WWII course

Germany invaded Poland

1 September 1939

Britain declared war on Germany

3 September 1939

Nazis invaded Denmark and Norway

9 April 1940

Nazis invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands

10 May 1940

Evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk began

26 May 1940

Norway surrendered to the Nazis; Italy declared war on Britain and France

10 June 1940

German U-boats attacked merchant ships in the Atlantic

1 July 1940

The Battle of Britain began

10 July 1940

The Soviets took Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia

23 July 1940

The Blitz began against Britain

7 September 1940

Tripartite Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan

27 September 1940

Italy invaded Greece

28 October 1940

Nazis invaded Greece and Yugoslavia

6 April 1941

Operation Barbarossa began

2 June 1941

Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the US, suspended relations with Japan

26 July 1941

US announced an oil embargo against aggressor states

1 August 1941

Japan bombed Pearl Harbour

7 December 1941

US and Britain declared war on Japan

8 December 1941

Germany declared war on the US

11 December 1941

Battle of Stalingrad began

13 September 1942

Battle of El Alamein

23 October to 5 November 1942

Battle of Midway

4 to 7 June 1942

US Marines landed in Guadalcanal

August 1942

Germans surrendered at Stalingrad

2 February 1943

Battle of the Atlantic climaxed when 27 merchant ships were sunk by German U-boats

16 to 20 March 1943

German and Italian troops surrendered in North Africa

13 May 1943

Allies landed in Sicily

9-10 July 1943

Allied air raid caused a firestorm in Hamburg

27-28 July 1943

Allied invasion of mainland Italy

3 September 1943

Allied invaded the Philippines

October 1943

D-Day landings

6 June 1944

Liberation of Paris

25 August 1944

Warsaw uprising ended as the Polish Home Army surrendered to the Germans

2 October 1944

Battle of the Bulge/Ardennes Offensive

16 to 27 December 1944

US forces captured the Marshall Islands; British forces advanced in Burma

January to February 1944

Japan began its last offensive in China

17 April 1944

US forces invaded Saipan in the Mariana Islands

15 June 1944

The Japanese Navy suffered critical losses in the battle of Leyte Gulf

23 to 26 October 1944

US forces recaptured the Mariana Islands

July to August 1944

Soviet troops captured Warsaw

17 January 1945

Dresden destroyed after Allied bombing raids; 50,000 civilian deaths

13-14 February 1945

Soviet troops began their final attack on Berlin; US troops entered Nuremberg

16 April 1945

Hitler committed suicide

30 April 1945

German troops in Italy surrendered

2 May 1945

Unconditional surrender of all German troops

7 May 1945

Victory in Europe Day

8 May 1945

US forces invaded the island of Iwo Jimo

19 February 1945

US and Filipino forces took Manila

3 March 1945

US forces invaded Okinawa in Japan

1 April 1945

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

6 August 1945

Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki

8 August 1945

Soviets declared war on Japan; invaded Manchuria

8 August 1945

Japan surrendered

14 August 1945

Britain was successful in the Battle of Britain even though the Luftwaffe had 1200 bombers and 1000 fighters compared to the RAF’s 900 fighters

1940

German troops were within 80km of Moscow

By October 1941

Most of Stalingrad was occupied by Germany

By September 1942

Hitler took control of the German army himself

1941

Allied offensive against Italy began

10 July 1943

Rome captured by the Allies

June 1944

Northern Italy was under Allied control

April 1945

1 million men landed in France within a month of D-Day; most of northern France liberated within weeks

1944

Allies crossed the Rhine into Germany

March 1945

US bombing raids on Germany

1944

Russia produced more and better quality armaments than Germany

By 1943

British battleships the Prince of Wales and the Repulse were sunk by Japanese bombers

10 December 1941

Hong Kong fell to Japan, 12,000 prisoners were taken

25-26 December 1941

Britain was forced to surrender in its defence of Singapore, 80,000 troops surrendered

By February 1942

Japan failed to capture Port Morseby and Midway Islands; Japan did not lose any territory

June 1942

Allies started ‘island hopping’; American superiority in the air and sea allowed their advance toward Japan

From January 1942

Battle of Okinawa: 763 US aircraft were destroyed; 7,400 prisoners were taken by the US; 110,000 Japanese died refusing to surrender

1 April 1945

The Allies’ new South East Asia Command cleared the Japanese out of Burma; opened the Burma road to China

May 1945

Japan was consistently bombed

from November 1944

Japan’s national infrastructure was destroyed; industry could not produce weapons

By 1945

Blitzkrieg was successful

Until 1941

Element of surprise of the Blitzkrieg was lost

By 1943

Allies dominated the sky

From 1944

Britain fought mainly a naval war

Until 1944

German battleship Bismarck was sunk in the Atlantic

1941

German U-boats sank 8 million tonnes of British shipping in the Atlantic

1942

The Allies had an intelligence advantages as the had cracked the Enigma code and changed the Royal Navy’s codes which Germany had accessed

From mid 1943

149 out of the 137 German vessels sunk in the Atlantic, were sunk by aircraft

1943

RAF was forbidden from indiscriminate bombing

Start of the war

High losses of RAF planes due to area bombing

1942 to 1943

The introduction of the P-51B Mustang planes allowed the Allies to defeat the Luftwaffe

1944

Germany lost 900 fighters in the air

February and March 1944

Germany introduced the V1 bomb and V2 missile; they were ineffective because they could not be mass produced

1944

Area bombing occurred in the pacific

From March 1945

1 million homes in Tokyo were destroyed due to strategic bombing

9 March 1945

Absenteeism in Japanese factories rose by 50% as the fear of area bombing led civilians to flee the cities

1945