World War II started in September of 1939, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis invaded Poland, driving France and England to declare war on Germany. In June of 1940, Italy declared war on France and England, because Benito Mussolini (the Italian leader) was anxious that he would lose his claim of European lands as Hitler advanced. Soon after, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, leading the Americans into the war. Countries joined the war and created two major teams - the Axis (that included Germany, Italy and Japan) and the Allies (that included the United States, England and France).
Let’s go back a bit, from September first to September seventh of 1939, the defense of Westerplatte took place. In this battle, 15 Polish soldiers and 50 German soldiers died; hundreds more were wounded. The first official battle for the U.S. was the Battle of Midway, which was a clash between the Japanese and the U.S. Navy. The Battle of Midway took place just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The biggest battle of World War II was the Battle of Stalingrad. This battle was absolutely brutal; approximately 1.2 million people died. One of the most important battles was Operation Overlord also known as D-day, which took place in June of 1944. D-day was fought between the U.S., the French, English and the Germans. The battle consisted of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers trying to retake Normandy, France. Soldiers attack the city in any way they could, including by air and boat.
Even though more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded within the first 24 hours of the battle, D-day is known as the beginning of the end for Hitler’s government. The D-day battle lasted two months, three weeks and three days.
In May of 1945, Germany surrendered but some of the countries remained at war. The U.S. was tired of war after the many years of fighting and dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. This event pushed Japan to surrender to the U.S. in September of 1945 which caused the war to end for good.
World War II was the biggest war in the history of the United States with more than 400,000 U.S. deaths and 671,000 U.S. wounded. It was devastating for others countries as well. The overall death toll was estimated at 60 million people. I hope we all remember what happened in World War II so that history does not repeat itself.