|
The Battle of Midway was a naval battle in the Pacific
Theater of World War II. It took place from June 4, 1942 to June 7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the
Coral Sea, about five months after the Japanese capture of Wake Island, and six months after the Empire of Japan's attack
on Pearl Harbor that had led to a formal state of war between the United States and Japan. During the battle, the United States
Navy defeated a Japanese attack against Midway Atoll, losing one aircraft carrier and one destroyer, while destroying four
Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser.
The battle was a decisive victory for the Americans, widely regarded as
the most important naval engagement of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The battle permanently weakened the Imperial
Japanese Navy (IJN), particularly through the loss of over 200 naval aviators. Both nations sustained losses in the battle,
but Japan, industrially outstripped by America, was unable to reconstitute its naval forces while the American shipbuilding
program provided quick replacements. By 1942 the United States was three years[citation needed] into a massive ship building
program that sought to expand the Navy to a size superior to Japan's. As a result of Midway, the Japanese were faced with
naval inferiority within months as this created a steady flow of aircraft carriers and other ships of the line. Strategically,
the U.S. Navy was able to seize the initiative in the Pacific and go on the offensive.
The Japanese plan of attack
was to lure America's remaining carriers into a trap and sink them. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll
to extend Japan's defensive perimeter farther from its home islands. This operation was considered preparatory for further
attacks against Fiji and Samoa, as well as an invasion of Hawaii.
The Midway operation, like
the attack on Pearl Harbor, was not part of a campaign for the conquest of the United States, but was aimed at its elimination
as a strategic Pacific power, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
It was also hoped another defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War with conditions favorable for
Japan.
In early May, Japan initiated operations to capture
Port Moresby via amphibious assault and thus sever the line of communications between the United States and Australia. The
Allies, however, intercepted and turned back Japanese naval forces, preventing the invasion.Japan's next plan, motivated
by the earlier bombing on Tokyo, was to seize the Midway Atoll as this would seal a gap in their perimeter defenses, provide
a forward base for further operations, and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would
also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands. In early June, Japan put their operations into action but the Americans,
having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the Japanese plans and force dispositions and used this
knowledge to achieve a decisive victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy. With their capacity for amphibious assault greatly
diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on an overland campaign on the Territory of Papua in another
attempt to capture Port Moresby.
For the Americans, they planned their next move against Japanese positions
in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily against the island of Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the
primary Japanese base in Southeast Asia.
Both plans started in July, but by mid-September the battle for Guadalcanal
took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern
part of the island. Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in a battle
of attrition. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.
The Battle of Berlin was one of the final battles
of the European Theatre of World War II. In what was known to the Soviets as the "Berlin Offensive Operation", two
massive Soviet army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of
Berlin.
The battle of Berlin lasted from late April 1945 until early May and was one of the bloodiest battles
in history. Before the battle was over, German dictator Adolf Hitler and many of his followers committed suicide. The city's
defenders surrendered on May 2. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end
of the war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 in the USSR) as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western
Allies rather than to the Soviets.
Battles generally refer to short periods of intense
combat localised to a specific area and over a specific period of time. However, use of the terms in naming such events is
not consistent. For example, the Battle of the Atlantic was more or less an entire theatre of war, and the so-called battle
lasted for the duration of the entire war. Another misnomer is the Battle of Britain, which by all rights should be considered
a campaign, not a mere battle.
The Battle of Berlin was one of the final battles
of the European Theatre of World War II. In what was known to the Soviets as the "Berlin Offensive Operation", two
massive Soviet army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of
Berlin.
The battle of Berlin lasted from late April 1945 until early May and was one of the bloodiest battles in history.
Before the battle was over, German dictator Adolf Hitler and many of his followers committed suicide. The city's defenders
surrendered on May 2. However, fighting continued to the north-west, west and south-west of the city until the end of the
war in Europe on May 8 (May 9 in the USSR) as defeated German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western
Allies rather than to the Soviets.
In the wake of Operation Bagration in August 1944, the Eastern Front became relatively
stable. Romania and Bulgaria had been forced to surrender and declare war on Germany. The Germans had lost Budapest and most
of the rest of Hungary. The plains of Poland were now open to the Soviet Red Army.
Starting on January 12, 1945, the
Red Army began the Vistula-Oder offensive across the Narew River and from Warsaw -- a three-day operation on a broad front
which incorporated four army Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to thirty to forty
kilometres per day. They took the Baltic states, Danzig, East Prussia, and Pozna, drawing up on a line sixty kilometres east
of Berlin, along the Oder River.
The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich
Himmler, attempted a counter-attack but failed by February 24. The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania. The Red Army cleared
the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia.
In the south the Battle of Budapest raged. Three German
attempts to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city failed. Budapest fell to the Soviets on February 13. Again the Germans
counter-attacked, Adolf Hitler insisting on the impossible task of regaining the Danube River. By March 16, the German's
Lake Balaton Offensive had failed. Within twenty-four hours, the Red Army's counter-attack took back everything the Germans
had gained in ten days. On March 30, the Soviets entered Austria and, during the Vienna Offensive, they captured Vienna on
April 13.
By this time, it was clear that the final defeat of the Third Reich was only a few weeks away. The Wehrmacht
had, at most, eight percent of the fuel it needed to operate effectively, and both the production and the quality of fighter
aircraft and tanks deteriorated from their heights in 1944. However, it was also known that the fighting would be as fierce
as at any other time in the war. The Germans fought bitterly, because of national pride, the Allied insistence on unconditional
surrender, and to buy time for the German people to flee from the Red Army.
Adolf Hitler decided to remain in the city,
against the wishes of his advisers. On April 12, Hitler heard the news that the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had
died. This briefly raised false hopes in the Führerbunker that there might yet be a falling out among the Allies, and
that Berlin would be saved at the last moment as had happened once before when Berlin was threatened.
The Western Allies
had tentative plans to drop paratroopers to occupy Berlin in case of a sudden German collapse. No offensive was planned to
seize the city. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower saw no need to suffer casualties in attacking a city that would be in the
Soviet sphere of influence after the war. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the strategic bombing of
Berlin during 1945. During 1945 USAAF launched a number of very large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 nights in succession
scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered
the city.
From 1945 to 1951, German and Japanese officials
and personnel were prosecuted for war crimes. Charges included crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, waging wars
of aggression, and other crimes. The most senior 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. Many other minor officials were convicted
in minor trials, including subsequent trials by the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Dachau Trials, and the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials.
No significant trials were held against Allied violations of international law (notably the Soviet Invasion of Poland in 1939),
or against Allied war crimes, such as the Allied terror bombings of Axis cities or Soviet atrocities in Eastern Europe
Japanese war crimes occurred during the period of
Japanese imperialism. Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities are terms also used for these war crimes. Some war crimes
were committed by military personnel from the Empire of Japan in the late 19th century, although most took place during the
first part of the Shwa Era, the name given to the reign of Emperor Hirohito, until the military defeat of the Empire of Japan,
in 1945.
Historians and governments of many countries officially hold Japanese military forces, namely the Imperial
Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy, responsible for killings and other crimes committed against many millions of
civilians and prisoners of war (POWs).
Although the Empire of Japan did not sign the Geneva
Conventions, which have provided the standard definition of war crimes since 1864, the crimes committed fall under other aspects
of international and Japanese law. For example, many of the alleged crimes committed by Japanese personnel broke Japanese
military law, and were not subject to court martial, as required by that law. The Empire also violated international agreements
signed by Japan, including provisions of the Treaty of Versailles such as a ban on the use of chemical weapons, and the Hague
Conventions (1899 and 1907), which protect prisoners of war (POWs). The Japanese government also signed the Kellogg-Briand
Pact (1929), thereby rendering its actions in 1937-45 liable to charges of crimes against peace, a charge that was introduced
at the Tokyo Trials to prosecute "Class A" war criminals. "Class B" war criminals were those found guilty
of war crimes per se, and "Class C" war criminals were those guilty of crimes against humanity. The Japanese government
also accepted the terms set by the Potsdam Declaration (1945) after the end of the war. The declaration alluded, in Article
10, to two kinds of war crime: one was the violation of international laws, such as the abuse of prisoners of war; the other
was obstructing "democratic tendencies among the Japanese people" and civil liberties within Japan.
Outside Japan, different societies use widely different
timeframes in defining Japanese war crimes. For example, the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910 was enforced by the Japanese
military, and was followed by the deprivation of civil liberties and exploitation of the Korean people. Thus, some Koreans
refer to "Japanese war crimes" as events occurring during the period of 1910 (or earlier) to 1945.
By
comparison, the Western Allies did not come into military conflict with Japan until 1941, and North Americans, Australasians,
South East Asians and Europeans may consider "Japanese war crimes" to be events that occurred in 1941-45.
Japanese
war crimes were not always carried out by ethnic Japanese personnel. A small minority of people in every Asian and Pacific
country invaded and/or occupied by Japan collaborated with the Japanese military, or even served in it, for a wide variety
of reasons, such as economic hardship, coercion, or antipathy to other imperialist powers.
Japan's sovereignty over
Korea and Formosa, in the first half of the 20th century, was recognized by international agreements — the Treaty
of Shimonoseki (1895) and the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty (1910) and they were considered at the time to be integral parts
of the Japanese Empire. However, the legality of these treaties is in question, as the native populations were not consulted,
there was armed resistance to Japan's annexations, and war crimes may also be committed during civil wars.
The largest number of labor camps held civilians
forcibly abducted in the occupied countries to provide labor in the German war industry, repair bombed railroads and bridges
or work on farms. As the war progressed, the use of slave labour experienced massive growth. Prisoners of war and civilian
"undesirables" were brought in from occupied territories. Millions of Jews, Slavs and other conquered peoples were
used as slave labourers by German corporations such as Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben and even Fordwerke - a subsidiary of the
Ford Motor Company
|
War crimes of the Wehrmacht are those carried out
by traditional German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed
forces were the Nazi German political armies (the SS-Totenkopfverbände and particularly the Einsatzgruppen), the traditional
armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front in the war
against the Soviet Union. The Nuremberg Trials of the major war criminals at the end of World War II found that the Wehrmacht
was not an inherently criminal organization, but that it had committed crimes in the course of the war.
Wehrmacht units killed thousands of Polish civilians
during the 1939 September campaign through executions and terror bombing of cities. After the end of hostilities, during the
Wehrmacht's administration of Poland, which went on until October 25, 1939, 531 towns and villages were burned, and the
Wehrmacht carried out 714 mass executions, alongside mass incidents of plunder, banditry and murder. Altogether, it is estimated
that 16,376 Polish (including many Jews) fell victim to those atrocities. Approximately 60% of these crimes were committed
by the Wehrmacht. Wehrmacht soldiers frequently engaged in massacres of Jews on their own rather than just assist in rounding
up Jews for the SS.
Rapes were comitted by Wehrmacht forces on Jewish women and girls by German soldiers during
Invasion of Poland. Rapes were also committed against Polish women and girls during mass executions made primarily by Selbstschutz,
which were accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers and on territory under administration of German military, the rapes were made
before shooting female captives. Thousands of Soviet female nurses, doctors and field medicians fell victim to rape when captured
during the war, and often they were murdered afterwards. Wehrmacht also ran brothels where women were forced to work. Ruth
Seifert in War and Rape. Analytical Approaches writes In the Eastern territories the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of
captured partisan women - and other women as well - with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops" and to use them
accordingly.
The Battle of Stalingrad was a battle between Germany
and its allies and the Soviet Union for the Soviet city of Stalingrad (today known as Volgograd) that took place between August
21, 1942 and February 2, 1943, as part of World War II.
It is often considered the turning point of World War
II in the European Theater and was arguably the bloodiest battle in human history, with combined casualties estimated above
1.5 million. The battle was marked by brutality and disregard for military and civilian casualties on both sides. The battle
is taken to include the German siege of Stalingrad, the battle inside the city, and the Soviet counter-offensive which eventually
trapped and destroyed the German Sixth Army and other Axis forces around the city.
On June 22, 1941, Germany
and the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union, quickly advancing deep into Soviet territory. Having suffered multiple defeats
during the summer and autumn of 1941, Soviet forces counter-attacked in the Battle of Moscow in December, driving the Wehrmacht
from the capital.
The Germans stabilized their front by spring 1942. The Wehrmacht was confident it could master
the Red Army when the winter weather no longer impeded its mobility. There was some substance to this: while Army Group Centre
had suffered heavy punishment, 65% of the infantry had not been engaged in the winter fighting, and had spent it resting and
refitting[7]. Part of the German military philosophy was to attack where least expected so that rapid gains could be made.
An attack on Moscow was seen as too predictable by some, most notably Hitler. Along with this, the German High Command knew
that time was running out for them, as the United States had entered the war following Germany's declaration of war in
support of its Japanese ally. Hitler wanted to end the fighting on the Eastern Front, or at least minimize it, before the
U.S. had a chance to get deeply involved in the war in Europe.
The Invasion of Poland, 1939 (in Poland also "the
September Campaign," "Kampania wrzeniowa," and "the 1939 Defensive War," "Wojna obronna 1939
roku"; in Germany, "the Poland Campaign," "Polenfeldzug," codenamed "Fall Weiss," "Case
White," by the German General Staff, and sometimes called "the Polish-German War of 1939"), which precipitated
World War II, was carried out by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and a small German-allied Slovak contingent.
The
invasion of Poland marked the start of World War II in Europe, as Poland's western allies, the United Kingdom, Australia
and New Zealand, declared war on Germany on September 3, soon followed by France, South Africa and Canada, among others. The
invasion began on September 1, 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and ended October 6, 1939,
with Germany and the Soviet Union occupying the entirety of Poland.
Although the United Kingdom and France declared
war on Germany soon after Germany attacked Poland, very little direct military aid was provided (see Phoney War and Western
betrayal).
Following a German-staged "Polish attack" on August 31, 1939, on September 1, German forces
invaded Poland from the north, south, and west. Spread thin defending their long borders, the Polish armies were soon forced
to withdraw eastward. After the mid-September Polish defeat in the Battle of the Bzura, the Germans gained an undisputed advantage.
Polish forces then began a withdrawal southeast, following a plan that called for a long defense in the Romanian bridgehead
area, where the Polish forces were to await an expected Allied counter-attack and relief.
On September 17, 1939,
the Soviet Red Army invaded the eastern regions of Poland in cooperation with Germany. The Soviets were carrying out their
part of the secret appendix of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Eastern Europe into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence.
Facing the second front, the Polish government decided the defence of the Romanian bridgehead was no longer
feasible and ordered the evacuation of all troops to neutral Romania.By October 1, Germany and the Soviet Union completely
overran Poland, although the Polish government never surrendered. In addition, Poland's remaining land and air forces
were evacuated to neighbouring Romania and Hungary. Many of the exiles subsequently joined the recreated Polish Army in allied
France, French-mandated Syria, and the Unit.ed
Kingdom
Dwight David Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 March 28, 1969), nicknamed "Ike", was a General of the Army (five star general) in the United
States Army and U.S. politician, who served as the thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953-1961).
During
the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and
supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.
Following the invasion of Poland, the Soviets began
moving troops into the Baltic region. Finnish resistance in late November led to a four-month war, ending with Finnish concessions.
France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the
Germans responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting its expulsion from the League of Nations. Though China had the authority
to veto such an action, it was unwilling to alienate itself from either the Western powers or the Soviet Union and instead
abstained.The Soviet Union was displeased by this course of action and as a result suspended all military aid to China. By
mid-1940, the Soviet Union's occupation of the Baltics was completed with the installation of pro-Soviet governments.
In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent but neither Germany nor the Allies launched direct
attacks on the other. In April, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to secure shipments of iron-ore from Sweden which the allies
would try to disrupt. Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support Norway was conquered within two months.
British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by Winston Churchill
on May 10th.
On that same day, Germany invaded France and the Low Countries, making rapid progress using blitzkrieg
tactics. By the end of the month the Netherlands and Belgium had been overrun and British troops were forced to evacuate the
continent, abandoning their heavy equipment. On June 10th, Italy invaded, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom;
twelve days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump
state under the Vichy Regime. In early July, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent their seizure by
Germany. The original planning for the Normandy campaign,
once the initial D-Day invasion was successful, envisioned a rapid Allied build-up of forces in a steadily-expanding beachhead.
Specific objectives such as towns, ports and airfields served as guidelines to operations. Eventually the Allies sought a
mobile battle in which their advantages in numbers, tactical air power, armor, mechanized infantry and logistics would be
brought to bear. They wished to avoid a slow, World War I-style stalemate or near-stalemate, though it was recognized that
the battle would be at least partly attritional, and the original planned length of the battle was ninety days.
A critical
success factor for the Allies, once a beachhead had been established, was building up their highly mechanized forces in the
battle area faster than the Germans. The Allies had to build up forces quickly, at the same time that they prevented the Germans
from doing the same.
To prevent additional German forces from entering the battle area, Allied tactical air forces attempted
to isolate the rail and road network of northern France. This effort was highly successful; German units in Normandy suffered
from severe personnel and supply shortages, and new units could be fed into the battle only very slowly. Road usage during
the day became suicidal for the Germans.
Building up Allied forces on the continent was also succeeding. Allied forces
were growing faster than their opponents, but by July this growth was constrained by the Allied failure to "peg out claims
well inland" in General Montgomery's words. The beachhead was crowded; the number of airfields in Allied hands was
far fewer than planned; Caen (a D-Day objective) had not been taken; no major operating port was yet in Allied hands. In general,
progress was being measured in yards rather than miles. The battle for Normandy had devolved into a series of small-unit actions
in which Allied infantry units, supported with barrages of artillery fire, slowly ground into the German defenses. For example,
between July 2 and July 14, the U.S. VIII Corps took over 10,000 casualties while advancing only 12,000 yards. By July 25
(D+49, the start date of Cobra) the Allies had only reached the D+5 phase line; that is, they held positions they expected
to have had by June 11, 5 days after D-Day.
This led to frustration at the top Allied command levels. Allied infantry
losses were high, major mechanized units were not in the battle, and close air support was difficult because the fighting
was at such close range. The Allied commanders could not bring their advantages to bear on the battle, and the fear of another
stalemate seemed to be close to reality. 
The Holocaust was the killing of approximately six
million European Jews, as well as six million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled
and mentally ill, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Roma) as part of a program of deliberate
extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist government in Germany led by Adolf Hitler. About 12 million forced
laborers, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy inside the Nazi Germany.
Forced labor in Nazi Germany during World War II
occurred on a large scale. It was an important part of the German economical exploitation of conquered territories; it also
contributed to the extermination of populations of German occupied Europe. The Germans abducted about 12 million people from
almost twenty European countries; about two thirds of whom came from Eastern Europe. Many workers died as a result of their
living conditions, mistreatment or were civilian casualties of the war. They received little or no compensation during or
after the war.
|
