World at War

World War II began on 3 September, 1939, two days after German armies invaded Poland. When Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, refused to withdraw his troops, Britain and France declared war. The war was fought between the Axis powers (chiefly Germany, Italy and Japan) and the Allies (who included Britain and its Commonwealth partners, France, the Soviet Union and the United States).

On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. By the end of 1939, Soviet troops had also invaded Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. In the spring of 1940, German troops invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Using vast numbers of tanks and bomber planes, they swiftly overwhelmed defences – a tactic known as Blitzkrieg (German for ‘lightning war’). Infantry completed the take-overs.

By June 1940, most of Europe had fallen. Britain stood alone. In August and September, Hitler’s air force, the Luftwaffe, attacked southeast England and London in daylight raids. Despite having fewer planes, the British air force managed to fight off the Germans and so prevent an invasion. Even so, many British towns and cities were damaged in these bombing raids.

In September 1940, Italian troops moved into Egypt, where Britain had part of its army stationed to defend the Suez Canal. By February 1941, the Italians had been defeated, but German troops forced the British back to the Egyptian border.

Encouraged by his successes, Hitler launched an attack on his former ally, the Soviet Union. In June 1941, Germany invaded the vast country with the help of Finland, Hungary and Romania. By the end of 1941, however, Allied fortunes were about to change as the US joined the war, following the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii by the Japanese.