World War 2 Events

We Shall Fight On The Beaches is a common title given to a speech delivered by Sir Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the British Parliament on the 4 June 1940. The speech was g...

A fresh air raid began before 4 pm. She was bombed at 15:48 by Junkers 88 aircraft from II. Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 30. Three direct hits caused the ship to list first to starboard then to...

The Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang (simplified Chinese: 枣宜会战; traditional Chinese: 棗宜會戰; pinyin: Zǎoyí Huìzhàn), also known as the Battle of Zaoyi was one of the 22 major engagements between t...

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest..." —Winston Churchill

On 20 June, the Italian campaign began and, on 21 June, troops of the Italian Royal Army crossed the French border in three places The Italians attacked in two directions. One force attem...

During this period, Hitler built up his forces on Germany's western frontier. In April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, conque...

On 25 June 1940, after the Fall of France, France and Italy signed an armistice and an Italian zone of occupation was agreed upon. The initial zone was 832 km² and contained 28,500 inhabi...

In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis, "Appeasement in Munich," about British participation in the Munich Agreement. He initially intended his thesis to be private, but his father encoura...

The Plymouth Blitz was a series of bombing raids carried out by the Nazi German Luftwaffe on the English city of Plymouth in the Second World War. The bombings launched on numerous Britis...

The Kanalkampf comprised a series of running fights over convoys in the English Channel and occasional attacks on the convoys by Stuka dive bombers. It was launched partly because Kesselr...

"Concerning preparations for an amphibious operation against England. Since Britain still shows no sign of willingness to come to an agreement in spite of her hopeless military situatio..." —Adolf Hitler

With the declaration of war and the onset of World War II, Evacuees arrived in Swindon in 1939. Troops were stationed in churches and school halls throughout town with a contingent of ...

Aufbau Ost (German: Building in the East) was the German operational code name for the mobilisation of forces prior to the commencement of Operation Barbarossa and the subsequent invasion...

Situated in the Midlands, Birmingham is an important industrial and manufacturing location and is also heavily populated, being the UK's second largest city. 2,241 people were killed, and...

The main attack upon the RAF's defences was code-named Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack"). Weather, which proved an important feature of the campaign, delayed Adlertag, ("Eagle Day") until ...

Adlertag opened with a series of attacks, led again by Epro 210, on coastal airfields used as forward landing grounds for the RAF fighters, as well as 'satellite airfields' (including Man...

18 August, which had the greatest number of casualties to both sides, has been dubbed "The Hardest Day". Following the grinding battles of 18 August, exhaustion and the weather reduced op...

The show began on August 24, 1940 when CBS News Chief Paul White and CBS European Events Director Edward R. Murrow began to arrange the show by cable and short wave conference. Murrow lin...

The city [of Portsmouth] was bombed extensively during WW2. Nazi German Luftwaffe night-time air raids began on August 24 1940 when 1,320 of high explosive bombs, 38,000 incendiary device...

Göring ordered attacks on aircraft factories on 19 August 1940; on 23 August 1940 he ordered that RAF airfields be attacked. That evening an attack was mounted on a tyre factory in Birmin...

The first intentional air raids on London were mainly aimed at the Port of London, causing severe damage. Late in the afternoon of 7 September, 364 bombers attacked, escorted by 515 fight...

The Blitz (from German, "lightning") was the sustained strategic bombing of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (collectively the United Kingdom) by Germany during the Second World War. Be...

Lossberg study is a German military plan prepared by Lieutenant Colonel Bernhard von Lossberg and developed under Alfred Jodl in OKW on September 15, 1940. Its northward direction of atta...

15 September was a day of heavy and sustained fighting. The Luftwaffe had flown over 1,000 sorties. Euphoric British pilots and anti-aircraft gunners claimed a magnificent total of 18...

On 17 September 1940, Hitler held a meeting with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Hitler became convinced that the operation was not viable. Control of...

The Japanese Invasion of French Indochina (仏印進駐 Futsu-in shinchū?), also known as the Vietnam Expedition, was an attempt by the Empire of Japan, during the Second Sino-Japanese War to blo...

The GC was instituted on 24 September 1940 by King George VI. At this time, during the height of The Blitz, there was a strong desire to reward the many acts of civilian courage. The exis...

On this day in 1940, the Axis powers are formed as Germany, Italy, and Japan become allies with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in Berlin. The Pact provided for mutual assistance shoul...

Although difficult on the civilian population, the Blitz gave the RAF a much-needed break. Air bases and factories could be repaired and plane inventory could be replaced. With its increa...

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government in occupied Poland during World War II. It was established by the German Governor...

On 28 October 1940, after Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas rejected an Italian ultimatum demanding the occupation of Greek territory, Italian forces invaded Greece. The Hellenic Army counte...

From November 1940 to February 1941, the Luftwaffe attacked industrial and port cities. Targets included Coventry, Southampton, Birmingham, Liverpool, Clydebank, Bristol, Swindon, Plymout...

The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war. It was carried out by 515 German bombers, two thirds from Luftflotte 3 and the r...

Greek reserves started reaching the front in early November, while Bulgarian inactivity allowed the Greek High Command to transfer the majority of its divisions from the Greco-Bulgarian b...

Southampton Blitz The Second World War hit Southampton particularly hard. Pockets of Georgian architecture remain, but much of the city was leveled during the Blitz of November 1940. 476 ...

The occupation of Nanning cut a Chinese line of supply along the highways from French Indo-China into Kwansi Province. The railway from Indo-China into Yunnan Province, however, lies much...

Hitler's propaganda claimed that Bristol had been completely destroyed in a night raid on November 2, 1940 in which 5,000 incendiary and 10,000 high explosive bombs were dropped on the ol...

The Central Hupei Operation was one of the engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Known as the Central Hupei O...

The Japanese North China Area Army estimated the strength of communist regulars to be about 88,000 in December 1939. Two years later, they revised the estimate to 140,000. On the eve of t...

The Sheffield Blitz is the name given to the worst nights of German Luftwaffe bombing in Sheffield, England during the Second World War. It took place over the nights of 12 December and 1...

The first major air raids began towards the end of 1940 against Liverpool and Wirral, with over 300 casualties sustained to air raids by the end of the year. 365 people were killed betwee...

The Manchester Blitz (also known as 'the Christmas Blitz') was the heavy bombing of the city of Manchester and its surrounding areas in England during the Second World War by the Nazi Ger...

These cartoons rail against isolationism, racism, and ant-Semitism with a conviction and fervor lacking in most other American editorial pages of the period. These are virtually the only...

On the evening of 2 January 1941 during World War II the cathedral was severely damaged when a landmine was dropped near it during the Cardiff Blitz, blowing the roof off the nave, south ...

The Swansea Blitz was the heavy and sustained bombing of Swansea by the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany on 19 February-21 February 1941. Swansea was selected as a legitimate target due to it...

On 13th March, 1941, 236 Luftwaffe bombers attacked targets in the Clydebank area. These included the shipyards, Dalnottar tank farm and large factories which were involved in making m...

At just after 8.30pm the alert was sounded and at 8.39 the attack started. First came a group of Heinkel III bombers flying at between 9,900 and 11,500 feet. Included in the load of bom...

The Battle of Cape Matapan (Greek: Ναυμαχία του Ταίναρου) was a World War II naval battle fought from March 27 to March 29, 1941. The cape is on the southwest coast of Greece's Peloponnes...

At the end of March 1941 the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was forced to join the Axis, which ignited a popular revolution in the country; this led to a coup d'état and a switch in foreign policy...

Like the Maginot Line on the Franco-German border, the Metaxas Line was outflanked by German forces specifically when the Germans invaded Greece in April 1941 through Yugoslavia. The Germ...