WW2 Timeline

A Global Conflict

World War II was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilisation of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their complete economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over seventy million people, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. From the invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 September 1939, to the defeat of Germany and Japan by a relentless tide of aircraft, tanks, ships, and men, the combined Allied effort finally saw the end of war in Europe. Atomic bombs finally ended the war against Japan.

1939

Month	Event
JAN 1939	United States President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, requests Congress to approve a defense budget of $552 million, marking a significant rise in military spending.
FEB 1939	Japanese troops landed at Sanya on the southern coast of Hainan island in southern China. Germany responds to the British and French inquiry of 8 Feb 1939 regarding why Germany had not yet guaranteed Czechoslovakian sovereignty, noting that Germany must "await first a clarification of the internal development of Czechoslovakia".
MAR 1939	Adolf Hitler begins the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, both part of Czechoslovakia with large German populations. The operation, which is in direct violation of the Munich Pact, is completed by the 16th. Czechoslovakia ceases to exist, with only Slovakia remaining nominally independent. German troops occupy Prague.
APR 1939	Italian forces invade Albania and quickly conquer the country. Hungary withdraws from the League of Nations.
MAY 1939	The Italian government agress closer military ties with Germany. The strengthened alliance becomes known as the "Pact of Steel". Adolf Hitler orders his military hig command to begin planning the invasion of Poland.
JUN 1939	Tientsin Incident: The Japanese blockade the British concession in Tianjin, China, beginning a crisis which almost causes an Anglo-Japanese war in the summer of 1939.
JUL 1939	The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed by the Nazis.
AUG 1939	Adolf Hitler gives his final approval for the invasion of Poland, and German forces move to their war stations along Poland's western border. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signs a non-agression pact with the Soviet Union's foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, in Moscow. The Soviet Union agrees not to oppose the German invasion of Poland and both countries agree to divide Poland between them. The Soviet leadership believes the agreement will give them time to reorganize their military forces, whose officer corps has been decimated by purges instigated by Joseph Stalin. Japan withdraws from the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany and Italy following the former's surprise alliance with the Soviet Union concerning the immediate fate of Poland.
SEP 1939	A German force of 53 divisions, supported by 1600 aircraft, crosses the German and Slovak borders into Poland in a pincer movement. Operation Full Weiss (White Plan), directed by General Walther von Brauchitsch, aims to totally paralyze Poland's 24 divisions by swift encirclement, thus cutting their lines of supply and communication. While Poland mobilizes its full strength, its forces in action, lacking both air and armored support, are largely placed on the country's borders. They are quickly overrun, and reinforcements often arrive too late to halt the German attacks. The United Kingdom home front is opened as the government declares general mobilization of the British Army and begins evacuation plans in preparation of German air attacks. France, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and New Zealand declare war on Germany after German refusal to withdraw from Poland. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain forms a war cabinet, which includes prominent antiappeasers First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and Secretary for the Dominions Anthony Eden. The Battle of the Atlantic begins with the sinking of the liner, Athenia by the U-30 after being mistaken for a British auxiliary cruser, claiming 112 lives.
OCT 1939	In the first attack on British territory, the Germans hit the Brits at the Firth of Forth. They damage cruisers South-Hampton and Edinburgh and the destroyer Mohawk.
NOV 1939	The Soviet Union invades Finland, occupies part of Poland, and, by threatening invasion, takes over Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.
DEC 1939	The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for its aggression against Finland. The 1940 Olympic Games, to be held in Finland, are canceled.

1940

Month	Event
JAN 1940	Reinhard Heydrich is appointed by Göring for the solution to the "Jewish Question." Captured documents reveal Hitler's plans for the invasion of Scandinavia and a postponement of the invasion of France and the Low Countries until the Spring, when the weather is more compatible for an invasion.
FEB 1940	Britain and France decide to intervene in Norway to cut off the iron ore trade in anticipation of an expected German occupation and ostensibly to open a route to assist Finland. Hitler orders unrestricted submarine warfare. The Soviet army captures Summa, an important defence point in Finland, thereby breaking through the Mannerheim Line.
MAR 1940	The British drop the first bombs on German soil as the RAF hits the seaplane base at Hornum. In Moscow, Finland signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union after 105 days of conflict. The Finns are forced to give up significant territory in exchange for peace. Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner pass on the Austrian border. Benito Mussolini agrees with Hitler that Italy will enter the war "at an opportune moment". Japan establishes a puppet regime at Nanking, China, under Wang Jingwei.
APR 1940	Germany invades Denmark and Norway with the first major airborne attacks on Allied forces. 22,000 Polish officers, Policemen, and others are massacred by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyn massacre.
MAY 1940	Germany invades Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. Because of the failure of his appeasement policies, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns. Forming a coalition government, Winston Churchill replaces him. Standing alone, Churchill soon began conferring with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt for aid to the British cause. Germany invades Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The United Kingdom invades Iceland.
JUN 1940	Leaving behind weapons and supplies at Dunkirk, the British evacuate over 338,000 soldiers from France. Italy joins the war as an ally of Germany declaring war against the Allies. ' Great Britain, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India and South Africa declare war on Italy. General Hering, the military governor of Paris, declares the French capital an open city to prevent its destruction. The Germans march into Paris. France accepts German armistice terms, establishing the Vichy Government under Marshal Petain. Exacting revenge for his nation's defeat in the first World War, Hitler forces French officials to sign surrender papers in the same railroad car in which Germans signed the armistice of 1918. The Battle of the Atlantic begins as German submarines, called U-boats, begin sinking ships carrying oil and other war supplies from America to England. The U-boats will sink three million tons of merchant cargo.
JUL 1940	Japanese troops begin to occupy the French colony of Indochina. The United States responds by cutting off oil exports to Japan. The French government moves to Vichy. The Battle of Britain begins. The air war designed to destroy the RAF and ease the German invasion opens with the Luftwaffe outnumbering its opponent in operational aircraft: 2,669 to 704. The Battle of Britain begins. A three-month battle fought in the skies over Britain will include destructive bombing raids on London and other cities, but by the end of October the British will hand Hitler his first defeat.
AUG 1940	Hermann Göring starts a two-week assault on British airfields in preparation for invasion. For some German historians, this is the beginning of the "Battle of Britain."
SEP 1940	The London Blitz starts as Germany, attempting to weaken the country's resolve, bombs the British capital. The U.S. Congress passes the Selective Service Act calling for the first peacetime draft in American history. To serve, men had to be five feet tall, weigh 105 pounds, have correctable vision and at least half their teeth. Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact recognizing their right to establish a new order in Europe and Asia. Germany's Jews are ordered to wear yellow stars for identification.
OCT 1940	Close to 16 million American men between the ages of 21 and 36 are required to register at one of 6,500 draft boards across the country. Nearly 50 million men would register during the war. More than 400,000 Polish Jews are herded into a part of Warsaw known as the Warsaw Ghetto. Italy invades Greece.
NOV 1940	Neville Chamberlain dies. The Australian Air Force joins the Desert war in Africa. Night bombing of Britain intensifies in November. Warsaw's Jewish ghetto is cordoned off from the rest of the city.
DEC 1940	British and Indian troops of the Western Desert Force launch Operation Compass, an offensive against Italian forces in Egypt.

1941

Month	Event
JAN 1941	Japanese Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto, begins planning an air attack on Pearl Harbor. United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces a program to produce 200 freighters, called "Liberty" ships, to support the Allied Atlantic convoys. General Sir Archibald Wavell's Middle East Force, renamed XIII Corps, with air and naval support, resumes its offensive into Cyrenaica. In Australia's first land action of the war, the Australian 6th Division leads the attack to capture Bardia, Operation Compass, just across Libya's border with Egypt, on the 15th. Approximately 70,000 Italians, plus large amounts of equipment, are captured. Operation Compass: British, Australian, and New Zealand troops of the Western Desert Force launch assault on Italian-held Tobruk.
FEB 1941	Major organizational changes to the US Navy lead to it being divided into three fleets: 1) Atlantic, 2) Asiatic, and 3) Pacific. The Italians fail in their final attempt to escape encirclement at Beda Fomm, souuth of Benghazi, and surrender to the British 7th Armored Division. Meanwhile, the Australian 6th Division, advancing along the coastal roads, forces troops in Benghazi to surrender on the 7th. This ends a two month campaign in which the British have inflicted a complete defeat on a stronger enemy by executing a carefully planned offensive using highly trained troops backed by air and naval support. Operation Compass: After several days of desperate fighting, the Western Desert Force cut off and destroyed the retreating Italian 10th Army during the Battle of Beda Fomm. The British captured roughly 130,000 Italians. The official surrender follows, and Benghazi falls into Allied hands.
MAR 1941	President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease act to provide aid to Great Britain, despite opposition from isolationists. The first all-black unit of the U.S. Air Corps - the 99th Pursuit Squadron - is activated. They became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact, thus joining the Axis powers. This legitimizes the continuing movement of German troops through the country toward the Greek front. General Erwin Rommel begins his first offensive in Libya by driving the British from El Agheila. He now begins a counteroffensive similar to the original attack by the British. While the 21st Division races across the desert toward Tobruk, Italian forces take the longer coastal route.
APR 1941	Germany conquers Greece and Yugoslavia. Greenland is occupied by the United States. With the approval of a "free Denmark," the US will build naval and air bases as counters to the Uboat war. General Erwin Rommel begins the siege of Tobruk. The Allies, who repulse his first attacks, are determined to hold Tobruk as it is the only major port between Sfax in Tunisia and Alexandria in Egypt. Japan and the Soviet Union sign a neutrality pact.
MAY 1941	On its first mission, the German battleship Bismarck is hunted down and sunk.
JUN 1941	Unleashing its "Barbarossa" plan, Germany invades the Soviet Union without declaring war. Despite massing troops at the border, the Germans encounter little opposition. Hitler is now fighting a two-front war. Allies complete the withdrawal from Crete (started 5/28). Britain invades Iraq, the anti-British government there is overthrown. Vichy French-controlled Syria and Lebanon are invaded by Australian, British, Free French, and Indian forces beginning the Sryian Campaign. This Allied force of 20,000 Free French, British, and Commonwealth troops, under General Sir Henry M. Wilson, invades Syria from Palestine and Iraq. They face 45,000 Vichy French troops under General Henri Dentz, plus naval forces that engage the Allies on the 9th. In subsequent days the Allies encircle enemy units and use heavy artillery to overcome resistance. Vichy forces abandon the capital, Damascus, to the Allies on the 21st.
JUL 1941	Ponary massacre killings begin, with the shooting of Soviet POWs captured during Operation Barbarossa, which began two weeks earlier, and with the deportation of hundreds of Jews from Vilnius to Soviet dug fuel tank pits near the Ponariai suburb of Vilnius, where they are shot or buried alive. Reports by survivors are accepted as hallucinations. Vitebsk (Belarus) is captured opening the battle of Smolensk, an important communications center, considered by the German high command to be "the gateway to Moscow."
AUG 1941	TEXT
SEP 1941	As German conquest of the Soviet Union continues, German troops besiege Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). During the siege, which will continue until January 1944, more than 500,000 people in Leningrad will die of starvation.
OCT 1941	Japanese Army and Navy officers say Japan should “get ready for war” against the United States. Gen. Hideki Tojo becomes prime minister in a military-controlled government. A German submarine torpedoes the U.S. Navy destroyer Reuben James in the North Atlantic. It is the first US warship sunk in the European War. Only 45 of the ship’s 160 crew members survive. The Germans reach the gates of Moscow. Civilians flee the "Bolshoi Trap" amid panic and looting. Soviet Premier Josef Stalin remains in Moscow, vowing that the city "will be defended to the last."
NOV 1941	The United States tells Japan to get out of China and Indochina. Tojo decides that Japan’s only choice is to go to war. Japan sends diplomats to Washington to try to find ways to avoid war with the United States. Six Japanese aircraft carriers and other warships secretly leave northern Japan and head for Pearl Harbor. The United States cuts off all oil exports to Japan.
DEC 1941	Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Almost at the same time, Japanese warplanes attack the Philippines and two U.S. islands: Wake and Guam, which are later occupied. Japanese troops invade Malaya and Thailand and seize Shanghai. Later in December Japanese troops invade Burma and Hong Kong. Three days after Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

1942

Month	Event
JAN 1942	Manila, Philippines, falls to Japanese troops. The Wannsee Conference in Germany establishes the "Final Solution" for Jews in Europe. The plan would attempt to exterminate an estimated 11 million people.
FEB 1942	Japanese carrier planes bomb Darwin, Australia. In the Battle of the Java Sea, Japan defeats an Allied strike force, putting Japan in control of Java and the Netherlands Indies. Philip Johnston proposes to the Marines that the Navajo Indians be used to transmit military messages through a secure code. The code talkers would develop an unbreakable code.
MAR 1942	Japanese land troops in the Solomon Islands, underscoring Australia's dangerous situation, especially if, as it is soon made clear, an airfield is built on Guadalcanal.
APR 1942	First U.S. troops arrive in Australia. On the Bataan Peninsula of the Philippines, U.S. and Filipino troops, low on food and ammunition, surrender. Japanese troops force about 76,000 prisoners to march to distant camps; at least 5,200 Americans die on the march. Sixteen U.S. bombers, led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle, take off from an aircraft carrier 800 miles (1300 kilometers) off Tokyo and make the first bombing raid against Japan. The U.S. government forces thousands of Japanese-Americans to move from the U.S. West Coast to “relocation” camps in isolated areas.
MAY 1942	The Battle of the Coral Sea rages on. The first air-naval battle in history prevents the Japanese from landing a large invasion force at Port Moresby and signals America's move from a purely defensive strategy in the Pacific to a mixed defensive-offensive one. Corregidor falls - the last American stronghold in the Philippines is now under Japanese control.
JUN 1942	The Battle of Midway is fought. The first defeat of the Japanese navy in 350 years is the turning point in the Pacific as the U.S. goes on the offensive. The Japanese had hoped to smash what was left of the Pacific fleet, take Hawaii, hold its people hostage and force the United States to sue for peace. But American cryptographers had deciphered their plans and the Navy was waiting for them. The Japanese would lose 3,500 men, four carriers, a cruiser and 332 aircraft. The Americans would lose 307 men, the carrier Yorktown, one destroyer and 150 aircraft. Japanese troops land on Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands. A Japanese submarine shells the military depot at Fort Stevens, Oregon in the first attack on the U.S. mainland.
JUL 1942	First Battle of El Alamein begins as Rommel begins first assault on British defenses.
AUG 1942	American land forces go on the offensive for the first time in the Pacific, landing on Guadalcanal. It would take six months to secure the island, but Japanese expansion is halted.
SEP 1942	An aircraft launched from a Japanese submarine drops fire bombs on forests near Brookings, Oregon, in the first bombing of the continental United States.
OCT 1942	After months of desert fighting, the British Eighth Army in North Africa puts Germany’s Afrika Corps to flight.
NOV 1942	Operation Torch opens as Allied forces land in North Africa. While American planners had a straightforward idea of how to beat the Germans - invade France in the spring of 1943 and drive right for Berlin, the British favored attacking German and Italian forces in North Africa. American commanders thought invading Africa would be a dangerous and wasteful diversion. But Congressional elections were coming up. The Russians launch a major counter-offensive at Stalingrad. It would end with the annihilation of the German 6th Army.
DEC 1942	German troops are near Moscow. But, forced to fight in freezing weather, the troops pull back—defeated by the Russian winter, which had also defeated Napoleon’s army in 1812.

1943

Month	Event
JAN 1943	Japan’s attempt to take New Guinea ends as Australian and U.S. troops defeat Japanese troops at landing sites. Australia is no longer threatened by invasion. German Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders at Stalingrad. The war in the East has turned.
FEB 1943	German troops surrender at Stalingrad (now Volgograd). The Soviet Red Army, turning the tide of war, begins an offensive that will end in the capture of Berlin in 1945. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel sends his Panzer units against the untested U.S. forces in North Africa. The Americans are routed and the Germans pour through the Kasserine Pass.
MAR 1943	The Battle of the Bismarck Sea is fought for control of New Guinea. The decisive American victory forces the Japanese to re-enforce its troops by submarine — a defensive strategy employed to prevent the continued loss of transports and warships. The battle removes a threat to General Douglas MacArthur's invasion plans.
APR 1943	U.S. code breakers intercept a Japanese radio message saying that Admiral Yamamoto is flying to the Solomon Islands. He is killed when U.S. fighters shoot down his plane.
MAY 1943	The U.S. Navy announces that, except for the U.S.S. Arizona, U.S.S. Utah, and U.S.S. Oklahoma, all warships sunk at Pearl Harbor have been repaired and returned to sea. U.S. forces retake Attu as Japanese troops evacuate Adak, thus ending Japan's occupation of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. The Axis powers surrender in Tunisia. North Africa is now under Allied control.
JUN 1943	A Japanese destroyer rams and sinks a small U.S. Navy vessel, PT-109, commanded by Lt. (and future President) John F. Kennedy. He and other survivors swim for five hours to reach a small island, where they are later rescued. The Royal Air Force and U.S. Eighth Air Force begin round-the-clock bombing of Germany.
JUL 1943	U.S. and British forces land in Sicily gaining control of the Mediterranean. The precursor to the invasion of Italy would take 38 days to secure. The Fascist Grand Council passes a vote of no confidence in Benito Mussolini. He is arrested. Martial law is declared in Italy the next day.
AUG 1943	To prevent further bombing, Rome is declared an open city.
SEP 1943	Italy surrenders. But German troops, continuing to fight the Allies in Italy, seize Rome. The Allies land in Southern Italy.
OCT 1943	Italy declares war on Germany. On the second strike against Schweinfurt, 60 Flying Fortresses are shot down and more than 600 men are lost on what is remembered as "Black Thursday."
NOV 1943	U.S. Marines land on Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. The Battle of Berlin begins. Bombing of the German capital will continue until 24 March 1944.
DEC 1943	Edward R. Murrow delivers his classic "Orchestrated Hell" broadcast over CBS Radio describing a Royal Air Force nighttime bombing raid on Berlin. Bolivia declares war on all Axis powers. In Yugoslavia, resistance leader Marshal Tito proclaims a provisional democratic Yugoslav government in exile.

1944

Month	Event
JAN 1944	Allied forces land at Anzio.
FEB 1944	United States troops capture the Marshall Islands. Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins. The battle ends in an American victory on February 22.
MAR 1944	Soviets occupy Danzig.
APR 1944	Odessa is liberated by Soviet forces. British troops force open the road from Imphal to Kohima in India.
MAY 1944	Polish troops, eager to avenge the Nazi invasion of their country, finally take the ruined Monte Cassino monastery and the positions around it. The Gustav Line has broken. The Germans began falling back. Monte Cassino is in Allied hands. The German Army evacuates Sevastopol.
JUN 1944	U.S. Marines land on Saipan in the Northern Marianas Islands. Japan’s last aircraft carrier forces are defeated as Japan loses 220 warplanes in one battle with U.S. carrier planes. U.S. troops enter Rome. D-Day arrives. The greatest invasion in history begins just after midnight as the first of 24,000 paratroopers -- flown over the Channel in more than 1,000 aircraft -- are dropped behind enemy lines in Normandy. More than 5,300 ships, carrying 176,000 men are streaming across the Channel. Allied commanders plan five coordinated landings along a 45-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline between the Cotentin Peninsula and the Orne River for Operation Overlord. It will be the bloodiest day in American history since the battle of Antietam in the Civil War. Some 2,500 American soldiers lay dead on French soil. Operation Bagration: General attack by Soviet forces to clear the German forces from Belarus which resulted in the destruction of the German Army Group Centre, possibly the greatest defeat of the Wehrmacht during WWII. Burma Campaign: The Battle of Kohima ends in a British victory. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala between Finnish and Soviet troops begins. Largest battle ever to be fought in the Nordic countries. Cherbourg liberated by American troops.
JUL 1944	U.S. troops liberate Guam. Saipan is officially declared "secured." In almost four weeks of fighting, 16,525 Americans are killed, wounded or reported missing, the costliest battle in the Pacific to date. Almost 30,000 Japanese soldiers are dead. In the final days of the battle, some 4,000 terrified Japanese civilians, mostly women and children, had fled to the island's northern tip, a high plateau called Marpi Point. Their government had convinced many of them that it was their duty to kill themselves rather than fall into the hands of the cruel Americans — and the handful of Japanese solders who had survived were prepared to shoot them if they hesitated. More than a thousand were either killed by Japanese troops or chose suicide. St. Lo falls to the Americans after 6 weeks of bombing.
AUG 1944	U.S. Marines take Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas Islands. It will become a base from which B-29 bombers can bomb Japan. French and American troops liberate Paris. Operation Dragoon begins with the amphibious Allied landings in southern France. American and Free French forces land in the south of France and begin driving northward.
SEP 1944	General Dwight Eisenhower is given command of the combined Allied forces in Europe. Operation Market-Garden opens. Designed to drive into the industrial Ruhr valley by capturing bridges and end the war in weeks, it fails. Market-Garden would be the largest Allied airborne operation of the war and the most disastrous. Seventeen thousand Britons and Canadians, Americans and Poles are killed or wounded or captured before the operation is abandoned, more casualties than the Allies suffered on D-Day. The Allies land on Peleliu. It is only 550 miles east of Mindanao, which is to be the first stop in General Douglas MacArthur's campaign to recapture the Philippines. MacArthur wants the Peleliu airfield put out of action to protect his flank. Securing Peleliu was supposed to take four days. It took more than two months. 10,000 Japanese were killed, nearly every man who had defended the island. More than 1,200 Americans perished; 5,274 more Americans were maimed or missing. The Battle of Arracourt starts, a clash of U.S. and German armored forces near the town of Arracourt, Lorraine, France. Nancy liberated by U.S. First Army.
OCT 1944	U.S. troops land on Leyte, beginning the liberation of the Philippines. British and Greek troops liberate Athens. The fighting in the Hürtgen Forest continues for weeks. More than 33,000 American soldiers would be lost. MacArthur's forces land on the island of Leyte, the first foothold in the struggle to win back the Philippines. MacArthur's own landing craft gets stuck 75 yards offshore, forcing him to wade to the beach. His publicity machine makes the most of it. As the Battle of Leyte Gulf wages offshore the next two days, the greatest sea battle ever fought would signal the demise of the Japanese navy. The Battle of the Scheldt begins. By September, 1944, it had become urgent for the Allies to clear both banks of the Scheldt estuary in order to open the port of Antwerp to Allied shipping, thus easing logistical burdens in their supply lines stretching hundreds of miles from Normandy eastward to the Siegfried Line. After five weeks of difficult fighting, the First Canadian Army, bolstered by attached troops from several other countries, was successful in winning the Scheldt after numerous amphibious assaults, crossing of canals, and fighting over open ground. Both land and water were mined, and the Germans defended their retreating line with artillery and snipers. The Allies finally cleared the port areas on November 8, but at a cost of 12,873 Allied casualties (killed, wounded, or missing), half of them Canadians.
NOV 1944	U.S. troops in Germany begin a drive to reach the Rhine River. Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected to a fourth term as U.S. president.
DEC 1944	The Battle of the Bulge begins as German forces attempt a breakthrough in the Ardennes region. Soviets launch the Battle of Budapest against German and allied Hungarian forces in and around the Hungarian capital city.

1945

Month	Event
JAN 1945	In the largest land battle ever fought by the U.S. Army, American soldiers turn back German troops, winning the Battle of the Bulge. Soviet troops, continuing their eastern offensive, take Warsaw, Poland.
FEB 1945	U.S. Marines land on Iwo Jima, in the Bonin Islands. It will be a base for fighter planes escorting B-29s flying from Tinian Island.
MAR 1945	B-29s bomb Tokyo, burning half the city; more than 80,000 people die. U.S. forces invade Okinawa, in Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. The Allies want Okinawa as the base for the expected invasion of Japan. Fighting will continue until U.S. forces win in July. The U.S. Army liberates Manila, Philippines, after fierce street battling. U.S. troops cross the Rhine River. U.S. Eighth Air Force bomber—about 1,250 in all—attack Berlin in the heaviest air raid made on the city.
APR 1945	Vienna, Austria falls to Soviet troops. Soviet troops enter Berlin, beginning a street-by-street battle. Italian guerrilla fighters capture and kill Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. German forces in Italy surrender. U.S. soldiers free 32,000 survivors of the Dachau concentration camp. It will become a memorial for victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler kills himself.
MAY 1945	Germany surrenders.
JUN 1945	Schiermonnikoog, a Dutch Island, is the last part of Europe Allied troops reach.
JUL 1945	The first atomic bomb for combat use is assembled on Tinian Island.
AUG 1945	Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9). Japan surrenders (August 14). At least 100,000 people died in the atomic bombings.
SEP 1945	Japanese officials sign the surrender document on the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Harbor.
OCT 1945
NOV 1945
DEC 1945	The US Coast Guard was transferred under the US Treasury Department. The British Home Guard is disbanded.