World War II

World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2. Also known as the Second World War, or on the Eastern Front as the Great Patriotic War) was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations including all of the great powers, eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilized. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities.

Background
After World War I and the failure of the Weimar Republic, Germany was left in ruins. Within the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler became the chancellor (later fuhrer) of the central European country. For Italy in the 1920s, Benito Mussolini rose to power. In 1931, Japan used its army to invade northern China and by 1937, the whole of the eastern Asian mainland. By 1938, the Germans invaded half of the Czech Republic and Austria after Italian forces took Ethiopia in 1935. Ignoring a peace-time conference in Munich, Hitler gradually took all of the Czech Republic a year after. With new weapons tested in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939, Hitler's next target was Poland.

In order to take half of the country, he persuaded Joseph Stalin of the Soviets to secure a treaty under which the Red Army would take the other half of Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland with a tactic that became known as the Blitzkrieg. Two days later, the British and French governments declared war on the Germans which caused a retreat from France a year later by the British when they were overrun.

Italian Campaign
The Italian Campaign appears in Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome. Northern Italy was a battleground in World War I, but by the Second World War Italy had to defend its homeland after Hitler's Afrika Krops were destroyed in Tunisia on May 13 of 1943. On the 9th of July, Operation Husky commenced in which the Allies took on the Royal Italian Army for a month and thirty-nine days.

Operation Husky
9 July – 17 August 1943

Operation Husky was a major World War 2 campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis Powers. It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation. followed by six weeks of land combat. During the first hours of the Operation, the British Army launched their airborne forces near the coastal town of Syracuse to sieze landing zones from the Royal Italian Army. Hours later the Infantry came ashore in landing craft to assist the paratroopers.

Operation Baytown
3 September — 9 September 1943

Battle for Salerno
9 September 1943

Battle for Monte Cassino
17 January 1944 – 18 May 1944

Battle for Anzio
January 22, 1944 – June 5, 1944

The Battle of Monte Santa Croce
August 25 - December 17, 1944

Western Front
The Western Front of World War II was generally restricted to the same geographic regions as during World War I. During the war the front moved much further, as far west as the English Channel and deep in to the Soviet Union to the east. Although fighting took place in Norway and Italy these are not usually included as part of the Western Front but as separate campaigns.

Battle of Britain
July 10 – October 31, 1940

The Battle of Britain was an air campaign waged by the Luftwaffe against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force, especially Fighter Command. The name derives from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons: "...the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

The Invasion of Normandy
June 6 – August 25, 1944

Omaha Beach
June 6, 1944

Omaha Beach is the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. The beach is located on the coast of Normandy, France, facing the English Channel, and is 5 miles (8 km) long, from east of Sainte-Honorine-des-Pertes to west of Vierville-sur-Mer on the right bank of the Douve River estuary. Landings here were necessary in order to link up the British landings to the east at Gold Beach with the American landing to the west at Utah Beach, thus providing a continuous lodgement on the Normandy coast of the Bay of the Seine. Taking Omaha was to be the responsibility of United States Army troops, with sea transport provided by the United States Navy and elements of the Royal Navy.

Liberation of Caen
June 6 – August 6, 1944

The Battle for Caen took place from June–August 1944 and was a battle between Allied forces primarily consisting of British and Canadian troops and German forces during the Invasion of Normandy.

Battle of Villers-Bocage
June 13, 1944

The Battle of Villers-Bocage took place during June 13, 1944, one week after the Allies landed in Normandy to begin the liberation of German-occupied France. The battle was the result of a British attempt to improve their position by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in the German defenses to the west of the city of Caen. After one day of fighting in and around the small town of Villers-Bocage and a second defending a position outside the town, the British force retired largely intact.

Operation Market Garden
17 – 25 September 1944

Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time.

Bridge of Remagen
7–25 March 1945

The Bridge of Remagen was a battle between the forces of the United States of America and Nazi Germany in and around the German town of Remagen, particularly centered on the Ludendorff Bridge, the short-term reason why the Americans were fighting the Germans in Remagen.

Battle of the Bulge
December 16, 1944 – January 25, 1945

The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive, launched toward the end of the war through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name, Bataille des Ardennes, and France and Luxembourg on the Western Front. The Wehrmacht's code name for the offensive was Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch on the Rhine"), after the German patriotic hymn Die Wacht am Rhein. This German offensive was officially named the Ardennes-Alsace campaign by the U.S. Army, but it is known to the English-speaking general public simply as the Battle of the Bulge, the "bulge" being the initial incursion the Germans put into the Allies' line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.

Eastern Front
Before 1917, a city in Europe's eastern direction was part of heavy Soviet forces fighting the Germans. Twenty-four years later, Hitler planned an invasion of the Soviet Union. On the first day of October, Germany forces were encountered by the Soviets at Kharkov trying to get hold of three major outposts in the ruined city. As the battle continued, Stalingrad and Kursk became heavily bombarded by German artillery. On the same day of August 23, 1943 the Soviets had won the two battles against the Germans.

Battle of Kharkov
October 1, 1941 - August 23, 1943

Four operations in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR.

Battle of Stalingrad
August 23, 1942 - February 2, 1943 

The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle in the war in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between August 23, 1942 and February 2, 1943. It was among the largest on the Eastern Front and was marked by its brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties. It was amongst the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare with the higher estimates of combined casualties amounting to nearly two million. In its defeat, the crippling losses suffered by Germany's military proved to be insurmountable for the war. The battle was a turning point in the war after which the German forces attained no further strategic victories in the East.

Battle of Kursk
5 July - 23 August 1943 

The Battle of Kursk took place when German and Soviet forces confronted each other in the vicinity of the city of Kursk, in the Soviet Union in July and August 1943. It remains both the largest series of armored clashes, including the Battle of Prokhorovka, and the costliest single day of aerial warfare in history. It was the final strategic offensive the Germans were able to mount in the east. The resulting decisive Soviet victory gave the Red Army the strategic initiative for the rest of the war.

The Battle of Berlin
April 16, 1945 – May 2, 1945

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theater of World War II, resulting in the decimation of the German forces and the surrender of Germany. It was one of the bloodiest battles in history.

"Berlin has fallen to the Russians. The war is over."

- German defeat at Berlin, signaling the end of the War in Europe

Western Desert Campaign
When Italy declared war on Britain and France in June 1940, the British pushed the Italians in Libya from invading Egypt to Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. Elements of the German Afrika Korps aided in the destruction of the British forces. As the Germans forced their way through to Egypt, British and Commonwealth soldiers held them off at Tobruk in a siege until June 1942 when the Germans were finally able to capture the fort.

Siege of Tobruk
10 April 1941 - 27 November 1941

Operation Battleaxe
15–17 June 1941

Battle of Gazala
26 May 1942 - 21 June 1942

Operation Aberdeen
29 May 1942 - 11 June 1942

Second Battle of El Alamein
23 October 1942 - 4 November 1942

Pacific Theater
American forces took part in defending Wake Island after the Japanese victory at Pearl Harbor. The battle rages on Midway Island, the Philippines, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. The Coral Sea was another battle as part of the Pacific theater. Japan fights off the Americans as they control all islands and coral reefs from being captured.

Battle of Wake Island
8–23 December 1941

Philippines Campaign
8 December 1941 - 8 May 1942

20 October 1944 - 2 September 1945

Battle of Midway
4–7 June 1942

Battle of the Coral Sea
4–8 May 1942

Operation Aurora
6 October 1944

Battle of Iwo Jima
19 February 1945 - 26 March 1945