Portal:World War II

The World War II Portal

Clockwise from top left: Commonwealth troops in the desert; Chinese civilians being buried alive by Japanese soldiers; Soviet forces during a winter offensive; Carrier-borne Japanese planes readying for take off; Soviet troops fighting in Berlin; A German submarine under attack.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict. It began as the joining of what had initially been two separate conflicts, with the first beginning in Asia in 1937 (the Second Sino-Japanese War) and the other beginning in Europe in 1939 (the German and Soviet invasion of Poland).

The war split the majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, and placed the participants in a state of "total war", which erased the distinction between civil and military resources and resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The Allies won the war, and as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The self-determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began moving toward integration.

More about World War II...

Featured article -

A Japanese Ko-hyoteki class midget submarine, believed to be Midget No. 14, is raised from Sydney Harbour

In late May and early June 1942, during World War II, submarines belonging to the Imperial Japanese Navy made a series of attacks on the cities of Sydney and Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. On the night of 31 May–1 June, three Ko-hyoteki class midget submarines, each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour to sink Allied warships. After being detected and attacked, the crews of two of the midget submarines scuttled their boats and committed suicide without engaging Allied vessels. The third attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine then disappeared, its fate remaining a mystery until in 2006 amateur scuba divers discovered its wreck off Sydney's northern beaches.Immediately following the raid the five Japanese fleet submarines that carried the midgets to Australia embarked on a campaign to disrupt merchant shipping in eastern Australian waters. Over the next month the submarines attacked at least seven merchant vessels, sinking three. As part of this campaign two of the submarines bombarded the ports of Sydney and Newcastle, during the early morning of 8 June.

Selected equipment -

USS Iowa (BB-61) fires her 16-inch/50-caliber guns during a fire power demonstration sometime after her 1980s modernization.

The Iowa-class battleships were a class of six fast battleships ordered by the United States Navy in 1939 and 1940 to escort the Fast Carrier Task Forces that would operate in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Four were completed in the early to mid-1940s; two more were laid down, but they were canceled prior to completion and eventually scrapped. The ships served in every major U.S. war of the mid and latter half of the 20th century. In World War II, they defended aircraft carriers and shelled Japanese positions before being placed in reserve at the end of the war. Recalled for action during the Korean War, the battleships provided artillery support for UN forces fighting against North Korea. In 1968, New Jersey was recalled for action in the Vietnam War and shelled Communist targets near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. All four were reactivated and armed with missiles during the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy. In 1991, Missouri and Wisconsin fired missiles and 16-inch (406 mm) guns at Iraqi targets during the Gulf War. All four battleships were decommissioned in the early 1990s as the Cold War drew to a close, and were initially removed from the Naval Vessel Register; however, at the insistence of the United States Congress, two were reinstated to the Naval Vessel Register for maintenance in the mothball fleet in 1995. These last two battleships were removed from the Naval Vessel Register in 2006.

Selected battle -

USS Chicago low in the water on the morning of January 30, 1943, from torpedo damage inflicted the night before

The Battle of Rennell Island (Japanese: レンネル島沖海戦) took place on January 29 – January 30, 1943, and was the last major naval engagement between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the lengthy Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands campaign during World War II. The battle took place in the South Pacific between Rennell Island and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands. In the battle, Japanese naval land-based torpedo bombers, seeking to provide protection for the impending evacuation of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, made several attacks over two days on United States' warships operating as a task force south of Guadalcanal. In addition to approaching Guadalcanal with the objective of engaging any Japanese ships that might come into range, the U.S. task force was protecting an Allied transport ship convoy that was carrying replacement troops to Guadalcanal.As a result of the Japanese air attacks on the task force, one U.S. heavy cruiser was sunk, a destroyer was heavily damaged, and the rest of the U.S. task force was forced to retreat from the southern Solomons area.

General images

The following are images from various World War II-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Grave of German soldiers fallen during invasion of Poland in Końskie. Visible inscription "For Führer und Vaterland" (from Causes of World War II)
Image 2Shōwa Steel Works was a mainstay of the Economy of Manchukuo (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 3Japanese troops entering Saigon (from Causes of World War II)
Image 4Prime Minister Churchill and General de Gaulle at Marrakesh, January 1944 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 5Hitler in action (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 6Marshal Pétain, left, head of Vichy France, shaking hands with Hitler on October 24, 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 7The destroyer USS Shaw explodes during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 8Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, 2016
Image 9All territories taken from Czechoslovakia by its neighbours in October 1938 ("Munich Dictate") and March 1939 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 10The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1942. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 11Roosevelt and Churchill drafted the Atlantic Charter in August 1941. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 12Cheering crowds greet the Nazis in Innsbruck (from Causes of World War II)
Image 13Chiang Kai-shek of China with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 14Auschwitz SS guards enjoying themselves on vacation in Solahütte (from The Holocaust)
Image 15Adolf Hitler in Bad Godesberg, Germany, 1938 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 16Deportation to Chełmno (from The Holocaust)
Image 17A body lying in the street of the Warsaw Ghetto in the General Governorate (from The Holocaust)
Image 18Danzigers rallying for Hitler, shortly after the free city's annexation into Germany (from The Holocaust)
Image 19Roosevelt, İnönü of Turkey and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference which was held between December 4–6, 1943. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 20Jews of Mogilev, Belarus, forced to clean a street, July 1941 (from The Holocaust)
Image 21Japanese occupation of China in 1937 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 22Polish military officers executed by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyn massacre, exhumation photo taken by the Polish Red Cross delegation in 1943 (from World War II casualties)
Image 23Soviet POWs held by the Nazis in Mauthausen concentration camp. It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in German custody. (from World War II casualties)
Image 24Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia, annexed by Hungary in 1938, on the selection ramp at Auschwitz II in May or June 1944. Men are lined up to the right, women and children to the left. About 25 percent were selected for work and the rest gassed. (from The Holocaust)
Image 25The Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig (from Causes of World War II)
Image 26Germany after Versailles----
  Administered by the League of Nations
  Annexed or transferred to neighbouring countries by the treaty or later by plebiscites and League of Nation actions
  Weimar Germany
(from Causes of World War II)
Image 271935 poster of the puppet state of Manchukuo promoting harmony among peoples. The caption reads: "With the help of Japan, China, and Manchukuo, the world can be in peace." (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 28Soviet soldiers killed during the Toropets–Kholm Offensive, January 1942. Officially, roughly 8.6 million Soviet soldiers died in the course of the war, including millions of POWs. (from World War II casualties)
Image 29Woman with Ostarbeiter badge at work at IG-Farbenwerke in Auschwitz (from The Holocaust)
Image 30Jews are deported from Würzburg, Germany to the Lublin District of the General Governorate, 25 April 1942. (from The Holocaust)
Image 31Clement Attlee, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, c.28 July – 1 August 1945 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 32Public execution of Masha Bruskina, a Belarusian Jew who helped Soviet prisoners escape (from The Holocaust)
Image 33Cumulative murders of Jews from the General Governorate at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka from January 1942 to February 1943 (from The Holocaust)
Image 34Defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal, November 1945
Image 35During the Battle of Westerplatte, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein attacks Westerplatte at the start of the war, September 1, 1939 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 36The Warsaw Ghetto uprising became significant as a symbol of Jewish resistance against the Nazis. (from The Holocaust)
Image 37The major long-term goal of Roosevelt's foreign policy during the war was creating a United Nations to resolve all world problems (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 38View of the old synagogue in Aachen after its destruction during Kristallnacht (from The Holocaust)
Image 39Francisco Franco and Heinrich Himmler in Madrid, Spain, 1940 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 40Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 which directly led to the Anglo-French declaration of war on Germany on 3 September. The Soviet Union joined Germany's invasion of Poland on 17 September. (from Causes of World War II)
Image 41British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler at a meeting in Germany on 24 September 1938, and Hitler demanded the immediate annexation of Czechoslovak border areas. (from Causes of World War II)
Image 42UN vs Axis War Production, near equality of strength in 1942 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 431919 Austrian postcard showing a Jew stabbing a German Army soldier in the back (from The Holocaust)
Image 44"The Big Four" made all the major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference (from left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.) (from Causes of World War II)
Image 45Einsatzgruppen murder Jewish civilians outside Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942. Over 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust. (from World War II casualties)
Image 46A mass grave at Bergen-Belsen after the camp's liberation, April 1945 (from The Holocaust)
Image 47Greek counteroffensive against Italian-controlled Albania, late 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 48Nazi leaders (from left) Karl Wolff and Heinrich Himmler meet with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and his Foreign Minister Serrano Súñer in Madrid, October 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 49A bunker where Jews attempted to hide during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (from The Holocaust)
Image 50Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1922) (from Causes of World War II)
Image 51Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 1941 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 52The Japanese march into Zhengyangmen, Beijing, after they captured the city in July 1937 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 53Unpaved street in the Frysztak Ghetto, Krakow District (from The Holocaust)
Image 54Territorial expansion of Germany from 1933 to 1941 (from The Holocaust)
Image 55Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 56Italy and its colonial possessions in 1940 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 57At least 3,000 Jews were killed during the 1941 Lviv pogroms, mainly by local Ukrainians. (from The Holocaust)
Image 58Adolf Hitler meeting Japanese ambassador to Germany Hiroshi Ōshima, 1942 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 59Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, 1945 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 60Shooting from behind became popular because killers did not have to look at their victims' faces and the dead were likely to fall into the grave. (from The Holocaust)
Image 61The prime ministers of five members of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 62Bodies of U.S. Marines on the beach of Tarawa. The Marines secured the island after 76 hours of intense fighting. Over 1,000 American and ~4600 Japanese troops died in the fighting. (from World War II casualties)
Image 63Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (left) meets with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at the signing of the German–Soviet non-aggression pact on 23 August 1939 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 64Hitler and Finnish commander-in-chief Field MarshalMannerheim (right) (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 65Gloster Gladiators of British RAF refuel in Iraq, 1941 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 66Original Nazi propaganda caption: "Too bad even for a bullet... The Jews shown here were shot at once." 28 June 1941 in Rozhanka, Belarus (from The Holocaust)
Image 67View of the Pegnitz River (c. 1900) with the Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg, destroyed in 1938 during the November pogroms (from The Holocaust)
Image 68Animation of the European Theatre (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 69Holocaust deaths as an approximate percentage of the 1939 Jewish population:
  90
  80
  70
  60
  50
  40
  30
  20
  Low
Image 70Italian Social Republic (RSI) as of 1943 in yellow and green. The green areas were German military operational zones under direct German administration. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)

Selected picture -

Nuclear bombing of Nagasaki

The mushroom cloud caused by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan in 1945, rising approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) above the hypocenter.

Selected biography -

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Andrew Cunningham

Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Browne Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, KT, GCB, OM, DSO (7 January 1883 – 12 June 1963), older brother of General Sir Alan Cunningham, was a British admiral of the Second World War. Cunningham was born in Rathmines in the southside of Dublin on 7 January 1883. After starting his schooling in Dublin and Edinburgh, he enrolled at a naval academy, at the age of ten, beginning his association with the Royal Navy. After passing out of Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in 1898, he progressed rapidly in rank. He commanded a destroyer during the First World War and through most of the interwar period. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars, for his performance during this time, specifically for his actions in the Dardanelles and in the Baltics. In the Second World War, as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, Cunningham led British naval forces to victory in several critical Mediterranean naval battles. These included the attack on Taranto in 1940, the first completely all-aircraft naval attack in history, and the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941.

Did you know...? -

...that the Old Admiralty House, a national monument in Singapore, was used by the British Armed Forces for strategic planning during World War II?

...that U-256 was one of seven German World War II submarines converted into anti-aircraft submarines, and the last German submarine to leave Brest, France?

...that Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Hodges was awarded two DSOs and a Bar to his DFC for flying secret missions for SOE in Europe and the Far East in the Second World War?

Selected quote -

"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."

— Neville Chamberlain, 3 September 1939

Topics

World War II

Theatres

Main events

Specific articles

Participants

Prelude
• Causes
• in Europe
• in Asia

Main theatres
• Europe
• Eastern Europe
• China
• Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa
• Asia and the Pacific
• Atlantic

General timeline
• Timeline

1939
• Invasion of Poland
• Winter War

1940
• Invasion of Denmark/Norway
• Battle of France
• Battle of Britain

1941
• Invasion of the Soviet Union
• Battle of Moscow
• Attack on Pearl Harbor

1942
• Battle of Midway
• Battle of Stalingrad
• Second Battle of El Alamein

1943
• Battle of Kursk
• Guadalcanal campaign
• Invasion of Italy

1944
• Battle of Normandy
• Operation Bagration
• Battle of Leyte Gulf
• Operation Market Garden
• Battle of the Bulge

1945
• Battle of Iwo Jima
• Battle of Okinawa
• Battle of Berlin
• End in Europe
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Surrender of Japan

• more...

• Blitzkrieg
• Cryptography
• Equipment
• Home Front
• Military engagements
• Production
• Resistance
• Technology

Civilian impact and atrocities
• Nanjing Massacre
• The Holocaust
• Siege of Leningrad
• Bataan Death March
• Dutch famine of 1944
• Bengal famine of 1943
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Unit 731
• Strategic bombings
• Comfort women
• Allied war crimes
• German war crimes
• Japanese war crimes

Aftermath
• Effects
• Casualties
• Expulsion of Germans
• Denazification
• Cold War
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Decline of the British Empire

The Allies
• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• British India
• Canada
• Czechoslovakia
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• France (after June 16, 1940: Free France)
• Greece
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Philippines
• Poland
• Republic of China
• South Africa
• Soviet Union
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Yugoslavia

more...

The Axis
• Germany
• Italy
• Japan
• Slovakia
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Finland
• Vichy France
• Hungary
• Romania
• Thailand

more...

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Things you can do

From the World War II task force of the Military history WikiProject:

Attention needed: ...to referencing and citation • ...to coverage and accuracy • ...to structure • ...to grammar • ...to supporting materials
Popular pages: Full list
Cleanup needed: Battle of Kiev (1943) • Battle of Ko Chang • Colditz Castle • Spiritual national defence • Tuskegee Airmen
Requested articles: Battle of Uhtua-Kiestinki • Battles of Repola-Rukajärvi • Battle of Siiranmäki • Battle of Łuck • Battle of Równe • Battle of Włodzimierz Wołyński • Battle of Lubartów • Battle of Miedniki • Battle of Jodła • Francis Blanchain • Shinshou Draenger • Christer Lyst Hansen • Ove Kampman • League for Combat Policy • Julien Meline • Operation Mittelmeer • Operation Richard • Otto Program • Martin Poppel • Roehm's Avengers • Poul Bruun • Raoul Boulanger • Battle of West Ukraine (1941) • Battle of Zunyi • Liberation of Denmark (currently redirect) • Operation Vado (currently redirect) • Finnish 19th Division (Continuation War) • Finnish 11th Division (Continuation War) • Finnish Cavalry Brigade • 1st Jaeger Brigade • 2nd Jaeger Brigade • 168th Rifle Division (Soviet Union) • 71st Rifle Division (Soviet Union) • Group Oinonen • Operation Vesuvius (currently redirect) • Capture of Kassala (currently redirect) • Battle of Pankow • Brandenburg–Rathenow Offensive • Japanese internment of European civilians during World War II • Miranda de Ebro concentration camp • German occupation of the Netherlands (current redirect) • Soviet home front during World War II • Labour Charter (Vichy France) • Berles-Monchel and Aubigny-en-Artois massacres (1940) • Febvin-Palfart massacre (1940) • German massacres of French colonial prisoners of war • 1941 Nord-Pas de Calais miners' strike • Spitfire funds • Good War (historiography) • Nederlandsche Oost Compagnie • West African Pioneers • 2nd Marching Battalion of Ubangui-Shari • Bataillon du Pacifique • Persecution of freemasons in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe • Mohammed El Maadi • Luxembourgers in the Wehrmacht • Chantiers de la Jeunesse (Vichy France) • Netherlands East Indies Government in exile • Burma Government in exile (1942-1945) • Free Republic of Nias
Expansion needed: Princess Irene Brigade • Battle of Bay of Viipuri • Demilitarisation • Free Dutch Forces • Martha Desrumeaux • Mochitsura Hashimoto • Operation Cascade • Operation Tan No. 2 • Burma Area Army • Battle of Courland • Battle of Munda Point • Battle of Voronezh (1943) • Drive on Munda Point • First Battle of Kharkov • Race to Berlin • Marie Fourcade • Donald Blakeslee • Operation Nordwind • Battle of Skerki Bank • Michael Sinclair (soldier) • Battle of Maastricht • Battle of Zeeland • Landings on Rendova • New Georgia counterattack • Operation Waterfall • Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive • American-British-Dutch-Australian Command • Battle of Viru Harbor • Battle of Wickham Anchorage • Western New Guinea campaign (and the individual battles of the campaign) • Operation Blockbuster • Operation Cooney • The Holocaust in France • Knowledge of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe • Francoist Spain and the Holocaust • Japan campaign • Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign • Légion Français des Combattants • more
Images needed: Twelfth Army (United Kingdom) • 4th Airborne Division (United Kingdom) • 5th Airborne Division (United Kingdom) • XVI Corps (United Kingdom) • Battle of Dakar • Battle of the Lys (1940) • Battle of Zeeland • Battle of the Grebbeberg • Franco-Thai War • Battle of Ko Chang • Switzerland during the World Wars • Berthe Fraser • Western Allied invasion of Germany • LXXXIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht)
Merging needed: Add an article here!
Citations needed: Battle of Borneo (1941–42) • Battle of Imphal • Garderegiment Fuseliers Prinses Irene • Japanese invasion of French Indochina • Japanese invasion of Thailand • Luxembourg in World War II • New Georgia Campaign • Operation Cartwheel • Operation Chastise • Royal Netherlands Motorized Infantry Brigade • Solomon Islands campaign • Battle of Radom • Seishin Operation • Moravia–Ostrava Offensive • Panzerjäger
Translation needed: 5th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment • Novorossiysk-Taman Operation • 1943 Novorossiysk Operation • 1943 Air Battles over Kuban • Battle of Rostov (1943) • Battle of Olshansky • Nalchik-Ordzhonikidzevskaya Operation • Bukrinsky Landing • Cape Tarhan Landing • 1942 Sudak Landing • Mozdok-Malgobek Operation • Alexander Sergeyevich Ksenofontov • Henri de Vernejoul • André Bergeret • Battle of Nice • Liberation de Saint-Malo • Battle of Seuil Valley • René-Jean-Paul Cassagne • Cameroun's rallying to the Free French • Battle of Bouno-Misaki

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