World War 2 Timeline
World War 2 Timeline
World War II (WWII) lasted for six years, in the six years it lasted there were over 60 million lives lost. At the time that was over 2.5 percent of the total world population.
Listed below is a detailed timeline of World War 2.
Pre War Timeline:
1933 – Adolf Hitler was designated Chancellor of Germany. He eliminated democracy and became a dictator. Japan and Germany left the League of Nations 1935 – The German military entered the neutral Saar region; Hitler resumed conscription to the German military.
1936 – The German military entered the demilitarized Rhine district. The German-Italian “Axis power” is formed.
1937 – Japan, which already occupied Manchuria, invaded central China
1938 – Hitler seized Austria and western Czechoslovakia.
Mar 1939 – Czechoslovakia surrendered to imminent German invasion.
Apr 1939 – Hitler cancelled the German-British naval agreement and the German-Polish non-aggression pact. Italy invaded Albania.
Jul 1939 – Polish intelligence passed all its knowledge about the German Enigma machine to British and French intelligence
Aug 1939 – Germany and Russia sign non-aggression pact, secretly agreeing to invade Poland and share it. German U-boats and battleships sail to the Atlantic Ocean for war.
1939 Timeline:
Sep 1 – Germany invaded Poland, World War 2 begins.
Sep 3 – Britain and France declared war on Germany.
Sep 8 – The US remained neutral but President Roosevelt declared “limited national emergency”.
Sep 17 – Russia invaded Poland
Sep 27 – Warsaw surrendered
Oct 6 – The last remaining Polish forced surrender
Nov 30 – Russia invaded Finland
1940 Timeline:
Jan 17 – The first German Enigma messages were decoded by British intelligence
Mar 12 – Russia-Finland war ended. It convinced Hitler that the Russian military are ineffective.
Apr 8 – Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.
Apr 14 – British forces land in Narvik, Norway, but leave in 10 days
May 10 – Germany invaded France, Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg. Winston Churchill became Britain’s prime minister.
May 20 – German forces reached the British Channel.
May 27 – Evacuation of British and French forces to Britain at Dunkirk began.
Jun 4 – The evacuation at Dunkirk ended 338,000 troops were rescued. Churchill declared that Britain will never surrender.
Jun 9- Norway surrendered
Jun 10 – Italy declared war on the collapsing France and Britain.
Jun 14 – German troops marched into Paris
Jun 18 – Russia invaded Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
Jun 22 – France surrendered
Jun 27 – Russia annexed the eastern regions of Romania.
Jul 1 – Germany invaded the British Channel islands.
Jul 10 – The Battle of Britain air campaign began.
Jul 18 – Churchill declared this is Britain’s finest hour.
Aug 8 – The Luftwaffe began to bomb British early warning radars
Aug 15 – The Luftwaffe lost 76 aircraft in one day
Aug 25 – British night bombers bombed Berlin
Sep 3 – Hitler changed the Luftwaffe’s objective from destroying the Royal Air Force to bombing London. This allowed the R.A.F to recover and win the battle of Britain.
Sep 13 – Italy invaded British-held Egypt from Libya, the North African campaign began.
Sep 15 – The largest Luftwaffe daytime bombardment, they lost 56 aircraft
Sep 27 – Japan joins “The Axis”
Oct 7 – German troops entered their Ally Romania, Germany’s only source of oil which was threatened by Russia
Oct 12 – Hitler cancelled the invasion of Britain.
Oct 23 – Spain rejected Hitler’s offer to join the war and instead remained neutral.
Oct 28 – Italy invaded Greece from Albania, but stopped, twice.
Nov 11 – British carrier aircraft sink Italian fleet in Taranto’s harbour. Yamamoto is Japan was impressed by their success.
Nov 20 – Hungary and Romania, both military dictatorships, joined The Axis.
Dec 9 – British forces in Egypt counter attacked the Italians and advanced along the Libyan coast
1941: The German’s failure to take Moscow marked the major turning point of World War 2
Feb 12 – Hitler sent Rommel and the Afrika Korps to help the Italians in North Africa
Mar 1 – Bulgaria joined The Axis. The Axis-Russian border then stretched from the Baltic sea to the black sea
Mar 3 – Rommel attacked the British forces in North Africa.
Mar 5 – British troops arrived in Greece to support them.
Apr 6 – Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece
Apr 13 – After military clashes, Japan and Russia signed a non-aggression pact.
Apr 17 – Yugoslavia surrenders. British forces evacuated Greek mainland to Crete
Apr 27 – German troops occupied Athens
May 9 – U-boat U-110 was captured with Enigma settings tables
May 20 – German paratroopers and airborne troops invaded Crete by air
May 31 – British forces in Crete surrendered.
Jun 8 – British forced aided by Israeli volunteers invaded French controlled Syria and Lebanon
Jun 22 – Germany invaded Russia. Hitler ordered “maximum cruelty” against civilians, which resulted in fanatic Russian resistance.
Jul 3 – Stalin ordered the “scorched earth” strategy.
Jul 16 – German army group “Centre” took Smolensk, just 220 miles from Moscow.
Jul 21 – The Luftwaffe bombed Moscow
Jul 24 – Japan invaded French, Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia)
Jul 29 – Hitler, ready to occupy the rich Ukraine first, ordered to stop army group Centre’s advance to Moscow and to transfer its two tank armies to army groups “North” and “South”. That was perhaps Hitler’s utmost mistake. The German Generals argued in vain against it.
Jul 31 – Hermann Goering ordered the SS to prepare “the final solution”, the plot to murder the millions of European Jews.
Sep 6 – Hitler ordered to recommence the advance to Moscow, in order to take it “in the limited time before winter”. Army group “Centre”, was given back its two tank armies, plus a third tank army and additional air units.
Sep 15 – The long German siege of Leningrad begins.
Sep 18 – The Germans in the South occupied Kiev and reach the Crimea.
Oct 2 – The final German attack towards Moscow began (operation Typhoon).
Oct 15 – Rain stopped German advanced to Moscow due to deep mud which stopped both tanks and infantry.
Oct 16 – Russian government leaves Moscow, the Germans occupied Odessa.
Oct 17 – General Tojo became Japan’s prime minister
Oct 21 – Churchill ordered top priority to any request by the Enigma decoders.
Oct 26 – The Germans occupied Kharkov
Nov 15 – With the mud frozen by the dropping temperatures, German advanced to Moscow resumes.
Nov 30 – The foremost German forces reached 27km from Moscow, but could not advance further due to strong Russian resistance.
Dec 6 – At temperatures of -34C (-29F) and below, a major Russian counter attack near Moscow began. Moscow was saved, and the Germans were pushed back.
Dec 7 – The Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbour and the Philippines, and the US joined the war. With the Germans failure to defeat Russia, which was marked by their failure to take Moscow, and with the United States joining the war a day later, This date marks the main turning point of World War 2.
Dec 11 – Germany and Italy declared war on the US.
Dec 19 – Hitler ordered “fanatic resistance” and appointed himself military commander-in-chief.
1942 Timeline:
Jan 2 – Japanese forces occupied Manila
Jan 10 – Japanese forces invaded Indonesia
Jan 11 – Japanese forces occupied Malaysia
Jan 12 – Japanese forces invaded Burma
Jan 13 – German U-boats began to sink ships along the US East coast.
Jan 21 – Rommel began another offensive in North Africa
Jan 25 – Japanese forces invaded the Solomon Islands
Jan 26 – US troops bean to arrive in Britain
Feb 15 – Singapore surrendered to the Japanese
Mar 20 – “industrial scale” murder of Jews by poison gas began in Nazi death camps.
Apr 18 – Doolittle’s raid – US bombers bombed Tokyo.
May 7 – Battle of the Coral Sea. One Japanese carrier and one American carrier were sunk
May 6 – The last American troops in the Philippines surrendered
May 8 – The German spring offensive in southern Russia began.
Jun 4 – The battle of Midway. Four Japanese carriers were sunk, and one American carrier. Japan’s naval superiority was lost.
Jul 3 – Japanese forced land in Guadalcanal
Jul 28 – Stalin forbade further Russian retreats, at any cost.
Aug 7 – US forced land in Guadalcanal
Aug 13 – Montgomery became commander of the British 8th army in North Africa
Aug 19 – Allied landing in Dieppe failed.
Aug 23 – The German 6th army reached Stalingrad, the battle of Stalingrad began.
Sep 6 – The German advance in Stalingrad was stopped.
Oct 23 – The 2nd battle of El Alamein in North Africa began.
Nov 8 – Allied forced land in western North Africa, at Rommel’s back Nov 19 – The Russian flanking counter attack around Stalingrad began
Dec 19 – The Germans failed to break the encirclement of their army in Stalingrad 1943 Timeline
Feb 2 – The last German forces in Stalingrad surrender
May 13 – The long North Africa campaign ends. The Allies controlled North Africa
May 22 – 41 German U-boats sunk in 3 weeks. Doenitz retreats all U-boats from the North Atlantic
Jul 5 – The battle of Kursk began
Jul 10 – The Allies invaded Sicily
Jul 25 – Mussolini was replaced and arrested.
Aug 10 – The Germans knew the Enigma was decoded, but believed the new types and procedures were safe again.
Sep 3 – The Allies invaded Italy’s mainland
Sep 8 – Italy surrendered The German forces in northern and central Italy occupied it
Sep 25 – The Russians liberated Smolensk Oct – Allied anti-submarine bases established in the Azores, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
Nov 6 – The Russians liberate Kiev
Nov 19 – The Marines land in Tarawa Nov – Rommel takes command of the “Atlantic wall” in the French coast Dec – P-51 fighters provide all-the-way long range escort to bombers over Germany 1944 Timeline Jan 16 – Eisenhower becomes supreme commander of western Allies’ forces
Jan 22 – Allies land in Anzio, Italy Mar – The Russians advance into the Ukraine
Apr 10 – The Russians liberate Odessa May – Allied bombers begin to concentrate on the German fuel industry
Jun 5 – The German Navy’s Enigma messages are decoded almost in real time.
Jun 6 – D-Day. American, British, Canadian forces invade France at the beaches of Normandy
Jun 12 – 1st German V-1 cruise missile attack on Britain
Jun 15 – The Marines landed in Saipan
Jun 19 – Battle of the Philippines sea
Jun 22 – The Russians advance to Belarus
Jun 27 – Cherburg was liberated
Jul 20 – Hitler survives an assassination attempt by senior German officers with light wounds.
Jul 21 – Hitler appointed General Guderian to chief of the army (OKH). The Marines land in Guam
Jul 24 – The Marines landed in Tinian
Jul 28 – The Russians reached the old German-Russian border in central Poland
Jul 30 – Patton breaks out of the beachhead deep into France Aug 1 – Warsaw revolts against the Germans
Aug 15 – The Allies land in southern France
Aug 23 – Romania surrenders to the Russians. Its oil fields were Germany’s only source of natural oil
Aug 25 – Paris was liberated. Aug – Allied fighters achieved air superiority over Germany
Sep 6 – Finland and Bulgaria surrendered to the Russians
Sep 8 – 1st German V-2 ballistic missile attack on Britain
Sep 17 – Operation Market Garden in Holland
Oct 5 – British forces land in Greece
Oct 10 – The Germans evacuate Riga, Latvia
Oct 14 – Athens is liberated
Oct 20 – The Marines land in Leyte, in the Philippines. In response, the Japanese Navy began to use Kamikaze suicide pilots.
Nov 14 – B-29 bombers began to bomb Tokyo from bases in the Mariana Islands
Dec 16 – The German attacked in the Ardennes began.
1945 Timeline:
Jan 9 – The Marines land in Luzon in the Philippines
Jan 23 – The Russians reach Germany itself at the Oder river
Jan 27 – The Russians liberate the Auschwitz death camp
Jan 28 – The Ardennes campaign ends
Feb 13 – The Russians occupy Budapest, Hungary. Dresden bombed.
Feb 19 – The Marines landed in Iwo Jima
Mar 4 – Manila was liberated
Mar 6 – The Allies occupied Cologne, Germany
Mar 7 – US forces crossed the Rhine on the Remagen Bridge
Mar 16 – The battle of Iwo Jima ends
Mar 27 – V-2 missile attacks end
Apr 1 – German forces encircled in the Ruhr by the Americans
Apr 6 – The Marines land in Okinawa. Japan ordered all its forces to use Kamikaze suicide tactic
Apr 7 – The super battleship Yamato was sunk on its way to a Kamikaze fight in Okinawa
Apr 10 – The Allies occupied Hannover Apr 11 – The Allies liberate the Buchenwald death camp
Apr 12 – President Roosevelt dies.
Apr 13 – The Russians entered Vienna
Apr 16 – The Russians began final advance to Berlin
Apr 25 – American and Russian forces met
Apr 26 – German defence in northern Italy finally collapsed
Apr 29 – Mussolini is executed by the Italian resistance. The Allies liberated the Dachau death camp
Apr 30 – Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. He appointed Admiral Doenitz as his successor.
May 8 – Germany surrendered. The war in Europe ended.
May 28 – 450 B-29 bombers bombed Yokohama.
Jun 2 – 660 B-29 bombers bombed Japanese cities.
Jun 21 – The Battle of Okinawa ends.
Jul 16 – The US tested the atomic bomb in New Mexico. It worked.
Aug 6 – Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb.
Aug 8 – Russia declared war on Japan.
Aug 9 – Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb.
Aug 14 – Japan surrendered. World War 2 finally ends. .