Pacific power to gain territory in east Asia and the southwest Pacific islands.

Additionally, Japan had hoped to defeat the US Pacific Fleet, to secure dominance in the region, forcing a negotiated peace.

As a result of the Battle of Midway, the US had crippled the ability Japan had to launch any future large-scale mobile strikes towards Allied forces.

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Stalingrad, 14th - 26th September 1942 (Osprey Publishing, 2016)

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The Battle of Stalingrad took place in the city of Stalingrad (now known as Volgograd), Russia, U.S.S.R, during WWII, from 17th July 1942, and lasted until 2nd February 1943.

Russians consider this battle to be one of the greatest of their Great Patriotic War, due to the successful Soviet defence of Stalingrad.

Throughout the first stages of the defensive operation, the soviet troops portrayed fierce hostility to the enemy but additionally delivered multiple strong counterattacks.

‘The results of the July battles and intelligence data convinced the German command that, under the current conditions, even a reinforced 6th Army would not be enough to capture Stalingrad.’ (M. E. Morozov, 2023)

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A large group of LCTs (Landing Craft Tank) moored along the quayside at Southampton, in 1944. (Imperial War Museum) 

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The D-Day Operation took place on 6th June 1944, it was the largest amphibious invasion to date, landing 5 naval assault divisions on the beaches in Normandy, France.

The ‘D’ in D-Day stands for ‘day’, this was a term that was applied to any situation where it was the first day of a large military operation.

Allied, American and British air forces controlled an enormous bombing campaign that targeted Nazi-occupied Northern France.

Operation Overlord, which was the code name given to the invasion, involved the Allies using over 5,000 ships and landing crafts in order to land troops of more than 150,000.

These landings were what marked the beginning of the campaign in North-West Europe, resulting in the Germans being convinced that their defeat was guaranteed.

Regardless of the cautious planning and preparation done, designing special vehicles, and long months of training, unfortunately, could not save the masses of men who lost their lives. 13,000 bombs were dropped by planes before their landing but unsuccessfully hit their targets, completely missing.

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From 4th to 11th February 1945, there was a WW2 meeting in the Crimea region of the USSR that took place where the heads of government from the US, UK and the Soviet Union discussed the reorganisation of Europe and Germany after the war.

Known as ‘the big three’, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin all had the aim to decide what was going to happen to Germany after they had been defeated.

They each agreed on what the outcomes should be, one plan being that Germany would be split into 4 zones of occupation with the USSR, France, USA and Britain each being in control of a zone.

Berlin, the capital of Germany was roughly 100 miles within the Soviet zone, and it was also divided into 4 zones, where one of the Allied powers controlled each zone.

Another agreement the leaders came to was their commitment to pursue suspected Nazi war criminals and put them on trial.

Finally, and arguably one of the most important outcomes of their meeting, was their plan to set up the United Nations which was an organisation that was dedicated to international cooperation and preventing war.

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Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)

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Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)

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An atomic bomb was dropped by the USA on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945.

The blast devastated five square miles of an area, and destroyed over 60% of the city’s buildings, 140,000 people were also killed

3 days after this, the USA dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, which then killed around 74,000 people.

Following these attacks, on the 10th of August 1945, the Japanese government released a statement that agreed to accept the Allied surrender terms which were announced in the Potsdam conference between Churchill, Truman and Attlee, where they dictated the substance and procedures of the peace settlements in Europe.