The Second World War left indelible marks on both the landscape and the people, not just of Britain and Germany, but the world. This book aims to put the well-known stories, memories and ruins of the war into context, and bring to life the events that led to these lasting changes. Find out how the war began, who fought and made key decisions throughout its duration, and how, after years of conflict, it finally came to an end. Uncover the story behind some of the war's crucial events – from the Battle of Midway and the attack on Pearl Harbor to the D-Day landings and the firebombing of Tokyo – and learn how these defining moments shaped the war. See the chronology of the war through evocative images, read detailed accounts and gain an insight into what it was like to live during the period with this compendium of the last world war. BOOK OF Imagine Publishing Ltd Richmond House 33 Richmond Hill Bournemouth Dorset BH2 6EZ (cid:8) +44 (0) 1202 586200 Website: www.imagine-publishing.co.uk Twitter: @Books_Imagine Facebook: www.facebook.com/ImagineBookazines Publishing Director Aaron Asadi Head of Design Ross Andrews Edited by Jon White & Alex Hoskins Written by Richard Overy Senior Art Editor Greg Whitaker Designer David Lewis Printed by William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT Distributed in the UK, Eire & the Rest of the World by Marketforce, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU Tel 0203 148 3300 www.marketforce.co.uk Distributed in Australia by Network Services (a division of Bauer Media Group), Level 21 Civic Tower, 66-68 Goulburn Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2000, Australia Tel +61 2 8667 5288 Disclaimer The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or damaged in the post. 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All About History Book Of World War II © 2014 Imagine Publishing Ltd ISBN 978 1910 155 295 Part of the bookazine series World War II CONTENTS 08 - Introduction 78 - The Siege of Leningrad 10 - Operations map 1931–1941 80 - Operation “Typhoon” 12 - Operations map 1941–1942 82 - Defeat in North Africa 14 - Operations map 1942–1944 84 - The Allied Invasion of Iraq & Syria 16 - Operations map 1944–1945 86 - The Atlantic Charter 18 - Forging the Peace 88 - Operation “Crusader” 20 - Japan’s War in China 90 - Pearl Harbor 22 - Italy’s Wars 92 - Blitzkrieg in Asia 24 - Germany destroys Versailles 94 - Lend-Lease 26 - Arming for War in the 1930s 96 - The Wannsee Conference 28 - The Munich Crisis 98 - The Fall of Singapore 30 - The Occupation and Break-up 100 - Commando Raids: Norway to St Nazaire of Czechoslovakia 102 - The Siege of Malta 32 - The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 104 - Corregidor: Fall of the Philippines 34 - Germany invades Poland 106 - Japan conquers Burma 36 - Britain and France declare War 108 - The Battle of Coral Sea 38 - The Soviet-Finnish war 110 - Operation “Ironclad” 40 - The Battle of the River Plate 112 - The First Thousand-Bomber Raid 42 - The Invasion of Norway 114 - Oil 44 - Churchill takes over 116 - Operation “Blue” 46 - Germany invades in the West 118 - The Battle of Midway 48 - Dunkirk 120 - Crisis in Egypt 50 - The Fall of France 122 - The Battle of the Atlantic 52 - Germany’s New Order 124 - Into the Caucasus 54 - The Battle of Britain 126 - Battle for the Solomons 56 - The East African Campaigns 128 - The Dieppe Raid 58 - Operation “Sealion” 130 - The tide turns in North Africa 60 - The German Blitz on Britain 132 - The Battle for Stalingrad 62 - The Tripartite Pact 134 - Second Alamein 64 - Naval War in the Mediterranean 136 - Operation “Torch” 66 - Operation “Compass”: 138 - Guadalcanal Defeat of Italy in North Africa 140 - Operation “Uranus” 68 - German Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece 142 - Defeat at Stalingrad 70 - The German conquest of Crete 144 - The Casablanca Conference 72 - Sinking the Bismarck 146 - Operation “Longcloth”: Chindits in Burma 74 - Hitler turns East 148 - The end of the Axis in Africa: Tunisia 76 - Operation “Barbarossa” 150 - The Dambusters raid 6 152 - Rationing: The war for food 220 - Behind Barbed Wire: The Fate of POWs 154 - The Battle of Kursk 222 - The Battle of the Bulge 156 - Operation “Husky”: Invasion of Sicily 224 - Soviet Advance on Germany: 158 - The Bombing of Hamburg Vistula-Oder Operation 160 - The French Resistance 226 - The Yalta Conference 162 - From Kharkov to Kiev: 228 - Iwo Jima the Red Army breaks through 230 - The Firebombing of Tokyo 164 - Italy: Invasion and Surrender 232 - The Western Advance into Germany: 166 - Operation “Cartwheel”: War for New Guinea From the Rhine to the Elbe 168 - Island-hopping in the Pacifi c: 234 - Okinawa Gilbert and Marshall Islands 236 - Liberation of the Camps 170 - The Big Three: The Teheran Conference 238 - Victory in Burma 172 - Partisan War 240 - Battle for Berlin 174 - Battle of the North Cape 242 - Last Days in Hitler’s Bunker 176 - The Battle for Anzio 244 - Victory in Italy 178 - The Battle for Monte Cassino 246 - The German Surrender 180 - The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Deception 248 - The Atomic Bombs 182 - Battle for India: Imphal and Kohima 250 - The Japanese Surrender 184 - Japan’s War in China: Operation “Ichi-Go” 252 - The Casualties 186 - D-Day 254 - The War Crimes Trials 188 - Battle for Normandy 256 - From World War to Cold War 190 - The V-Weapons Campaign 258 - Credits 192 - The Marianas: Defence to the Death 194 - Battle of the Philippine Sea 196 - Operation “Bagration” 198 - Defeat of the Luftwaff e 200 - Stalemate in Italy 202 - July Plot: The Coup that Failed 204 - Breakout: Operation “Cobra” 206 - The Warsaw Uprising 208 - The End of Vichy France: Operation “Dragoon” 210 - The Liberation of Paris 212 - Operation “Market Garden” 214 - Yugoslavia: Liberation from within 216 - The Recapture of the Philippines 218 - The Battle of Leyte Gulf 7 8 INTRODUCTION T he Second World War was the largest and of the Allies and the re-establishment of a more costliest war in human history. Its scale stable world order. It starts with the early years of was genuinely global, leaving almost no more limited war, when German armies conquered part of the world unaffected. At its end the political much of Europe with relatively low casualties and geography of the world was transformed and the with lightning speed. In just 19 months Germany stage set for the emergence of the modern states’ had conquered an area from Norway to Crete, system. It is possible to exaggerate the break the French Atlantic coast to Warsaw. It is little represented by victory in 1945, but the change wonder that Hitler and the German leadership felt between the pre-war world of economic crisis, confident that they could now build a New Order European imperialism and militant nationalism on the ruins of the old. and the post-war world of economic boom, It follows the war’s progress as the Axis states decolonisation and the ideological confrontation of pushed out into the Soviet Union, South-east Asia the Cold War was a fundamental one. and the Pacific and almost to the Suez Canal. In the It is worth remembering that no-one at the start Soviet Union only exceptional efforts staved off could be certain what direction the war might defeat, but with losses on an extraordinary scale, take or could anticipate the degree of destruction any other state would have sued for peace. Stalin’s and violence that it would draw in its wake. A ability to keep his people fighting was a vital number of different areas of conflict coalesced, element in 1941 and 1942 when the Western Allies like separate fires growing into a single inferno: were struggling to avoid defeat in the Pacific and the European conflict over German efforts to Atlantic, and could do little to hinder the German break the restrictions imposed after her defeat in advance. For the Allies these years turned into the First World War; the conflicts generated by an a holding operation in which they tried to avoid expansionist and ambitious Fascist Italy whose anything worse happening. For their Axis enemies leader, Benito Mussolini, dreamed of re-creating the tantalising prize of a new world order seemed the Roman Empire; and the war for Asia fought still within their grasp – German soldiers were in in the east by Imperial Japan, determined to the Caucasus, Japanese soldiers a short step from assert the right of non-white peoples to a share Australia and German and Italian forces deep of empire; and in western Asia by an alliance of inside Egypt. anti-Communist states grouped around Hitler’s However this was not to be. Slowly but surely on Germany which launched a crusade against the land and sea and in the air, the tide of war began new Soviet system in 1941. to flow the Allies’ way. It became clear that Axis As the war grew in scope all the major powers forces, which had once seemed all but unstoppable, were drawn in. It is often asserted that the entry could be defeated in open battle. Victory in the of the United States in December 1941 made desert war paved the way for the reconquest of the victory certain for the Allied powers through Mediterranean; victory in the Solomons opened sheer economic weight, but the outcome was not a small doorway into the defensive frontier of the pre-ordained. Germany and her allies had large Japanese Empire through which the Allies poured resources and captured yet more. German and overwhelming naval, air and military strength; Japanese forces fought with high skill. To win victory at Stalingrad demonstrated to the world the war the Allies needed to improve fighting that the Red Army had come of age and the period power, to co-ordinate their activities and to keep of easy German victories was over. their populations, even in times of tribulation, The Struggles of the end of the war were the committed to the cause. The idea that the Axis costliest of the entire conflict. Most Western, powers, and Germany in particular, lost the war German and Japanese casualties date from the through their own ineptitude distorts the extent to final 18 months of combat. The sight of distant which the Allies had to learn to fight with greater victory did not make the war easier to wage effectiveness and to exploit their own scientific, but called for the most supreme of efforts. The technical and intelligence resources to the full. It prospect of catastrophic defeat called for desperate is a measure of the significance they all gave to the measures of defence from the Axis forces. When war, not simply as the means to their own survival, the war was finally over in August 1945 the world but as a way to impose one world order or another, had to take stock of the wreckage left behind. The that they made the sacrifices they did. There was changes provoked by the war were this time more a powerful sense that this really was a war that permanent than in 1918. Nothing to compare with would shape the way history would be made. the Second World War has occurred in the sixty- The Second World War: The Complete Illustrated three years since it ended, but its long shadow has History is the story of that conflict from its roots in extended down to the present. the post-war settlement of 1919 to the final victory RICHARD OVERY, 2010 9 World War II A T L A N T I C OPERATIONS 1931–1941 O C E A N B IR etween September 1939 and May 1941 alone, was under growing threat in North the Axis powers in Europe, Germany Africa and the Middle East and, in eastern Asia, and Italy, came to dominate most of the from the expanding Japanese Empire, which Cor European continent from Norway in the north to by mid-1941 reached down deep into Chinese Crete in the south. The Allies had more success in territory and was poised to threaten the eastern the naval war and in sub-Saharan Africa, European imperial possessions from India to the but by mid-1941 the British Empire, fighting Dutch East Indies. Sinking the Bismarck, 24–27 May 1941 GENERAL MAP KEY — TO SPREAD MAPS WORLD MAP KEY Military units Nationalities Military types FRONTIERS, 1941 XXXXX JAPANESE EMPIRE, 1937 Army Group German Infantry XXXX Army Italian Armour ITALY'S AFRICAN EMPIRE, 1939 XXX Japanese Airbourne Corps XX French Division X British EUROPE MAP KEY Brigade B a y o III Soviet FRONTIERS, 1941 Regiment II Other (named) B i s c a AXIS STATES AXIS CONQUERED TERRITORY Battalion I Company AXIS ALLIES VICHY FRANCE AND TERRITORIES Oviedo Porto U N I O N O F S O V I E T L GREAT S O C I A L I S T R E P U B L I C S A Douro BRITAIN C A N A D A GERMANYPOLAND G Karafuto FRANCE U MANCHURIA MONGOLIA Caspian Lisbon T Tagus Madrid ITALY Sea R UONF IATMEDE RSITCAATES ATNLOARNTTHIC see map right TURKEY C H I N A O KORESA JAPAPN A I OCEAN Operation “Compass”– IRAQ PERSIA P Defeat of Italy in North Africa, Japan's Wars in China, 7 December 1940–9 February 1941 1931–39 LIBYA EGYPT I N D I A Formosa SIAM FRENCH WEST AFRICA SUDAN ERITREA INDFROE-NCHCHINASeville POACCEIAFINC Italy's Wars, 1935–39 PHILIPPINES A F R I C A ABYSSINIA ITALIAN Ceylon Gibraltar COLOMBIA SOMALILAND MALAY STATES (British) KENYA The East African Campaigns, 5 August–16 May 1941 BCEOLNGGIAON DUTCH EAST INDIES TANGANYIKA B R A Z I L PERU SOUTH ANGOLA ATLANTIC OCEAN INDIAN OCEAN M O R O C C O A U S T R A L I A SOUTH ARGENTINA Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939 AFRICA 10