Britannica Student Encyclopedia - 2010

Poland

On September 1, 1939, Germany

invaded Poland. This beganWorldWar

II. The Germans used a new kind of

attack. They called it blitzkrieg, or

“lightning war.” Blitzkrieg relied on fastmoving

tanks and warplanes to shock

the enemy into surrendering.

After this invasion, Britain and France

declared war on Germany. Australia,

New Zealand, Canada, India, and South

Africa joined Britain on the side of the

Allies. But no one could help when the

Soviet Union attacked Poland on September

17. Germany and the Soviet

Union divided Poland between them.

The Soviet Union also invaded Latvia,

Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland during

1939.

Scandinavia and the Low Countries

Between April and June 1940 the Germans

took over Norway and Denmark.

In May they moved into the Low

Countries—Belgium, The Netherlands,

and Luxembourg.

France

In mid-May 1940 the first German

troops crossed into France. By June 14

the Germans had entered Paris, the

French capital.

On June 22 France agreed to let Germans

rule most of their country. However,

many French people continued to

fight the Germans. They were called the

Free French. They took orders from

Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle’s headquarters

were in Britain.

As France was falling to the Germans,

Italy declared war against France and

Britain. On June 10, 1940, Italy entered

the war as an Axis power.

Great Britain

Hitler’s next target was the island of

Great Britain. Starting in June 1940,

Firefighters try to control the damage from

a German bombing attack on London,

England, in 1941, during World War II.

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German warplanes began bombing Britain.

However, the British had a new

invention called radar. Radar warned the

British when German aircraft were nearing.

British fighter airplanes shot down

many attackers. This battle, called the

battle of Britain, was the world’s first

major battle fought in the air.

The Germans soon decided not to

invade Britain. Instead, they dropped

more bombs on London and other cities

until May 1941.

The Atlantic Ocean

The British also fought the German

navy in the Atlantic Ocean. Early in the

war, German submarines sank many of

the supply ships that delivered food and

weapons from North America. In 1943

the Allies began to use aircraft carriers to

protect convoys, or groups, of supply

ships. Using radar to spot enemy submarines

also helped the Allies. The number

of supply ships reaching Britain started

to increase in mid-1943.

North Africa

In the autumn of 1940 the Italians

invaded Egypt. They wanted to control

the Suez Canal, which linked the Mediterranean

Sea to the Red Sea and the

Indian Ocean. However, the British

drove the Italians back.

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Then the German general Erwin Rommel

led the Germans to victories in

North Africa. In 1942 British forces

finally stopped Rommel in two battles at

El-Alamein, Egypt. By November 6 the

British had driven the Germans from

Egypt.

The Soviet Union

After conquering the countries on Germany’s

borders, Hitler invaded the

Soviet Union. The attack began on June

22, 1941. The Soviet Union joined the

Allies soon afterward. The Soviets

stopped the Germans on the edges of

Moscow (the Soviet capital) and Leningrad

(now Saint Petersburg).

In 1942 Hitler decided to take the

Soviet city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd).

The fight at Stalingrad was the

largest single battle inWorldWar II.

About 1.9 million soldiers died on both

sides. The Germans surrendered in January

1943. After Stalingrad, the Soviets

gradually drove out the Germans.

War with Japan Begins

Great Britain, France, and The Netherlands

ruled many islands in the Pacific

Ocean. They ruled much of Southeast

Asia as well.With these countries now at

war, Japan saw an opportunity to take

away their colonies. The Japanese began

by taking French Indochina (now Laos,

Cambodia, and Vietnam) in 1940 and

1941.

Pearl Harbor

On the morning of December 7, 1941,

Japanese warplanes attacked U.S. warships

at the Pearl Harbor naval base in

Hawaii. They sank or crippled eight big

battleships, destroyed more than 180

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aircraft, and killed more than 2,000

Americans.

The Pearl Harbor attack brought the

United States into the war.Within a few

days, the United States was at war with

Germany and Italy as well.

The Philippines

Japan also bombed the Philippine

Islands, which were a U.S. possession.

U.S. and Philippine forces fought until

the Japanese defeated them. The Philippines

surrendered in May 1942. Japan

also conquered Singapore, the Netherlands

Indies (now Indonesia), and

Burma (now Myanmar).

Coral Sea and Midway

The battles of the Coral Sea and

Midway stopped the Japanese push. In

the Coral Sea, near Australia, the Allies

stopped a Japanese attack on the island

of New Guinea in May 1942. In June,

near the tiny island of Midway in the

North Pacific Ocean, U.S. airplanes

destroyed many of Japan’s ships.

However, Japan still controlled a vast

area.

End of theWar with Germany

North Africa and Italy

In November 1942 Allied forces landed

in Morocco and Algeria in North Africa.

They defeated German and Italian