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100 Articles

The Second World War was the largest and costliest war in human history. Its scale was genuinely global, leaving almost no part of the world unaffected. At its end the political geography of the world was transformed and the stage set for the emergence of the modern states’ system. It is possible to exaggerate the break represented by victory in 1945, but the change between the pre-war world of economic crisis, European imperialism and militant nationalism and the post-war world of economic boom, decolonisation and the ideological confrontation of the Cold War was a fundamental one. It is worth remembering that no-one at the start could be certain what direction the war might take or could anticipate the degree of destruction and violence that it would draw in its wake.…

OPERATIONS 1931–1941

Between September 1939 and May 1941 the Axis powers in Europe, Germany and Italy, came to dominate most of the European continent from Norway in the north to Crete in the south. The Allies had more success in the naval war and in sub-Saharan Africa, but by mid-1941 the British Empire, fighting alone, was under growing threat in North Africa and the Middle East and, in eastern Asia, from the expanding Japanese Empire, which by mid-1941 reached down deep into Chinese territory and was poised to threaten the eastern European imperial possessions from India to the Dutch East Indies.…

OPERATIONS 1931–1941

OPERATIONS 1941–1942

From May 1941 to summer of the following year, the Axis powers ruled almost unchallenged over Western Europe. This permitted Hitler to launch an unprovoked invasion of the Soviet Union in autumn 1941, which after initial rapid advances stalled outside Moscow in the winter snow, and, despite reaching into the Caucasus the next spring, never quite succeeded in defeating the Soviets. In eastern Asia, the Japanese joined the conflict, launching a series of lightning assaults, pushing the paralysed British forces out of the Malay peninsula and capturing the vital strategic position of Singapore. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, however, brought the United States into the War, and, though Japan’s forces pushed the Americans out of the Philippines and a series of other island positions in the…

OPERATIONS 1941–1942

OPERATIONS 1942–1944

The years 1942–1944 were the turning point of the war. In 1942 Japanese advances into south-east Asia, Burma and the Pacific islands created a large new area of Japanese imperial rule. In Germany, following a slowdown of the German attack in the winter of 1941–2, a renewed campaign in southern Russia brought German forces to the Volga and the Caucasus mountains. In North Africa by mid-1942 Axis forces were deep in Egyptian territory. From this point on the Allies began to organise an effective defence and then begin a slow programme of offensives in the Pacific islands, in the North African desert and deep inside Soviet territory which pushed the Axis forces back. Italy was invaded in 1943 and surrendered in September of that year, and the Red Army reached…

OPERATIONS 1942–1944

OPERATIONS 1944–1945

The last eighteen months of war saw the German and Japanese empires forced back on all fronts. The invasion of northern France in June 1944 opened up the path to the heart of German resistance. In Italy progress was slow up the narrow, mountainous peninsula. In the east, Soviet armies pushed into Poland by August 1944, and into Germany itself by the start of 1945. Berlin was captured in May. In the Pacific, Japanese resistance had to be worn down slowly, island by island. The army attacked through the Philippines, the US Navy through the islands of the central Pacific, finally seizing Okinawa by June 1945 and paving the way for possible invasion. Atomic bombs ended the war in the Pacific in August 1945.…

OPERATIONS 1944–1945

FORGING THE PEACE

1919 – 1929 28 JUNE 1919 Treaty of Versailles signed by German delegation in Paris. 10 JANUARY 1920 League of Nations opening session. 1 DECEMBER 1925 Locarno Treaty signed con. rming the post-war settlement in Western Europe. 10 SEPTEMBER 1926 Germany is admitted to the League of Nations. 29 OCTOBER 1929 Wall Street Crash triggers worldwide economic slump. 9 JULY 1932 Lausanne conference suspends German reparation payments. The formal end of hostilities in the First World War on 11 November 1918 left Europe shattered by four years of the bloodiest conflict in history: more than 8,000,000 had been killed; twice as many maimed; millions more the victims of starvation or disease brought on by wartime conditions. There existed at its conclusion a widespread popular desire that this really would be…

FORGING THE PEACE

JAPAN’S WAR IN CHINA

30 NOVEMBER 1939 12 MARCH 1940 FEBRUARY 1933 The League of Nations censures Japan for occupation of Manchuria following a League mission under Lord Lytton. FEBRUARY 1936 “The February Incident” – Young army officers murder opponents of militaristic nationalism in Tokyo. 25 NOVEMBER 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact signed between Germany and Japan to unite in combatting the Moscow-based Communist International. 29 JULY 1937 Japan occupies Beijing and begins an eight year war with China. 13 DECEMBER 1937 Japan attacks the US gunboat Panay on the Yangtse River creating a temporary crisis in US.Japanese relations. 20 AUGUST 1939 Soviet forces attack Japanese in Mongolian-Manchurian border incident at Nomanhan. 12 OCTOBER 1940 The Imperial Rule Assistance Association is founded to force political parties into a single nationalist bloc. Between 1931 and the end…

JAPAN’S WAR IN CHINA

1935–1939 15 JULY 1933 Four-Power Pact signed in Rome between Italy, Britain, France and Germany fails to operate as a means of ending European tension. 14–15 JUNE 1934 Hitler and Mussolini meet for the first time in Venice. 11 APRIL 1935 Agreement to create “Stresa Front” of Italy, Britain and France to keep the peace. MARCH 1936 League agree oil sanctions against Italy, provoking widespread protest in Italy. OCTOBER 1936 Rome-Berlin “Axis” established. 6 NOVEMBER 1938 Mussolini introduces anti-Semitic laws into Italy. 22 MAY 1939 Pact of Steel signed between Mussolini and Hitler pledging each to help the other if attacked by a third. Italy was the second League state in the 1930s to violate the organization’s commitment to peace and “collective security”. The Italian Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, dreamed…

GERMANY DESTROYS VERSAILLES

1933–1938 30 JANUARY 1933 Hitler appointed German Chancellor by President Hindenburg. 27 FEBRUARY 1933 A fire in the Reichstag (German Parliament) is blamed on a “Communist plot”. 24 MARCH 1933 “Enabling Bill” allows Hitler and his cabinet to rule without reference to parliament. 16 OCTOBER 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations because of failure of other powers to disarm. 18 JUNE 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement allows Germany limited naval rearmament. 2 AUGUST 1936 Hitler fuses the office of President and Chancellor and declares himself as Führer. 18 OCTOBER 1936 4 FEBRUARY 1938 Four-Year Plan launched to prepare Germany for war. Hitler assumes Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces. When Hitler was appointed German Chancellor on 30 January 1933 at the head of a Nationalist coalition government, it…

GERMANY DESTROYS VERSAILLES

ARMING FOR WAR IN THE 1930s

1930–1939 FEBRUARY 1932 Disarmament Conference convenes at Geneva but fails to reach any general agreement. 16 MARCH 1935 Hitler announces German rearmament and reintroduction of conscription. MARCH 1936 British government launches “fouryear plan” for rearmament. 1938–9 German West Wall (“Siegfried Line”) fortifications built along the German– French border. JANUARY 1939 Hitler launches “Z-Plan” for large-scale naval rearmament. If the 1920s were years of disarmament and cuts in military budgets, the 1930s saw rearmament on a scale that dwarfed the arms race before the First World War. This process took place across the developed world, and it began even before the threat from Japan, Italy and Germany became a serious one. World military spending was, by 1934, almost twice what it had been in the mid-1920s and the trade in arms…

ARMING FOR WAR IN THE 1930s

THE MUNICH CRISIS

28–30 SEPTEMBER 1938 13 MARCH 1938 Austria united with Germany in a Greater German Reich. 20–21 MAY 1938 “Weekend Crisis” sees Czech mobilization against a possible German strike. 28 MAY 1938 Hitler orders armed forces to prepare “Case Green” for invasion of Czechoslovakia. 11 JULY 1938 Japanese and Soviet forces spark frontier clash at Changkufeng, on the Manchurian border. 28 AUGUST 1938 Runciman Mission draws up plans for Sudeten autonomy. 9 NOVEMBER 1938 German pogrom against the Jews on the “Night of Broken Glass”. After Hitler had taken over his Austrian homeland in March 1938, he began to make preparations to seize Czechoslovakia on the pretence that he was helping fellow Germans oppressed by Czech rule in the Sudeten areas of northern Czechoslovakia. On 28 May, following the “Weekend Crisis”…

THE MUNICH CRISIS

THE OCCUPATION AND BREAK-UP OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

15 MARCH 1939 30 OCTOBER 1938 Poland occupies Teschen region of northern Czechoslovakia. NOVEMBER 1938 Vienna Awards grant territory in Slovakia and Ruthenia to Hungary. OCTOBER 1939 Czech university students demonstrate on the streets of Prague against German occupation. Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the Munich agreement, Hitler told his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop that he would march on Prague and smash the “Czech remnants” when the opportunity came. The Czech state was put under pressure to reach advantageous trade agreements to help German rearmament, and to concede the right to build a motorway across Czech land. In the Slovak areas, the Germans collaborated with the Slovak separatist movement, putting pressure on the Prague government to grant independence. Bit by bit, the Czech lands were…

THE OCCUPATION AND BREAK-UP OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA

THE MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT

23 AUGUST 1939 13 APRIL 1939 Britain and France give guarantees to Romania and Greece. 30 MAY 1939 German ambassador in Moscow advised to begin tentative negotiations. 2 AUGUST 1939 Ribbentrop makes direct contact with Soviet officials. 12 AUGUST 1939 Anglo–French Mission arrives in Moscow to start negotiations with Marshal Voroshilov. 28 SEPTEMBER 1939 German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship signed. In 1939 both the Western democracies and Germany began to look to the Soviet Union as a source of support in the unstable international situation, and the British and French began to explore the possibility of using the Soviet Union to pressurize Hitler into good behavior. On 17 April, the Soviet Union proposed a Triple Alliance which would guarantee the remaining states of eastern Europe and give the promise of military…

THE MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP PACT

GERMANY INVADES POLAND

1 SEPTEMBER 1939 5 JANUARY 1939 Polish state visit to Berlin, Hitler demands the return of Danzig. MARCH 1939 Polish Army draws up its plan for a Polish-German War. 22 MARCH 1939 Lithuania cedes city of Memel to Germany. 28 APRIL 1939 Hitler repudiates Anglo-German Naval Agreement. 28 APRIL 1939 German-Polish non-aggression pact of 1934 renounced by Hitler. 13 MAY 1939 Franco-Polish staff talks on military assistance begin. 25 AUGUST 1939 British–Polish treaty signed. 26 AUGUST 1939 German invasion postponed for five days. The German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 was the culmination of a plan codenamed “Case White” which had first been drawn up by the German armed forces on Hitler’s orders in April. The war against Poland was not a conflict Hitler had initially expected. After…

GERMANY INVADES POLAND

BRITAIN AND FRANCE DECLARE WAR

3 SEPTEMBER 1939 6 FEBRUARY 1939 Chamberlain pledges in House of Commons to support France militarily. 13 FEBRUARY 1939 Joint Anglo-French military staff talks begin. 14 AUGUST 1939 Franco-British delegation arrives for talks in Moscow on possible Three-Power Pact. 5 SEPTEMBER 1939 Roosevelt declares an embargo on arms sales to the fighting powers. At 11.15 on Sunday morning, 3 September 1939, the British Prime Minister announced over the radio from 10 Downing Street that Britain was once again at war with Germany. No sooner had he finished speaking than the air-raid sirens set up in the capital let out their mournful wailing noise. All over southern England people dived for bunkers, cellars or doorways. Neville Chamberlain was reluctant to leave his office but was finally persuaded to go down into…

BRITAIN AND FRANCE DECLARE WAR

THE SOVIET-FINNISH WAR

30 NOVEMBER 1939 —12 MARCH 1940 18 AUGUST 1939 Soviet negotiators offer Finland economic and military “aid”. Finns refuse. 17 SEPTEMBER 1939 Molotov assures Finns that their neutrality will be respected. 29 OCTOBER 1939 Red Army ordered to begin planning war against Finland. 13 MARCH 1940 Soviet-Finnish ceasefire comes into force. 7 MAY 1940 Voroshilov sacked as Soviet Commissar for Defence. The “Winter War” waged by the Soviet Union against neighboring Finland was the first major test for the massive Red Army since the Russian Civil War in the early 1920s. The immediate cause was the Soviet search for greater military security in the Baltic region. Under the final terms of the German– Soviet agreements of 1939, the Baltic states lay in the Soviet sphere of interest. On 28 September,…

THE SOVIET-FINNISH WAR

THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE

13 DECEMBER 1939 21 AUGUST 1939 Graf Spee and Deutschland set out into the Atlantic. 30 SEPTEMBER 1939 Graf Spee sinks its first ship. 2 DECEMBER 1939 Graf Spee sinks Doric Star, which manages to send an emergency message before sinking. On 26 September 1939, Adolf Hitler ordered two German “pocket” battleships, Deutschland and Admiral Graf Spee, to begin intercepting and destroying British merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The ships had been built in the early 1930s when Germany was still restricted to vessels of 10,000 tons. They were designed to maximize effective firepower despite the weight restriction and Graf Spee mounted six 280mm (11-inch) guns. The job of the pocket battleships was to destroy trade by what was called “merchant raiding”, not to fight the Royal Navy, and…

THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE

THE INVASION OF NORWAY

9 APRIL— 9 JUNE 1940 28 FEBRUARY 1940 British intelligence secure a German “Enigma” machine from a wrecked U-boat. 13 MARCH 1940 Treaty of Moscow ends the Soviet-Finnish War. 20 MARCH 1940 Daladier resigns as French premier, replaced by Paul Reynaud. 2 APRIL 1940 Hitler issues final order for the invasion following its planning in February. 5 APRIL 1940 Soviet security men murder Polish officers in the forest of Katyn. 9 APRIL 1940 Norwegian fascist leader Vidkun Quisling launches coup in Oslo. 18 APRIL 1940 Allies occupy the Faroe Islands. 9 JUNE 1940 Norwegian forces capitulate in Norway. During the early months of 1940, both sides eyed Scandinavia as a possible area for military action. The Allies explored the possibility of cutting Germany off from her essential supplies of high-quality…

THE INVASION OF NORWAY

CHURCHILL TAKES OVER

10 MAY 1940 3 SEPTEMBER 1939 Churchill appointed to the Admiralty. 5 OCTOBER 1939 Churchill begins a five-year confidential correspondence with US President Roosevelt. 7 APRIL 1940 Churchill gives the order to lay mines in Norwegian coastal waters. 15 MAY 1940 Churchill and the War Cabinet approve the bombing of German towns. 22 MAY 1940 Emergency Powers Act passed in Britain, giving Churchill exceptional wartime authority. 26 MAY 1940 Operation “Dynamo” launched to rescue British forces trapped at Dunkirk. 4 JUNE 1940 Churchill declares in House of Commons “We shall never surrender”. 9 NOVEMBER 1940 Neville Chamberlain dies. No figure so dominates the early history of the Second World War as Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. He came to symbolize British resistance to Hitler, and his determination to fight on, whatever…

CHURCHILL TAKES OVER

GERMANY INVADES IN THE WEST

10—27 MAY 1940 15 JANUARY 1940 Belgian government refuses permission for Allied forces to enter Belgian territory. 10 MAY 1940 Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. 10 MAY 1940 British troops occupy Iceland to prevent the Germans from using it as a base from which to attack Allied convoys. 11 MAY 1940 Luxembourg occupied by German troops. 27 MAY 1940 A German aerial attack sinks the British cruiser Curlew off the coast of Norway. On 10 May 1940 German forces launched a series of swift operations against the Dutch, Belgian and French armed forces. Hitler had wanted to invade in the West in November 1939 but bad weather prevented it. During the spring, German military planners prepared a campaign based on a…

GERMANY INVADES IN THE WEST

27 MAY— 4 JUNE 1940 20 MAY 1940 German army reaches the Channel coast of France. 26 MAY 1940 Operation “Dynamo” officially launched to evacuate British soldiers from France. 27 MAY 1940 The surrender of Calais. 3 JUNE 1940 German air force bomb Paris killing 250 people. 4 JUNE 1940 Last evacuation from Dunkirk. 19 JUNE 1940 Evacuation of French and Polish soldiers from south-western France. As German forces pressed forward into France they opened up a wide gap between the British Expeditionary Force in northern France and the bulk of the French army to the south. By the fourth week of May, German thrusts had also separated the BEF from the crumbling Belgian army, which capitulated three days later. There existed a very real danger that the entire British…

THE FALL OF FRANCE

4—17 JUNE 1940 10JUNE 1940 Italy declares war on France and Britain. 14 JUNE 1940 Paris falls to the German military. 16 JUNE 1940 Premier Paul Reynaud resigns. 19 JUNE 1940 German army reaches Atlantic coast at Brest. 20 JUNE 1940 Japan forces France to agree to Japanese naval vessels in Indo-China. 1 JULY 1940 French parliament votes Marshal Pétain special powers, bringing the Third Republic to an end. The surrender of Belgium and the British evacuation from Dunkirk left France fighting almost alone against the German advance. General Maxime Weygand, who succeeded General Gamelin on 19 May, organized an improvised defensive line along two rivers, the Somme and the Aisne, which had witnessed much of the fighting in the First World War. The German army reorganized into two major…

THE FALL OF FRANCE

GERMANY’S NEW ORDER

1940—1945 3 OCTOBER 1940 The Jews of Warsaw are forced into the ghetto which is sealed from the rest of the city. 23 OCTOBER 1940 Spanish leader Franco refuses to join the Axis after meeting Hitler. 16 JULY 1941 Hitler orders savage repression of European resistance. 3 OCTOBER 1941 Hitler declares the launch of the New Order in Berlin. 10 JUNE 1942 340 Czechs are killed in Lidice in revenge for killing of Heydrich. 11 NOVEMBER 1942 Vichy France occupied by the German army. 5 OCTOBER 1943 Germany absorbs Italian alpine territories and port of Trieste into Reich. 19 MARCH 1944 German forces occupy Hungary. The German conquest of much of Europe opened the way to the construction of what was popularly called the “New Order”. There were no clear…

GERMANY’S NEW ORDER

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

JULY— OCTOBER 1940 10 JUL 1940 German air force begins attacks on Channel convoys. 3 AUG 1940 Italian armies invade British Somaliland. 13 AUG 1940 “Eagle Day” launches the German attack of airfields. 25/26 AUG 1940 The RAF bombs Berlin. 27 AUG 1940 US Congress approves conscription by a majority of one vote. 2 SEPT 1940 “Destroyers for bases” deal signed with the US. 4 SEPT 1940 Hitler announces switch to bombing cities. 7 SEPT 1940 The German Blitz on Britain begins. 15 SEPT 1940 Major German attack on London with high civilian casualties. On 18 June 1940, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that “the Battle of France is over. I expect the battle of Britain is about to begin”. Over the following four months, the German air…

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

THE EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGNS

5 AUGUST 1940 —16 MAY 1941 13 SEPTEMBER 1940 Italian army invades Egypt with five divisions but stays close to the frontier. 28 OCTOBER 1940 Italian forces invade Greece from Albania. 3—13 FEBRUARY 1941 First battle of Keren in norther Ethiopia. 11 FEBRUARY 1941 British launch attack from Kenya into Italian East Africa. 28 MARCH 1941 Italian navy defeated at Battle of Cape Matapan. 19 MAY 1941 Italian surrender in East Africa. When Italy declared war on Britain on 10 June 1940, Mussolini hoped to be able to use the opportunity presented by Britain’s preoccupation in Europe to mop up British territory in North and East Africa and create an enlarged Italian empire. There were 326,000 Italian troops in Abyssinia in June 1940, 200,000 of them colonial troops (askari), supported…

THE EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGNS

OPERATION “SEALION”

16 JULY—19 SEPTEMBER 1940 27 JUNE 1940 German air force proposes landing in England. 16 JULY 1940 Hitler issues “Sealion” directive. 9 AUGUST 1940 British garrison pulled out of Shanghai for use on other fronts. 13 SEPTEMBER 1940 Italian army enters Egypt. 7 OCTOBER 1940 German forces occupy Romania to protect oil interests. 12 OCTOBER 1940 Hitler postpones “Sealion” indefinitely. The defeat of France and the expulsion of British forces from mainland Europe presented Hitler with a quite unexpected opportunity. German leaders assumed that Britain would see sense and find a way to end a conflict that could no longer be won. “We are very close to the end of the war,” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, told his staff on 23 June. Hitler preferred a political solution and thought…

OPERATION “SEALION”

THE GERMAN BLITZ ON BRITAIN

7 SEPTEMBER 1940—16 MAY 1941 23 AUGUST 1940 First bombs fall of central London. 28 AUGUST 1940 Liverpool suffers serious attack. 7 SEPTEMBER 1940 First major raid on London. 21 SEPTEMBER 1940 Permission given for Londoners to shelter in the Underground system. 6 FEBRUARY 1941 HItler orders attacks on ports. 20 FEBRUARY 1941 British and German forces clash for the first time in desert war. 10/11 MAY 1941 1,400 killed in final large raid on London. The heavy bombing of British cities began with an attack on London on 7 September 1940. Bombing had been conducted intermittently against ports and other military and economic installations since June. In July, 258 civilians had been killed; in August 1,075. The first attacks on the London area began on 18/19 August and on…

THE GERMAN BLITZ ON BRITAIN

THE TRIPARTITE PACT

27 SEPTEMBER 1940 23 NOVEMBER 1936 Romania signs the Tripartite Pact. 22 SEPTEMBER 1940 Japanese forces begin occupation of northern Indo-China. 25 SEPTEMBER 1940 American intelligence cracks the Japanese “Purple” diplomatic code. 25 NOVEMBER 1940 Japan and Germany sign the Anti-Comintern Pact. 7 JANUARY 1941 Japanese plan Operation “Z” for an attack on Britain and the United States. 1 MARCH 1941 Bulgaria joins the Tripartite Pact. 15 JUNE 1941 Croatia accedes to the Tripartite Pact. Before the outbreak of war in 1939, Germany, Japan and Italy were united by the Anti-Comintern Pact, signed between Japan and Germany in November 1936, and joined a year later by Italy. They shared not only common hostility to communism but also a mutual commitment to revising the existing international system in their favor. The…

THE TRIPARTITE PACT

NAVAL WAR IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

JUNE 1940— MARCH 1941 9 JULY 1940 HMS Warspite damages Italian battleship Giulio Cesare. 13 SEPTEMBER 1940 Italian forces invade Egypt. 28 OCTOBER 1940 Italian army begins invasion of Greece from Albania. 11 NOVEMBER 1940 British aircraft destroy Italian warships at Taranto. 20 NOVEMBER 1940 HItler offers Mussolini German air support in Mediterranean. 30 MARCH 1941 Cunningham’s fleet returns to Alexandria without loss after the Battle of Matapan. When the war opened in the Mediterranean in June 1940 the balance of forces between the Marina Italiana and the Royal Navy was strongly in Italy’s favour. Italy needed to be able to control the sea in order to ship supplies and military resources to its North African empire, which was to be the take-off point for an attack towards the Suez…

NAVAL WAR IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

OPERATION “COMPASS”: DEFEAT OF ITALY IN NORTH AFRICA

7 DECEMBER 1940 —9 FEBRUARY 1941 23—25 SEPTEMBER 1940 British naval forces attempt to seize Dakar. 6 JANUARY 1941 Roosevelt announces his Lend Lease plan to Congress. 19 JANUARY 1941 Hitler agrees to send military air to the Italians in Libya. 19/20 JANUARY 1941 British offensive opens in East Africa. 22 JANUARY 1941 Capture of Tobruk. 7 FEBRUARY 1941 Surrender of Benghazi. 28 MARCH 1941 Italian fleet defeated at Battle of Cape Matapan. LONG RANGE DESERT GROUP (LRDG) The Long Range Desert Group was formed in June 1940 by Captain Ralph Bagnold at the start of the North African campaign against Italy. Driving in specially converted trucks, the group penetrated behind Axis lines, provided intelligence and carried out acts of sabotage against enemy supplies and airfields. The group consisted at…

OPERATION “COMPASS”: DEFEAT OF ITALY IN NORTH AFRICA

GERMAN INVASION OF YUGOSLAVIA AND GREECE

6—27 APRIL 1941 28 OCTOBER 1940 Italy invades Greece on pretext of Greek aggression. 29 JANUARY 1941 Greek prime Minister Metaxas dies. 27 MARCH 1941 Hitler decides on invasion of Yugoslavia. 10 APRIL 1941 Rommel begins siege of Allied forces in Tobruk. 13 APRIL 1941 Soviet-Japanese Non Agression Pact signed. 18 APRIL 1941 Yugoslav surrender signed in Belgrade. 23 APRIL 1941 Greek king and government evacuate to Crete. The Balkans played very little part in the early stages of the Second World War but the growing interest of the Soviet Union in extending its influence at the expense of Romania and Bulgaria forced Hitler to increase German political authority and military presence in the region. German forces were stationed in Romania from September 1940 to safeguard German supplies of oil…

GERMAN INVASION OF YUGOSLAVIA AND GREECE

THE GERMAN CONQUEST OF CRETE

20 MAY—3 JUNE 1941 27 APRIL 1941 Athens falls to the Germans. 30 APRIL 1941 Italian forces invade British evacuate the Peloponnese. Egypt. 2 MAY 1941 Pro-Axis government in Iraq calls for military assistance. 10 MAY 1941 Rudolph Hess flies on a “peace mission” to Britain. 20 MAY 1941 German paratroopers land on Crete. 31 MAY 1941 General Student orders “exemplary terror” against partisans. 2 JUNE 1941 Hitler tells Mussolini of his plans to attack the Soviet Union. With the expulsion of British forces from mainland Greece, Hitler was anxious to complete the campaign by capturing the island of Crete which would otherwise remain a potential base for air attacks on the German flank or against oil targets in Romania. He ordered the rapid capture of Crete. Operation Mercury was…

THE GERMAN CONQUEST OF CRETE

SINKING THE BISMARCK

24—27 MAY 1941 15 APRIL 1940 British intelligence crack part of the Enigma Code. 10/11 MAY 1941 London hit by heaviest air raid of the war leaving 1,500 dead. 15 MAY 1941 US takes over Vichy French ships in American ports. 18 MAY 1941 Bismarck and Prinz Eugen sail for the Atlantic. 27 MAY 1941 Bismarck sunk by Royal Naval destroyers. VICE-ADMIRAL GÜNTHER LÜTJENS (1889–1941) After joining the Imperial German Navy in 1907, Gunther Lutjens became the young commander of torpedo boats on the Flemish coast in the First World War, raiding Allied shipping around Dunkirk. He worked for a shipping firm after the war before rejoining the slimmed-down German navy in 1921, where he again commanded torpedo boats. In 1933, he was given command of the light cruiser Karlsruhe,…

SINKING THE BISMARCK

HITLER TURNS EAST

18 DECEMBER 1940 —22 JUNE 1941 9 DECEMBER 1940 First British offensive in the Western Desert begins. 29 DECEMBER 1940 Roosevelt pledges that the US will be “the great arsenal of democracy”. 30 JANUARY 1941 Germany threatens to attack all neutral shipping supplying Britain. 27 MARCH 1941 Coup in Belgrade – Yugoslavia – renounces the Tripartite Pact. 10 MAY 1941 Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, flies to Britain to broker peace. 27 MAY 1941 Roosevelt declares unlimited national emergency. 14 JUNE 1941 German and Italian assets frozen in the US. Hitler had since the 1920s thought that a natural area for German imperial expansion lay in the agriculturally and raw-material rich territories of the western Soviet Union. This was the area designated as “living space” (Lebensraum) for the German master race.…

HITLER TURNS EAST

OPERATION “BARBAROSSA”

22 JUNE—30 SEPTEMBER 1941 27 JUNE 1941 Hungary declares war on the Soviet Union. 12 JULY 1941 Anglo-Soviet mutual aid treaty signed in Moscow. 27 JULY 1941 Japanese troops begin occupation of Indo-China. 12 AUGUST 1941 Atlantic Charter signed at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. 25 AUGUST 1941 Joint Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran. 18 OCTOBER 1941 Gerneral Tojo becomes Japanese premier. The attack by Axis armies on 22 June 1941 along the whole length of the Soviet western frontier was an overwhelming success. The Soviet plan to hold the attacker at the frontier was torn apart in hours and the Red Army was given no time to mobilize a large force to push the enemy back across the frontier, as Soviet military doctrine dictated. The Soviet forces fought with often suicidal determination…

OPERATION “BARBAROSSA”

THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD

8 SEPTEMBER 1941 —27 JANUARY 1944 30 AUGUST 1941 Last rail link to Leningrad cut by German forces. 19 SEPTEMBER 1941 Kiev captured by the Germans. 29 SEPTEMBER 1941 Hitler orders Leningrad to be razed to the ground. 19 OCTOBER 1941 State of siege declared in Moscow. 11 DECEMBER 1941 Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. 12 AUGUST 1942 Churchill meets Stalin in Moscow to discuss course of war. 6 NOVEMBER 1943 Soviet forces capture Kiev. The city of Leningrad (the old capital of Russia, now St Petersburg) was the main objective in the “Barbarossa” campaign for Field Marshal von Leeb’s Army Group North. In August 1941, German armies from the south and Finnish armies to the north began the progressive encirclement and isolation of the city.…

THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD

OPERATION “TYPHOON”

30 SEPTEMBER— 14 DECEMBER 1941 28−30 SEPTEMBER 1941 Massacre of Kiev’s Jews at Babi Yar. 3 OCTOBER 1941 Berlin – Hitler announces the defeat of the Soviet Union. 30 OCTOBER 1941 Roosevelt extends $1 billion to the Soviet Union. 31 OCTOBER 1941 Series of heavy air-strikes by German air force against Moscow. 17 NOVEMBER 1941 Japanese High Command approve plans to bomb Pearl Harbor. 27 NOVEMBER 1941 The last Itallian troops in Ethiopia surrender. 10 DECEMBER 1941 British ships Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk in South China Sea. On 6 September 1941, Hitler finally decided that Moscow had to be captured to complete the defeat of the Red Army that year. Operation “Typhoon” called for two massive armored thrusts north and south of the capital which would close in…

OPERATION “TYPHOON”

DEFEAT IN NORTH AFRICA

24 MARCH— 17 JUNE 1941 28 MARCH 1941 Battle of Cape Matapan between Italian and British navies. 30 MARCH 1941 US takes into “protective custody” Italian ships in American ports. 22 APRIL 1941 Two divisions arrive at Tripoli to support the Afrika Korps. 9/10 MAY 1941 Royal Navy recovers an “Enigma” encrypting machine from the German submarine U110. 16 MAY 1941 Main Italian force surrenders in Ethiopia at Amba Alagi. 22 JUNE 1941 Italy and Romania declare war on the USSR. On 12 February 1941, General Rommel arrived in the Libyan port of Tripoli to command a German expeditionary force, the Afrika Korps, which had been sent by Hitler to shore up the collapsing Italian position in North Africa. Although ordered to behave cautiously, he immediately took advantage of the…

DEFEAT IN NORTH AFRICA

THE ALLIED INVASION OF IRAQ & SYRIA

8 JUNE—14 JULY 1941 2 MAY 1941 British troops occupy Basra and the oilfields of southern Iraq. 10 MAY 1941 London experiences the heaviest air raid of the Blitz. 20 MAY 1941 German paratroops begin the invasion of the island of Crete. 3 JUNE 1941 Anti-Jewish rioters in Baghdad murder Jews and destroy Jewish shops. 11 JUNE 1941 Roosevelt agrees to station US troops in Iceland to replace a British garrison. 12 JULY 1941 Britain and the Soviet Union sign a mutual aid treaty in Moscow. With German forces in the Balkans and pressing forward in the Western Desert, British leaders became anxious that the position of British interests in the Middle East, particularly oil, which was vital for the whole war eff ort in the Mediterranean, might be threatened…

THE ALLIED INVASION OF IRAQ & SYRIA

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

9—12 AUGUST 1941 2 AUGUST 1941 British troops occupy Basra and the oilfields of southern Iraq. 10 AUGUST 1941 Plots to stage pro-German coups are uncovered in Argentina, Cuba and Chile. 10 AUGUST 1941 Britain and the USSR pledge their support to Turkey in the event of an attack by an Axis power. 12 AUGUST 1941 Hitler issues orders to halt the move on Moscow in order to capture Leningrad in the north and the Ukraine in the south. 12 AUGUST 1941 Pétain suspends independent political activity and bans all political meetings creating a quasifascist authoritarian state in Vichy France. 13 AUGUST 1941 Japanese bombers destroy much of Chungking, the Chinese wartime capital. From 9 to 12 August 1941 the first major summit meeting of the war took place between…

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

OPERATION “CRUSADER”

18 NOVEMBER 1941 —21 JANUARY1942 20 NOVEMBER 1941 Japan delivers a warning to the USA demanding non-interference in China. 1 DECEMBER 1941 Japanese leaders endorse decision to start war against the USA. 5 DECEMBER 1941 Soviet forces under General Zhukov launch counter-offensive at Moscow. 22 DECEMBER 1941 “Arcadia” Conference begins in Washington where US and Britain agree that defeat of Germany in the priority. The failure to dislodge Rommel’s Afrika Korps from the Egyptian frontier in the summer of 1941 led to one of the few periods of static warfare in the Desert War. Rommel and his Italian allies created a defensive line around the towns of Sollum and Bardia, while the newly-appointed General Auchinleck refused to bend to pressure to attack the Axis until he could be certain of…

OPERATION “CRUSADER”

7 DECEMBER 1941 10 NOVEMBER 1941 Churchill promises Roosevelt to declare war “within the hour” should Japan attack the United States. 13 NOVEMBER 1941 US Congress repeals parts of the 1939 Neutrality Act to allow the arming of merchant ships. 26 NOVEMBER 1941 Cordell Hull demands the Japanese withdrawal of troops from China. 5 DECEMBER 1941 Hitler halts the German offensive in front of Moscow. 11 DECEMBER 1941 Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. 19 JANUARY 1942 Roosevelt approves funding to develop an atomic bomb. In the early morning of 7 December – 8 December in Japan – waves of Japanese naval aircraft with bombs and torpedoes attacked the major United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. They attacked without warning…

BLITZKRIEG IN ASIA

8 DECEMBER 1941 —11 MAY 1942 12 DECEMBER 19412 Romania declares war on the United States, followed by Bulgaria the next day. 1 JANUARY 1942 United Nations Declaration signed by Britain, United States, China and the Soviet Union and 22 other states. 13 JANUARY 1942 German submarines begin anti-US Atlantic coastline shipping Operation “Drumbeat”. 14 FEBRUARY 1942 Directive to RAF Bomber Command allows onset of area bombing of cities. 4 APRIL 1942 Hitler orders retaliatory air raids on British cities. 5 MAY 1942 Allied forces land in northern Madagascar to prevent Japanese occupation. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was planned to coincide with a number of complex and daring combined operations to seize Southeast Asia, the East Indies and a string of small islands in the western Pacific to…

BLITZKRIEG IN ASIA

1940—1945 2 MAY 1942 Lend-Lease aid to Iraq and Iran authorised. 11 JUNE 1942 New Lend-Lease agreement signed with the Soviet Union. 5 JULY 1942 British aid on the perilous Arctic Convoy route suspended following heavy losses. 12 AUGUST 1942 Churchill visits Stalin in Moscow and promises more aid. 1 MARCH 1943 Convoy conference in Washington to co-ordinate the eff ort to keep the sea lanes open in the Atlantic. On 29 December 1940, President Roosevelt announced in a national radio broadcast his determination that the United States should become “the great arsenal of democracy”. Three weeks before, Winston Churchill had sent him an urgent appeal for economic and financial aid to fight the war in 1941. Roosevelt knew that there were powerful voices in the United States hostile to…

THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

20 JANUARY 1942 3 OCTOBER 1940 Jews in Nazi-occupied Warsaw are ordered into the ghetto. 19 MAY 1941 Hitler issues guidelines for troops in Russia giving permission to murder Communist Jews. 31 JULY 1941 Hermann Göring authorizes Reinhard Heydrich to find a “final solution” to the Jewish question. 18 AUGUST 1941 Hitler orders Berlin’s remaining Jews to be deported eastwards. 13 MARCH 1942 The Belzec death camp is opened for the mass murder of Jews. On 20 January 1942, 14 German officials and police leaders met with Reinhard Heydrich in a large villa on the shores of Lake Wannsee in a respectable suburb of Berlin. Heydrich was chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) responsible for most issues of security and surveillance in the Third Reich and in this…

THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

THE FALL OF SINGAPORE

7—15 FEBRUARY 1942 25 JANUARY 1942 Thailand declares war on Britain and the United States. 10 FEBRUARY 1942 Pacific War Council meets in London to discuss Allied strategy. 11 FEBRUARY 1942 Operation “Cerberus” – the Channel Dash – battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen escape from Brest back to Germany. 13 FEBRUARY 1942 Roosevelt signs order to compel the deportation of 110,000 Japanese from US West Coast. 19 FEBRUARY 1942 Canada introduces military draft legislation. The loss of Singapore was the largest and most humiliating defeat suffered by British Empire forces throughout the Second World War. The island of Singapore was the major British naval base in the Far East and the hub of the defence of British possessions in the Pacific. It had been reinforced…

THE FALL OF SINGAPORE

COMMANDO RAIDS: NORWAY TO ST NAZAIRE

3 MARCH 1941− 27 MARCH 1942 17 NOVEMBER 1941 Abortive Commando raid on Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa. 1 FEBRUARY 1942 Vidkun Quisling appointed Minister President in Norway. 14 APRIL 1942 Pierre Laval becomes premier in Vichy France. 18 APRIL 1942 Doolittle air raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. 4 OCTOBER 1942 Commandos raid the Channel Island of Sark. 11−12 DECEMBER 1942 Commando raid against Axis shipping in the Gironde river in western France. In the summer of 1940, Churchill ordered the creation of a number of small units for raiding the enemy coast in Europe. The initial 11 battalion-size groups were known as Commandos; each comprised 500 men who were highly trained for the dangerous task of breaching the German-held coastline and inflicting local damage or securing vital…

COMMANDO RAIDS: NORWAY TO ST NAZAIRE

THE SIEGE OF MALTA

APRIL− AUGUST 1942 11 DECEMBER 1941 Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. 20 APRIL 1942 The German air force destroys 20 spitfires on Malta. 5 MAY 1942 Allied forces begin invasion of the island of Madagascar. 21 JUNE 1942 Axis forces capture the port of Tobruk after a brief siege. 23 OCTOBER 1942 Second battle of El Alamein starts in Egypt. 8 NOVEMBER 1942 Alllied forces invade Morocco and Algeria in Operation “Torch”. The island of Malta, some 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the coast of Sicily, was home to a medium-size British naval base midway between Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. The island had a small but vociferous Italian community which had campaigned during the 1930s for the island to become part of the new Italian…

THE SIEGE OF MALTA

CORREGIDOR: FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES

7−8 MAY 1942 5—7 MAY 1942 Battle of Coral Sea prevents Japanese conquest of southern New Guinea. 5 MAY 1942 Chinese mount attacks on Japaneseoccupied cities. 5 MAY 1942 British Empire forces land on Madagascar. 15 MAY 1942 Japanese drive British Empire and Chinese troops out of Burma. 22 MAY 1942 Mexico declares war on the Axis Powers. LIEUTENANT GENERAL MASAHARU HOMMA (1888–1946) A successful career officer, Lieutenant General Homma had more understanding of the West than most Japanese commanders. He was a military attache in London for a total of eight years and was briefly attached to British forces on the Western Front in 1918. He participated in the Japanese-Chinese war as a major general, and, despite his outspoken fears of the risks run by Japan, was chosen to…

CORREGIDOR: FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES

JAPAN CONQUERS BURMA

20 JANUARY−16 JUNE 1942 5 FEBRUARY 1942 Britain declares war on Thailand following invasion of Burma from Thai territories. 10 MAY 1942 Roosevelt announces dispatch of US troops to Greenland. 26 MAY 1942 Axis forces begin attack on Gazala line to force Allies back into Egypt. 29 MAY 1942 Himmler’s number two, Reinhard Heydrich, mortally wounded by Czech agents. Men of Lidice village murdered in retaliation on 10 June 1942. 28 JUNE 1942 Axis armies begin Operation “Blue” towards the Don steppe and the Caucasus. 2 JULY 1942 Churchill faces a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons but wins it by 476 votes to 25. The conquest of most of Burma by Lieutenant General Shojiro Iida’s Japanese 15th Army in the first five months of 1942 represented…

JAPAN CONQUERS BURMA

THE BATTLE OF CORAL SEA

5−7 MAY 1942 28 APRIL 1942 Nimitz has intelligence that Japan will strike south towards Port Moresby. 1 MAY 1942 Japanese capture Mandalay in Burma. 4 MAY 1942 Fletcher attacks Japanese naval forces at Tulagi in the southern Solomons. 8 MAY 1942 Von Manstein launches attack on the Crimean Kerch Peninsula. 13 MAY 1942 Opening of the Battle of Kharkov which results in Soviet defeat by 29 May and loss of c.200,000 men. By early May 1942, Japan had almost accomplished the seizure of the southern region which had been planned for in 1941. The outer perimeter of the new imperial area was to be completed by the capture of the remaining southern part of the island of New Guinea, the islands of Malaita and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomons,…

THE BATTLE OF CORAL SEA

OPERATION “IRONCLAD”

5 MAY−5 NOVEMBER 1942 29 MAY 1942 All Jews in the German-occupied zone of France ordered to wear the yellow Star of David. 4 JUNE 1942 Battle of Midway halts Japanese plans to dominate the Pacific. 22 JUNE 1942 Pierre Laval reaches agreement with Germany on supply of French labor. 20 JUNE 1942 Roosevelt and Churchill agree to an invasion of French colonies in North Africa later known as Operation “Torch”. With Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia and naval forays towards India, the British and South African governments feared that Japan might move into the western Indian Ocean to occupy the Vichy French island of Madagascar. The natural bay at the northern tip of the island, Diégo Suarez, was large enough to hold an entire Japanese fleet. In February, Churchill…

OPERATION “IRONCLAD”

THE FIRST THOUSAND-BOMBER RAID

30 MAY 1942 8 FEBRUARY 1942 Albert Speer appointed Minister of Weapons and Munitions to rationalize the German war economy. 14 FEBRUARY 1942 Air Ministry directs RAF Bomber Command to begin programme of area bombing. 23 FEBRUARY 1942 Arthur Harris appointed to take over as Commanderin-Chief Bomber Command. 4 APRIL 1942 Hitler authorizes “Baedeker” raids on British cities in retaliation for destruction of German ports. 8 APRIL 1942 One of the heaviest RAF attacks of the war so far, against Hamburg. 2--3 JUNE 1942 Heavy German “Baedeker” attack on the Kent cathedral city of Canterbury. The bombing of German cities began in May 1940 and continued, when weather permitted and the forces were available, through to almost the last days of the war. The early attacks were made with low…

THE FIRST THOUSAND-BOMBER RAID

OIL: THE VITAL RESOURCE

1939−1945 4 DECEMBER 1940 German-Romanian credit agreement gives Germany increased access to oil. 23 JUNE 1941 Soviet bombers attack the Romanian Ploesti oilfields. 26 JULY 1941 Roosevelt embargoes supplies for Japan, including oil products. 9 MARCH 1942 Dutch East Indies surrendered to Japan. AUGUST 1944 Undersea pipelines laid across the English Channel in Operation “Pluto” to supply oil to Allied forces in France. By VE Day the pipelines had pumped 781 million litres of fuel. LIGNITE (BROWN COAL) The soft coal lignite, also known as “brown coal”, was the core material for the German invention of “oil from coal”. Unlike the harder black coals, lignite could be transformed into a high-quality oil by the industrial “hydrogenation” process, perfected by the German chemical giant I. G. Farben in the 1930s. In…

OIL: THE VITAL RESOURCE

OPERATION “BLUE”

28 JUNE—19 AUGUST 1942 26 JUNE 1942 Marshal Vasilevsky repaces Marshal Shaposhnikov as Chief of Soviet General Staff . 4 JULY 1942 US Bombers of the 8th Air Force undertake their first operation against occupied Europe. 4 JULY 1942 Convoy PQ17 is heavily attacked en route to northern Russia. 30 JULY 1942 First Battle of El Alamein. 12 AUGUST 1942 First summit meeting between Churchill and Stalin begins in Moscow. 19 AUGUST 1942 Dieppe raid on the coast of occupied France ends in disaster for British and Canadian forces. FIELD MARSHAL ERICH VON MANSTEIN (1887–1973) Generally regarded as one of Germany’s finest operational commanders during the Second World War, Field Marshal von Manstein (left) was born Erich von Lewinski, son of a Prussian general, but was adopted by another Prussian…

OPERATION “BLUE”

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

24 MAY− 5 JUNE 1942 25 MAY 1942 Small Japanese fleet leaves Hokkaido island bound for the Aleutians off the coast of Alaska. 27 MAY 1942 USS Yorktown returns to Pearl Harbor for repairs following Coral Sea battle. 5 JUNE 1942 United States formally declares war on Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. 7 JUNE 1942 German army begins its final assault on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. 11 JUNE 1942 German submarines begin a minelaying programme in US coastal waters. 12 JUNE 1942 Anglo-Soviet agreement on creating a “Second Front” published. The Japanese failure at the Battle of the Coral Sea confirmed the navy commander-in-chief, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, in his conviction that a decisive action should be taken against the United States Pacific Fleet to prevent further American activity in the…

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY

CRISIS IN EGYPT: GAZALA AND TOBRUK

14−21 JUNE 1942 21 MAY 1942 Hitler decides to postpone invasion of Malta until the battle in Egypt is over. 30 MAY 1942 First thousandbomber raid against Cologne by RAF Bomber Command. 31 MAY 1942 Japanese attack on Sydney harbour in Australia with three midget submarines. Three merchant ships sunk, 19 sailors killed. 4—6 JUNE 1942 Battle of Midway results in first decisive victory for the Allies in 1942. 28 JUNE 1942 German summer offensive opens in the Soviet Union with drive to the Don steppe. 18 AUGUST 1942 Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery takes command of the British 8th Army in Egypt. The results of Operation “Crusader”, which had pushed Axis forces back across the Western Desert to El Agheila by December 1941, were reversed almost as soon as they…

CRISIS IN EGYPT: GAZALA AND TOBRUK

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

JANUARY 1942− MARCH 1943 12 JANUARY 1942 First ship sunk off the US East Coast by a German submarine. 5 JULY 1942 First German submarine sunk by aircraft using Leigh Light. 30 MAY 1942 Doenitz reports to Hitler that Atlantic battle is lost for the moment. On 6 March 1941, stung by the high losses of merchant ships to German submarines during the winter months, Winston Churchill announced that Britain was now fighting “the Battle of the Atlantic”. The situation for the country was critical because so much of the raw material, oil and food the British war effort relied on, as well as the American aid promised through Lend Lease, had to be shipped across the Atlantic to British ports. In 1938, Britain imported 68 million tons of supplies,…

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC

INTO THE CAUCASUS

25 JULY− 9 NOVEMBER 1942 19 AUGUST 1942 Start of “Sinyavino” offensive against German blockade of Leningrad. 10 SEPTEMBER 1942 British troops sent to India to quell political unrest. 14 SEPTEMBER 1942 US troops win the Battle of Bloody Ridge on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomons. 24 SEPTEMBER 1942 General Franz Halder, German Chief of Staff , is sacked by Hitler and replaced by General Kurt Zeitzler. 23 OCTOBER 1942 Start of the second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt which rolls back the Axis threat. 5 NOVEMBER 1942 General Eisenhower sets up headquarters for the invasion of North Africa in the British colony of Gibraltar. The extraordinary success of Operation “Blue” in the first week of July 1942 against the weaker southern Soviet front tempted Hitler to…

INTO THE CAUCASUS

BATTLE FOR THE SOLOMONS

7 AUGUST− 27 OCTOBER 1942 22 JULY 1942 Japanese land at Gona and Buna on the southern peninsula of New Guinea. 12 AUGUST 1942 Japanese army begins major operation in Shantung province of China. 22 AUGUST 1942 Brazil declares war on Italy and Germany. 31 AUGUST 1942 Start of Battle of Alam Halfa in Egypt sees Rommel try to break Allied line. 5 SEPTEMBER 1942 Australian forces compel Japanese to abandon attack on Milne Bay in southern New Guinea. 3 OCTOBER 1942 First successful test launch of the German A4 rocket. After the Battle of Midway the Japanese continued with their plan to interrupt communications between the United States and the South Pacific by taking over a string of island bases east of New Guinea. At the southern end of…

BATTLE FOR THE SOLOMONS

THE DIEPPE RAID

19 AUGUST 1942 11 AUGUST 1942 The siege of Malta is relieved by the arrival of the convoy “Pedestal” in Valetta harbour. 12 AUGUST 1942 Churchill arrives in Moscow for a conference with Stalin. 16 AUGUST 1942 German army captures oil town of Maikop in the Caucasus region. 17 AUGUST 1942 US Marines known as “Carlson’s Raiders” successfully attack Makin Island, killing all Japanese forces there. 23 AUGUST 1942 Paulus’s 6th Army reaches the Volga river to the north of Stalingrad. When Lord Louis Mountbatten became Chief of Combined Operations in March 1942, he inherited plans for small-scale raids on German-held coastlines to test their defences and secure intelligence. Working together with the headquarters of the Home Army, Mountbatten and the Commanding Officer, South Eastern Command, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery,…

THE DIEPPE RAID

THE TIDE TURNS IN NORTH AFRICA

30 AUGUST— 7 SEPTEMBER 1942 12 AUGUST 1942 Churchill arrives in Moscow for summit meeting with Stalin to announce that there will be no second front in 1942. 17 AUGUST 1942 US Air Force’s 8th Air Force conducts its first bombing raid in Europe against the French town of Rouen. 19 AUGUST 1942 Dieppe Raid against the German-held French coast proves a disaster with high losses. 21 AUGUST 1942 German forces reach the summit of Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains. 22 AUGUST 1942 Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy. 5 SEPTEMBER 1942 The Western Allies confirm plans for Operation “Torch”, the invasion of northwest Africa. When Rommel’s successful Axis offensive reached into Egypt to the Alamein Line in June 1942, he was determined to push on to capture…

THE TIDE TURNS IN NORTH AFRICA

THE BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD

19 AUGUST— 19 NOVEMBER 1942 26 AUGUST 1942 General Zhukov appointed deputy supreme commanderin-chief under Stalin. 12 SEPTEMBER 1942 British liner Laconia sunk in the South Atlantic with 1,500 Italian POWs on board. 3 OCTOBER 1942 German rocket scientists successfully launch the A4 missile which was to become the V2 rocket. 18 OCTOBER 1942 Hitler orders that all British commandos who fall into German hands are executed. 4 NOVEMBER 1942 Axis forces in Egypt under Rommel are forced to retreat after defeat in the Second Battle of Alamein. 8 NOVEMBER 1942 Allied forces land in northwest Africa in Operation “Torch”. 11 NOVEMBER 1942 German forces occupy Vichy France in reaction to the Allied landings in North Africa. When German and Romanian forces finally reached the outskirts of Stalingrad in mid-August…

THE BATTLE FOR STALINGRAD

23 OCTOBER— 4 NOVEMBER 1942 13 AUGUST 1942 Montgomery takes over as commander of the 8th Army. 14 OCTOBER 1942 German forces begin major assault on Stalingrad defences to drive Red Army into the Volga. 31 OCTOBER 1942 Heavy German bombing raid on the English cathedral city of Canterbury. The Second Battle of El Alamein was the first major victory of British Commonwealth forces against the German enemy and it opened the way to the destruction of Axis forces throughout North Africa. Although the battle was dwarfed by the campaigns on the Eastern Front, it was nonetheless a decisive turning point in Allied fortunes, making the Middle East secure and opening the way for a campaign to liberate the Mediterranean from the Axis. Rommel knew after the failure at Alam…

OPERATION “TORCH”

8 NOVEMBER 1942 — 14 FEBRUARY 1943 12—15 NOVEMBER 1942 Battles of Ironbottom Sound in the Solomons result in heavy losses for Japanese convoys to Guadalcanal. 27 NOVEMBER 1942 French fleet scuttled at Toulon. 1 DECEMBER 1942 United States introduces petrol rationing. 11 JANUARY 1943 The Chinese Nationalist government makes a formal alliance with Britain and the United States. 23 JANUARY 1943 British Commonwealth forces enter Tripoli. 2 FEBRUARY 1943 German forces surrender in Stalingrad at the end of Operation “Ring”. 8 FEBRUARY 1943 Japanese complete evacuation from Guadalcanal. In the summer of 1942 the British and American chiefs-of-staff discussed the possibility of opening a “second front” in France in 1942. A frontal assault was rejected as too risky with unproven American forces and shortages of shipping, and on 22…

OPERATION “TORCH”

12 NOVEMBER 1942 — 8 FEBRUARY 1943 8 NOVEMBER 1942 US and British forces land in northwest Africa at the start of Operation “Torch”. 11 NOVEMBER 1942 The Moroccan city of Casablanca surrenders to the Allies. 20 NOVEMBER 1942 The RAF launches a large-scale bombing attack against the Italian industrial city of Turin. 2 DECEMBER 1942 Scientists working on the top-secret Manhattan Project produce the first nuclear chain reaction. 18 JANUARY 1943 Blockade of Leningrad is broken when a narrow strip of land is opened towards the city, but siege continues. 8 FEBRUARY 1943 The Red Army retakes the city of Kursk, creating a large salient in the German front line in central Russia. 8 FEBRUARY 1943 British 8th Army under Montgomery enters Tunisia for the final showdown with the…

OPERATION “URANUS”

19 NOVEMBER— 24 DECEMBER 1942 12 NOVEMBER 1942 British Commonwealth forces retake Tobruk as they pursue Rommel in North Africa. 25 NOVEMBER 1942 Launch of Operation “Mars” against German Army Group Centre results in heavy Soviet losses. 30 NOVEMBER 1942 Battle of Tassafaronga when an inferior Japanese naval force inflicts heavy losses on the US Navy in the Guadalcanal campaign. 11 DECEMBER 1942 Hitler insists that the surrounded 6th Army must remain where it is in Stalingrad. The view from Moscow in the autumn of 1942, as German forces pressed into Stalingrad and across the Caucasus region, threatening to cut the Volga and seize Soviet oil, looked increasingly desperate. Stalin and many of his senior commanders still assumed that German forces were planning a third operation to take the Soviet…

OPERATION “URANUS”

DEFEAT AT STALINGRAD

19 NOVEMBER 1942 –2 FEBRUARY 1943 10 NOVEMBER 1942 Admiral Darlan agrees to a general ceasefire in North Africa following “Torch” invasion. 2 JANUARY 1943 Allied forces capture the New Guinea port of Buna. 13 JANUARY 1943 Hitler issues his so-called “Total War” decree, calling for the highest sacrifices from the German people. The success of the Soviet Operation “Uranus” sealed the fate of an estimated 200–250,000 Axis troops in the Stalingrad pocket, including the 6th Army, most of the 4th Panzer Army and some units from Germany’s Axis allies. Though there were stocks of ammunition and food in the city and three working airfields, supply to the trapped force failed to materialize on the scale promised. The airlift averaged less than 100 tons a day and the German air…

DEFEAT AT STALINGRAD

THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE

14—24 JANUARY 1943 8 JANUARY 1943 German 6th Army rejects Soviet appeal for its surrender. 13 JANUARY 1943 Red Army begins operation against Kharkov and Voronezh, capturing Voronezh 12 days later. 15 JANUARY 1943 US Army begins major offensive against the Japanese on Guadalcanal. 18 JANUARY 1943 German army reveals its new Mark VI Tiger tank in fighting in Tunisia. The Tiger could outgun most Allied tanks. 22 JANUARY 1943 Fighting ends temporarily on New Guinea with the clearing of final resistance in southern Papua. 23 JANUARY 1943 Tripoli falls to the 8th Army, completing the capture of Italian Libya. 27 JANUARY 1943 First raid by the US 8th Air Force on a German city at Wilhemshaven. Between 14 and 24 January 1943, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met…

THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE

OPERATION “LONGCLOTH”: CHINDITS IN BURMA

8 FEBRUARY— 30 APRIL 1943 8 FEBUARY 1943 US forces complete the capture of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. 19 FEBRUARY 1943 Battle of the Kasserine Pass begins in Tunisia in a German attempt to split the Allied front. 1 MARCH 1943 Atlantic Convoy Conference in Washington leads to a British, American and Canadian agreement to share responsibility for convoy protection. 2 MARCH 1943 Battle of the Bismarck Sea results in heavy losses for a Japanese convoy bound for New Guinea. 19 APRIL 1943 Start of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in which 13,000 Jews were killed and the rest shipped to the gas chambers. When combat came to an end in Burma (Myanmar) in 1942, a stalemate followed. The Japanese were too overstretched to attempt to penetrate any further, but…

OPERATION “LONGCLOTH”: CHINDITS IN BURMA

THE END OF THE AXIS IN AFRICA: TUNISIA

14 FEBRUARY –13 MAY 1943 6 MARCH 1943 Stalin is named marshal of the Soviet Union and acquires a new uniform. 13 APRIL 1943 Germans reveal the Katyn massacres of Polish officers by the Soviet security service, carried out in 1940. 18 APRIL 1943 Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese navy, is shot down and killed by US fighter aircraft on a flight over the Solomons. 23 APRIL 1943 Allies set up a planning center in London under General Morgan to prepare the invasion of Europe in 1944. After the success of the Second Battle of Alamein and the “Torch” landings in North Africa, the Allies had hoped to complete the elimination of enemy resistance within weeks. Instead Rommel successfully brought his battered Afrika Korps back to southern Tunisia…

THE END OF THE AXIS IN AFRICA: TUNISIA

THE DAMBUSTERS RAID

17 MAY 1943 11 MAY 1943 US and Canadian forces land on the Aleutian Islands to recapture Attu and Kiska from the Japanese. 11—25 MAY 1943 Allied Trident Conference to decide details of the invasion of Italy. 13 MAY 1943 Axis forces surrender in Tunisia after six-month campaign. 15 MAY 1943 French National Council of the resistance movement formed at the instigation of Jean Moulin. 19—20 MAY 1943 Heavy Allied bombing raids on Sicily and Sardinia as a prelude to invasion in July. 24 MAY 1943 Admiral Dönitz decides to withdraw U-boats from the Atlantic battle. The decision to attack the major dams in the German Ruhr valley originated with the development of a “bouncing bomb” by the British engineer Barnes Wallis, who was convinced that attacking Germany’s water supply…

THE DAMBUSTERS RAID

RATIONING: THE WAR FOR FOOD

1939—45 4 SEPTEMBER 1939 German War Economy Decree introduces comprehensive rationing scheme in Germany. 8 JANUARY 1940 Britain introduces ration books for all consumers. Bacon, butter and sugar were the first items to be rationed. 3 JULY 1954 Meat is the last foodstuff to be de-rationed in Britain. One of the chief lessons of the First World War was the need to supply the home population with adequate food supplies. The Russian war effort collapsed in revolution partly on account of widespread hunger in the towns; the German war effort was undermined by the harsh “turnip winter” in 1917–18 when the urban population experienced real deprivation. In the 1930s, when the prospect of war loomed once again, governments began to plan the effective rationing and distribution of food to make…

RATIONING: THE WAR FOR FOOD

THE BATTLE OF KURSK

5 JULY— AUGUST 1943 8 JANUARY 1943 Start of Operation “Cartwheel” designed to roll up Japanese resistance in New Guinea and the islands of the South Pacific. 5—6 JULY 1943 Battle of Kula Gulf off New Heorgia in the Solomons fails to prevent Japanese reinforcement. 10 JULY 1943 Operation “Husky”, the Anglo-American invasion of Sicily, begins. 13 JULY 1943 Hitler orders redeployment of German forces to Italy to stem the Allied advance in the Mediterranean theater. 24 JULY 1943 Start of the bombing campaign against Hamburg in Operation “Gomorrah”. 25 JULY 1943 Mussolini is overthrown as Italy’s dictator and is arrested. After the disaster at Stalingrad it was necessary for the German army in the Soviet Union to win back the initiative. Between 29 January and 23 March, a series…

THE BATTLE OF KURSK

OPERATION “HUSKY”: INVASION OF SICILY

10 JULY— 17 AUGUST 1943 12 JULY 1943 Red Army begins Operation “Kutuzov” against the German-held city of Orel following the end of “Zitadelle”. 17 JULY 1943 Following Allied deceptive measures, Hitler orders reinforcements to go to Greece to resist an expected Allied invasion of the region. 1 AUGUST 1943 Japan declares Burma to be an independent state, though under close Japanese supervision. 5 AUGUST 1943 US forces complete the capture of New Georgia in the Solomons. 12 AUGUST 1943 A force of over 600 RAF bombers attacks the major Italian industrial centre of Milan. It was agreed at the Casablanca Conference that the invasion of Sicily would follow the defeat of the Axis in North Africa. Planning began in the spring for Operation “Husky”, which was assigned to General…

OPERATION “HUSKY”: INVASION OF SICILY

THE BOMBING OF HAMBURG

24 JULY— 2 AUGUST 1943 14 FEBRUARY 1942 Churchill promises Roosevelt to declare war “within the hour” should Japan attack the Directive from British Air Ministry to begin programme of city bombing aimed at popular morale. 21 JANUARY 1943 The Casablanca Directive published creating the Bomber Offensive. 10 JUNE 1943 Operation “Pointblank” launched for the Combined Bomber Offensive giving priority to destroying the German fighter force. 14 JULY 1943 Hitler halts the German Heavy bombing of the Sicilian port of Messina. 1 AUGUST 1943 US bombers hit the Romanian oil plants at Ploesti in an attempt to destroy German oil supply. 17 AUGUST 1943 RAF Bomber Command raids the German rocket research centre at Peenemünde. In the spring of 1943, RAF Bomber Command chose Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city and a…

THE BOMBING OF HAMBURG

THE FRENCH RESISTANCE

1940—45 18 JUNE 1940 De Gaulle appeals from London to continue the fight for a free France. 24 OCTOBER 1940 Marshal Pétain meets HItler and agrees to collaborate. 22 JUNE 1942 Laval annouces partnership with Germany and begins expelling Jews from France. 18 FEBRUARY 1944 Attack by RAF Mosquito bombers on Amiens prison to free French Resistance prisoners. 1 APRIL 1944 86 civilians murdered in French village of Ascq after a railway bomb. 18 AUGUST 1944 French police go on strike in Paris precipitating a week of fighting before liberation by the Allies. After the defeat of France the reaction of the French public to occupation was divided. There was a rallying of important sections of the population to the collaborationist Vichy regime of Marshal Pétain as a way of…

THE FRENCH RESISTANCE

FROM KHARKOV TO KIEV: THE RED ARMY BREAKS THROUGH

AUGUST— DECEMBER 1943 3 SEPTEMBER 1943 Allied forces land on the mainland in southern Italy. 13 OCTOBER 1943 Italy under Marshal Badoglio declares war on Germany. 20 NOVEMBER 1943 US forces invade Betio Island on Tarawa Atoll in the South Pacific. 26—27 DECEMBER 1943 The Battle of North Cape sees the sinking of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst. Following the crushing victory at Kursk, Stalin ordered a general offensive along the whole Soviet-German front. The army groups that had liberated Orel and Belgorod pressed forward across the steppe and despite hasty eff orts to reinforce the German 2nd Corps at Kharkov, the speed of the Soviet advance created the danger of encirclement and General Raus withdrew his forces on 22 August, a day before the Red Army liberated a battered city.…

FROM KHARKOV TO KIEV: THE RED ARMY BREAKS THROUGH

ITALY: INVASION AND SURRENDER

3 SEPTEMBER — 1 OCTOBER 1943 17—24 AUGUST 1943 Allied Quadrant Conference in Quebec confirms Normandy operation and Anglo-American co-operation over atomic bomb. 7 SEPTEMBER 1943 Corsicans begin uprising against Axis occupation. 12 SEPTEMBER 1943 Mussolini is freed from prison by an SS glider unit. 19 SEPTEMBER 1943 German forces abandon the Italian island of Sardinia. 22 SEPTEMBER 1943 First bridgeheads made across the Dnepr River by the Red Army in pursuit of retreating Axis forces. 25 SEPTEMBER 1943 Smolensk recaptured by Western Army Group under General Sokolovsky. 4 OCTOBER 1943 Corsica is liberated from Axis occupation. The decision to invade Italy after the conquest of Sicily in August 1943 was accelerated by the fall of Mussolini’s regime on 25 July. The Allies hoped to be able to capitalize on…

ITALY: INVASION AND SURRENDER

OPERATION “CARTWHEEL”: WAR FOR NEW GUINEA

29 JUNE 1943— APRIL 1944 5 JULY 1943 Start of Operation “Zitadelle” for the capture of the Kursk salient. 8 SEPTEMBER 1943 Announcement of the Italian surrender prompts German occupation of most of mainland Italy. 6 NOVEMBER 1943 Ukrainian capital Kiev recaptured by the Red Army. 22 JANUARY 1944 Anglo-American force lands on the Italian coast at Anzio to speed up the Allied drive towards Rome. 20 FEBRUARY 1944 RAF Bomber Command and US 8th Air Force begin the “Big Week” attack on German aircraft production. 15 MARCH 1944 Japanese begin assault on the Indian frontier town of Imphal. 10 APRIL 1944 The Red Army captures Odessa with Malinowski’s 3rd Ukrainian Army Group. Following the defeat of the Japanese on Guadalcanal in February 1943, the Japanese naval and military leaders…

OPERATION “CARTWHEEL”: WAR FOR NEW GUINEA

ISLAND-HOPPING IN THE PACIFIC: GILBERT AND MARSHALL ISLANDS

20 NOVEMBER 1943 —23 FEBRUARY 1944 26 NOVEMBER 1943 Cairo Conference of Churchill, Roosevelt and Chiang Kaishek discusses strategy for the Far East. 28 DECEMBER 1943 Italian city of Ortona is captured after bitter fighting along the Gustav Line. 4 JANUARY 1944 Red Army crosses the pre-1939 Polish border into German-occupied Europe. 27 JANUARY 1944 The Siege of Leningrad is finally lifted after the death of an estimated one million inhabitants. 15 FEBRUARY 1944 The monastery of Monte Cassino is heavily bombed by the Allies and completely destroyed. 17 FEBRUARY 1944 Capture of “Cherkassy Pocket” by Konev’s forces leaves 19,000 Germans dead or captured. The assault on New Guinea and Rabaul in the second half of 1943 was one wing of a two-pronged campaign. A second line of attack was…

ISLAND-HOPPING IN THE PACIFIC: GILBERT AND MARSHALL ISLANDS

THE BIG THREE: THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE

20 NOVEMBER— 1 DECEMBER 1943 10 OCTOBER 1943 Foreign Ministers’ Conference at Moscow prepares ground for Teheran. 18 NOVEMBER 1943 Start of major bombing campaign by RAF Bomber Command against the German capital. 28 NOVEMBER 1943 US Forces complete the conquest of Tarawa Atoll in the South Pacific. 2 DECEMBER 1943 German air force attacks the Italian port of Bari causing a massive explosion of Allied ammunition stores. In November 1943, the three leaders of the major Allied powers met together for the first time in the Iranian capital, Teheran. The conference, codenamed “Eureka”, was called to resolve major issues of Allied strategy for the last phase of the war, but Roosevelt hoped that it might lay the foundation for a close personal relationship with Stalin as the basis for…

THE BIG THREE: THE TEHERAN CONFERENCE

1941—1945 20—21 OCTOBER 1941 Germans murder 4,000 Yugoslavs at Kragujevac and Kraljevo in retaliation for a partisan attack. 25 NOVEMBER 1942 Greek partisans destroy the Gorgopotomas viaduct, breaking the Athens–Salonika railway. 28 SEPTEMBER 1943 Italian resisters launch insurrection in Naples before Allied liberation and 663 are killed. 1—18 OCTOBER 1943 SS division murders 1,604 Italian civilians in the village of Marzabotto, including 150 children. 20 OCTOBER 1944 Yugoslav capital Belgrade recaptured by Tito’s partisan army. In some parts of Axis-occupied Europe resistance took the form of a violent armed campaign by guerrilla fighters, or partisans as they were generally styled during the war. The main areas in which they operated were in eastern and southern Europe, in Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, the Soviet Union and, in the last years of the…

BATTLE OF THE NORTH CAPE

26 DECEMBER 1943 20—29 NOVEMBER 1943 US forces occupy six atolls in the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific. 20 NOVEMBER 1943 British 8th Army begins assault across the River Sangro in southern Italy. 12 DECEMBER 1943 Field Marshal Rommel appointed to organize the Atlantic Wall defences against an expected Allied invasion of France. 24 DECEMBER 1943 Start of Soviet Ukrainian operation to clear German forces from southern and central Ukraine. 24 DECEMBER 1943 General Eisenhower is formally appointed supreme commander, Allied Expeditionary Force. The Battle of the North Cape, fought on Boxing Day (26 December) 1943, was the last engagement fought by the Royal Navy against a major battleship. The battle had its origins in the decision by the British government in November 1943 to recommence the Arctic aid…

BATTLE OF THE NORTH CAPE

THE BATTLE FOR ANZIO

22 JANUARY -25 MAY 1944 1 FEBRUARY 1944 US Forces land on Kwajalen Atoll in the Marshall Islands. 1 FEBRUARY 1944 First operation launched to seize the Monte Cassino strongpoint. 16—17 FEBRUARY 1944 Japanese fleet forced to abandon base at Truk following raid by US carrier aircraft. 2 MARCH 1944 Second Chindit operation launched in Burma behind Japanese lines. 19 MARCH 1944 German troops occupy Hungary following efforts by the Hungarian regime to make contact with the Allies. 22 APRIL 1944 US forces land at Hollandia on the coast of northern New Guinea as part of Operation “Cartwheel”. 9 MAY 1944 Soviet forces capture the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Following the landings at Salerno, the Allies decided on a second coastal landing a little south of Rome around the port…

THE BATTLE FOR ANZIO

THE BATTLE FOR MONTE CASSINO

17 JANUARY— 18 MAY 1944 11 JANUARY 1944 Former Italian Fascist foreign minister Count Ciano is shot for treason by Mussolini’s new regime in northern Italy. 14 JANUARY 1944 Allied bombers attack Bulgarian capital Sofia from Mediterranean bases. 17 FEBRUARY 1944 US marines land on Eniwetok and Engei atolls in the Marshall Islands, securing both within six days. 6 MARCH 1944 Major American bombing raid on Berlin with 700 planes from 8th Air Force, resulting in losses of 69 aircraft. 2 APRIL 1944 Soviet forces begin the invasion of Romania, Germany’s Axis ally. 17 APRIL 1944 Japanese army in China launches Operation “Ichi-Go” in Henan province, the start of seven months of fighting. The key to breaking the German grip on southcentral Italy was the heavily defended area around Cassino…

THE BATTLE FOR MONTE CASSINO

THE SECRET WAR: SPIES, CODES AND DECEPTION

1939—1945 APRIL 1942 Juan Pujol (“Garbo”) enters Britain as a spy and is turned into a double agent. AUGUST 1942 German counterintelligence breaks the Red Orchestra Communist spy ring. 19 NOVEMBER 1942 Operation “Uranus” launched against unprepared Axis forces after the Red Army’s most successful deception operation to date. 30 APRIL 1943 British leave a body on Spanish beach with fake plans for invasion of Sardinia and Greece, codenamed Operation “Mincemeat”, rather than the real target of Sicily. 6 JUNE—7 AUGUST 1944 German Supreme Command deceived by Operation “Fortitude” that a second landing would take place at Calais. The secret war of spying, deception code-making and code-breaking played an important part in the conduct of the Second World War for all the combatant powers. There were two main purposes behind…

THE SECRET WAR: SPIES, CODES AND DECEPTION

BATTLE FOR INDIA: IMPHAL AND KOHIMA

7 MARCH — 18 JULY 1944 4 JUNE 1944 US troops from Clark’s 5th Army from the Anzio beachhead enter Rome. 6 JUNE 1944 Allied forces mount largest-ever amphibious operation against Germanoccupied Normandy. 13 JUNE 1944 First German V-weapon lands on British soil. 15 JUNE 1944 US air forces begin the bombardment of the Japanese homeland. 18 JULY 1944 General Tojo is removed as Japanese prime minister. The Japanese in Burma intended to hold the country defensively to prevent the Allies opening a supply route from India to the Chinese forces fighting in southern China. But the incursion of Chindit units in spring 1943 persuaded the Japanese commanders that Burma might be made more secure by seizing a frontier zone around Imphal and Kohima in Indian Assam. Lieutenant General Renya…

BATTLE FOR INDIA: IMPHAL AND KOHIMA

JAPAN’S WAR IN CHINA: OPERATION “ICHI-GO”

APRIL— DECEMBER 1944 23 JUNE 1944 Start of the Soviet operation “Bagration” that destroys German Army Group Centre in a few weeks. 20 JULY 1944 Failed attempt by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg to assassinate HItler at his headquarters. 17 AUGUST 1944 Red Army units reach the German border in East Prussia. 25 AUGUST 1944 Paris is abandoned by the Germans after a week of fighting by the French resistance. 13 OCTOBER 1944 Red Army enters the Latvian capital RIga. 20 OCTOBER 1944 US 6th Army invades the island of Leyte in the Philippines. 11 NOVEMBER 1944 US Navy begins bombardment of Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The military situation in China in the later stages of the war was one of great confusion. The Nationalists under Chiang Kaishek could see…

JAPAN’S WAR IN CHINA: OPERATION “ICHI-GO”

6 JUNE 1944 1 JUNE 1944 French resistance alerted to D-Day and begin guerrilla operations. 4 JUNE 1944 Allied forces enter Rome. 4 JUNE 1944 Poor weather forces postponement of D-Day from 5 June. 10 JUNE 1944 Red Army begins major operation against Finnish forces. 10 JUNE 1944 Waffen-SS forces destroy French village of Oradour and murder 642 men, women and children. 15 JUNE 1944 US forces land on the island of Saipan. The invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 was the culmination of years of strategic argument and operational preparation by the two Western Allies, Britain and the United States. In 1942, the US Army chief, General Marshall, wanted commitment to a cross-Channel Operation “Roundup” in the spring of 1943 following the build-up of American forces in Britain.…

BATTLE FOR NORMANDY

7 JUNE — 25 JULY 1944 19—20 JUNE 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea results in heavy losses for the Japanese fleet and naval air power. 3 JULY 1944 Battle of Imphal on the Indian-Burmese border ends in a rout for the Japanese army. 18 JULY 1944 The Japanese prime minister, General Tojo, resigns following Japanese defeat at Saipan. 24 JULY Soviet forces liberate the German extermination camp at Majdanek in their rapid advance across Belorussia and eastern Poland. The lodgement in Normandy was secure enough by 7 June to prevent a strategic catastrophe, but the progress of the campaign over the following weeks was very much slower than the original plans for “Overlord” had envisaged. By 11 June, there were 326,000 men ashore supported by 54,000 vehicles; by the…

BATTLE FOR NORMANDY

THE V-WEAPONS CAMPAIGN

13 JUNE 1944— 29 MARCH 1945 8 MARCH 1944 First successful trial launch of the German “Wasserfall” remotecontrolled ground-to-air missile at Peenemünde. The anti-aircraft rocket failed to see service. 17 JULY 1944 US forces using Napalm for the first time in attacks on German troops in Normandy. 29 JULY 1944 The Messerschmitt 163B rocketpowered fighter sees combat for the first time. 4 AUGUST 1944 The British Gloster Meteor jet fighter reports first successful shooting-down of V-1 missiles. Under the impact of heavier Allied bombing attacks in 1942 and 1943, Adolf Hitler searched for some new weapon that could be used to attack British cities and perhaps force the Allies to end their bombing campaign. Two projects appealed particularly to Hitler as weapons of revenge (or Vergeltungswaffen): the first was a…

THE V-WEAPONS CAMPAIGN

THE MARIANAS: DEFENCE TO THE DEATH

15 JUNE— 10 AUGUST 1944 15 JUNE 1944 US B-29 bombers attack the Japanese home island of Kyushu from Chinese bases. 23 JUNE 1944 Red Army begins Operation “Bagration” against Army Group Centre in Belorussia 1 AUGUST 1944 First Soviet troops carve out a small bridgehead over the River Vistula. 4 AUGUST 1944 German armies pull back from Florence to man the Gothic Line in Italy. 15 AUGUST 1944 Allied Operation “Dragoon” mounted against occupied southern France. After the island-hopping attacks on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific, Admiral Nimitz, commander-in-chief Pacific Ocean Areas, determined to capture the Marianas, a group of islands including Saipan and Guam, which were within air radius of the Japanese home islands for attacks by the new Boeing B-29 heavy bomber. Air…

THE MARIANAS: DEFENCE TO THE DEATH

BATTLE OF THE PHILIPPINE SEA

13—21 JUNE 1944 11 JUNE 1944 Task Force 58 begins bombardment of the Marianas. 15 JUNE 1944 US marines land on Saipan. 18 JUNE 1944 US 7th Corps reach west coast of France at Barneville, cutting off the Cotentin Peninsula. 20 JUNE 1944 Vyborg recaptured by the Red Army in the campaign against Finland. 26 JUNE 1944 launch of Operation “Epsom” in Normandy in unsuccessful attempt to outflank Caen. Once it became clear that the United States was about to attack the Marianas, the Japanese navy launched Operation “A-Go”, a further attempt to bring a large part of the US Pacific Fleet to battle and at the same time prevent the fall of Saipan and Guam. Two large Japanese task forces, Vice Admiral Ozawa’s 1st Mobile Fleet and Vice Admiral…

BATTLE OF THE PHILIPPINE SEA

OPERATION “BAGRATION”

22 JUNE— 19 AUGUST 1944 15 JUNE 1944 Strategic air offensive against Japan begins with attacks from Chinese bases. 18 JUNE 1944 Japanese army captures city of Changsha in southern China. 25 JULY 1944 Operation “Cobra” launched in Normandy to break out from the bridgehead. 21 AUGUST 1944 Dumbarton Oaks meeting in the United States paves the way for the formation of United Nations organization. 25 AUGUST 1944 Romania changes sides and declares war on Germany. 30 AUGUST 1944 Red Army occupies the Romanian oilfields at Ploesti, cutting Germany off from one of its main oil supplies. On the Eastern Front the success of the operations in the Ukraine in 1943 and early 1944 had left a large German salient, held by Army Group Centre under Field Marshal Busch, around…

OPERATION “BAGRATION”

DEFEAT OF THE LUFTWAFFE

OCTOBER 1943 – JULY 1944 14 OCTOBER 1943 US Eighth Air Force attacks Schweinfurt ball-bearing factories, losing 60 out of 291 aircraft. NOVEMBER 1943 P-51 Mustang long-range fighters begin flying with Eighth Air Force bombers. 1 JANUARY 1944 US Strategic Air Forces in Europe formed under command of General Spaatz. 20 FEBRUARY 1944 Start of “Big Week” attacks on German aircraft industry. 24 MARCH 1944 Last RAF attack in the”Battle of Berlin” launched the previous November. 26 JULY 1944 First kill by a Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter At the start of the Second World War, the German air force was second in size only to the Soviet air force, and was the most advanced in terms of the quality of equipment and the training of its pilots. The air…

DEFEAT OF THE LUFTWAFFE

STALEMATE IN ITALY

5 JUNE— 31 DECEMBER 1944 31 AUGUST 1944 Romanian capital Bucharest falls to the Red Army. 31 AUGUST 1944 3/4 SEPTEMBER 1944 The Belgian cities of Antwerp and Brussels are liberated. 10 OCTOBER 1944 Latvian capital Riga is liberated by troops of the Russian 2nd Baltic Army Group. 23 OCTOBER 1944 American Marines begin the assault on the Philippine island of Leyte FIELD MARSHAL HENRY MAITLAND WILSON (1881–1964) Maitland Wilson, better known as “Jumbo” Wilson on account of his size, had a long army career spanning the Boer War to the early years of the Cold War. He joined the army in 1900 and was already a major in 1914 when war broke out. He served briefly on the northwest frontier between India and Afghanistan in the interwar years, and…

STALEMATE IN ITALY

JULY PLOT: THE COUP THAT FAILED

20 JULY 1944 8 NOVEMBER 1939 Bomb placed by Georg Elser in the Munich beer hall where the Hitler Putsch was annually commemorated explodes 13 minutes after Hitler’s unexpectedly premature departure. 13 MARCH 1943 Bomb smuggled onto Hitler’s plane by resisters in the German army fails to explode. 15 JULY 1944 Stauffenberg takes bomb into Hitler’s headquarters but has no opportunity to detonate it. 24 JULY 1944 “Heil Hitler” salute introduced into the German armed forces. 14 OCTOBER 1944 Field Marshal Rommel commits suicide after he is implicated in the July Plot. Hitler was in the unusual position among the leaders of the combatant powers during the war as the only one whose own army leaders regularly plotted to assassinate him. As early as 1938 a group of senior generals,…

JULY PLOT: THE COUP THAT FAILED

BREAKOUT: OPERATION “COBRA”

25 JULY— 25 AUGUST 1944 25 JULY 1944 Hitler publishes decree authorizing Total War Mobilization. 26 JULY 1944 Roosevelt agrees to the invasion of the Philippines at a meeting in Honolulu. 1 AUGUST 1944 The Polish Home Army begins the Warsaw uprising. 12 AUGUST 1944 An oil pipeline codenamed “PLUTO” is completed across the English Channel, speeding up oil supply for the Allies. 23 AUGUST 1944 Bulgaria announces an end to its Axis partnership and signs ceasefire with Red Army two weeks later. 9 NOVEMBER 1938 German pogrom against the Jews on the “Night of Broken Glass”. The slow progress made in the Normandy campaign in June and early July was dramatically reversed when, on 25 July 1944, the US First Army under Lieutenant General Bradley began Operation “Cobra”, designed…

BREAKOUT: OPERATION “COBRA”

THE WARSAW UPRISING

1 AUGUST— 2 OCTOBER 1944 6 AUGUST 1944 US First Army captures French city of Nantes. 9 AUGUST 1944 Japanese resistance on island of Guam finally ended. 19 AUGUST 1944 Allied armies close the neck of the Falaise pocket, trapping 50,000 German soldiers. 23 AUGUST 1944 Romania agrees to an armistice with the Soviet armies after the fall of Marshal Antonescu. 17 SEPTEMBER 1944 Allied forces begin Operation “Market Garden”. 26 SEPTEMBER 1944 British 8th Army crosses the River Rubicon in northern Italy. As the Red Army approached Poland in 1944, the Polish underground forces, first organized in 1940 as the Union for Armed Struggle, then renamed the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in 1942, planned to launch a major operation codenamed “Tempest” to disrupt German supplies and to harass retreating…

THE WARSAW UPRISING

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