World War II, conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the

years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—

Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United
States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many
respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left
unsettled by World War I. The 40,000,000–50,000,000 deaths incurred in World
War II make it the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in history.
Along with World War I, World War II was one of the great watersheds of 20th-
century geopolitical history. It resulted in the extension of the Soviet Union’s
power to nations of eastern Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually
achieve power in China, and marked the decisive shift of power in the world away
from the states of western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet
Union.

Leading up to World War II

The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had
greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues
left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic
instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by
the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and National
Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated as NSDAP in German and the Nazi
Party in English..

Did you know? As early as 1923, in his memoir and propaganda tract "Mein
Kampf" (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler had predicted a general European war that
would result in "the extermination of the Jewish race in Germany."
After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated
power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea
of the superiority of the “pure” German race, which he called “Aryan,” Hitler
believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary “Lebensraum,” or living
space, for the German race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he secretly began the
rearmament of Germany, a violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing
alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to
occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s
open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were
concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the
two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation.

Axis initiative and Allied reaction

The outbreak of war

By the early part of 1939 the German dictator Adolf Hitler had become
determined to invade and occupy Poland. Poland, for its part, had guarantees of
French and British military support should it be attacked by Germany. Hitler
intended to invade Poland anyway, but first he had to neutralize the possibility that
the Soviet Union would resist the invasion of its western neighbor. Secret
negotiations led on August 23–24 to the signing of the German-Soviet
Nonaggression Pact in Moscow. In a secret protocol of this pact, the Germans
and the Soviets agreed that Poland should be divided between them, with the
western third of the country going to Germany and the eastern two-thirds being
taken over by the U.S.S.R.

Having achieved this cynical agreement, the other provisions of which stupefied
Europe even without divulgence of the secret protocol, Hitler thought that
Germany could attack Poland with no danger of Soviet or British intervention and
gave orders for the invasion to start on August 26. News of the signing, on August
25, of a formal treaty of mutual assistance between Great Britain and Poland (to
supersede a previous though temporary agreement) caused him to postpone the
start of hostilities for a few days. He was still determined, however, to ignore the
diplomatic efforts of the western powers to restrain him. Finally, at 12:40 PM on
August 31, 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next
morning. The invasion began as ordered. In response, Great
Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, at 11:00 AM and at
5:00 PM, respectively. World War II had begun.

 WOMEN IN THE NAVY DURING

WORLD WAR II
In May 1941, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced
legislation to establish the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), a US Army
auxiliary unit that allowed women to serve as switchboard operators, mechanics,
postal clerks, drivers, typists, and medical personnel. In December 1941, Nourse
called Rear Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel,
asking if he wanted a bill for the Navy like the Army’s, pending legislation for the
WAACs. Nimitz asked all departments in the Navy about the possible usefulness of
women in the service. The responses were mostly negative, but Nimitz received
positive responses from the Chief of Naval Operations, the Bureau of
Aeronautics, and the Office of Naval Intelligence. On these responses, Secretary
of the Navy Frank Knox, who had the final say in the establishment of a women’s
branch of the Navy, insisted that “if women were going to work with classified or
sensitive information, they must be an integral part of the naval reserve—not an
auxiliary to it.” But the Bureau of the Budget denied Knox’s request unless the
Navy agreed to have the women’s branch be auxiliary: “with, not in, the Navy.”
While Congress debated whether to allow women in the Navy, Elizabeth Reynard,
a professor at the all-women Barnard College, became a special assistant to Rear
Admiral Randall Jacobs, the new chief of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, on the
recommendation of Virginia C. Gilder sleeve, dean of Barnard College. Reynard
was one of several female university administrators who met to form the Women’s
Advisory Council, which was tasked with organizing and planning how best to run
the women’s branch of the Navy, should Congress agree to its establishment. As
Congress debated signing off on the Navy’s women’s branch, Reynard was tasked
with coming up with an appropriate name. She came up with the “nautical
sounding” WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. The
Women’s Advisory Council then chose Mildred McAfee, then president of
Wellesley College, as director for the burgeoning branch.
In late May 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Senate Naval
Affairs Committee’s proposal to make the WAVES auxiliary. This caused several
educators to weigh in. Dean Harriet Elliot of University of North Carolina and
Gilder sleeve wrote to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt urging that the WAVES be an
integrated part of the Navy, not auxiliary to it. The First Lady forwarded Elliot’s
letter to the president and Gilder sleeve’s letter to Undersecretary Forrestal. Dean
C. Mildred Thompson of Vassar College and President Herman Davis of Smith
College wrote letters to Roosevelt echoing Elliot’s and Gilder sleeve’s sentiments.
These letters may have been the deciding factor, because on July 30, 1942,
President Roosevelt signed a bill officially establishing the WAVES, in, not with,
the Navy. On August 3, 1942, McAfee was sworn in as the Navy’s first female line
officer. Two days later, Reynard was commissioned the first-ever female lieutenant
in the Navy.
Taxis to Hell- and Back- Into the Jaws of
Death'

This photograph titled “Taxis to Hell- and Back- Into the Jaws of Death” was
taken on June 6, 1944, during Operation Overlord by Robert F. Sargent, United
States Coast Guard chief petty officer and “photographer’s mate.” The
photograph was originally captioned,

“American invaders spring from the ramp of a Coast Guard-manned landing

barge to wade those last perilous yards to the beach of Normandy. Enemy fire will
cut some of them down. Their ‘taxi’ will pull itself off the sands and dash back to a
Coast Guard-manned transport for more passengers.”

First Atom Bomb Over Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the world’s first atom bomb over the
city of Hiroshima. Prior to the outbreak of the war, American scientists had been
considering the development of atomic weapons to defend against fascist regimes.
Once the U.S. joined the war, “The Manhattan Project” began creating the bomb
that created this mass destruction. Oddly enough it was nicknamed “Little Boy.”

World War II in the West (1940-41)

On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied
Denmark, and the war began in earnest. On May 10, German forces swept through
Belgium and the Netherlands in what became known as “blitzkrieg,” or lightning
war. Three days later, Hitler’s troops crossed the Meuse River and struck French
forces at Sedan, located at the northern end of the Maginot Line, an elaborate chain
of fortifications constructed after World War I and considered an impenetrable
defensive barrier. In fact, the Germans broke through the line with their tanks and
planes and continued to the rear, rendering it useless. The British Expeditionary
Force (BEF) was evacuated by sea from Dunkirk in late May, while in the south
French forces mounted a doomed resistance. With France on the verge of collapse,
Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini formed an alliance with Hitler, the Pact of
Steel, and Italy declared war against France and Britain on June 10.

On June 14, German forces entered Paris; a new government formed by Marshal
Philippe Petain (France’s hero of World War I) requested an armistice two nights
later. France was subsequently divided into two zones, one under German military
occupation and the other under Petain’s government, installed at Vichy France.
Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had the defensive advantage of
being separated from the Continent by the English Channel.

To pave the way for an amphibious invasion (dubbed Operation Sea Lion),
German planes bombed Britain extensively beginning in September 1940 until
May 1941, known as the Blitz, including night raids on London and other
industrial centers that caused heavy civilian casualties and damage. The Royal Air
Force (RAF) eventually defeated the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) in the Battle of
Britain, and Hitler postponed his plans to invade. With Britain’s defensive
resources pushed to the limit, Prime Minister Winston Churchill began receiving
crucial aid from the U.S. under the Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress in early
1941.