World War II Period
By Rob James
January 5, 2026
[intro to come]
Overall impressions. “Ultra-Total War” not even comparable to total war in the 30 Years’ War, Napoleonic or WWI senses (60 million+?). Strange bedfellows from shifting alliances, colonial spats and the like. Hitlerian studipidity at Stalingrad and elsewhere. Impact of secrecy, deception, cryptography. Anyone who thinks Japanese would have surrendered before A-bombs is deceiving himself. What were Axis victory plans—what, for example, did Japan hope to gain with the time preciously won by holding out in the caves and coral? Japanese didn’t have jets and other advanced weaponry, just kamikazes—it seems their only hope was to inflict huge US losses and force an armistice. American materiel and American technology won this war, though the British and Russians bled to give Americans the time they needed to get engaged. Absolutely incredible barbarity on all sides, but any equation of Hiroshima, Manzanar and occasional POW reprisals with German and especially Japanese practices is morally obtuse.
Year
Western Europe/ Atlantic
Eastern Europe/ Africa /
Middle East
Far East/ Pacific / Americas
1939
September: U-boat sinks passenger ship Athenia (119+, 28+ US) after Britain and France declare war on Germany; “phony war” begins on Western front
October: Albert Einstein’s letter induces FDR to seek atomic weaponry; U-boat sinks battleship Royal Oak (833+) in the heart of Scapa Flow naval base
November: US repeals 1937 Neutrality Act provision barring sales and credits to belligerents; Germany delays Western attack until January (UK spy system already in place); first bomb attempt on Hitler’s life in Munich fails; Germany lays magnetic mines (big problem until mine miraculously mired in mudflats, and demagnetizing mesh secretly developed following month); UK launches North Sea blockade
December: German battleship Graf Spee scuttled off Uruguay
August: USSR-German Non-Aggression Pact with secret demarcation of Poland, by Sept. agreed to be along River Bug at Brest-Litovsk, and cession to USSR of Baltic States; Hitler is buying time while he swarms western Europe and subdues Britain
September: Germany blitzkriegs Poland with SS and air attacks on civilians
October: Germany annexed parts of Poland, made the rest a “General Government” slave colony
December: USSR attacks Finland; real Sophie’s Choice story in Poland (woman forced to choose among father, brother and son)
Japan continues offensive deep inside China, heading toward Burma Road
1940
January: Germany again delays Western attack; UK begins to crack Enigma machine codes
March: FDR aide Sumner Welles seeks peace with Germany; UK postpones Narvik landing (intending to disrupt Swedish iron exports) after Russo-Finnish treaty signed; hawk without constituency Reynaud replaces Daladier in Paris April: UK and France publicly swear no separate peace, privately reheat plans for Rhine mines, Baku bombs and Narvik landing; Germany invades Denmark, which ceases fire immediately; Germany invades Norway at several ports including Narvik; welcomed by former foreign minister Quisling (demoted after only 15 days); UK sinks German destroyers at Narvik; Germany dive-bombs Allied troops and ships, Allies begin slow painful withdrawal (finished in June) supported by reinforcement!
May: Allies first cross into Belgium at last but 136 German divisions advance against 65 UK/French divisions, especially destroying aircraft on ground and parachuting into cities, bridges and forts; to French astonishment, Rommel’s and Guderian’s Panzers cross Ardennes forest and River Meuse (to the north of the fortified Maginot line between Switzerland and Belgium) to Sedan on plain threatening Channel Ports and cutoff of Allied troops in Holland; Chamberlain replaced by Churchill; Holland surrenders; French demand more UK troops and planes but Churchill can’t spare many; French government gives up in Paris but Germans turn northwest toward channel at Abbeville; after brief success of UK counterattack at Arras Hitler calls halt to channel ports advance (thought only 100,000 men instead of 400,000, and thought sea evacuation impossible hence no rush; later says he feared counterattack on Somme) and focuses instead on French troops retreating toward Paris (he thinks he needs British navy to deal with colonies, but wants to defeat French); Dunkirk evacuated over 9 (rather than expected 2) days by spirited rearguard and air defense; Belgium surrenders after King Leopold offers armistice; Petain in French government discounts idea of fighting from Africa in exile; UK decodes messages confirming UK invasion delayed until French defeated
June: Norway surrenders; French routed, surrender UK troops (Brits barely make off with deuterium supply, but Lancastria sunk (3000+)); Italy declares war on UK and France, which exposes Africa to war; UK refuses to send more troops or planes, Petain sues for armistice, declare Paris an open city; US assures Allies of material support but Cordell Hull refuses to publicize; UK offers Anglo-French union but Petain signs armistice (no POW release but no appropriation of neutral fleet), preferring a Nazi occupation to a British colony (many Brits relieved to be on their own); Germans to leave France as sovereign with some unoccupied territory so French colonies preserved; de Gaulle radio address, but Petain makes exiles sound like the traitors; Hitler visits Paris
August: Battle of Britain in air begins in earnest, and UK reciprocates over Germany
September: London Blitz airstrikes (7000+), Churchill’s “finest hour,” but Hitler calls off invasion within two weeks
October: UK quietly shifts to bombing civilian cities; Franco keeps Spain neutral
March: Russo-Finish treaty signed, ceding Baltic and northern tracts
April: Russians murder thousands of Polish officer POWs in Katyn forest
June: USSR occupies then annexes Baltics
July: UK destroys French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir near Oran, damages ship in Dakar
September: Germans move into Roumania, dangling Bessarabia as prize to Marshal Antonescu; Italians cross Libya into Egypt
October: Italians in Albania invade Greece (Hitler furious not pursuing Alexandria or Crete instead of Greek mountains)
November: UK aerial torpedoes sink Italian ships at Otranto; Japanese and US tacticians take note; Greeks push Italians back (wag posts French-Italian border advising Greeks not to advance further)
July: Prince Konoye Japanese PM; Japanese stage offshore Franch Indo-China; US passes Export Control Act embargoing military materials to Japan; UK closes Burma Road
September: US loans to China, embargoes iron and steel to Japan; Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis pact
October: UK reopens Burma Road
November: Germans capture documents showing UK weakness in Asia when they board Automedon in Indian Ocean, hand over to Japanese
December: FDR’s “arsenal of democracy” speech
1941
January-April: UK and German airstrikes continue
May: Hitler vows Third Reich will last a thousand years; Bismarck sinks Hood but in turn is sunk
June: US takes over defense of Iceland
July: UK learns A-bomb might work, believes Germans also working on it, but Klaus Fuchs passes secrets to Russians
September: US announces it will attack U-boats in north Atlantic
December: Hitler announces building of Fortress Europe seaward fortifications
January: UK pushes Italians back to Tobruk, Libya, then capture Tobruk; Rommel, Germans sent to Libya and Sicily; air battle for Malta; UK attacks Italian East Africa
February: Aussies take Benghazi
March: Germans cross Danube into Bulgaria, UK and Germans join in Greek battle; Yugoslav government signs with Axis but Cvetkovic coup renounces; Italians attack Crete but navy eliminated by airstrikes at Matapan, Rommel counterattacks in Africa, eventually besieging Tobruk
April: Hungary signs with Axis; Italians evacuate Addis Ababa; German civilian airstrikes against Belgrade (17,000+ on April 6); Greeks surrender; Yugoslav government surrenders but Communist Tito and Mihailovic insurgency; Rashid Ali seizes power in Baghdad and captures British troops
May: Germans attack and take Crete; Rommel captures Halfaya Pass but motley French troops heroes at Bir Hakeim; Rashid Ali surrenders to UK
June: British and Free French enter Syria and Lebanon against Vichy garrisons; 3.2 million Germans invade Russia defended by 4.7 million soldiers, but only 30% of Russians have automatic weapons; Germans take huge POW counts and move huge distances, but partisan groups work behind lines and Russians destroy everything before Germans occupy it
July: Germans encircle Smolensk ahead of schedule
August: Hitler heads to Black Sea and Caucasus rather than finishing off Leningrad and Moscow; siege of Leningrad begins, Finns attack toward Leningrad too; UK and Russians invade Iran, Shah abdicates in favor of son
September: Again, Hitler orders encirclement of Russian troops in Ukraine rather than city attacks, though Leningrad was on brink of collapse, thus guaranteeing a winter campaign (first snow Sept. 12); UK Wing Commander H.N.G. Ramsbottom-Isherwood awarded Order of Lenin!
October: Germans finally attack Moscow, snow begins in earnest; Eichmann proposes mass gassing rather than deportation
November: UK pushes Rommel back to El Agheila, breaks siege of Tobruk; Palestinian leader endorses Hitler; Dr. Todt (!) tells Hitler US/UK industrial supremacy make war unwinnable militarily
December: Extreme cold wearies Germans (sentries freeze to death, automatic weapons don’t work, panic before white Siberian troops) while Russians send more and more reinforcements
January: FDR’s Four Freedoms (speech, worship, from want, from fear) to be achieved by disarmament; Hopkins observes UK resolve contrary to Joe Kennedy’s memos
March: US Lend-Lease Law exchanges base leases for materiele for UK and Greece; plutonium discovered
April: US occupies Greenland; Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact
June: Japan enters French Indo-China
July: US seizes all Japanese assets and US, UK and Dutch East India cut off oil resources
August: Churchill and FDR at Newfoundland conference issue Atlantic Charter for non-aggrandizement and self-determination; agree to aid Russia on gigantic scale (Lord Beaverbrook and Averell Harriman as envoys), warn against Japanese expansion
October: Tojo becomes PM but Stalin learns Japanese defer any Russian action until at least 1942, rushes troops back to German front; FDR extends Lend-Lease to Russians
November: US Congress narrowly amends Neutrality Act to arm merchant vessels and let them sail in war zones; US knows Japan is moving after November 25 (Admiral Stark sends ships “state of war” alert) but desires Japan to commit the first overt act
December: Japanese bomb US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Singapore; invade Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, etc.; sink Prince of Wales off Malaya; US and Japan at war, three days later, Germany declares war on US; Indian National Army fights with Japanese under “Asia for the Asiatics” slogan; US and UK set up combined Allied Staff
1942
January: Wannsee conference discusses final solution
March: Greatest Allied loss of marine tonnage of war
May: Heydrich assassinated by Czechs
August: Unsuccessful UK/Canadian raid at Dieppe; Vichy assists in French Jewish roundups
October: V1 goes into production
November: Germany occupies Vichy Franch following Operation Torch’s threat to Mediterranean; this time, though, Vichy French scuttle ships at Toulon
January: Rommel pushes UK back again, Tobruk falls, Rommel claims marshal’s baton
June: Germans renew attack in southern Russia towards Crimea and Stalingrad
July: UK pushes Rommel back
August: Italians successfully charged on horseback (with sabers and grenades) against Russians with machine guns; Churchill told that if Germans took Caucasus, UK might need to abandon Egypt and North Africa altogether and defend Persian Gulf’s oil; tells Stalin of Operation Torch invasion of French North Africa as stepping stone to Italian soft underbelly; Stalin advises Churchill to put parachutes on 4-ton bombs so they don’t bury themselves before exploding!
September: Rommel’s last attack fails at El Alamein; battle lines set up in Stalingrad
October: Germans can’t complete conquest of west bank of Volga River inside city of Stalingrad; Montgomery defeats Rommel (he arrived two days late) at El Alamein
November: Germans fail to take Grozny en route to Caucasus, while Russians attack Roumanian weak units at Stalingrad, then encircle 250,000 Germans; Operation Torch lands 107,000 in French North Africa amid mild Vichy opposition but Germans don’t challenge, thinking the real landing would occur in Egypt, Sicily or Malta; Churchill: “end of the beginning” speech; Germans must deploy troops from Russia to Africa, and by putting up spirited resistance in Tunisia the Germans forces are split more than thought necessary; UK again enters Tobruk, Rommel warns Hitler that due to Allied invasions and petrol shortages, Germans must pull out of Africa; siege of Malta ends
December: Germans can’t get to von Paulus’s trapped; Stalingrad armies, withdraw from path to Caucasus; French Admiral Darlan, now belatedly on Allied side, assassinated
January: Japanese reached mountains of Bataan peninsula; MacArthur falsely tells troops “help is on the way”
February: Singapore falls
March: MacArthur leaves Corregidor Island, vowing he will return
April: Bataan defenders surrender; Doolittle’s daylight Tokyo raid
May: Battle of Coral Sea stops Japanese southward expansion
June: Battle of Midway features planes sinking ships miles apart, Japan loses all four carriers
August: US lands on Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, Makin Atoll—latter praised in my grade-school WWII book, considered a piece of folly inducing Japanese to fortify Gilberts; US taken aback at Japanese cold-bloodedness (sailors prefer to be eaten by sharks to surrendering)
September: Manhattan Project begins under Groves
November: Japanese again fail to supply or relieve Guadalcanal
December: Sustained nuclear reaction at University of Chicago racquetball court
1943
Feburary: Norwegians finally blow up deuterium plant; “White Rose” antiwar protests in Munich; 100,000 Italians in war factories strike, Mussolini can’t stop them; Cardinal protests Jewish deportees only when they have converted and married Catholics;
April: French resistance leader executed, saying “men are cowards, traitors, rotters, but France is pure, clean, vital.”
May: Deployment of UK “bouncing bombs”
June: During “Battle of the Ruhr,” Churchill sees air carnage against civilisns and asks, “are we beasts”?
July: Allies land 160,000 on Sicily first day; when American officer and sergeant kill prisoners, Patton tells Bradley to cover it up but Bradley court-martials them (harsher sentence of sergeant commuted); Mussolini removed from power and exiled to island of Ponza; huge airstrikes on Hamburg (42,000+ in one strike, but war production unaffected)
August: Sicily conquered by Allies, Denmark re-occupied by German Army; Nazi generals dour but Hitler still had faith in soldiers, V2s, jets and long-sailing deep-traveling subs
September: Italian government signs armistice and Allies hit mainland, but German army occupies Rome (Skorzeny rescues Mussolini, brings to Republic of Salò) and force Italian army surrenders
October: US loses 25% of planes over Schweinfurt; Allies set up UN War Crimes Commissions, war crimes trials are held during war
November: Mitterand and other Resistance leaders brought out of France; UK knocks out Norwegian deuterium plant
December: Allies holed up near Monte Cassino;
January: Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Casablanca, reaffirm goal of unconditional surrender of Germany but slow down European invasion plans; Stalin doesn’t send support to Tito; Field Marshal von Paulus surrenders
February: Hitler muses if German people fail, they don’t deserve us, but also warns of “weapons unique and hitherto unknown are on the way”; Rommel’s Panzers drive US back from Kasserine Pass toward Tunisian-Algerian border, but UK comes up from Libyan side; Germans launch third Russian attack, recapture Kharkov in south, but USSR counterattacks
March: Forewarned by codebreaking, Montgomery stops Rommel at Medenine; Hitler’s eastern strategy built on hunch that Russians “sooner or later” might collapse; seeds of anti-Hitler military conspiracy sown over Stalingrad madness (liqueur bottle bomb fails to detonate, beer hall bomb called off)
May: Tunis taken, Germans repair to Sicily
July: Germans unsuccessfully try to pinch off Kursk salient
October: Soviets cross Dnieper, Germans evacuate Crimea
November: USSR takes Kiev; at Teheran Conference, Stalin miffed that northern European invasion was delayed, but secretly agrees to wage war against Japan once Germany defeated
January: Japanese withdraw from Guadalcanal and New Guinea
March: US destroys Japanese fleet and planes in Battle of Bismarck Sea; Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the Aleutians the last ship-ship battle of the war, and US blockade held
April: Admiral Yamamoto shot down; Japanese physicists give up researching atomic bomb (unbeknownst to Allies); Japanese organize Indian National Army to fight British
August: PT-109 rammed by Japanese destroyer in Solomons; in Quebec, US and UK agree to mutual decision to drop A-bomb, set May 1, 1944 as D-Day;
November: US lands on Tarawa amid savagery (first photos of US dead published); US bombs Formosa;
1944
January: Allied troops land at Anzio, far north of front line near Monte Cassino; Churchill starts to focus on Russian influence over Polish government;
February: Norwegian saboteurs destroy deuterium supplies on ferry; massive Allied bombing in “Big Week” has little effect on German output (pilots, not planes, ran out first); Allied European invasion planning Overlord and deception planning Jael increases; bombing of railways leading to Normandy
April: German torpedo boats come across Overlord Slapton Sands training exercise and sink ships; British frogmen find bodies of ten US officers with Overlord secrets
May: Jael deceptive bombings all over Europe, even optimistic looking run on Norwegian bourse; Monte Cassino finally taken, Anzio forces link up; Goebbels: “Germany must be made like the Sahara;” deceptions work, Germans suspect Europe-wide diversions followed by Normandy/Brittany followed by real landing in Pas-de-Calais
June: radio stations hit, bad weather forecast but slight break for June 6; Allies enter Rome; confident of bad weather, Rommel leaves France for Berlin; on night of June 5-6, as parachute, bombing runs and landing craft advanced to Normandy, deceptions elsewhere; actual invasions had light casualties except on Omaha beach (1000 US deaths—the Germans killed that many civilians that same day on Crete); well into summer, Germans still expected Calais second blow and held precious resources pinned up there; German forces include Russian Cossacks and Indian nationalists! Nazi reprisal massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane; US moves agonizingly slowly take Cherbourg, Brits didn’t take Caen communications center and junction on June 6 (not until August! Gilbert silent so far…)
July: V1s continue to rain on England (on rumors of 4000 mph V2s, Churchill prepared large-scale poison or nerve gas attacks on Germany); Hungary provides small window for Jews to escape Europe (Wallenberg uses opportunity); Churchill finally apprised of what was going on in Auschwitz, but wonders what could be done without revealing intelligence sources and diverting focus on ending war; Rommel severely injured; Hitler miraculously saved in July 20 assassination attempt by moving briefcase to other side of table leg
August: US breaks out of Cherbourg, creating Falaise pocket and Mortain carnage, while Brits still not in Caen; Anne Frank betrayed in Amsterdam after 2 years, heads for Dachau where she dies; French help mainly by Parisian railway strike!; Allies land at Toulon on Mediterranean, race inland; Brits finally take Caen, French Free Forces enter Paris, collaborators killed without trial or debate; first German jet shot down
September: Bomber-borne flying bombs and V2s hit Britain; Allies enter Belgium, then Netherlands, then Germany; British bombers cause firestorm in Darmstadt (12,000+); Hitler plans counterattack through Ardennes to port of Antwerp (never pieced together by intelligence until Battle of Bulge began); Market Garden attempt to land paratroops and take last bridge at Arnhelm fails;
October: Brits destroy Dutch dykes; Anzus crosses Rubicon the other direction; Germans bomb Allied-held Antwerp;
November: More steady gains, German plans for Operation Autumn Mist continue
December: 250,000 Germans invade 80,000 mainly US in Ardennes forest (Otto Skorzeny leads commando confusion, leading to Omar Bradley getting stopped for not naming Chicago as capital of Illinois; Malmedy massacre (led into field or surrendering as in Fussell?) of US POWs; Bastogne surrounded but McAuliffe said “nuts” to surrender demand; weather cleared and US planes strafed Germans and supplied Bastogne;
January: Siege of Leningrad ceases; Russians penetrate into Poland, Stalin establishes Polish National Council as opposed to Polish govt in exile in London
February: Huge Germand losses at Korsun
March: Germany begins military occupancy of Hungary
May: Sevastapol falls to Russians
June: Intercepted German messages about shortage of aviation fuel shifts bombing emphasis to oil and synthetic oil plants; after D-Day, Russians break out of Leningrad
July: Russians cross River Bug, which Churchill supports Stalin’s view as USSR postwar border, reach first death camp at Majdanek (Hitler fumes that security had not eradicated the “traces”); Warsaw Uprising begins with national troops, partisans and communist People’s Army—did they advise the Allies and did the Allies warn them off?
August: Germans go on offense in Warsaw, Stalin cynically refuses to help the uprisers (even denying airfields to Allied aircraft), Allies make half-hearted attempt to supply from afar (but FDR wouldn’t cross Stalin since he was trying to get rights to Soviet airfields toward Japan); Uprising violently quelled; Russians enter East Prussia (Konigsberg suburbs) and take oil fields or refineries of Ploesti, Romania
September: Tito and RAF attack German escape routes from Greece and Balkans; Russians do same on Danube, cutting Germans in Balkans off; Russians enter Yugoslavia, eventually take Belgrade in October; Roumania signs armistice with Allies; Russians finally sent their own supplies to Warsaw; Polish army with Soviets try to relieve Warsaw, but general is relieved of command; a shaking, bodily broken Hitler establishes People’s Army of all German men between 16 and 60; last insurgents in Warsaw surrender to Germans
October: Germans start to dismantle and erase Auschwitz; Slovak Uprising crushed;
November: Tirpitz sunk in Arctic, last German battleship
December: Greek Communist forces pressed by Churchill himself in Athens to join coalition; Budapest outskirts then Hungary surrender to Soviets; Germans at Kiel develop “Schnorchel” submarine with multiple tubes and long-range underwater capabilities, but intelligence picked up first exercises and bombing delays them until May 1945;
February: Allies land at Truk in the Carolines; Japanese machine gun survivors of torpedo hits;
March: Japanese in Burma head toward India (stopped at Imphal and Kohima), Japanese in China head toward Chengu (?); numerous futile attacks in Pacific
July: More huge losses in defending stupid hunks of coral; on Saipan, leaders of Pearl Harbor commit suicide, officers behead their own men; US takes Guam, Tinian Island and inflict incredibly lopsided casualties;
August: more incredible Japanese defenses of islands
September: George H.W. Bush shot down in Pacific; all too typically, US sub sinks Japanese freighter with 675 US POWs aboard; Churchill endorses US Treasury secy Morgenthau’s plan to demilitarize Ruhr and Saar before Russians got there, put Germany under international trusteeship, but Eden and Hull reject their bosses’ decision!; US lands on Peleliu and lose 9000 US for 13,600 Japanese; at Hyde Park, Churchill and FDR agree A-bomb could be used against Japanese and then warned bombing “will be repeated”; Greenglass at Los Alamos starts selling blueprints to Soviets; US air raid on Philippines
October: US lands on Leyte in Philippines, eventual toll 80,000 Japanese to 3500 US (“Japanese fought to die and Americans fought to live”); US stops landing at other islands; Japanese fleets destroyed at Battle of Leyte Gulf (36 ships, including 4 carriers and 3 battleships); first kamikaze single-handedly sinks aircraft carrier St. Lo (first of 34 US ships so sunk by 5000 pilots; Nimitz orders news blackout of their success);
November: FDR elected to fourth term; Japanese scientists reported they had not made progress towards an A-bomb (not intercepted by Allies); British drive into Burma; Japanese still drive through China toward Indochina;
December:
1945
January: US closes Bulge and relieves Bastogne (Patton writes “some unfortunate incidents in the shooting of prisoners (I hope we can conceal this)”); Bulge losses were 15,600 US to 25,000 Germans (plus 75,000 German POWs); 20-year-old Audie Murphy wins Medal of Honor in last German resistance in France; Private Eddie Slovik shot for desertion (“I’ll run away again”);
February: British and US bombers firestorm Dresden (60,000+); POW Vonnegut sent in to dig out corpses; Allies bomb Oranienburg uranium enrichment factory;
March: Churchill first UK minister in Germany since Chamberlain at Munich; US troops find last bridge at Remagen across Rhine, then build their own; Runstedt dismissed yet again; Wolff in Italy tries to surrender SS, Allies tell him to go back and surrender field commands; German commando raid from Channel Islands takes French port of Granville; Allies encircle Ruhr, using Monty’s Moonlight blinding searchlights, take last jet airfields; last of V2s land (2855 UK+, 4483 Belgium+)
April: At last FDR and Churchill realize they can’t trust Stalin re Eastern Europe, move to head toward Berlin, but Ike and Marshall refuse “to hazard American lives for purely political purposes”; US and UK photographs at Ohrdruf, Belsen and Buchenwald shock; US captured deuterium piles; Himmler sounds out Count Folke Bernadotte on surrender to West; Goering proposes to take full control of Germany, whereupon Hitler dismisses him (in favor of von Greim, who flies dramatically from Munich with female ace Hanna Reitsch) and orders his arrest; Allies cross Po River; Hitler orders arrest of Weidling for treason and when he denies it is made Battle Commandant of Berlin!; US and Russians link up at Elbe; Mussolini shot and hung upside down, Germans in Italy surrender; Himmler dismissed as Hitler makes political testament in favor of Admiral Doenitz and Goebbels, blames international Jewry and its henchmen for leading US and UK into war with Germany;
May: Eamon de Valera expresses Ireland’s condolences on Hitler’s death!; Jodl surrenders on May 7 effective May 8 (several die in between); V-E Day May 8 (May 9 in Soviet Union, May 15 in Yugoslavia);
August: Churchill’s party loses to Labour and Clement Attlee, who comes to Potsdam to sign final declarations! No blaming leaders for compromise this time, unconditional surrender is dictated
January: Soviets recognize Lublin Committee as Polish govt; 180 Russian divisions in action against 75 Germans in Poland, so Hitler shifts more troops from Western front; Russians take Warsaw and Budapest as Germans conduct death marches of prisoners (why?); Russians take East Prussia, including Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair at Rastenburg; Russians enter Auschwitz; Soviet subs sink German transport (6000+, largest single maritime loss of war);
February: At Yalta, Stalin promised FDR and Churchill democracy in Poland and agreed to join Japanese war three months after Germany defeated in return for Sakhalin and Kuriles, while US and Brits agreed to bomb lines of communication (like Dresden) rather than oil supplies;
March: Germans draft 15-year-old boys; Russians start to kill Poles loyal to London exile government; Wallenberg arrested in Warsaw, died years later in Soviet prison
April: Russians take Vienna, cross Oder in force; Brits race for Lubeck on Baltic Sea, keeping Denmark from Soviet liberation; Russians encircle Berlin (British Free Corps and French SS troops battle Russians!); Soviets sign treaty with Tito; Hitler commits suicide
May: Goebels and later Himmler and von Greim commit suicide; Berlin surrenders; US captures Wernher von Braun; western Austria captured by Americans, Schuschnigg liberated;
June: mass movements of refugees and displaced persons begins, with Germans expelled westward by Soviets and Czechs;
July: Potsdam conference opens; Hirohito proposes compromise but not unconditional surrender to Stalin; Poland’s borders shifted west to Odner/Niesse line from 1937 line; Allies off only unconditional surrender to Japan; first war crimes trials begin
November: Jewish Exodus, Operation Flight, starts to Palestine
January: Amid annoying kamikaze successes, US invades Luzon
February: Manila and Corregidor taken after insane defenses, MacArther returns to Manila; US landing on Iwo Jima (it’s the second flag raising photographed by AP’s Joe Rosenthal that is famous); 6800 US+, 20,000 Japanese+; from Iwo Jima bombing of Japanese home islands begins in earnest, now in carpet bombing rather than precision;
March: Tokyo firebombed (130,000+), then Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama and Kawasaki (250,000+ for only 243 US+);
April: US lands on Okinawa (130,000 Japanese+, 150,000 Okinawan+, 12,000 US+, including Ernie Pyle); US plans Kyushu invasion not earlier than November and Honshu invasion March 1946; FDR dies at Warm Springs, Georgia, Truman succeeds him; Brits recapture Rangoon; Stimson tells Truman of A-bomb, they select Hiroshima as the largest untouched target not on the bomber list (also didn’t have US POWs)
May: UK POWs in Rangoon make large message telling pilots to “exdigitate”, Rangoon taken; San Francisco Conference on UN opens; Russians tell US that Polish non-Communist leaders had been arrested
May: Burmese anti-colonials join British (“The British sucked our blood [but] the Japanese ground our bones”); Oppenheimer and Stimson discuss A-bomb
June: Japanese cabinet resolves to prosecute war to the bitter end; Marines lasting only 21 days before being shot; British bombers destroy bridge over River Kwai; UN Charter signed in San Francisco; napalm bomb first used in Philippines; Italy declares war on Japan!; Japan prepares for insane defense of home islands (kamikaze, “crouching dragon” minelayers)
July: Alamogordo explosion of first A-bomb (steel scaffold was gasified; press release ginned up about ammo dump explosion); Churchill muses that only an extraordinary weapon might release the Japanese from their honour; Truman urges bomb be used for military purposes, not on Edo or Tokyo; Indianapolis arrives at Tinian with the E-bomb, meeting scientists and Enola Gay aircraft, then sunk in secret manoevres, while 800 survivors dwindled to 318 by sharks or drowning;
August: August 3 Hiroshima A-bomb (90,000-138,000+); Russia declares war on Japan, goes into Manchuria; August 9 Nagasaki A-bomb (Kokura was main target but was a weather scratch) (50,000+); War Direction Council still votes against surrender; Hirohito decides to accept Potsdam subject to his remaining sovereign; Truman halts further bombing; 1000 Japanese soldiers attack Imperial Palace to capture surrender before it is broadcast; August 15, Japan surrenders (V-J day); French and Communist Ho Chi-minh start Indochinese conflict; Chicoms kill Captain John Birch (opening conflict of Cold War or World War III, some say); MacArthur drives to Yokohama with 30,000 Japanese soldiers with bayonets fixed along road, sees ashen POW Gen. Wainwright, whom he left at Bataan and Corregidor in 1942, accepts Japanese surrender on wooden decks of Missouri, where Steve DeVine and I stood in SF around 1990; Indian National Army trials backfire on British
A sidebar: Why did France collapse so quickly?
Sept 1939
British forces arrive Sept 10.
January
Original German plans to invade through Low Countries? Plans fell into French hands. Von Manstein argues for armor through Ardennes. German armor was concentrated in Panzer divisions, while French and British armor was dispersed like artillery auxiliary to other units
May 10
Churchill Prime Minister. German launch air raids on Belgium & Netherlands; Eban Emael fort brazenly taken by paratroopers. Guderian bridges River Meuse
May 14
Netherlands surrenders. But British & French attack—into the Low Countries! Cross River Dyle in Belgium, but French are repulsed before Breda in Netherlands. Plays right into Von Manstein’s plans
May 13-14
Panzers cross Meuse at Sedan in Ardennes—thought impassable. Defeat lesser French forces, despite desperate Allied air defenses. Maginot Line bypassed
A French armored counterattack was strong but fizzled. Panzers raced to the Channel, cutting across the Allied Low Countries supply line
May 20
Germans reach Channel. Allies try to pull back from Low Countries, deGaulle annoys German flanks, British sting Panzers at Arras May 21; still, Allies encircled.
May 23-24
British Expeditionary Force (Gort) abandons counterattack (to French, a betrayal) and races to Channel evacuation; Operation Dynamo begins. Hitler halts
May 26- June 4
338,000 British and 113,000 French evacuated (albeit without equipment) from Dunkirk, while British (including maligned RAF) and French courageously defend perimeter (40,000 French POWs). “Wars are not won through evacuation” (Churchill), but operation was a logistical triumph nonetheless, buying British precious years until the Americans and Russians emerged
May 28
Belgium surrenders; Weygand replaces Gamelin
June 5
Germans cross River Somme, destroy French defenders left and right; last British unit surrenders June 12
June 9
Germans attack Paris suburbs; declaring an open city June 13, government burns documents and hightails it to Bordeaux, later Vichy. Petain replaces Reynaud as PM June 16. Normandy evacuations. (Norway surrenders; Italy enters war.)
June 14
Germans enter Paris
June 17
Germans cross River Loire, touch Swiss border days later. DeGaulle radio broadcast June 18.
June 22
France surrenders, Hitler visits June 23, armistice signed at Compiegne June 24. Germans come away unrealistically confident in Blitzkrieg techniques, to their doom in Russia