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World War II
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World War II
From top counterclockwise: Allied landing on Normandy beaches on D-Day, the 1936 Nuremberg Rally, the Nagasaki atom bomb, Red Army soldiers raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, the gate of a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz
Date: 19391945
Location: Europe, Pacific, South-East Asia, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa
Result: Allied victory
Combatants
Allies:
Poland,
British Commonwealth,
France/Free France,
Soviet Union,
United States,
China,
and others Axis Powers:
Germany,
Italy,
Japan,
and others
Casualties
Military dead:17 million
Civilian dead:33 million
Total dead:50 million Military dead:8 million
Civilian dead:4 million
Total dead:12 million
World War II, also WWII, or The Second World War, was a global military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945. It was the largest and deadliest war in history.
The war began in 1939 between Germany and the Allies. The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the British Commonwealth, France, and others. Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1940 signed a mutual defense agreement, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis Powers. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, forcing the Soviets into the Allied camp. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States bringing it too into the war on the Allied side. China, which had been at war with Japan since the mid-1930s, also joined the Allies, as eventually did most of the rest of the world.
Italy surrendered in September 1943, Germany in May 1945. The surrender of Japan marked the end of the war, on September 2, 1945.
It is possible that up to 62 million people died in the war; estimates vary greatly. About 60% of all casualties were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide, and aerial bombing. The former Soviet Union and China suffered the most casualties. Estimates place deaths in the Soviet Union at around 23 million, while China suffered about 10 million. Poland suffered the most deaths in proportion to its population of any country, losing approximately 5.6 million out of a pre-war population of 34.8 million (16%).
The war was responsible for the re-drawing of national boundaries and the creation of new nations, the end of western colonialism, and the beginning of the Cold War. [2]
After World War II, Europe was informally split into western and Soviet spheres of influence. Western Europe later aligned as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO), and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact. There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
In Asia, the United States' military occupation of Japan led to Japan's democratization. China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The former colonies of the European powers began their road to independence.
Contents [hide]
1 Causes
2 Chronology
2.1 1939: War breaks out in Europe
2.2 1940: The war spreads
2.3 1941: The war becomes global
2.3.1 European Theatre
2.3.2 Pacific Theatre
2.4 1942: Deadlock
2.4.1 European Theatre
2.4.2 Pacific Theatre
2.5 1943: The war turns
2.5.1 European Theatre
2.5.2 Pacific Theatre
2.6 1944: The beginning of the end
2.6.1 European Theatre
2.6.2 Pacific Theatre
2.7 1945: The end of the war
2.7.1 European Theatre
2.7.2 Pacific Theatre
3 Aftermath
4 Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities
5 Resistance and collaboration
6 The home fronts
7 Technologies
8 See also
9 References
10 External links
[edit]
Causes
Benito Mussolini (left) and Adolf Hitler.Main articles: Causes of World War II, Events preceding World War II in Europe, and Events preceding World War II in Asia
Commonly held general causes for WWII are the rise of Nationalism, the rise of Militarism, and the presence of unresolved territorial issues. In Germany, resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles, specifically article 231 the "Guilt Clause", the belief in the Dolchstosslegende, combined with the onset of the Great Depression fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler's militarist National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party); meanwhile the treaty's provisions were laxly enforced, due to the fear of another war. The League of Nations also failed in its mission of preventing war, for similar reasons. Closely related is the failure of the British and French policy of appeasement, which also through fear of war, gave Hitler time to re-arm.
Japan in the 1930s was ruled by a militarist clique devoted to Japan's becoming a world power. Japan invaded China to secure additional natural resources to compensate for Japan's lack of natural resources. This angered the United States, which reacted by making loans to China, giving China covert military assistance (see Flying Tigers), and instituting progressively more inclusive embargoes of raw materials against Japan. The embargo of oil and other raw materials by the U.S. would have eventually wrecked Japan's economy; Japan was faced with the choice of withdrawing from China or going to war in order to conquer the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies. It chose to go ahead with plans for the Greater East Asia War in the Pacific
[edit]
Chronology
Main articles: European Theatre of World War II, Middle East Theatre of World War II, Pacific War, Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, End of World War II in Europe, and Strategic bombing during World War II
German soldiers supposedly destroying a Polish border checkpoint. The picture was staged a few days after the outbreak of the war for use in propaganda.[edit]
1939: War breaks out in Europe
Pre-war alliances
Main articles: Kasprzycki-Gamelin Convention, Polish-British Common Defence Pact and Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
After the collapse of the Munich agreement, on May 19, 1939 Poland and France pledged to provide each other with military assistance in the event either was attacked. The British already had in March offered support to the Poles, but then on August 23 Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact included a secret protocol, dividing eastern Europe into German and Soviet areas of interest. Each country agreed to allow the other a free hand in its area of influence, to include military occupation. Hitler was now ready to go to war in order to conquer Poland. The signing of a new alliance between Britain and Poland on August 25 deterred him for only a few days.
The invasion of Poland
Polish infantry during the Polish September Campaign, September 1939.Main article: Polish September Campaign
On September 1 Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The French mobilized slowly, then mounted only a token offensive in the Saar, which they soon abandoned, while the British took no direct action in support of the Poles (see Western betrayal). Meanwhile, on September 9, the Germans reached Warsaw, having slashed through the Polish defenses.
On September 17 Soviet troops occupied the eastern part of Poland, taking control of territory that Germany had agreed was in the Soviet sphere of influence. A day later the Polish president and commander-in-chief both fled to Romania. The last Polish units surrendered on October 6. Some Polish troops evacuated to neighbouring countries. Polish forces continued to fight in exile.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period would be referred to by journalists as "the Phony War", or the "Sitzkrieg", because so little ground combat took place.
The Battle of the Atlantic
Graf Spee burning and sinking, as seen from Montevideo harbourMain article: Second Battle of the Atlantic
Meanwhile, in the North Atlantic German U-boats operated against Allied shipping. The submarines made up in skill, luck, and daring what they lacked in numbers. One U-boat sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether the U-boats sank more than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war.
In the South Atlantic, the Graf Spee raided Allied shipping, then was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate. About a year and a half later, another German raider, the German battleship Bismarck, would suffer a similar fate in the North Atlantic. Unlike the U-boat threat, which had a serious impact a bit later in the war, German surface raiders had little impact due to the fact that their numbers were so small.
[edit]
1940: The war spreads
Soviet-Finnish War
Main article: Winter War
The Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, beginning the Winter War. Finland surrendered to the Soviet Union in March 1940 and signed the Moscow Peace Treaty (1940) in which the Finns made territorial concessions. Later that year, in June the Soviet Union occupied Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and annexed Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania.
The invasion of Denmark and Norway
Main article: Norwegian Campaign
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940 in Operation Weserübung, in part to counter the threat of an impending Allied invasion of Norway. Denmark did not resist, but Norway fought back, and was joined by British, French, and Polish (exile) forces landing in support of the Norwegians at Namsos, Ċndalsnes, and Narvik. By late June the Allies were defeated, German forces were in control of most of Norway, and what remained of the Norwegian Army had surrendered.
The invasion of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands
The evolution of German plans for the invasion of France.Main article: Battle of France
On May 10, 1940 the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, ending the Phony War. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army advanced into northern Belgium, planning on fighting a mobile war in the north while maintaining a static continuous front along the Maginot Line further south. The Allied plans were immediately smashed by the most classic example in history of Blitzkrieg.
In the first phase of the invasion, Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the Wehrmacht's Panzergruppe von Kleist raced through the Ardennes, broke the French line at Sedan, then slashed across northern France to the English Channel, splitting the Allies in two. Meanwhile Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands fell quickly against the attack of German Army Group B. The BEF, encircled in the north, was evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo. German forces then continued the conquest of France with Case Red, advancing behind the Maginot Line and near the coast. France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, leading to the establishment of the Vichy France puppet government in the unoccupied part of France.
The Battle of Britain
Heinkel He III over London on 7 September 1940Main article: Battle of Britain
Following the defeat of France, Britain chose to fight on, so Germany began preparations in summer of 1940 to invade Britain (Operation Sea Lion). The first step necessary was for the Luftwaffe to secure control of the air over Britain by defeating the Royal Air Force. The war between the two air forces became known as the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe initially targeted RAF Fighter Command but thinking the results poor the Luftwaffe later turned to terror bombing London. The Germans failed to defeat the Royal Air Force, and Operation Sea Lion was postponed and eventually cancelled.
The North African Campaign
Afrika Korps tanks advance during the North African campaign.Main article: North African Campaign
The Italian declaration of war in June 1940 challenged the British supremacy of the Mediterranean, hinged on Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria. While Gibraltar was never under direct attack, Alexandria and Malta were hit repeatedly by Axis attacks; the thrusts towards the Suez Canal for the former, and the 1940/42 Blitz for the latter, which made the island of Malta the most heavily bombed place on earth.
Italian troops invaded and captured British Somaliland in August 1940. In September 1940 the North African Campaign began when Italian forces in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The aim was to make Egypt an Italian possession, especially the vital Suez Canal east of Egypt. British, Indian and Australian forces counter-attacked in Operation Compass, but this offensive stopped in 1941 when much of the Commonwealth forces were transferred to Greece to defend it from German attack. However, German forces (known later as the Afrika Korps) under General Erwin Rommel landed in Libya and renewed the assault on Egypt.
The invasion of Greece
Main article: Balkans Campaign
Italy invaded Greece on October 28, 1940 from bases in Albania. Greek forces successfully repelled the Italian attacks and launched a full-scale counter-attack deep into Albania. By mid-December the Greeks occupied one-fourth of Albania.
[edit]
1941: The war becomes global
[edit]
European Theatre
Lend-Lease
Main article: Lend-Lease
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act on March 11. This program was the first large step away from American isolationism, providing for substantial assistance to the U.K., the Soviet Union, and other countries.
Yugoslavia's government succumbed to the pressure of the Axis and signed the Tripartite Treaty on March 25. This was followed by anti-Axis demonstrations in the country and a coup which overthrew the government and replaced it with a pro-Allied one on March 27. German forces then invaded Greece and Yugoslavia on April 6. Germany reluctantly sent forces to assist Italy's forces in their attempt to capture Greece, principally to prevent a British build-up on Germany's strategic southern flank. With these new troops the Axis succeeded in driving the Greek forces back.
The invasion of the Soviet Union
German advances during Operation Barbarossa from June 1941 to December 1941.Main articles: Operation Barbarossa, Battle of Bialystok-Minsk, Operation Typhoon and Battle of Rostov
On June 22, 1941 Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in history, began. Three German army groups, an Axis force of over three million men, advanced rapidly deep into the Soviet Union, destroying almost the entire western Soviet army in huge battles of encirclement. The Soviets dismantled as much industry as possible ahead of the advancing Axis forces, moving it to the Ural mountains for reassembly. By late November the Axis had reached a line at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov, at the cost of about 23 percent casualties, but now their advance ground to a halt. The German General Staff had badly under-estimated the size of the overall Soviet army and its ability to draft new troops and were now dismayed by the presence of new forces, including fresh Siberian troops under General Zhukov, and by the onset of a particularly cold winter. German forward units had advanced within distant sight of the golden onion domes of Moscow's Saint Basil's Cathedral, across the street from the Kremlin, but then on December 5 the Soviets counter-attacked and pushed the Axis back some 100-150 miles, the first major German defeat of World War II.
Meanwhile, on June 25 the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union began with Soviet air attacks shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.
Red Army soldiers fighting during the Battle of MoscowAllied conferences
The Atlantic Charter was issued as a joint declaration by Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt, at Argentia, Newfoundland on August 14 1941.
In late December 1941 Churchill met with Roosevelt again at the Arcadia Conference. They agreed that defeating Germany had priority over defeating Japan. The Americans proposed a 1942 cross-channel invasion of France which the British strongly opposed, suggesting instead a small invasion in Norway or landings in French North Africa. The Declaration by the United Nations was issued.
The Mediterranean
German paratroopers landing on the island of Crete.Main articles: Operation Sonneblume, Siege of Tobruk, Battle of Gazala, Battle of Crete and Syria-Lebanon campaign
Rommel's forces advanced rapidly eastward, laying siege to the vital seaport of Tobruk. An Axis offensive captured the city then drove the Eighth Army back to a line at El Alamein.
On May 20, the Battle of Crete began when elite German parachute and glider-borne mountain troops launched a massive airborne invasion of the Greek island. Crete was defended by Greek and Commonwealth troops. The Germans attacked the island simultaneously on the three airfields. Their invasion on two of the airfields failed, but they successfully captured one, which allowed them to reinforce their position and capture the island in a little over one week.
In June 1941, Allied forces invaded Syria and Lebanon, capturing Damascus on June 17. Later, in August, British and Soviet troops occupied neutral Iran (see Operation Countenance) in order to secure its oil and a southern supply line to Russia.
[edit]
Pacific Theatre
Sino-Japanese war
Overview map of World War II in Asia and the Pacific: Allies green, Japanese conquests yellow.Main article: Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
A war had begun in East Asia before World War II started in Europe. On July 7, 1937, Japan, after occupying Manchuria in 1931, launched another attack against China near Beijing (see Marco Polo Bridge Incident). The Japanese made initial advances, but were stalled at Shanghai. The city eventually fell to the Japanese and in December 1937, the capital city, Nanking (now Nanjing), fell and the Chinese government moved its seat to Chongqing for the rest of the war. The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war when Nanking was occupied (see Nanking Massacre), slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month.
Japan and the United States enter the war
Pearl Harbor under attack on December 7, 1941Main article: attack on Pearl Harbor
In the summer of 1941 the United States began an oil embargo against Japan. Japan planned an attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet before consolidating oil fields in the Dutch East Indies. On December 7, a Japanese carrier fleet launched a surprise air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The raid resulted in two U.S. battleships sunk, and six damaged but later repaired and returned to service. The raid failed to find any aircraft carriers, nor damage Pearl Harbor's usefulness as a naval base. The attack strongly united public opinion in the United States against Japan. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. On the same day, China officially declared war against Japan. Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, even though it was not obliged to do so under the Tripartite Pact. Hitler hoped that Japan would support Germany by attacking the Soviet Union. Japan did not oblige and this diplomatic move by Hitler proved a catastrophic blunder, unifying the American public's support for the war.
Japanese offensive
Main articles: Battle of the Philippines (1941-42), Battle of Bataan, Battle of Singapore and Battle of the Java Sea
Japan soon invaded the Philippines and the British colonies of Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, and Burma, with the intention of seizing the oilfields of the Dutch East Indies. Despite fierce resistance by British, Canadian, and Indian forces, all these territories capitulated to the Japanese in a matter of months. The British island fortress of Singapore was captured in what Churchill considered one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time. (See Battle of Singapore).
[edit]
1942: Deadlock
[edit]
European Theatre
Western and Central Europe
Main articles: Operation Anthropoid and Operation Jubilee
In May, top Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated by Allied agents in Operation Anthropoid. Hitler ordered severe reprisals. (See Lidice).
On August 19 British and Canadian forces launched the Dieppe Raid (codenamed Operation Jubilee) on the German occupied port of Dieppe, France. The attack was a disaster but provided critical information utilized later in Operation Torch and Operation Overlord.
Operation Blue: German advances from May 7, 1942 to 18 November 1942.Soviet winter and early spring offensives
Main articles: Battle of Moscow, Toropets-Kholm Operation, Demyansk Pocket, Second Battle of Kharkov and Battles of Rzhev
In the north, Soviets launched the Toropets-Kholm Operation January 9 to February 6 1942, trapping a German force near Andreapol. The Soviets also surrounded a German garrison in the Demyansk Pocket which held out with air supply for four months (February 8 until April 21, and established themselves in front of Kholm, Velizh and Velikie Luki.
In the south, Soviet forces launched an offensive in May against the German Sixth Army, initiating a bloody 17 day battle around Kharkov which resulted in the loss of over 200,000 Red Army personnel.
Axis summer offensive
Main articles: Battle of Sevastopol, Battle of Voronezh (1942), Battle of the Caucasus
On June 28, the Axis began their summer offensive. German Army Group B was to capture the city of Stalingrad which would secure the German left while Army Group A was to capture the southern oil fields. The Battle of the Caucasus, fought in the late summer and fall of 1942, saw the Axis forces capturing the oil fields.
Stalingrad
German soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad.Main articles: Battle of Stalingrad, Operation Mars and Operation Uranus
After bitter street fighting which lasted for a couple of months, the Germans captured 90% of Stalingrad by November. The Soviets however had been building up massive forces on the flanks of Stalingrad launched Operation Uranus on November 19, with twin attacks that met at Kalach four days later trapping the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. The Germans requested permission to attempt a break-out, which was refused by Hitler, who ordered Sixth Army to remain in Stalingrad where he promised they would be supplied by air until rescued. About the same time, the Soviets launched Operation Mars in a salient near the vicinity of Moscow. Its objective was to tie down Army Group Center and to prevent it from reinforcing Army Group South at Stalingrad.
In December German relief forces got within 30 miles of the trapped Sixth Army before being turned back by the Soviets. By the end of the year, Sixth Army was in desperate condition, as the Luftwaffe was only able to supply about a sixth of the supplies needed.
Eastern North Africa
British infantry attack at the Second Battle of El Alamein.Main article: Second Battle of El Alamein
The First Battle of El Alamein took place in July 1942. Allied forces had retreated to the last defensible point before Alexandria and the Suez Canal. The Afrika Korps, however, had outrun its supplies, and the defenders stopped its thrusts. The Second Battle of El Alamein occurred between October 23 and November 3, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery in command of the Commonwealth forces, now known as the British Eighth Army. The Eighth Army took the offensive, and was ultimately triumphant. After the German defeat at El Alamein, the Axis forces made a successful strategic withdrawal to Tunisia.
Western North Africa
Main articles: Operation Torch and Tunisia Campaign
Operation Torch was launched on November 8, 1942 and aimed to gain control of Morocco and Algiers through simultaneous landings at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, followed a few days later with a landing at Bône, the gateway to Tunisia. It was hoped that the local forces of Vichy France would put up no resistance and submit to the authority of Free French General Henri Giraud. In response Hitler invaded and occupied Vichy France and Tunisia, but the German and Italian forces were caught in the pincers of a twin advance from Algeria and Libya. Rommel's victory against American forces at the Battle of Kasserine Pass could only hold off the inevitable.
[edit]
Pacific Theatre
Central and South West Pacific
American Dive bombers over the burning Japanese cruiser Mikuma during the Battle of Midway.Main articles: Battle of the Coral Sea, Battle of Midway and Battle of Guadalcanal
On February 19 1942, Roosevelt signed United States Executive Order 9066, leading to the internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans for the duration of the war.
In April, the Doolittle Raid, the first U.S. air raid on Tokyo, boosted morale in the U.S. and caused Japan to shift resources to homeland defence, but did little actual damage.
In early May, a naval invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea, was thwarted by Allied navies in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was both the first successful opposition to a Japanese attack and the first battle fought between aircraft carriers.
A month later, on June 5, American carrier-based dive-bombers sank four of Japan's best aircraft carriers in the Battle of Midway. Historians mark this battle as a turning point, the end of Japanese expansion in the Pacific. Cryptography played an important part in the battle, as the United States had broken the Japanese naval codes and knew the Japanese plan of attack.
In July an overland attack on Port Moresby was led along the rugged Kokoda Track. An outnumbered and untrained Australian battalion defeated the 5,000-strong Japanese force, the first land defeat of Japan in the war, and one of the most significant victories in Australian military history.
On August 7, United States Marines began the Battle of Guadalcanal. For the next six months, US forces fought Japanese forces for control of the island. Meanwhile, several naval encounters raged in the nearby waters, including the Battle of Savo Island, Battle of Cape Esperance, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and Battle of Tassafaronga. In late August and early September, while battle raged on Guadalcanal, an amphibious Japanese attack on the eastern tip of New Guinea was met by Australian forces in the Battle of Milne Bay.
[edit]
1943: The war turns
[edit]
European Theatre
German and Soviet spring offensives
German advances during the spring and summer of 1943.Main articles: Operation Saturn and Third Battle of Kharkov
After the surrender of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February 2, 1943, the Red Army launched eight offensives during the winter, many concentrated along the Don basin near Stalingrad, which resulted in initial gains until German forces were able to take advantage of the weakened condition of the Red Army and regain the territory it lost.
Operation Citadel
Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers and Tiger tanks of the SS Panzergrenadier Division Totenkopf during the start of Operation ZitadelleMain article: Battle of Kursk
In July, the Wehrmacht launched a much-delayed offensive against the Soviet Union at Kursk. Their intentions were known by the Soviets, and the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of the war, ended in a massive Soviet counter-offensive that threw the exhausted German forces back.
Soviet fall and winter offensives
Main articles: Fourth Battle of Kharkov and Battle of Kiev (1943)
In August Hitler agreed to a general withdrawal to the Dnieper line and as September proceeded into October, the Germans found the Dnieper line impossible to hold as the Soviet bridgeheads grew and grew, and important Dnieper towns started to fall, with Zaporozhye the first to go, followed by Dnepropetrovsk.
Early in November the Soviets broke out of their bridgeheads on either side of Kiev and recaptured the Ukrainian capital.
First Ukrainian Front attacked at Korosten on Christmas eve. The Soviet advance continued along the railway line until the 1939 Polish-Soviet border was reached.
Italy
The U.S. support ship Robert Rowan explodes after being hit by a German bomber off of Gela, Sicily on 11 July 1943Main article: Italian Campaign
The German Afrika Korps surrendered on May 13, 1943. Some 250,000 Axis soldiers were taken prisoner.
Mid-1943 brought the fifth and final German Sutjeska offensive against the Yugoslav Partisans.
On July 10, 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily in Operation Husky, capturing the island in a little over a month.
The fall of Sicily led to the collapse of Benito Mussolini's regime. On July 25 he was removed from office by the King of Italy, and arrested with the positive consent of the Great Fascist Council. A new government, led by Pietro Badoglio, took power but declared that Italy would stay in the war. Badoglio actually had begun secret peace negotiations with the Allies.
The Allies invaded mainland Italy on September 3, 1943. Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, as had been agreed in negotiations. The royal family and Badoglio government escaped to the south, leaving the Italian army without orders, while the Germans took over the fight, forcing the Allies to a complete halt in the winter of 1943-44 at the Gustav Line south of Rome.
In the north the Nazis allowed Mussolini to create a new fascist state, the Republic of Salò, named after the new capital of Salò on Lake Garda .
[edit]
Pacific Theatre
Central and South West Pacific
American LCVP landing craft circle while awaiting landing orders during the invasion of Cape Torokina, Bougainville, 1 November 1943.
Battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38) leading Colorado (BB-45), Louisville (CA-28), Portland (CA-33) and Columbia (CL-56) into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, January 1945.Main articles: Battle of Buna-Gona and Battle of Tarawa
On January 2 Buna, New Guinea was captured by the Allies. This ended the threat to Port Moresby. By January 22, 1943, the Allied forces had achieved their objective of isolating Japanese forces in eastern New Guinea and cutting off their main line of supply.
American authorities declared Guadalcanal secure on February 9. Australian and U.S. forces undertook the prolonged campaign to retake the occupied parts of the Solomon Islands, New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, experiencing some of the toughest resistance of the war. The rest of the Solomon Islands were retaken in 1943.
In November U.S. Marines won the Battle of Tarawa. This was the first heavily opposed amphibious assault in the Pacific theater. The high casualties taken by the Marines sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the large losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island.
South East Asia
Main article: Burma Campaign
The Nationalist Kuomintang Army, under Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese Army, under Mao Zedong, both opposed the Japanese occupation of China but never truly allied against the Japanese. Conflict between Nationalist and Communist forces emerged long before the war; it continued after and, to an extent, even during the war, though more implicitly. The Japanese and its auxiliary Indian National Army had captured most of Burma, severing the Burma Road by which the Western Allies had been supplying the Chinese Nationalists. This forced the Allies to create a large sustained airlift, known as "flying the Hump". U.S.-led and trained Chinese divisions, a British division and a few thousand U.S. ground troops cleared the Japanese forces from northern Burma so that the Ledo Road could be built to replace the Burma Road.
[edit]
1944: The beginning of the end
[edit]
European Theatre
Soviet winter and spring offensives
Soviet advances from August 1943 to December 1944.Main articles: Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket, Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket, Battle of Narva - Battle for the Narva Bridgehead (1944), Battle of the Crimea (1944) and Battle of Târgul Frumos
In the north, a Soviet offensive in January 1944 had relieved the siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south.
In the south, in March, two Soviet fronts encircled Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube's First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment.
In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front engaged German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South which had been left behind after the German retreat from the Ukraine. The battle was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea lead to over 250,000 German and Romanian casualties.
During April 1944, a series of attacks by the Red Army near the city of Iaşi, Romania was aiming at capturing the strategically important sector. The German-Romanian forces successfully defended the sector throughout the month of April. The attack aiming at Târgul Frumos was the final attempt by the Red Army to achieve its goal of having a spring-board into Romania for a summer offensive.
With Soviet forces approaching, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20 as Hitler thought that the Hungarian leader, Admiral Miklós Horthy, might no longer be a reliable ally.
Finland sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but the terms offered were unacceptable. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that after three months would force Finland to accept an armistice.
Soviet summer offensive
Main article: Operation Bagration
Soviet AA Gunners during the Battle of Budapest
One of the Armia Krajowa soldiers defending a barricade during the Warsaw Uprising.Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks, was launched on June 22 and was aimed to clear German troops from Belarus. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 casualties for the German forces, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
Soviet fall and winter offensives
Main articles: Lvov-Sandomierz Operation, Battle of Narva - Battle of the Tannenbergstellung (1944), Battle of Romania (1944), Battle of Debrecen, Battle of the Baltic (1944) and Battle of Budapest
After the destruction of Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the South in mid July 1944 and in a months time cleared the Ukraine of German presence.
The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the battle was complete victory for the Red Army, and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp.
In October 1944 General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico's 6th Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. This was to be the last German victory in the Eastern front.
The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army Group Centre and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia.
From 29 December 1944 to 13 February 1945, Soviet forces laid siege to Budapest which was defended by German Waffen-SS and Hungarian forces. It was one of the bloodiest sieges of the war.
Warsaw Uprising
Main article: Warsaw Uprising
The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1 they rose in revolt as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets however stopped outside the city and gave the Poles no assistance, as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.
American troops disembark in the surf at Omaha Beach on D-Day, 6 June 1944.Allied invasion of Western Europe
Main articles: Battle of Normandy and Operation Dragoon
[3]On "D-Day" (June 6, 1944) the western Allies invaded German-held Normandy. German resistance was stubborn and during the first month, the Allies measured progress in hundreds of yards and bloody rifle fights in the Bocage. An Allied breakout was effected at St.-Lô, and German forces were almost completely destroyed in the Falaise pocket while counter-attacking. Allied forces stationed in Italy invaded the French Riviera on August 15 and linked up with forces from Normandy. The clandestine French Resistance in Paris rose against the Germans on August 19, and a French division under General Jacques Leclerc, pressing forward from Normandy, received the surrender of the German forces there and liberated the city on August 25.
Operation Market Garden
Four British paratroopers moving through a shell-damaged house in Oosterbeek during Operation Market Garden.Main article: Operation Market Garden
Allied paratroopers attempted a fast advance into the Netherlands with Operation Market Garden in September but were repulsed. Logistical problems were starting to plague the Allies' advance west as the supply lines still ran back to the beaches of Normandy. A decisive victory by the Canadian First Army in the Battle of the Scheldt secured the entrance to the port of Antwerp, freeing it to receive supplies by late November 1944.
German winter offensive
American soldiers taking up defensive positions in the Ardennes during the Battle of the BulgeMain article: Battle of the Bulge
In December 1944, the German Army made its last major offensive in the West, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler sought to drive a wedge between the western Allies, causing them to agree to a favourable armistice, after which Germany could concentrate all her efforts on the Eastern front and have a chance to defeat the Soviets. The mission was doomed to failure, since the Allies had no intention of granting an armistice under any conditions. At first, the Germans scored successes against the unprepared Allied forces. Poor weather during the initial days of the offensive favoured the Germans because it grounded Allied aircraft. However, with clearing skies allowing Allied air supremacy to resume, the German failure to capture Bastogne, and the arrival of the United States Third Army, the Germans were forced to retreat back into Germany. The offensive was defeated but was the bloodiest battle in U.S. military history.
Italy and the Balkans
Main article: Operation Shingle
During the winter the Allies tried to force the Gustav line on the southern Appenines of Italy but they could not break enemy lines until the landing of Anzio on January 22, 1944, on the southern coast of Latium, named Operation Shingle. Only after some months the Gustav line was broken and the Allies marched towards the north of the peninsula. On June 4 Rome fell to Allies, and the Allied army reached Florence in August, then stopped along the Gothic Line on the Tuscan Appenines during the winter.
Germany withdrew from the Balkans and held Hungary until February 1945.
Romania turned against Germany in August 1944 and Bulgaria surrendered in September.
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Pacific Theatre
Central and South West Pacific
USS Princeton on fire, east of Luzon, October 24, 1944 after being hit by a Japanese Kamikaze attack.Main articles: Battle of the Philippine Sea, Battle of Leyte Gulf and Battle of Saipan
The American advance continued in the southwest Pacific with the capture of the Marshall Islands before the end of February. 42,000 U.S. Army soldiers and Marines landed on Kwajalein atoll on January 31. Fierce fighting occurred and the island was taken on February 6. U.S. Marines next defeated the Japanese in the Battle of Eniwetok.
The main objective was the Marianas, especially Saipan and to a lessor extent, Guam. The Japanese in both places were strongly entrenched. On June 11 Saipan was bombarded from the sea and a landing made four days later; it was captured by July 9. The Japanese committed much of their declining naval strength in the Battle of the Philippine Sea but suffered severe losses in both ships and aircraft and after the battle the Japanese aircraft carrier force was no longer militarily effective. With the capture of Saipan, Japan was finally within range of B-29 bombers.
Guam was invaded on July 21 and taken on August 10, but Japanese fought fanatically and mopping up operations continued long after the Battle of Guam was officially over. The island of Tinian was invaded on July 24 and saw the first usage of napalm. The island fell on August 1.
General MacArthur's troops invaded the Philippines, landing on the island of Leyte on October 20. The Japanese had prepared a rigorous defense and then used the last of their naval forces in an attempt to destroy the invasion force in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, October 23 through October 26, 1944, arguably the largest naval battle in history. The battle saw the first use of Kamikaze attacks.
Throughout 1944 Allied submarines and aircraft attacked Japanese merchant shipping, depriving Japan's industry of the raw materials it had gone to war to obtain. The effectiveness of this stranglehold increased as U.S. Marines captured islands closer to the Japanese mainland. In 1944 submarines sank three million tons of shipping while the Japanese were only able to replace less than one million tons.
South East Asia
Imphal and Kohima CampaignMain articles: Battle of Imphal and Battle of Kohima
In March 1944, the Japanese began their "march to Delhi" by crossing the border from Burma into India. On March 30, they attacked the town of Imphal which involved some of the most ferocious fighting of the war. The Japanese soon ran out of supplies and withdrew resulting in a loss of 85,000 men, one of the largest Japanese defeats of the war. The Anglo-Indian forces were constantly re-supplied by the RAF.
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1945: The end of the war
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European Theatre
Soviet winter offensive
Soviet Winter Offensive on the Eastern Front 1945.Main articles: Vistula-Oder Offensive and Operation Frühlingserwachen
On January 12 the Red Army was ready for its next big offensive. Konev's armies attacked the Germans in southern Poland, expanding out from their Vistula River bridgehead near Sandomierz. January 14, Rokossovsky's armies attacked from the Narew River north of Warsaw. They broke the defenses covering East Prussia. Zhukov's armies in the centre attacked from their bridgeheads near Warsaw. The German front was now in shambles.
On January 17 the Zhukov took Warsaw. On January 19 his tanks took Lódz. That same day Konev's forces reached the German pre-war border. At the end of the first week of the offensive the Soviets had penetrated 100 miles deep on a front that was 400 miles wide. By February 13 the Soviets took Budapest. The Soviet onslaught finally halted at the end of January only 40 miles from Berlin, on the Oder river.
Yalta Conference
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in 1945.Main article: Yalta Conference
Meanwhile, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt made arrangements for post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Their meeting resulted in many important resolutions:
An April meeting would be held to form the United Nations;
Poland would have free elections (though in fact they were heavily rigged by Soviets);
Soviet nationals were to be repatriated;
The Soviet Union was to attack Japan within three months of Germany's surrender.
Soviet spring offensive
Main articles: Battle of Berlin and Battle of Halbe
The Red Army (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army) began its final assault on Berlin on April 16. By now, the German Army was in full retreat and Berlin had already been battered due to preliminary air bombings.
As a final resistance effort, Hitler called for civilians, including teenagers, to fight the oncoming Red Army in the Volkssturm militia. Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker, a concrete bunker beneath the Chancellery, where on April 30, 1945, he committed suicide, along with his bride, Eva Braun.
Western Europe
The endless procession of German prisoners captured with the fall of Aachen marching through the ruined city streets to captivity.Main article: Western Front (World War II)
The Allies resumed their advance into Germany once the Battle of the Bulge officially ended on January 27, 1945. The final obstacle to the Allies was the river Rhine which was crossed in late March 1945.
Once the Allies had crossed the Rhine, the British fanned out northeast towards Hamburg crossing the river Elbe and on towards Denmark and the Baltic. The U.S. Ninth Army went south as the northern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement and the U.S. First Army went north as the southern pincer of the Ruhr encirclement. On April 4 the encirclement was completed and the German Army Group B commanded by Field Marshal Walther Model was trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and 300,000 soldiers became POWs. The Ninth and First U.S. armies then turned east and then halted their advanace at the Elbe river where they met up with the Soviet forces in mid-April and letting them take Berlin.
Italy
Allied advances in the winter of 1944-45 up the Italian peninsula had been slow due the troop re-deployments to France. But by April 9, the US 15th Army Group which was composed of the US 5th Army and the British 8th Army broke through the Gothic Line and attacked the Po Valley gradually enclosing the main German forces. Milan was taken by the end of April and the US 5th Army continued to move west and linked up with French units while the British 8th Army advanced towards Trieste and made contact with the Yugoslav partisans.
A few days before the surrender of German troops in Italy, Italian partisans intercepted a party of Facists trying to make their escape to Switzerland. Hiding underneath a pile of coats was Mussolini. The whole party, including Mussolini's mistress, Clara Petacci, were summarily shot on April 28, 1945. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung up on public display, upside down.
Germany Surrenders
Red army soldiers raising the soviet flag on the roof of the reichstag in Berlin, GermanyMain article: End of World War II in Europe
Admiral Karl Dönitz became leader of the German government after the death of Hitler, but the German war effort quickly disintegrated. German forces in Berlin surrendered the city to the Soviet troops on May 2, 1945.
The German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945 at General Alexander's headquarters and German forces in northern Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands surrendered on May 4; and the German High Command under Generaloberst Alfred Jodl surrendered unconditionally all remaining German forces on May 7 in Reims, France. The western Allies celebrated "V-E Day" on May 8.
The Soviet Union celebrated "Victory Day" on May 9. Some remnants of German Army Group Center continued resistance until May 11 or 12 (See Prague Offensive).
Potsdam
The last Allied conference of World War II was held at the suburb of Potsdam, outside Berlin, from July 17 to August 2. The Potsdam Conference saw agreements reached between the Allies on policies for occupied Germany. An ultimatum was issued calling for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
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Pacific Theatre
Central and South West Pacific
Main articles: Battle of Iwo Jima, Battle of Okinawa and Borneo campaign (1945)
American Marines raising the USA flag on Iwo Jima.
(İJoe Rosenthal/Associated Press)In January the U.S. 6th Army landed on Luzon, the main island of the Philippines. Manila was re-captured by March. U.S. capture of islands such as Iwo Jima in February and Okinawa (April through June) brought the Japanese homeland within easier range of naval and air attack. Amongst dozens of other cities, Tokyo was firebombed, and about 90,000 people died from the initial attack. The dense living conditions around production centres and the wooden residential constructions contributed to the large loss of life. In addition, the ports and major waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air in Operation Starvation which seriously disrupted the logistics of the island nation.
The last major offensive in the South West Pacific Area was the Borneo campaign of mid-1945, which was aimed at further isolating the remaining Japanese forces in South East Asia and securing the release of Allied prisoners of war.
South East Asia
Main article: Operation Dracula
In South-East Asia, from August 1944 to November 1944, 14th Army pursued the Japanese in Burma after their failed attack on India. The British Commenwealth forces launched a series of offensive operations back into Burma during late 1944 and the first half of 1945. On May 2, 1945, Rangoon, the capital city of Myanmar (Burma) was taken in Operation Dracula. The planned amphibious assault on the western side of Malaya was cancelled after the dropping of the atomic bombs and Japanese forces in South-East Asia surrendered soon afterwards.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Hiroshima, in the aftermath of the bombing.Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On 6 August 1945, the B-29 "Enola Gay", piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped an nuclear weapon named "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, destroying the city.
On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as had been agreed to at Yalta, and launched a large-scale invasion of Japanese occupied Manchuria (Operation August Storm).
On August 9, the B-29 "BOCKS CAR", piloted by Major Charles Sweeney, dropped an atomic bomb named "Fat Man" on Nagasaki.
Japan Surrenders
The famous Life Magazine photograph taken by Alfred Eiseinstadt showing nurse Edith Shain being kissed by Carl Muscarello a sailor in the U.S. Navy in Times Square, New York City[1]Main article: Victory over Japan Day
The American use of atomic weapons against Japan prompted Hirohito to bypass the existing government and intervene to end the war. The entry of the Soviet Union in the war may have also played a part, but in his radio address to the nation Emperor Hirohito did not mention it as a major reason for his country's surrender.
The Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945 (V-J day), signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered to the Chinese on September 9, 1945. This did not fully end the war, however, as Japan and the Soviet Union never signed a peace agreement. In the last days of the armed conflict, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kuril Islands, an area claimed by the Soviets and still contested by Japan(see Kuril Islands dispute).
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Aftermath
German occupation zones in 1946 after teritorial annexations.Europe in ruins
Main article: Effects of World War II
At the end of the war, millions of refugees were homeless, the European economy had collapsed, and 70% of the European industrial infrastructure was destroyed.
Partioning of Germany and Austria
Main article: Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation. An Allied Control Council was created to co-ordinate the zones. The American, British, and French zones joined in 1949 as the Federal Republic of Germany and the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic.
Austria was once again separated from Germany and it, too, was divided into four zones of occupation, which eventually reunited and became the Republic of Austria.
Reparations
Main article: Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
Germany paid reparations to France, Britain and Russia, in the form of dismantled factories, forced labour, and shipments of coal. The U.S. settled for confiscating German patents and German owned property in the U.S., mainly subsidiaries of German companies.
In accordance with the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947, payment of war reparations was assessed from the countries of Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland.
Morgenthau Plan
Main article: Morgenthau Plan
The initial occupation plans proposed by the United States were harsh. The Morgenthau Plan of 1944 called for dividing Germany into two independent nations and stripping her of the industrial resources required for war. All heavy industry was to be dismantled or destroyed, the main industrial areas (Upper Silesia, Saar, Ruhr, and the German speaking parts of Alsace-Lorraine), were to be annexed.
While the Morgenthau Plan itself was never implemented per se, its general economic philosophy did end up greatly influencing events. Most notable were the toned-down offshoots, including the Potsdam Conference, Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 (April 1945 - July 1947), and the industrial plans for Germany.
Marshall Plan
Map of Europe showing the countries that received Marshall Plan aid. The red columns show the relative amount of total aid per nation.Main article: Marshall Plan
Germany had long been the industrial giant of Europe, and its poverty held back the general European recovery. The continued scarcity in Germany also led to considerable expenses for the occupying powers, which were obligated to try and make up the most important shortfalls.
In view of the continued poverty and famine in Europe, and with the onset of the Cold War, a change of policy was required. The most notable example of this change was a plan established by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, the "European Recovery Program", better known as the Marshall Plan, which called for the U.S. Congress to allocate billions of dollars for the reconstruction of Europe. Also as part of the effort to rebuild global capitalism and spur post-war reconstruction, the Bretton Woods system was put into effect after the war.
Areas with predominantly German speaking populations in 1945.Border revisions and population shifts
Main article: Expulsion of Germans after World War II As a result of the new borders drawn by the victorious nations, large populations suddenly found themselves in hostile territory.
The main benefactor of these border revisions was the Soviet Union, which expanded its borders at the expense of Germany, Finland, Poland and Japan. Poland was compensated for its losses to the Soviet Union by receiving most of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line, including the industrial regions of Silesia. The German state of the Saar was temporarily a protectorate of France but it later returned to German administration.
The number of Germans expelled totaled roughly 15 million, including 11 million from Germany proper and 3,500,000 from the Sudetenland.
Germany officially states that 2,100,000 of these expelled lost their lives due to violence on the part of the Russians, Polish and Czech, though Polish and Czech historians dispute this figure.
The Cold War begins
Main article: Cold War
The now-defunct Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War.The end of World War II marked the end of the United Kingdom's position as a global superpower and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as the dominant powers in the world. Friction had been building up between the two before the end of the war and with the collapse of Nazi Germany relations spiralled downward.
In the areas occupied by Western Allied troops, pre-war governments were re-established or new democratic governments were created; in the areas occupied by Soviet troops, including the territories of former Allies such as Poland, communist states were created. These became satellites of the Soviet Union.
As the relationship between the victors deteriorated, the military lines of demarcation became the de facto country boundaries. Korea was divided in half along the 38th parallel by the Soviets and Americans. In 1950, communist North Korea, backed by the Soviets, invaded U.S.-supported South Korea and the Korean War broke out.
United Nations
The headquarters of the United Nations, located in New York City. The United Nations was founded as a direct result of World War II.Main article: United Nations
Because the League of Nations had failed to actively prevent the war, in 1945 a new international body was considered and then created, the United Nations.
The UN operates within the parameters of the United Nations Charter, and the reason for the UNs formation is outlined in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter. Unlike its predecessor, the United Nations has taken a more active role in the world, such as fighting diseases and providing humanitarian aid to nations in distress. The UN also served as the diplomatic front line during the Cold War.
The UN also was responsible for the initial creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948, in part as a response to the Holocaust.
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Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities
Casualties
Diorama of the Siege of Leningrad. At least 641,000 Soviet citizens died during the 900 day siege.Main article: World War II casualties
Possibly 62 million people lost their lives in World War IIabout 25 million soldiers and 37 million civilians, with estimates varying widely. This total includes the estimated 12 million lives lost due to The Holocaust. About 6 million were Jewish. Of the total deaths in World War II approximately 80% were on the Allied side and 20% on the Axis side.
Allied forces suffered approximately 17 million military deaths, of which about 10 million were Soviet and 4 million Chinese. Axis forces suffered about 8 million, of which more than 5 million were German. The Soviet Union suffered by far the largest death toll of any nation in the war; perhaps 23 million Soviets died in total, of which more than 12 million were civilians. The figures include deaths due to internal Soviet actions against its own people. The statistics available for Soviet and Chinese casualties are only rough guesses, as they are poorly documented.
Genocide
Major deportation routes to Nazi extermination camp during The Holocaust.Main article: The Holocaust
The Holocaust was the organized murder of at least nine million people. Six million of these were Jews; the others were Poles, Russian war prisoners and other Slavs, Roma and Sinti, the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Communists and political dissidents.
Originally, the Nazis used killing squads, Einsatzgruppen, to conduct massive open-air killings, shooting as many as 33,000 people in a single massacre, as in the case of Babi Yar. By 1942, the Nazi leadership decided to implement the Final Solution (Endlösung), the genocide of all Jews in Europe, and increase the pace of the Holocaust. The Nazis built six extermination camps specifically to kill Jews. Millions of Jews who had been confined to massively overcrowded Ghettos were transported to these "Death-camps" where they were gassed or shot, usually immediately after arriving.
Concentration camps, labour camps and internment
Mistreated, starved prisoners in the Ebensee concentration camp, Austria.Main articles: Concentration camp, Gulag, and Japanese American internment
In addition to the Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or labor camps, led to the death of many citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war and even Soviet citizens themselves: opponents of Stalin's regime and large proportions of some ethnic groups (particularly Chechens). Japanese POW camps also had high death rates; many were used as labour camps, and starvation conditions among the mainly U.S. and Commonwealth prisoners were little better than many German concentration camps. Sixty percent (1,238,000 ref. Krivosheev)of Soviet POWs died during the war.
Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of Japanese North Americans were interned by the U.S. and Canadian governments. Though these camps did not involve heavy labour, forced isolation and sub-standard living conditions were the norm.
War crimes and attacks on civilians
Main articles: List of war crimes, Nuremberg Trials, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Japanese war crimes, Red Army atrocities, Allied war crimes, Terror bombing, War crimes of the Wehrmacht, Katyn massacre, Nanking Massacre, Unit 731 and comfort women
From 1945 to 1951 German and Japanese officials and personnel were prosecuted for war crimes. Top German officials were tried at the Nuremberg Trials and many Japanese officials at the Tokyo War Crime Trial and other war crimes trials in the Asia-Pacific region.
None of the alleged allied war crimes such as the bombing of Dresden, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the alleged Red Army atrocities on the Eastern front were ever prosecuted.
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Resistance and collaboration
Main articles: Resistance during World War II and Collaboration during World War II
Members of the Dutch Eindhoven Resistance with troops of the US 101st Airborne in front of the Eindhoven cathedral during Operation Market Garden in September 1944.Resistance during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation, and propaganda to outright warfare.
Among the most notable resistance movements were the Polish Home Army, the French Maquis and the Yugoslav Partisans. The Communist resistance was among the fiercest since they were already organised and militant even before the war and they were ideologically opposed to the Nazis.
Before D-Day there were also many operations performed by the French Resistance to help with the forthcomin
Anda
Apr 17 2006, 11:09 PM
Second Sino-Japanese War
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Second Sino-Japanese War
Map showing the extent of Japanese control in 1940
Date: 7 July 1937 - 9 September 1945
Location: China
Result: Chinese Victory
Territory changes: Retrocession of Manchuria and Taiwan, loss of Outer Mongolia
Combatants
National Revolutionary Army, Republic of China
Imperial Japanese Army, Empire of Japan
Commanders
Chiang Kai-shek, Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang, Zhu De, He Yingqin Tojo Hideki, Matsui Iwane, Minami Jiro, Kesago Nakajima, Toshizo Nishio, Neiji Okamura.
Strength
5,600,000 (including Chinese Communist forces) 4,100,000 (including collaborators)
Casualties
3,200,000 military, 17,530,000 non-military 1,100,000 military
Second Sino-Japanese War
Major engagements in bold
Mukden - Nenjiang Bridge - Shanghai (1932) - Great Wall - Rehe - Suiyuan - Marco Polo Bridge - Beiping-Tianjin - Shanghai (1937) (Sihang Warehouse) - Pingxingguan - Xinkou - Taiyuan - Nanjing - Tai'erzhuang - Xuzhou - Wuhan - Xiushui River - Nanchang - Lanfeng - Suixian-Zaoyang - 1st Changsha - S.Guangxi - Zaoyang-Yichang - Hundred Regiments Offensive - S.Henan - Shanggao - S.Shanxi - 2nd Changsha - 3rd Changsha - Zhejiang-Jiangxi - W.Hubei - Changde - C.Henan - 4th Changsha - Guilin-Liuzhou - W.Henan-N.Hubei - W.Hunan
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The Second Sino-Japanese War (19371945) was a major war fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, both before and during World War II. It ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. The Japanese invasion was a strategic plan made by the Imperial Japanese Army as part of their large-scale plans to control the Asian mainland. The early manifestations of this plan were commonly known as "China Incidents", and according to Japanese propaganda of the time were referred to as "incidents" supposedly provoked by China, in order to downplay Japan's illegality in these invasions. The 1931 invasion of Manchuria by Japan is referred to as the Mukden Incident. The last of these was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the official beginning of full scale war between the two countries. From 1937 to 1941, China fought alone. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Second Sino-Japanese War merged into the greater conflict of World War II.
Contents [hide]
1 Nomenclature
2 Invasion of China
3 Chinese strategy
4 Number of troops involved
4.1 National Revolutionary Army
4.2 Japanese side
5 Chinese and Japanese equipment
5.1 The National Revolutionary Army
5.2 The Imperial Japanese Army
6 Stalemate and foreign aid
7 The Pacific War
8 Casualties assessment
8.1 Chinese Casualties
8.2 Japanese Casualties
9 Aftermath
10 Legacy
11 Who fought the War of Resistance?
12 References
13 Major figures
14 Military engagements
15 Campaigns
15.1 Battles
15.2 Battles in Burmese Campaign
16 Attacks on civilians
17 Footnotes
18 See also
19 External links
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Nomenclature
In Chinese, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan (Traditional Chinese: 抗日戰爭; Simplified Chinese: 抗日战争; Pinyin: Kàng Rì Zhànzhēng), but also known Eight Years' War of Resistance (八年抗戰), or simply War of Resistance (抗戰).
In Japan, the name Japan-China War (日中戦争, Nicchū Sensō) is most commonly used due to its neutrality. When the battle began in July 1937 near Beijing, government of Japan used North China Incident (北支事變{事変 in Shinjitai}, Hokushi Jihen), and with the outbreak of large-scale battle around Shanghai next month, it was changed to China Incident 支那事變, [Shina Jihen].
The word "事変 incident" was chosen as both countries did not declare war each other. Japan wanted to avoid intervention by other countries like the U.S. and Britain, and China wanted to avoid a possible embargo by the US, which Roosevelt would have to impose due to the Neutrality Acts. When both sides formally declared war in December 1941, the name was replaced by Great East Asian War (大東亜戦争, Daitōa Sensō).
Although Japanese government still uses "Shina Incident" in formal documents, because the word Shina is considered a derogatory word, media in Japan often paraphrase with other expressions like The Japan-China Incident (日華事變 [Nikka Jihen], 日支事變 [Nisshi Jihen].
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Invasion of China
Chiang Kai-shek announced the KMT's policy of resistance against Japan at Lushan on July 10, 1937, three days after the Battle of Lugou Bridge.Most historians place the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War on the Battle of Lugou Bridge (Marco Polo Bridge Incident) on July 7, 1937. Some Chinese historians, however place the starting point at the Mukden Incident of September 18, 1931. Following the Mukden Incident, the Japanese Guandong Army occupied Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo in February 1932. Japan pressured China into recognising the independence of Manchukuo.
Chinese Nationalist defenders during the Battle of ShanghaiFollowing the Battle of Lugou Bridge in 1937, the Japanese occupied Shanghai, Nanjing and Southern Shanxi as part of campaigns involving approximately 200,000 Japanese soldiers, and considerably more Chinese soldiers. Chinese historians estimate as many as 300,000 people perished in the Nanjing Massacre, after the fall of Nanjing.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident not only marked the beginning of an open, undeclared, war between China and Japan, but also hastened the formation of the second Kuomintang-Communist Party of China (CCP) United Front. The collaboration took place with salutary effects for the beleaguered CCP. The distrust between the two antagonists was scarcely veiled. Their alliance was forged literally at gun point when Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped in the Xi'an incident and forced to ally with the CCP. The uneasy alliance began breaking down by late 1938, despite Japan's steady territorial gains in northern China, the coastal regions, and the rich Yangtze River Valley in central China. After 1940, conflict between the Nationalists and Communists became more frequent in the areas outside Japanese control. The Communists expanded their influence wherever opportunities were presented, through mass organizations, administrative reforms, land and tax reform measures favoring peasants -- and the Nationalists attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence.
The Japanese had neither the intention nor the capability of directly administering China. Their goal was to set up friendly puppet governments favorable to Japanese interests. However, the atrocities of the Japanese army made the governments that were set up very unpopular. In addition, the Japanese refused to negotiate with the Kuomintang or the Communist Party of China, which could have brought them popularity. The Japanese then forced the Chinese people to change their money into military banknotes. The Japanese government still refuses to exchange these military banknotes today.
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Chinese strategy
Chinese soldiers march to the front in 1939Unlike Japan, China was unprepared for total war and had little military industrial strength, few mechanized divisions, and virtually no armor support. Up until the mid-1930s China had hoped that the League of Nations would provide countermeasures to Japan's aggression. In addition, the Kuomintang government was mired in a civil war against the Communists. Chiang famously quoted: "the Japanese are a disease of skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart". Though the communists formed the New Fourth Army and the 8th Route Army which were nominally under the command of the National Revolutionary Army, the United Front was never truly unified, as each side was preparing for a showdown with the other once the Japanese were driven out. All these disadvantages forced China to adopt a strategy whose first goal was to preserve its army strength, whereas a full frontal assault on the enemy would often prove to be suicidal. Also, pockets of resistance were to be continued in occupied areas to pester the enemy and make their administration over the vast lands of China difficult. As a result the Japanese really only controlled the cities and railroads, while the countrysides were almost always hotbeds of partisan activity.
However, Chiang realized that in order to win the support from the United States or other foreign nations, China must prove that it was indeed capable of fighting. A fast retreat would discourage foreign aid so Chiang decided to make the Battle of Shanghai his grand stage. Chiang sent his elite German-trained army to defend China's largest and most industrialized city from the Japanese. The battle saw heavy casualties on both sides and ended with a Chinese retreat. While the battle was a military defeat for the Chinese, it proved that China was not willing to be defeated and showcased the Chinese determination to the world. The battle lasted over three months and proved to be an enormous morale booster as it ended the Japanese taunt of conquering Shanghai in three days and China in three months.
While this direct army to army fighting lasted during the early phases of the war, large numbers of Chinese defeats compared to few victories eventually led to the strategy of stalling the war. Large areas of China were conquered during the early stages of the war but the Japanese advancements began to stall. The Chinese strategy at this point was to prolong the war until it had sufficient foreign aid to defeat the Japanese. Chinese troops engaged in a practice of scorched earth in an attempt to slow down the Japanese. Dams and levees were sabotaged which led to the 1938 Huang He flood. By 1940, the war had reached a stalemate with both sides making minimal gains. The Chinese had successfully defended their land from oncoming Japanese on several occasions while strong resistance in areas occupied by the Japanese made a victory seem impossible to the Japanese. This frustrated the Japanese and led them to employ the "Three Alls Policy" (kill all, loot all, burn all) (三光政策, Hanyu Pinyin: Sānguāng Zhèngcè, Japanese On: Sankō Seisaku). It was during this time period that a bulk of Japanese atrocities were committed.
Chinese soldiers in house-to-house fighting in Battle of Tai'erzhuangIn 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor which brought the United States into the war. China officially declared war on Japan on 8 December. It refused to declare war earlier because receiving military aid while officially at war would break the neutrality of the donor nation. At this point, the strategy changed from survival to minimizing warfare. Chiang realized that the Americans would do a bulk of the fighting and were better equipped to fight the Japanese so he decided to curtail the activities of his army and focus on the potential civil war after the war. By 1945, it was obvious that the Japanese would soon be defeated so small advances were made by the Chinese army.
The basis of Chinese strategy during the war, which can be divided into three periods:
First Period: 7 July 1937 (Battle of Lugou Bridge) - 25 October 1938 (Fall of Hankou).
In this period, one key concept is the trading of "space for time" (Chinese: 以空間換取時間). The Chinese army would put up token fights to delay Japanese advance to northeastern cities, to allow the home front, along with its professionals and key industries, to retreat further west into Chongqing to build up military strength.
Second Period: 25 October 1938 (Fall of Hankou) - July, 1944
During the second period, the Chinese army adopted the concept of "magnetic warfare" to attract advancing Japanese troops to definite points where they were subjected to ambush, flanking attacks, and encirclements in major engagements. The most prominent example of this tactic is the successful defense of Changsha numerous times.
Third Period: July 1944 - 15 August 1945
This period employs general full frontal counter-offensive.
The three periods are each divided into finer phases.
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Number of troops involved
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National Revolutionary Army
Main article: National Revolutionary Army
Flag of the National Revolutionary ArmyThe NRA had approximately 4,300,000 regulars, in 370 Standard Divisions (正式師), 46 New Divisions (新編師), 12 Cavalry Divisions (騎兵師), 8 New Cavalry Divisions (新編騎兵師), 66 Temporary Divisions (暫編師), and 13 Reserve Divisions (預備師), for a grand total of 515 divisions. However, many divisions were formed from 2 or more other divisions, and were not active at the same time. Therefore the number of divisions in active service at any given time is much smaller than this. The average NRA division had 8,000-9,000 troops.
Main article: Chinese Red Army
Although during the war the Chinese Communist forces fought as a nominal part of the NRA, the number of those on the CCP side, due to their guerrilla status, is difficult to say, though estimates place the total number of the Eighth Route Army, New Fourth Army, and irregulars in the Communist armies at 1,300,000.
For more information of combat effectiveness of communist armies and other units of Chinese forces see Chinese armies in the Second Sino-Japanese War.
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Japanese side
Flag of the Imperial Japanese ArmyThe IJA had 2,000,000 regulars. More Japanese troops were quagmired in China than deployed anywhere else in the Pacific Theater, during the war.
The Collaborationist Chinese Army (zh:僞軍) formed approximate 2,100,000, the only collaborationist army in World War II which outnumbered the invading army. Almost all of them belonged to the regional puppet governments such as Manchukuo and collaborationist political leaders such as Wang Jingwei. The collaborationists were mainly assigned to garrison and logistics duties in areas held by the puppet governments and in occupied territories. They were rarely fielded in combat because of low morale and distrust by the Japanese, and fared poorly in skirmishes against real Chinese forces, whether the KMT or the CCP.
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Chinese and Japanese equipment
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The National Revolutionary Army
The National Revolutionary Army possessed 80 Army infantry divisions with approximately 8,000 men each, nine independent brigades, nine cavalry divisions, two artillery brigades, 16 artillery regiments and one or two armored divisions. The Chinese Navy displaced only 59,000 tonnes and the Chinese Air Force comprised only 600 aircraft.
Chinese weapons were mainly produced in the Hanyang and Guangdong arsenals. However, for most of the German-trained divisions, the standard firearms were German-made 7.92 mm Gewehr 98 and Karabiner 98k. The 98 style rifles were often called the "Chiang Kai-shek" rifles. The standard light machine gun was a local copy of the Czech 7.92 mm Brno ZB26. There were also Belgian and French LMGs. Surprisingly, the NRA did not purchase any of the infamous Maschinengewehr 34s from Germany, but did produce their own copies of them. On average in these divisions, there was 1 machine gun set for each platoon. Heavy machine guns were mainly locally-made 1924 water-cooled Maxim guns, from German blueprints. On average every battalion would get one heavy machine gun (about half of what actual German divisions got during the war). The standard sidearm was the 7.63 mm Mauser M1932 semi-automatic pistol, also known as C96.
Some divisions were equipped with 37mm PaK 35/36 anti-tank guns, and/or mortars from Oerlikon, Madsen, and Solothurn. Each infantry division had 6 French Brandt 81 mm mortars and 6 Solothurn 20mm autocannons. Some independent brigades and artillery regiments were equipped with Bofors 72mm L/14, or Krupp 72mm L/29 mountain guns. They were 24 Rheinmetall 150mm L/32 sFH 18 howitzers (bought in 1934) and 24 Rheinmetall 150mm L/30 sFH 18 howitzers (bought in 1936).
Infantry uniforms were basically redesigned Zhongshan suits. Leg wrappings are standard for soldiers and officers alike since the primary mode of movement for NRA troops was by foot. The helmets were the most distinguishing characteristic of these divisions. From the moment German M35 helmets (standard issue for the Wehrmacht until late in the European theatre) rolled off the production lines in 1935, and until 1936, the NRA imported 315,000 of these helmets, each with the 12-ray sun emblem of the ROC on the sides. Other equipment included cloth shoes for soldiers, leather shoes for officers and leather boots for high-ranking officers. Every soldier is issued ammunition, ammunition pouch/harness, a water flask, combat knives, food bag, and a gas mask.
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The Imperial Japanese Army
Although Imperial Japan possessed significant mobile operational capacity it did not possess capability for maintaining a long sustained war. At the beginning of the Chinese-Japanese War the Japanese Army comprised 17 divisions, each composed of approximately 22,000 men, 5,800 horses, 9,500 rifles and submachine guns, 600 heavy machine guns of assorted types, 108 artillery pieces, and 24 tanks. Special forces were also available. The Japanese Navy displaced a total of 1,900,000 tonnes, ranking third in the world, and possessed 2,700 aircraft at the time. Each Japanese division was the equivalent in fighting strength of four Chinese regular divisions (at the beginning of Battle of Shanghai (1937)).
See Also:
Japanese Infantry weapons in Chinese-Japanese conflict
List of Armours in use for Japanese Army in Chinese-Japanese conflict
List of Japanese Aircraft during Chinese-Japanese conflict
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Stalemate and foreign aid
By 1940, the fighting had reached a stalemate. While Japan held most of the eastern coastal areas of China, guerrilla fighting continued in the conquered areas. The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek struggled on from a provisional capital at the city of Chongqing; however, realizing that he also faced a threat from communist forces of Mao Zedong, he mostly tried to preserve the remaining strength of his army and avoid heavy battle with the Japanese in the hopes of defeating the Communists once the Japanese left. China, with its low industrial capacities and limited experience in modern warfare, could not launch any decisive counter-offensive against Japan. Chiang could not risk an all-out campaign given the poorly-trained, under-equipped, and disorganized state of his armies and opposition to his leadership both within Kuomintang and in China at large. He had lost a substantial portion of his best trained and equipped army defending Shanghai and the remaining troops were used to preserve his army. On the other hand, Japan had suffered tremendous casualties from unexpectedly stubborn resistance from China and already developed problems in administering and garrisoning fallen territories. Neither side could make any swift progress in a manner resembling the fall of France and Western Europe to Nazi Germany.
Most military analysts predicted that the Kuomintang could not continue fighting with most of the war factories located in the prosperous areas under or near Japanese control. Other global powers were reluctant to provide any support unless supporting an ulterior motive because in their opinion the Chinese would eventually lose the war, and did not wish to antagonize the Japanese who might, in turn, eye their colonial possessions in the region. They expected any support given to Kuomintang might worsen their own relationship with the Japanese, who taunted the Kuomintang with the prospect of conquest within 3 months.
Germany and the Soviet Union did provide support to the Chinese before the war escalated to the Asian theatre of World War II. The Soviet Union was exploiting the Kuomintang government to hinder the Japanese from invading Siberia, thus saving itself from a two front war. Furthermore, the Soviets expected any major conflict between the Japanese and the Chinese to hamper any Kuomintang effort to remove the Communist Party of China (CCP) opposition or, in the best case, hoped to install a Comintern ally surreptitiously after the dwindling of Kuomintang authority. In September 1937 the Soviet leadership approved Operation Zet. As part of the secret operation Soviet technicians upgraded and handled some of the Chinese war-supply transport. Bombers, fighters, military supplies and advisors arrived, including future Soviet war hero Georgy Zhukov, who won the Battle of Halhin Gol. It also supported the Communists, at least until war with Germany forced her into conserving everything for her own forces.
Because of Chiang Kai-shek's anti-communist nationalist policies and hopes of defeating the CCP, Germany provided the largest proportion of Kuomintang arms imports. German military advisors modernized and trained the Kuomintang armies; Kuomintang officers (including Chiang's second son, Chiang Wei-kuo) were educated in and served in the German army prior to World War II. More than half of the German arms exports during its rearmament period were to China. Nevertheless the proposed 30 new divisions equipped with all German arms did not materialize as the Germans sided with the Japanese later in World War II.
Other prominent powers, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France, only officially assisted in war supply contracts up to the attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941, when a major influx of trained military personnel and supplies significantly boosted the Kuomintang chance of maintaining the fight.
Unofficially, public opinion in the United States was becoming favorable to the Kuomintang. At the start of the 1930s, public opinion in the United States had tended to support the Japanese. However, reports of Japanese brutality added to Japanese actions such as the attack on the U.S.S. Panay swung public opinion sharply against Japan. By the summer of 1941, the United States had begun to sponsor the American Volunteer Group (later known as the Flying Tigers) to boost Chinese air defenses, though the AVG did not in fact go into combat until after the U.S. and Japan were at war. In addition, the United States began an oil and steel embargo which made it impossible for Japan to continue operations in China without another source of oil from Southeast Asia. This set the stage for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 (8 December west of the 180th meridian).
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The Pacific War
Within a few days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, both the United States and China officially declared war against Japan. Chiang Kai-shek then received great quantities of supplies from the United States, as the Chinese conflict was merged into the Asian theatre of World War II. Chiang was appointed Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theater in 1942. General Joseph Stilwell served for a time as Chiang's chief of staff, while commanding US forces in the China Burma India Theater.
However, relations between Stilwell and Chiang soon broke down, due largely to the corruption and inefficiency of the Chinese government. Despite massive amounts of American lend-lease aid (over US$5 billion from 1941 through 1945), the Nationalist Chinese Army frequently avoided major engagements with the Japanese and was seen as preferring to stockpile material for a later struggle with the communists. Stilwell criticised the Chinese government's conduct of the war in the American media, and to President Franklin Roosevelt. Chiang was hesitant to deploy more Chinese troops because China already suffered tens of millions of war casualties, and believed that Japan would eventually capitulate to America's overwhelming industrial output and manpower. The Allies thus lost confidence in the Chinese ability to conduct offensive operations from the Asian mainland, and instead concentrated their efforts against the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean Areas and South West Pacific Area, employing an island hopping strategy.
Chiang and his associates also distrusted the intentions of the United Kingdom and Stilwell. Winston Churchill's "Europe First" policy obviously did not sit well with Chiang. Furthermore, the British insistence that China devote more and more troops into Indochina in the Burma Campaign, was regarded as an attempt by Great Britain to use Chinese manpower to secure Britain's foothold in India from Japan. Chiang voiced his support of Indian Independence in a meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in 1942, which further soured the relationship between China and the United Kingdom.
The United States saw the Chinese theater as a means to tie up a large number of Japanese troops, as well as being a possible location for American airbases. In 1944, as the Japanese position in the Pacific was deteriorating fast, they launched Operation Ichigo to attack the airbases which had begun to operate. This brought the Hunan, Henan, and Guangxi provinces under Japanese administration.
Nevertheless the Japanese prospect of transferring their troops to fight the Americans was in vain and they only committed the Guandong Army from Manchuria in their "Sho plan", which later facilitated the Soviet advancement after the Soviet war declaration on August 8, 1945.
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Casualties assessment
Shanghai 1937: One of the earlier images of the war to come out from China, this iconic photo appeared in LIFE magazineThe conflict lasted for 97 months and 3 days (measured from 1937 to 1945).
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Chinese Casualties
The Kuomintang fought in 22 major engagements, most of which involved more than 100,000 troops on both sides, 1,171 minor engagements most of which involved more than 50,000 troops on both sides, and 38,931 skirmishes.
The CCP mostly fought guerilla attacks in rural area in North China. It would later give them credence to win them support in the Chinese Civil War.
The Chinese lost approximately 3.22 million soldiers. 9.13 million civilians died in the crossfire, and another 8.4 million as non-military casualties. Some Chinese historians claimed the total military and non-military deaths of the Chinese were at most 35 millions. Most Western historians believed that the casualties were at least 20 million.
Property loss of the Chinese valued up to 383,301.3 million US dollars according to the currency exchange rate in July 1937, roughly 50 times of the GDP of Japan at that time (7,700 million US dollars). [citation needed]
In addition, the war created ninety-five million refugees.
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Japanese Casualties
The Japanese recorded around 1.1 million military casualties, killed, wounded and missing. There were a lot of various claims about the Japanese casaulties. The official death-toll according to the Japan defense ministry was only about 200 thousand. But this is believed to be highly unlikely small. The Chinese (both the communists and nationalists) claimed to have at most killed 1.77 million of Japanese soldiers during the 8-year-war but it would be an exaggeration. 0.5 million deaths was the most trustable one comparatively.
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Aftermath
Japan surrenders to China on 9 September 1945.As of mid 1945, all sides expected the war to continue for at least another year. However it was suddenly ended after the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan capitulated to the allies on August 14, 1945. The Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on September 9, 1945 and by the provisions of the Cairo Conference of 1943 the lands of Manchuria, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands reverted to China. However, the Ryukyu islands were maintained as Japanese territory.
The Chinese return to Liuchow in July 1945In 1945 China emerged from the war nominally a great military power but actually a nation economically prostrate and on the verge of all-out civil war. The economy deteriorated, sapped by the military demands of foreign war and internal strife, by spiraling inflation, and by Nationalist profiteering, speculation, and hoarding. Starvation came in the wake of the war, and millions were rendered homeless by floods and the unsettled conditions in many parts of the country. The situation was further complicated by an Allied agreement at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 that brought Soviet troops into Manchuria to hasten the termination of war against Japan (Operation August Storm). Although the Chinese had not been present at Yalta, they had been consulted; they had agreed to have the Soviets enter the war in the belief that the Soviet Union would deal only with the Nationalist government. After the war, the Soviet Union, as part of the Yalta agreement's allowing a Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria, dismantled and removed more than half the industrial equipment left there by the Japanese. The Soviet presence in northeast China enabled the Communists to move in long enough to arm themselves with the equipment surrendered by the withdrawing Japanese army. The problems of rehabilitating the formerly Japanese-occupied areas and of reconstructing the nation from the ravages of a protracted war were staggering, to say the least.
Japanese Instrument of SurrenderThe war left the Nationalists severely weakened and their policies left them unpopular. Meanwhile the war strengthened the Communists, both in popularity and as a viable fighting force. At Yan'an and elsewhere in the "liberated areas," Mao was able to adapt Marxism-Leninism to Chinese conditions. He taught party cadres to lead the masses by living and working with them, eating their food, and thinking their thoughts. When this failed, however, more repressive forms of coercion, indoctrination and ostracization were also employed. The Red Army fostered an image of conducting guerrilla warfare in defense of the people. In addition, the CCP was effectively split into "Red" (cadres working in the "liberated" areas) and "White" (cadres working underground in enemy-occupied territory) spheres, a split that would later sow future factionalism within the CCP. Communist troops adapted to changing wartime conditions and became a seasoned fighting force. Mao also began preparing for the establishment of a new China, well away from the front at his base in Yan'an. In 1940 he outlined the program of the Chinese Communists for an eventual seizure of power and began his final push for consolidation of CCP power under his authority. His teachings became the central tenets of the CCP doctrine that came to be formalized as "Mao Zedong Thought". With skillful organizational and propaganda work, the Communists increased party membership from 100,000 in 1937 to 1.2 million by 1945. Soon, all out war broke out between the KMT and CPC, a war that would leave the Nationalists banished to Taiwan and the Communists victorious on the mainland.
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Legacy
Anti-Japanese War Memorial Museum on the site where Marco Polo Bridge Incident took placeTo this day the war is a major point of contention between China and Japan. The war remains a major roadblock for Sino-Japanese relations today, and many people, particularly in China, harbour grudges over the war and related issues. A small but vocal group of Japanese nationalists and/or right-wingers deny a variety of crimes attributed to Japan. The Japanese invasion of its neighbours is often glorified or whitewashed, and wartime atrocities, most notably the Nanjing Massacre, comfort women, and Unit 731, are frequently denied by such individuals. The Japanese government has also been accused of historical revisionism by allowing the approval of school textbooks omitting or glossing over Japan's militant past. In response to criticism of Japanese textbook revisionism, the PRC government has been accused of using the war to stir up already growing anti-Japanese feelings in order to whip up nationalistic sentiments and divert its citizens' minds from internal matters.
The PRC government has also been accused of greatly exaggerating the CCP's role in fighting the Japanese. One such notable critic is KMT General Hau Pei-tsun, who refused to attend a joint celebration in China marking the sixtieth anniversary of the end of war in 2005, claiming that the PRC continues to distort history. In the PRC, citizens are frequently reminded of the exploits of the heroes of the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance.
The legacy of the war is more complicated in the ROC. Traditionally, the government has held celebrations marking the Victory Day on September 9 (now known as Armed Forces Day), and Taiwan's Retrocession Day on October 25. However, with the power transfer from KMT to the more pro-Taiwanese independence pan-green coalition and the rise of desinicization, events commemorating the war have become less commonplace. Many supporters of Taiwanese independence see no relevance in preserving the memory of the war of resistance that happened primarily on mainland China. Still, commemorations are held in regions where politics is dominated by the pan-blue coalition. Many pan-blue supporters, particularly veterans who retreated with the government in 1949, still have an emotional interest in the war. For example, in celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the end of war in 2005, the cultural bureau of pan-blue stronghold Taipei held a series of talks in the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall regarding the war and post-war developments, while the KMT held its own exhibit in the KMT headquarters.
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Who fought the War of Resistance?
The question as to which political group directed the Chinese war effort and exerted most of the effort to resist the Japanese still remains a controversial issue.
In the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War of Resistance Memorial near the Marco Polo Bridge and in mainland Chinese textbooks, the People's Republic of China claims that it was the Communist Party that directed Chinese efforts in the war and did everything to resist the Japanese invasion. Recently, however, with a change in the political climate, the CCP has admitted that certain Nationalist generals made important contributions in resisting the Japanese. The official history in mainland China is that the KMT fought a bloody, yet indecisive, frontal war against Japan, while it was the CCP that engaged the Japanese forces in far greater numbers behind enemy lines. This emphasis on the CCP's central role is partially reflected by the PRC's labeling of the war as the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War of Resistance rather than merely the War of Resistance. According to the PRC official point of view, the Nationalists mostly avoided fighting the Japanese in order to preserve its strength for a final showdown with the Communists. However, for the sake of Chinese reunification and appeasing the ROC on Taiwan, the PRC has now "acknowledged" that the Nationalists and the Communists were "equal" contributors because the victory over Japan belonged to the Chinese people, rather than to any political party.
Leaving aside Nationalists sources, scholars researching third party Japanese and Soviet sources have documented quite a different view. Such studies claim that the Communists actually played a miniscule involvement in the war against the Japanese compared to the Nationalists and used guerilla warfare as well as opium sales to preserve its strength for a final showdown with the Kuomintang[1]. This is congruent with the Nationalist viewpoint, as demonstrated by history textbooks published in Taiwan, which gives the KMT credit for the brunt of the fighting. According to these third-party scholars, the Communists were not the main participants in any of the 22 major battles, most involving more than 100,000 troops on both sides, between China and Japan. Soviet liaison to the Chinese Communists Peter Vladimirov documented that he never once found the Chinese Communists and Japanese engaged in battle during the period from 1942 to 1945. He also expressed frustration at not being allowed by the Chinese Communists to visit the frontline[2], although as a foreign diplomat Vladimirov may have been overly optimistic to expect to be allowed to join Chinese guerrilla sorties. The Communists usually avoided open warfare (the Hundred Regiments Campaign and the Battle of Pingxingguan are notable exceptions), preferring to fight in small squads to harass the Japanese supply lines. In comparison, right from the beginning of the war the Nationalists committed their best troops (including the 36th, 83rd, 88th divisions, the crack divisions of Chiang's Central Army) to defend Shanghai from the Japanese, a third of whom were killed or wounded. The Japanese considered the Kuomintang rather than the Communists as their main enemy[3] and bombed the Nationalist wartime capital of Chongqing to the point that it was the most heavily bombed city in the world to date[4]. Also, the main bulk of Japanese forces were fighting mainly in Central and Southern China, away from major Communist strongholds such as those in Shaanxi.
A third perspective advocated by some historians is that the former warlords actually did most of the fighting with the Japanese, considering that a large part the National Revolutionary Army was actually composed of troops from different factions. Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army sustained heavy casualties in the beginning of the war in Shanghai-Nanjing campaigns and his military strengh was never to recover to pre-war levels. This situation forced Chiang to rely on other divisions of the National Revolutionary Army. These non-Whampoa divisions, also known as the "provincial army," were nominally part of the National Revolutionary Army but in reality had their own command structures. Some major engagements after the initial 1937 campaigns, such as Battle of Xuzhou and the Battle of Changsha were fought by former warlords under the banner of the Kuomintang.
The guy who said bla blaa on paper was not a Chinese who even can not speak a Chinese word if you know him well.woww.....dont fetch other's posts here and many of them are basically anti-china if you were not so shabby memory you would know them well. Wikipedia's group even admitted their resourse was not really turth. So,tell me according to your sorry shabby logic what was Japan want?
