GERMAN LOSS IN STALINGRAD
Despite considerable losses on the Eastern Front, in early 1942 Germany and its allies stopped a major Soviet offensive in central and southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they had achieved during the previous year. By mid-November, the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously. By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. Although Germans continued fighting on the Eastern Front, the Battle of Stalingrad, marked by constant close quarters combat and direct assaults on civilians by air raids, is often regarded as one of the single largest (nearly 2.2 million personnel) and bloodiest (1.7–2 million wounded, killed or captured) battles in the history of warfare. The heavy losses inflicted on the German Wehrmacht make it arguably the most strategically decisive battle of the whole war. It was a turning point in the European theater of World War II. German forces never regained the initiative in the East and withdrew a vast military force from the West to replace their losses.
Normandy Invasion, June 1944, Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on D-Day (June 6, 1944). Note helmet netting; faint "No Smoking" sign on the LCVP's ramp; and M1903 rifles and M1 carbines carried by some of these men. Original Source: Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives.
American troops approaching Omaha Beach, during the Invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
ALLIES GAIN MOMENTUM (1943-44)
After the 1942-43 Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific theater, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. By the end of March 1944, the Allies eliminated Japanese forces from the Aleutians and breached the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. They also neutralized the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.
In Europe, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland (September 3, 1943), following Italy's armistice with the Allies. They fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November. German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign. In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and tried to outflank it with landings at Anzio. By the end of January, a major Soviet offensive expelled German forces from the Leningrad region, ending the longest and most lethal siege in history.
By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops. The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on June 4, Rome was captured.
1944
On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France. These landings led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spearheaded by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands failed. After that, the Western Allies slowly pushed into Germany, but failed to cross the Rur river in a large offensive.
On June 22, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus ("Operation Bagration") that destroyed the German Army Group Center almost completely. Soon after that another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The Soviet advance prompted resistance forces in Poland to initiate several uprisings against the German occupation. However, the largest of these in Warsaw where German soldiers massacred 200,000 civilians and a national uprising in Slovakia did not receive Soviet support and were subsequently suppressed by the Germans. The Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.
In September 1944, Soviet troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of Germany in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on October 20. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945.
In the Pacific, US forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944, they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, and decisively defeated Japanese forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.
TOWARDS THE VICTORY
On December 16, 1944, Germany made a last attempt on the Western Front by using most of its remaining reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp to prompt a political settlement. By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled. In Italy, the Western Allies remained stalemated at the German defensive line. In mid-January 1945, the Soviets and Poles attacked in Poland, pushing from the Vistula to the Oder river in Germany, and overran East Prussia.
In the Pacific theater, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines. On the night of March 9-10, the US Army Air Forces struck Tokyo with incendiary bombs, which killed 100,000 people within a few hours. Over the next five months, American bombers firebombed 66 other Japanese cities, causing the destruction of untold numbers of buildings and the deaths of between 350,000–500,000 Japanese civilians.
German forces surrendered in Italy on April 29. Total and unconditional surrender was signed on May 7, to be effective by the end of May 8. On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, ending the war.
Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on board the USS Missouri, 2 September 1945.
Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government, on board USS Missouri (BB-63), September 2, 1945. Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland, U.S. Army, watches from the opposite side of the table. Foreign Ministry representative Toshikazu Kase is assisting Mr. Shigemitsu.