.:Welcome to my WWII website!

-History of the war
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-Sides
-Timeline

-Weapons/equipment
-Troopers

-Final solution

-Statistics
-Nuremberg Trial
-Conclusion

One of the most climatic battles of World War II, the Battle of Britain was a major victory for the Allied cause. Before the great battle, the Germans had seemed un- stoppable; their catastrophic setback in the skies over England proved this theory wrong.

By June of 1940, the Germany Army had swept through much of Western Europe, including France and the low countries. Hitler decided it was time to invade his English enemies. Named Operation Sea Lion, the cross channel invasion was to follow massive air raids by the Luftwaffe in order to take out the RAF and hurt the English navy, while destroying British morale. The British had only one strong ally with which to face the oncoming assault; France had fallen, and the U.S. was not yet involved in the war. They stood alone with the Canadians. Their arsenal of fighters and pilots was running low, and they faced an onslaught by the Luftwaffe, an air force many times the size of England's at the time. The RAF was now faced with the immense job of almost single- handedly defending their homeland against the oncoming Germans. The first raids occured in July 1941, when the Germans began taking out British defenses along the coast. The raids heightened in August when the Luftwaffe began bombing English ports, airfields, and military production centers in order to destory their war effort. On the 24th of August, the German air raids moved farther inland and began to severly hurt the British. By September 5 England was verging on a major defeat; they had already lost 450 fighters. However, in response to a British raid on Germany, Hitler suddenly decided to turn his attention to London with the intent of leveling the great city out of revenge. Daily raids began on the capitol in order to severly crush citizen morale. His plan backfired; now the RAF had a smaller area to defend and could deploy larger groups of planes at German bomber formations. Also, the British had just developed RADAR, allowing them to track German planes in the skies, which gave them an upper hand. German losses suddenly multiplied as they were continually attacked by the British Spitfires and Hurricanes, who fiercely held on to their capitol. In October, after fifty- seven nights of bombing, the Germans postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. They had lost 1,733 aircraft while the British lost only 915, and the Luftwaffe had for the first time truly tasted defeat. The victory was outstanding for the Brits, and is considered one of the great turning points in the European war. Had Operation Sea Lion been a success, the Germans would have held the British Isles and been able to transfer thousands of troops to the Eastern front. The war could have been lost for all democracies in the world, but thanks to the valiant pilots of the RAF, Britain was able to survive its "darkest hour" and live to fight Hitler another day.

Two weeks before the start of the Second World War, Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi- Soviet Pact on August 23, 1939. The shocking agreement forged an alliance between two political systems, one Communist and one Fascist, that were polar opposites of each other. The German Nazi Part had until this point condemned communism and the Soviet Union. However, Hitler had planned an invasion of Poland for the next month and wanted to assure the neutrality of the USSR, so the non- aggression pact was signed between the two nationswhich allowed each to invade and conquer a section of Poland. After Hitler successfully overran the low countries and France, he turned to Britain in order to end the fighting in the West and assure himself full use of his military in the East because Hitler had decided long ago that he would eventually invade the Soviet Union. However, the invasion of England failed in the fall of 1940. Hitler then turned to the planning of Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the USSR. On June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union as German troops poured across the border. Stalin, the Communist leader, was so surprised that he refused to believe it for a while. The Soviets were caught completely off guard, and the Germans were able to move at lightning speed through the country. Immediately Stalin joined forces with the British. The Germans had three main targets: Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. Within a month, the Germans were two hundred miles from Moscow, and by late September Kiev was taken. Leningrad fell at the same time. By this time the Soviets had lost over one million men as captives. However, in the South the Germans had been unable to reach Stalingrad, so Hitler turned his attention to Moscow. The German force reached the city but was turned back after an offensive by Soviet General Zhukov. In the summer of 1942, Hitler ordered an attack in the south. The Germans made quick gains and reached Stalingrad in September. The situation seemed desperate when the Germans entered the city, and the Soviet Army was commanded to hold on at all costs. Street fighting erupted from house to house, and the Soviets were near the breaking point. However, on November 19 Zhukov counterattacked and soon captured the Germans in the city. A massive air and artillery bombardment from the Soviets took place in Jaunary of 1943, and the Germans surrendered the next month. In 1943, the Soviets began to mass troops and weapons in the south. German Gen. Von Manstein was ordered to attack, starting one of the most massive tank battles of the war. After losing many planes and tanks, the Germans were finally forced to pull back. The Soviets immediately began to push north and west, retaking Orel, Kharkov, Poltovia, Smolask, and Kiev by November. In January 1944 the Soviet Army reached and liberated Leningrad, which had been under siege for 890 days by air and artillery, killing two- hundred thousand. Another five- hundred thousand died of the extreme conditions. After this the Red Army's offensive would not stop until the end of the war. They quickly pushed the Germans out of Soviet territory and claimed Crimea in May. By July 1944 they were inside Poland, forcing the Germans back toward their homeland. The Soviets would enter Berlin in April 1945 ahead of their Western Allies, ending the war with the surrender of Nazi Germany. The battles for the Soviet Union were crucial in World War II. Had the Germans won, they could have repulsed any advances by the wester Allies. The Soviets fought hard and suffered the most casualties out of all the countries involved: over twenty- million dead. The Soviets made one of the greatest sacrifices of the war, reversing the tide of war and defeating the Nazis in the end.

The term D-Day is actually used for the starting date of any military operation, but due to the magnitude of Operation Overlord, D-Day has come to signify June 6, 1944. The invasion of France on June 6, 1944, was the biggest and greatest invasion in history. It signaled the begining of the end of one of the strongest empires in history as Allied forces pushed through France, over the Rhine, and into the heartland of the Third Reich. This operation was one of the deadliest but most rewarding because it helped destroy dictatorships and allow democracy to reign throughout the world. This isthe story of that day, including the events leading up to and after June 6. After Europe went to war in 1939, Hitler overran Poland, the low countries of northwestern Europe, and France by the summer of 1940. With their escape from Dunkirk across the Channel and into England, the Allies were completely off the mainland. Under pressure from Stalin, whose armies were involved in some of the most devastating fighting of the war, and with the obvious need to retake Europe, the Allies began planning a massive invasion code name Operation Overlord. It was agreed that the invasion would occur somewhere along the coast from Norway to the Bay of Biscay, a 1,000 mile coast line. The most obvious choice was the Pas de Calais because it was the closest point from England to France. However, the Germans knew this and expected the invasion at Calais; therefore they fortified this area the most. After reviewing maps of the area and studying land features, the location selected was Normandy, France. In late December of 1943, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was chosen as the Supreme Commander of the operation. Throughout the early part of 1944, a massive buildup began across the channel from France in Great Britain. Hundreds of thousands of men were transported to bases here, training rigorously for the upcoming invasion. Troops practiced simulated landings so that they would know precisely what to do on D-Day. A huge collection of tanks, trucks, and other weaponery was stockpiled on the isle to be transported over with the invasion force. Thousands of navy ships were collected and placed in the channel to ship the men and supplies, and to lay down a huge barrage in the early hours of the beach attack. At the same time, the Allies needed to create diversions to confuse the Germans about the location of the expected invasion. Rubber and wooden tanks, which from aboved appeared as huge armies preparing for the invasion, were built and placed in specific locations where German spy planes could see them and speculate where the attack would occur. The Allies used captured German spies, whom the Germans didn't know had been caught, to send messages back to Germany to confuse them about the location. Many different places were suggested to the Third Reich, including Calais and even Norway. The validity of these double agents was confirmed by the Germans because the Allies often gave them true information to transmit, mixed together with other false statments. This intelligence operation was highly successful in creating confusion and speculation by the Germans about where the attack would take place. Finally, in the weeks before the attack, Allied planes bombed key bridges and railroads in order to stop any German attempts to reinforce the beach heads. However, much of this bombing, although having done some good, was not as succesful as hoped because the Germans were often able to rebuild within days after the bombings. These bombings were possible because the Allies had control of the French airspace since the Luftwaffe had been driven into Germany to protect its cities against the daily bombing raids undertaken by Allied bombers. We crossed the English Channel to land at Omaha Beach. The ship in front of us sank, and there were no survivors. As we apporached the shore, a tank on our left rolled into deep water. It was bedlam. The noise of battle, the wounded and dying soldiers screaming for medics, and the dead lying like scattered sticks of wood. We rode the jeep into cold water as officers screamed, "Keep moving!" I remember going up that hill and never lookinb back. It was a terrible, frightening experience and our first taste of combat. The American Legion Magazine- September 1991 Allied Operations On June 3, 1944, a huge storm struck the english Channel, creating too harsh of conditions for the planned invasion of June 5. Eisenhower was forced to cancel after discussing it with his other officers. It was then brought to Eisenhower's attention that a six hour break in the storm would occur on the dawn hours of June 6, and rather than wait the two weeks until the next low tide and first sunlight coincided, he decided to start the invasion. At twelve A.M. on the morning of June 6, 24,000 paratroopers were dropped behind German lines to set up for the beach invasion. Due to heavy fog, many of the paratroopers were misdropped, sometimes up to twenty miles from their designated landing zone. Mass confusion occured, and in some aspects actually helped the Allies because the Germans thought there were more troops than there actually were. Their missions varied, but generally centered on the taking of any bridges and roads to prevent German reinforcements and tanks from attacking. Many of the missions were successful, helping the cause tremendously. In these morning hours, a huge Allied amada of 5,000 ships quietly crossed the channel. They split off at designated times, the Americans heading to Utah and Omaha beaches, and the British, Canadians, and Free French going to Sword, Juno, and Gold beaches. A huge naval bombardment struck the beaches, guided by Allied planes overhead, just before the first troops emptied out of their landing crafts and charged ashore. At 6:30 AM the first 150,000 men of the initial invasion force hit the beaches under massive German fire. On Omaha, American soldiers faced many hardships and were forced to hide behind dunes and German mines in order to avoid machine gun fire. Eventually they were able to group and move off the beaches, securing in land areas. On the other beaches the Allies had quicker success and were just as able to move off the beaches. German Operations When German troops along the Atlantic Wall spotted the Allied ships approaching, they were extremely surprised. They were at a definite loss, for their leader, General Rommel, had recently returned to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday. When the attack was first reported to the high command in Germany, officials, unsure of the weight of the invasion, were afraid to wake Hitler or tell Rommel. And so, the morning Allied attack went virtually unknown to the biggest Nazi Army leaders. When finally told of the events, Hitler sent troop reinforcements toward the beaches, but initially withheld his Panzer tank divisions until the afternoon, when they were too late too repulse the invaders. After the invasion, Allied forces finally had their first handhold on fortress Europe. The problem that faced the leaders now was moving off the beaches and forward toward Germany, and toward the end of the Nazi regime. In the first few days after the invasion, huge numbers of Allied troops were transported over to France, along with weapons, trucks, and other supplies to begin the push forward with. Within a few weeks, Allied troops had taken Cherbourg, and by August were inside Paris. In December of 1944, the Germans made their last great attempt at preserving their empire. The enemies fought it out in the Ardennes Forest in the Battle of the Bulge, with the Allies coming out on top. Soon afterward, the Rhine River, the key to Germany, had been crossed. On May 7, 1945, the Germans committed to unconditional surrender, ending the war in Europe. The D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, was the greatest invasion in history and caused the downfall of one of the greatest regimes of all time. The landing of hundreds of thousands of troops on that strategetic location in France enabled the Allies to move with quickness and efficiency into the heartland of the Third Reich and defeat it. In reality, we have the soldiers who fought that memorable day, June 6, 1944, and made it possible to defeat the worst dictatorship in history in order for democracy to prevail throughout the world.

The Pacific theatre in World War 2 was viewed by America as the secondary goal of the war; they first planned on beating Hitler in Europe. Nevertheless, U.S. naval and Marine troops fought galantly in the Pacific against an extremely strong Japanese opponent that was willing to "fight to the last man." Through many grueling amphibious landings and battles over unheard of islands, the U.S. was able to push the Japanese back to their homeland island by island, finally bringing World War 2 to a close.

Destruction at Pearl Harbor The Pacific war began with the U.S. entry into WW2, on December 7, 1941, the "date that will live in infamy", when Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In the days before the attack, 33 Japanese ships traveled to two hundred miles outside of Hawaii, completely un-noticed. Before dawn, Japanese fighter planes were sent up and made an extremely successful bombing raid on the major American Pacific fleet. After two hours, eighteen American ships were sunk or crippled, and 300 planes were knocked out. 2,403 Americans lost their lives and 1,178 were wounded in defense of the harbor, while the Japanese lost minimul men and weapons. On the 8th of December, Congress declared war on Japan. In the days after the attack, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines, took Guam, Wake Island, and Hong Kong, all by Christmas day. The U.S in the Pacific was in a state of retreat, and Japan was winning.

1942 The first tiny American victory came on April 18, 1942, when Jimmy Doolittle lead 16 B-25 bombers in a raid on Tokyo, doing minimul damage but piercing the Japanese view of invincibility. During May, the Americans received the first major win during the Battle of the Coral Sea when one Japanese carrier, four cruisers, and two destroyers were lost. One American carrier was lost, but America finally got its first victory drive. The greatest victory came in June of 1942 near the Midway Islands. The Americans had uncovered that Japan was sending 162 ships to the island to knock out the American force there and then possible lead an invasion into Hawaii. The U.S. sent out planes and carriers to oppose the Japanese, who had no idea that the Americans had intercepted and decoded their plans. From June 3-6, the battle raged on, with airplanes having the only contact between the fleets. By the final night of the battle, Japanese defeat was obvious as they had lost four aircraft carriers, two cruisers, and three destroyers. Their defeat was catastophic; the tide of the Pacific war was turned now that the Japanese had lost most of their carrier fleet.

Marines on Guadalcanal After their huge victory at Midway, American military leaders decided that an offensive was needed to keep the war on their side. On August 7, eighty- nine ships bombed the islands of Guadalcanal just before the dawn amphibious ground troop invasion. During six months of fierce fighting, thousands of troops, ships, and planes from both sides were lost. In January the last of the Japanese were driven off the island, with losses of over 50,000, compared to U.S. Marine losses of 1,000. 1943

In June, General Douglas MacArthur lead his troops through New Guinea, Biak, and the Soloman Islands. There efforts were tough, as the Japanese launched many suicide charges. In the central Pacific, Adm. Chester Nimitz began the island hopping offensive used during the war, mounting a huge assault on Tarawa Island, where the Marines would lose 1,000 men due to the huge amounts of Japanese defenses. But of course, the Americans won