World+War+II+Journal

Entry 1:
The German invasion of Poland September 9, 1939. In responce Britain and France declared war on Germany and later, its ally Italy. At the same time, The Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland, but remained officially neutral in the war under a secret pact with Germany. 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 3 September, soon followed by France, South Africa and Canada, among others. Although the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany soon after Germany attacked Poland, very little direct military aid was provided.

Entry 2:
The Death March took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The 60-mile march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines 1941–42, during World War II. The march, involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps. At the start of World War I, Germany had twenty-nine U-boats in service; in the first ten weeks, five British cruisers had been lost to them. In September, //U-9// sank the obsolete British warships Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, in a matter of an hour.

Entry 3:
The Battle of Guadalcanal took place in 1942 when the US Marines landed on August 7th. The landing at Guadalcanal was unopposed - but it took the Americans six months to defeat the Japanese. The Japanese defeat at the Battle of Midway had forced planners in the Imperial Army to reconsider their plans of expansion and to concentrate their forces on consolidating the territory that they had captured. The victory at Midway was also a turning point for the Americans as after this battle, they could think in terms of re-capturing taken Pacific islands - the first confrontation was to be at Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal is part of the Solomon Islands which lie to the north-eastern approaches of Australia. Though it is a humid and jungle-covered tropical island its position made it strategically important for both sides in the Pacific War. If the Japanese captured the island, they could cut off the sea route between Australia and America. If the Americans controlled the island, they would be better able to protect Australia from Japanese invasion and they could also protect the Allied build-up in Australia.

Entry 4:
During World War II, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 16 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria Operation Torch and Tunisia. The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers. The Allied war effort was dominated by the British Commonwealth and exiles from German–occupied Europe. The United States entered the war in 1941 and began direct military assistance in North Africa, on 11 May 1942.Fighting in North Africa started with the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940.

Entry 5:
Operation Shingle took place, January 22, 1944, during the Italian Campaign of World War II, was an Allied amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by Major General John P. Lucas and was intended to outflank German forces of the Winter Line and enable an attack on Rome. The resulting combat is commonly called the Battle of Anzio. After the 8th week they didn’t stop attacking, but they did slow down. The Germans would attack about once a day. The soldiers started coming up with names for the bomb launchers.

Entry 6:
The beach is now know as "Bloody Omaha", because of the 2,200 casualties suffered by the American troops who landed here on D-Day. June 1944 was a major turning point of World War II, particularly in Europe. Although the initiative had been seized from the Germans some months before, so far the western Allies had been unable to mass sufficient men and material to risk an attack in northern Europe. By mid-1944 early mobilization of manpower and resources in America was beginning to pay off. Millions of American men had been trained, equipped, and welded into fighting and service units. American industrial production had reached its wartime peak late in 1943. While there were still critical shortages -- in landing craft, for instance -- production problems were largely solved, and the Battle of the Atlantic had been won. Ever increasing streams of supplies from the United States were reaching anti-Axis fighting forces throughout the world. "D - Day invasion"** The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion and establishment of Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in World War II. This article covers from the initial landings on June 6, 1944, until the time of the Allied breakout in late July. Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on June 6 came from Canada, Free French Forces, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the weeks following the invasion, Polish forces also participated and there were also contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands.
 * [[image:350px-Omaha_Beach_1944_Objectives.jpg]][[image:180px-German_turret_at_Omaha_Beach.jpg width="196" height="146"]]

Entry 7:
The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944-1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War II. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves. The Battle of the Bulge started on December 16th 1944. Hitler had convinced himself that the alliance between Britain, France and America in the western sector of Europe was not strong and that a major attack and defeat would break up the alliance. Therefore, he ordered a massive attack against what were primarily American forces. The attack is strictly known as the Ardennes Offensive but because the initial attack by the Germans created a bulge in the Allied front line, it has become more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge.

**Entry 8:**
The Holocaust was the one of the most horrific events of the 20th century. It started in 1938 and ended in the summer of 1942. It was the extermination of many people that consisted of Roma; Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war with ; ethnic Poles; the disabled; homosexual men; and political and religious opponents. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".The holocaust was led by Adolf Hitler. Hitler joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and became its leader in 1921. Hitler was in charge of many concentration camps including Auschwitz. Medical experiments during the holocaust were brutal, Dr.'s would take children as their subjects, who were in concentration camps and do disgusting horrible experiments on them, as in placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, cutting off their genitals, and various amputations and other brutal surgeries. A lot of the subjects they used were twins, a survivor Vera Alexander was a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz who looked after 50 sets of Romani twins: //"I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese Twins, Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents – I remember the mother's name was Stella – managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering."//

**Entry 9:**
The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks towards the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States. The orders to do so were sent by former U.S President Harry S. Truman on August 6th and 9th, 1945. After about six months of harsh fire-bombing of 67 other Japanese cities, a nuclear weapon called "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on that Monday. Then on August 6th, 1945, followed the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These bombs were the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.