SPEAKER: The Second World War was
a conflict so vast and destructive
that it affected almost everyone on Earth
and shaped the world we live in today.
How did this cataclysmic series of events begin?
Though tensions had been
simmering in Europe for years,
war officially began on September 1,
1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
But it wasn't just a German-Polish war.
It was a world war.
Britain and France responded just two days later
by declaring war on Germany on September 3rd.
But was that the end of it?
Not by a long shot.
Germany invaded the Soviet
Union on June 22, 1941.
Then, on December 7, Germany's ally, Japan,
spread the war across the Pacific Ocean
by launching an attack on the American
Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: The
United States of America
was suddenly and deliberately attacked by
Naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.
SPEAKER: Watching Hollywood
movies, you could have
been led to think that most
of the action in World War II
happened between Germany and America, with
Britain showing up for a few aerial battles
here and there.
But which countries actually fought in the war?
In fact, many nations were
touched by the conflict,
but the main combatants can be
grouped into two opposing factions--
Germany, Japan, and Italy where the Axis powers.
France, Great Britain, the United States,
and the Soviet Union were the Allied powers.
China, which had been engaged in a war
with Japan concurrently with World War II,
is also sometimes counted
among the Allied powers.
With so many powerful nations involved,
World War II demanded uncommon leadership.
Many of the leaders of the time
are almost legendary figures today,
some seen as heroes and some
as history's greatest monsters.
Who were the leaders of the Axis
and the Allies during World War II?
The Allied powers were led by Winston Churchill,
the prime minister of the United Kingdom;
Joseph Stalin, premier of the Soviet
Union; Charles de Gaulle, leader
of the French resistance; and Franklin D.
Roosevelt, President of the United States.
Due to Roosevelt's death, in
the final days of the war,
the United States was led by
President Harry S. Truman.
The Axis powers were led by a man whose
name is now synonymous with evil--
Adolf Hitler, the chancellor of Nazi
Germany, along with Benito Mussolini,
prime minister of Italy, and Hideki Tojo, prime
minister of Japan, succeeded Kuniaki Koiso.
World War II lasted for more than
five years, and in that time,
a few pivotal events stand out.
Even in a war of this massive scale, some days
are known for turning the tide of history.
What decisive moments helped
determine the course of the war?
On June 3, 1942, the Battle of
Midway began, and it was a big one.
The battle lasted for four days
and resulted in American forces
destroying Japan's first-line carrier force.
This is widely recognized as the point
at which the Pacific front of the war
turned against Japan.
Along with the Battle of Guadalcanal
in late 1942 and early 1943,
Midway ended Japan's ability
to prosecute an offensive war.
Meanwhile, the tides of war turned
in Europe in February of 1943
when Germany met a decisive defeat
at the hands of the Soviet Union
at the Battle of Stalingrad.
More than one million Soviet troops and tens of
thousands of civilians died in this epic battle
in defense of the city.
However, the cost to Germany was the
destruction of two entire armies and a failure
to take Stalingrad.
This defeat was the beginning of the end
for Germany on the Eastern front of the war.
After more than five years of grueling conflict,
World War II finely ground to a halt in 1945.
How did it end?
The final stages of the war in Europe
began with the Allied invasion of Normandy.
D-Day, as it is known, was June 6, 1944.
This invasion opened a second front in Europe.
Germany made a final offensive push in the
winter of 1944 and 1945 in the Ardennes,
but this effort was a failure.
With the Red Army advancing from the
east, claiming territory for the Soviets,
and American and British troops
advancing through France from the west,
the Allied forces converged on Berlin.
Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945.
The war in Europe officially
ended days later, on May 8th.
The war in the Pacific, however,
kept grinding on into the summer.
The American island-hopping campaign had taken
a toll on Japanese installations in the Pacific.
Firebombing campaigns killed hundreds of
thousands of people in Japanese cities,
and the sheer horror of the atomic bombs
that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August
of 1945, along with the threat
of Soviet invasion, finally
knocked out Japan out of the war.
DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: I now invite the
representatives of the Emperor of Japan
to sign the Instrument of
Surrender at the places indicated.
