Portal:World War II

The World War II Portal

Clockwise from top left: Commonwealth troops in the desert; Chinese civilians being buried alive by Japanese soldiers; Soviet forces during a winter offensive; Carrier-borne Japanese planes readying for take off; Soviet troops fighting in Berlin; A German submarine under attack.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict. It began as the joining of what had initially been two separate conflicts, with the first beginning in Asia in 1937 (the Second Sino-Japanese War) and the other beginning in Europe in 1939 (the German and Soviet invasion of Poland).

The war split the majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, and placed the participants in a state of "total war", which erased the distinction between civil and military resources and resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The Allies won the war, and as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The self-determination spawned by the war accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Europe itself began moving toward integration.

More about World War II...

Featured article -

The Mauthausen parade ground – a view towards the main gate

Mauthausen concentration camp (known from the summer of 1940 as Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp) grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that were built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly 20 km east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time to become one of the largest labour camp complexes in German-controlled Europe.Apart from the four main sub-camps at Mauthausen and nearby Gusen, more than 50 sub-camps, located throughout Austria and southern Germany, used the inmates as slave labour. Several subordinate camps of the KZ Mauthausen complex included quarries, munitions factories, mines, arms factories and Me 262 fighter-plane assembly plants.In January 1945, the camps, directed from the central office in Mauthausen, contained roughly 85,000 inmates.The death toll remains unknown, although most sources place it between 122,766 and 320,000 for the entire complex. The camps formed one of the first massive concentration camp complexes in Nazi Germany, and were the last ones to be liberated by the Western Allies or the Soviet Union. The two main camps, Mauthausen and Gusen I, were also the only two camps in the whole of Europe to be labelled as "Grade III" camps, which meant that they were intended to be the toughest camps for the "Incorrigible Political Enemies of the Reich".

Selected equipment -

USS Bridgeport (AD-10/ID-3009) was a destroyer tender in the United States Navy during World War I and the years after. She was a twin-screw, steel-hulled passenger and cargo steamship built in 1901 at Vegesack, Germany as SS Breslau of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line. Breslau was one of the seven ships of the Köln class of ships built for the Bremen to Baltimore and Galveston route.Interned at New Orleans at the outbreak of World War I, Breslau was seized in 1917 by the United States after her entry into that conflict and commissioned into the Navy as USS Bridgeport. Originally slated to be a repair ship, she was reclassified as a destroyer tender the following year. Bridgeport completed several transatlantic convoy crossings before she was stationed at Brest, France, where she remained in a support role after the end of World War I. After returning to the United States in November 1919, she spent the next five years along the East Coast of the United States and in the Caribbean tending destroyers and conducting training missions. She was decommissioned in November 1924 and placed in reserve at the Boston Navy Yard.

Selected battle -

USS Chicago low in the water on the morning of January 30, 1943, from torpedo damage inflicted the night before

The Battle of Rennell Island (Japanese: レンネル島沖海戦) took place on January 29 – January 30, 1943, and was the last major naval engagement between the United States Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy during the lengthy Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands campaign during World War II. The battle took place in the South Pacific between Rennell Island and Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands. In the battle, Japanese naval land-based torpedo bombers, seeking to provide protection for the impending evacuation of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal, made several attacks over two days on United States' warships operating as a task force south of Guadalcanal. In addition to approaching Guadalcanal with the objective of engaging any Japanese ships that might come into range, the U.S. task force was protecting an Allied transport ship convoy that was carrying replacement troops to Guadalcanal.As a result of the Japanese air attacks on the task force, one U.S. heavy cruiser was sunk, a destroyer was heavily damaged, and the rest of the U.S. task force was forced to retreat from the southern Solomons area.

General images

The following are images from various World War II-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Jews of Mogilev, Belarus, forced to clean a street, July 1941 (from The Holocaust)
Image 2Public execution of Masha Bruskina, a Belarusian Jew who helped Soviet prisoners escape (from The Holocaust)
Image 3Japanese troops entering Saigon (from Causes of World War II)
Image 4Defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal, November 1945
Image 5Deportation to Chełmno (from The Holocaust)
Image 6A body lying in the street of the Warsaw Ghetto in the General Governorate (from The Holocaust)
Image 7Hitler and Finnish commander-in-chief Field MarshalMannerheim (right) (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 81935 poster of the puppet state of Manchukuo promoting harmony among peoples. The caption reads: "With the help of Japan, China, and Manchukuo, the world can be in peace." (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 9Bodies of U.S. Marines on the beach of Tarawa. The Marines secured the island after 76 hours of intense fighting. Over 1,000 American and ~4600 Japanese troops died in the fighting. (from World War II casualties)
Image 10"The Big Four" made all the major decisions at the Paris Peace Conference (from left to right, David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.) (from Causes of World War II)
Image 11Cheering crowds greet the Nazis in Innsbruck (from Causes of World War II)
Image 12Italy and its colonial possessions in 1940 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 13Auschwitz SS guards enjoying themselves on vacation in Solahütte (from The Holocaust)
Image 14Cumulative murders of Jews from the General Governorate at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka from January 1942 to February 1943 (from The Holocaust)
Image 15Jews are deported from Würzburg, Germany to the Lublin District of the General Governorate, 25 April 1942. (from The Holocaust)
Image 16The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1942. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 17Gloster Gladiators of British RAF refuel in Iraq, 1941 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 18Germany after Versailles----
  Administered by the League of Nations
  Annexed or transferred to neighbouring countries by the treaty or later by plebiscites and League of Nation actions
  Weimar Germany
(from Causes of World War II)
Image 19Francisco Franco and Heinrich Himmler in Madrid, Spain, 1940 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 20The prime ministers of five members of the Commonwealth of Nations at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 21Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, 1945 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 22Polish military officers executed by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyn massacre, exhumation photo taken by the Polish Red Cross delegation in 1943 (from World War II casualties)
Image 23Einsatzgruppen murder Jewish civilians outside Ivanhorod, Ukraine, 1942. Over 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust. (from World War II casualties)
Image 24The destroyer USS Shaw explodes during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 25Roosevelt and Churchill drafted the Atlantic Charter in August 1941. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 26Italian Social Republic (RSI) as of 1943 in yellow and green. The green areas were German military operational zones under direct German administration. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 27Prime Minister Churchill and General de Gaulle at Marrakesh, January 1944 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 28Unpaved street in the Frysztak Ghetto, Krakow District (from The Holocaust)
Image 29The Japanese march into Zhengyangmen, Beijing, after they captured the city in July 1937 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 30A mass grave at Bergen-Belsen after the camp's liberation, April 1945 (from The Holocaust)
Image 31Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, 2016
Image 32View of the old synagogue in Aachen after its destruction during Kristallnacht (from The Holocaust)
Image 33UN vs Axis War Production, near equality of strength in 1942 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 34Original Nazi propaganda caption: "Too bad even for a bullet... The Jews shown here were shot at once." 28 June 1941 in Rozhanka, Belarus (from The Holocaust)
Image 35Clement Attlee, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, c.28 July – 1 August 1945 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 36Japanese occupation of China in 1937 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 37Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (left) meets with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop at the signing of the German–Soviet non-aggression pact on 23 August 1939 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 38Danzigers rallying for Hitler, shortly after the free city's annexation into Germany (from The Holocaust)
Image 39Soviet soldiers killed during the Toropets–Kholm Offensive, January 1942. Officially, roughly 8.6 million Soviet soldiers died in the course of the war, including millions of POWs. (from World War II casualties)
Image 40View of the Pegnitz River (c. 1900) with the Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg, destroyed in 1938 during the November pogroms (from The Holocaust)
Image 41Roosevelt, İnönü of Turkey and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference which was held between December 4–6, 1943. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 42Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 1941 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 43Nazi leaders (from left) Karl Wolff and Heinrich Himmler meet with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and his Foreign Minister Serrano Súñer in Madrid, October 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 44Territorial expansion of Germany from 1933 to 1941 (from The Holocaust)
Image 45Adolf Hitler meeting Japanese ambassador to Germany Hiroshi Ōshima, 1942 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 46Soviet POWs held by the Nazis in Mauthausen concentration camp. It is estimated that at least 3.3 million Soviet POWs died in German custody. (from World War II casualties)
Image 47Chiang Kai-shek of China with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 48Woman with Ostarbeiter badge at work at IG-Farbenwerke in Auschwitz (from The Holocaust)
Image 49Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 which directly led to the Anglo-French declaration of war on Germany on 3 September. The Soviet Union joined Germany's invasion of Poland on 17 September. (from Causes of World War II)
Image 50British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler at a meeting in Germany on 24 September 1938, and Hitler demanded the immediate annexation of Czechoslovak border areas. (from Causes of World War II)
Image 51Adolf Hitler in Bad Godesberg, Germany, 1938 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 52During the Battle of Westerplatte, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein attacks Westerplatte at the start of the war, September 1, 1939 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 53A bunker where Jews attempted to hide during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (from The Holocaust)
Image 54Marshal Pétain, left, head of Vichy France, shaking hands with Hitler on October 24, 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 55Grave of German soldiers fallen during invasion of Poland in Końskie. Visible inscription "For Führer und Vaterland" (from Causes of World War II)
Image 56Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943 (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 57At least 3,000 Jews were killed during the 1941 Lviv pogroms, mainly by local Ukrainians. (from The Holocaust)
Image 58Animation of the European Theatre (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 59The major long-term goal of Roosevelt's foreign policy during the war was creating a United Nations to resolve all world problems (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 60Hitler in action (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 611919 Austrian postcard showing a Jew stabbing a German Army soldier in the back (from The Holocaust)
Image 62Holocaust deaths as an approximate percentage of the 1939 Jewish population:
  90
  80
  70
  60
  50
  40
  30
  20
  Low
Image 63Greek counteroffensive against Italian-controlled Albania, late 1940. (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 64Shōwa Steel Works was a mainstay of the Economy of Manchukuo (from Diplomatic history of World War II)
Image 65Map of territorial changes in Europe after World War I (as of 1922) (from Causes of World War II)
Image 66Shooting from behind became popular because killers did not have to look at their victims' faces and the dead were likely to fall into the grave. (from The Holocaust)
Image 67The Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig (from Causes of World War II)
Image 68The Warsaw Ghetto uprising became significant as a symbol of Jewish resistance against the Nazis. (from The Holocaust)
Image 69All territories taken from Czechoslovakia by its neighbours in October 1938 ("Munich Dictate") and March 1939 (from Causes of World War II)
Image 70Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia, annexed by Hungary in 1938, on the selection ramp at Auschwitz II in May or June 1944. Men are lined up to the right, women and children to the left. About 25 percent were selected for work and the rest gassed. (from The Holocaust)

Selected picture -

Chinese child soldier

This Chinese child soldier, an army division returning to China following the capture of Myitkyina airfield, Burma, under the allied command of US Major General Frank Merrill in May 1944. Chinese and allied troops had earlier crossed through the treacherous jungle of the Kumon Bum Mountains before attacking Japanese troops to the south. A number of international conventions have since come into effect that try to limit the participation of children in armed conflicts. However, according to Human Rights Watch, as many as 300,000 children remain direct participants in war in over twenty countries around the world today.

Selected biography -

Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks KCB, KBE, DSO, MC (September 7, 1895 – January 4, 1985) was a British army officer. He is chiefly remembered as the commander of XXX Corps in Operation Market Garden and other operations during the Second World War. He also served in the First World War and the Russian Civil War, was a prisoner of war twice, and competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Later he was a television presenter, authored books on military history, and was Black Rod in the House of Lords for 14 years. In 1940 Horrocks commanded a battalion during the Battle of France, the first time he served under Bernard Montgomery, the most prominent British commander of the war. Montgomery later identified Horrocks as one of his most able officers, appointing him to corps commands in both North Africa and Europe. In 1943, Horrocks was seriously wounded and took more than a year to recover before returning to command a corps in Europe. It is likely that this period out of action meant he missed out on promotion; his contemporary corps commanders in North Africa, Leese and Dempsey, went on to command at army level and above.

Did you know...? -

...that the Old Admiralty House, a national monument in Singapore, was used by the British Armed Forces for strategic planning during World War II?

...that U-106, was one of Germany's most successful submarines, sinking 22 Allied ships in World War II?

...that the Land Coastal Defence which defended the Polish coast during the German invasion of Poland was subordinate to the Polish Navy, not the Army?

Selected quote -

"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

— Winston Churchill, 1 October 1939

Topics

World War II

Theatres

Main events

Specific articles

Participants

Prelude
• Causes
• in Europe
• in Asia

Main theatres
• Europe
• Eastern Europe
• China
• Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa
• Asia and the Pacific
• Atlantic

General timeline
• Timeline

1939
• Invasion of Poland
• Winter War

1940
• Invasion of Denmark/Norway
• Battle of France
• Battle of Britain

1941
• Invasion of the Soviet Union
• Battle of Moscow
• Attack on Pearl Harbor

1942
• Battle of Midway
• Battle of Stalingrad
• Second Battle of El Alamein

1943
• Battle of Kursk
• Guadalcanal campaign
• Invasion of Italy

1944
• Battle of Normandy
• Operation Bagration
• Battle of Leyte Gulf
• Operation Market Garden
• Battle of the Bulge

1945
• Battle of Iwo Jima
• Battle of Okinawa
• Battle of Berlin
• End in Europe
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Surrender of Japan

• more...

• Blitzkrieg
• Cryptography
• Equipment
• Home Front
• Military engagements
• Production
• Resistance
• Technology

Civilian impact and atrocities
• Nanking Massacre
• The Holocaust
• Siege of Leningrad
• Bataan Death March
• Dutch famine of 1944
• Bengal famine of 1943
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Unit 731
• Strategic bombings
• Comfort women
• Allied war crimes
• German war crimes
• Japanese war crimes

Aftermath
• Effects
• Casualties
• Expulsion of Germans
• Denazification
• Cold War
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Decline of the British Empire

The Allies
• Australia
• Belgium
• Brazil
• British India
• Canada
• Czechoslovakia
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• France (after June 16, 1940: Free France)
• Greece
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Philippines
• Poland
• Republic of China
• South Africa
• Soviet Union
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Yugoslavia

more...

The Axis
• Germany
• Italy
• Japan
• Slovakia
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Finland
• Vichy France
• Hungary
• Romania
• Thailand

more...

Related portals

Things you can do

From the World War II task force of the Military history WikiProject:

Attention needed: ...to referencing and citation • ...to coverage and accuracy • ...to structure • ...to grammar • ...to supporting materials
Popular pages: Full list
Cleanup needed: Battle of Kiev (1943) • Battle of Ko Chang • Colditz Castle • Spiritual national defence • Tuskegee Airmen
Requested articles: Battle of Uhtua-Kiestinki • Battles of Repola-Rukajärvi • Battle of Siiranmäki • Battle of Łuck • Battle of Równe • Battle of Włodzimierz Wołyński • Battle of Lubartów • Battle of Miedniki • Battle of Jodła • Francis Blanchain • Shinshou Draenger • Christer Lyst Hansen • Ove Kampman • League for Combat Policy • Julien Meline • Operation Mittelmeer • Operation Richard • Otto Program • Martin Poppel • Roehm's Avengers • Poul Bruun • Raoul Boulanger • Battle of West Ukraine (1941) • Battle of Zunyi • Liberation of Denmark (currently redirect) • Operation Vado (currently redirect) • Finnish 19th Division (Continuation War) • Finnish 11th Division (Continuation War) • Finnish Cavalry Brigade • 1st Jaeger Brigade • 2nd Jaeger Brigade • 168th Rifle Division (Soviet Union) • 71st Rifle Division (Soviet Union) • Group Oinonen • Operation Vesuvius (currently redirect) • Capture of Kassala (currently redirect) • Battle of Pankow • Brandenburg–Rathenow Offensive • Japanese internment of European civilians during World War II • Miranda de Ebro concentration camp • German occupation of the Netherlands (current redirect) • Soviet home front during World War II • Labour Charter (Vichy France) • Berles-Monchel and Aubigny-en-Artois massacres (1940) • Febvin-Palfart massacre (1940) • German massacres of French colonial prisoners of war • 1941 Nord-Pas de Calais miners' strike • Spitfire funds • Good War (historiography) • Nederlandsche Oost Compagnie • West African Pioneers • 2nd Marching Battalion of Ubangui-Shari • Bataillon du Pacifique • Persecution of freemasons in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe • Mohammed El Maadi • Luxembourgers in the Wehrmacht • Chantiers de la Jeunesse (Vichy France) • Netherlands East Indies Government in exile • Burma Government in exile (1942-1945) • Free Republic of Nias
Expansion needed: Princess Irene Brigade • Battle of Bay of Viipuri • Demilitarisation • Free Dutch Forces • Martha Desrumeaux • Mochitsura Hashimoto • Operation Cascade • Operation Tan No. 2 • Burma Area Army • Battle of Courland • Battle of Munda Point • Battle of Voronezh (1943) • Drive on Munda Point • First Battle of Kharkov • Race to Berlin • Marie Fourcade • Donald Blakeslee • Operation Nordwind • Battle of Skerki Bank • Michael Sinclair (soldier) • Battle of Maastricht • Battle of Zeeland • Landings on Rendova • New Georgia counterattack • Operation Waterfall • Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive • American-British-Dutch-Australian Command • Battle of Viru Harbor • Battle of Wickham Anchorage • Western New Guinea campaign (and the individual battles of the campaign) • Operation Blockbuster • Operation Cooney • The Holocaust in France • Knowledge of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe • Francoist Spain and the Holocaust • Japan campaign • Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign • Légion Français des Combattants • more
Images needed: Twelfth Army (United Kingdom) • 4th Airborne Division (United Kingdom) • 5th Airborne Division (United Kingdom) • XVI Corps (United Kingdom) • Battle of Dakar • Battle of the Lys (1940) • Battle of Zeeland • Battle of the Grebbeberg • Franco-Thai War • Battle of Ko Chang • Switzerland during the World Wars • Berthe Fraser • Western Allied invasion of Germany • LXXXIII Army Corps (Wehrmacht)
Merging needed: Add an article here!
Citations needed: Battle of Borneo (1941–42) • Battle of Imphal • Garderegiment Fuseliers Prinses Irene • Japanese invasion of French Indochina • Japanese invasion of Thailand • Luxembourg in World War II • New Georgia Campaign • Operation Cartwheel • Operation Chastise • Royal Netherlands Motorized Infantry Brigade • Solomon Islands campaign • Battle of Radom • Seishin Operation • Moravia–Ostrava Offensive • Panzerjäger
Translation needed: 5th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment • Novorossiysk-Taman Operation • 1943 Novorossiysk Operation • 1943 Air Battles over Kuban • Battle of Rostov (1943) • Battle of Olshansky • Nalchik-Ordzhonikidzevskaya Operation • Bukrinsky Landing • Cape Tarhan Landing • 1942 Sudak Landing • Mozdok-Malgobek Operation • Alexander Sergeyevich Ksenofontov • Henri de Vernejoul • André Bergeret • Battle of Nice • Liberation de Saint-Malo • Battle of Seuil Valley • René-Jean-Paul Cassagne • Cameroun's rallying to the Free French • Battle of Bouno-Misaki

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