From Normandy to Hiroshima: The Allied Victory and the End of World War II (part III)

From Pearl Harbour to Normandy, from the deserts of North Africa to the ruins of Berlin, the final act of the Second World War was a relentless Allied advance that left no corner of the Axis empire untouched. Without losing momentum, we continue where we left off, for while Europe lay in ruins, the war in the Pacific was far from over.

US Entry into the War: The Atlantic Charter

The day after the Pearl Harbour attack, on December 8, 1941, the US officially entered the war. America, which had initially remained neutral and only provided military supplies to Britain through the "Lend-Lease Act," was now on the battlefield with its entire industrial might.

However, just before the US physically entered the war, on August 14, 1941, British Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt published the Atlantic Charter, which would change the course of history. This charter promised that no territories would be gained after the war, that nations would determine their own destinies (self-determination), freedom of trade on the high seas, and total disarmament. The Atlantic Charter was the first and strongest foundation of the United Nations (UN) organization that would be established after the war.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Atlantic Conference

The Fall of North Africa and Italy

As the tide of the war began to turn in favour of the Allies, the first major counter-offensive against the German war machine took place in North Africa. A massive force of 100,000 British and US troops, commanded by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, made a successful landing on the coasts of Morocco and Algeria. Although strong German reinforcements brought in via the Mediterranean by air and sea put up a fierce resistance in Tunisia, the Axis forces were completely crushed in North Africa by May 1943 after gruelling battles.

Without losing momentum, the Allies attacked what they saw as the “soft underbelly of Europe”, Italy (via Sicily), in July 1943. This heavy blow and relentless bombing brought an end to the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. With Italy’s unconditional surrender in September and the capture of its fleet at Malta, the Germans were forced to enter the peninsula to protect their southern borders and defend their former ally's territory, bringing them face-to-face with the Allies.

The British army in North Africa, 1942

The Liberation of Europe: The Historic Normandy Landings

Following North Africa and Italy, preparations began for a “Second Front” of unprecedented scale to completely liberate Europe from Nazi occupation. In May 1944, a massive armada of 4,000 ships and landing craft was prepared for the US, British, and Canadian troops gathered in southern England. While the Germans, deceived by false intelligence, expected the attack to come from the Strait of Dover (Calais), the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, General Eisenhower, gave the historic order: The target was the Normandy coast, located between Cherbourg and Le Havre.

On the morning of June 6, 1944 (D-Day), the largest amphibious operation in history began, involving paratroopers, heavy bombers, and thousands of soldiers. Shattering the German defence lines and driving relentlessly west across Northern France, the Allies liberated Paris on August 25, 1944, tearing the Nazi shadow away from France.

Into the Jaws of Death: men of the 16th Infantry Regiment wade ashore on Omaha Beach

The Fall of the Third Reich and the Surrender of Germany

Following the liberation of France and the Allied advance in Italy (the capture of Florence in August 1944 and the breaching of the Pisa-Rimini defence line), Germany was literally trapped.

By April 1945, as Allied armies crossed the Po River and advanced toward the Alps, Soviet armies simultaneously encircled Berlin from the east. Adolf Hitler, the man who set the whole world on fire, committed suicide in his bunker in his ruined capital, leaving his position to Admiral Karl Doenitz. Shortly after, with the official fall of Berlin on May 2, 1945, Germany hoisted the white flag, and the bloody war that had left Europe in ruins finally came to an end on the continent.

Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)

When the Sun Went Dark: Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On the morning of August 6, 1945, at exactly 8:15 AM, an American bomber named “Enola Gay” dropped the first atomic bomb, dubbed “Little Boy,” over the skies of Hiroshima. Within seconds, 60% of the city was wiped off the map. While 140,000 people lost their lives initially, this number reached 230,000 in the following years due to the invisible and deadly effects of radiation.

While the world was still reeling from this shock, just three days later, on August 9, 1945, at 12:02 PM, Nagasaki was targeted. A plutonium bomb named “Fat Man,” possessing the power of a massive 21 kilotons of TNT, instantly turned 75,000 people to ashes. Over the next five years, just as many people died in agony from radiation poisoning or were left permanently disabled.

Japan had no strength left to resist. With Japan’s unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945, World War II, which had cost millions of lives, redrawn borders, and left the world in ruins, officially and definitively came to an end.

World War II had ended, but the world it left behind was unrecognisable. Now came the harder question: what next? In our next chapter, we look at the conferences that tried to answer it and the fragile peace they attempted to build.

Blitzkrieg: How Hitler's Lightning War Swallowed Europe and Ignited the Pacific (part II)

When the calendar marked the morning of September 1, 1939, German tanks crushed through the Polish border, officially igniting the great fire that would change the fate not only of Europe but of the entire world.

In this new and bloody phase of World War II, the old rules of war were completely thrown away. We will witness how entire countries and established armies were wiped off the map not in months, but in weeks or even days, through Hitler's unprecedented "Lightning War" (Blitzkrieg) tactic. The desperate struggles of Britain and France, the collapse of defence lines thought to be insurmountable, the fall of Paris, and that dark Nazi shadow descending upon all of Europe like a nightmare... If you are ready, let's take a closer look at how this ruthless war, which darkened the lives of millions, swallowed the European continent step by step.

The Invasion of Poland and the Declaration of War

On the night of August 29, 1939, Germany presented impossibly harsh diplomatic demands to Poland over the Danzig corridor. Following Poland's rejection of this blackmail, German armoured units (Panzers) crushed through the Polish border without a declaration of war on the morning of September 1, 1939.

Faced with this move, Britain and France had only one thing left to do at the diplomatic table. Receiving no response to their ultimatums demanding that Germany halt its military operations and withdraw, these two countries officially declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. World War II had begun. Following the “Non-Aggression Pact,” while Germany battered Poland from the west, the Soviet Union simultaneously attacked from the east. The Polish army, pressed between two giants, was completely obliterated within a few weeks.

With the fall of Poland, the world irreversibly divided into two main camps:

• The Axis Powers (The Aggressors): Germany and Italy, previously united by the “Pact of Steel,” included Japan in 1940 and signed the “Tripartite Pact.” According to this agreement, they were practically dividing the title deed to the world: Germany and Italy would establish the “new order” in Europe and Africa, while Japan would be the absolute ruler of Asia.
• The Allied Powers (The Defenders): Initially consisting only of Britain and France, this front would eventually become a massive global force, first when Hitler broke the treaty and attacked the USSR (Operation Barbarossa), and later when the US entered the war following Japan's Pearl Harbour attack.

Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) and the Collapse of Europe

Hitler had no intention of stopping after Poland. The new target was the north, to establish bases for his submarines and secure iron ore; in April 1940, Norway and Denmark were occupied. Shortly after, on May 10, 1940, the German war machine turned its sights west, invading Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

France relied heavily on its famous “Maginot Line”, a defensive line of underground bunkers designed with the trench warfare mentality of WWI and deemed impregnable. However, the German “Blitzkrieg” (Lightning War) tactic was so fast and ruthless that Panzers bypassed the Maginot Line by going through forested areas, trapping the French and British armies at the Belgian border. Trapped in a corner, 346,000 Allied soldiers were evacuated to Britain at the last moment from the beaches of Dunkerque (Dunkirk) with the help of a massive civilian naval fleet, narrowly escaping a total massacre.

Paris Falls and Britain Resists

Having lost its army and hope, it was the end of the road for France. On June 14, 1940, German troops marched right into Paris, and the great nation of France hoisted the white flag. While Germany directly occupied Northern France, the Vichy Government, a puppet of fascist Germany, was established in the south.

With France on its knees, only one country remained standing against Hitler on the European continent: Britain. To prepare for an invasion of Britain, the German air force (Luftwaffe) began relentlessly bombing every inch of the island, including the capital London, every single day. However, the German war machine was about to crash into the stubborn, iron-willed resistance of the British.

German army parade on Champs-Élysées in Paris, 1940.

Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front

The true purpose of the Non-Aggression Pact Hitler signed with the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1939 was not peace, but to prevent Germany from fighting a two-front war simultaneously. After crushing France in the West and driving the British off the continent, Hitler turned to his ultimate goal. Hoping to collapse the USSR with a swift campaign and then descend into the Middle East via the Caucasus oil fields, the German army launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.

Finland, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria also joined this massive invasion. Although German Panzers initially advanced across Soviet territory at an unstoppable pace, there was a deadly enemy Hitler had not accounted for: the ruthless Russian winter (Napoleon J). When winter hit, German troops began to freeze, supply lines broke, and their fighting capability melted away. The attacks in 1942, driven by the dream of reaching the Caucasus oil fields, also ended in failure, and German troops were forced to surrender in February 1943. This massive land battle of World War II became the beginning of the end for Germany. The USSR, which paid the heaviest price of the war by losing approximately 20 million people, doomed the Germans to retreat.

Elements of the German 3rd Panzer Army on the road near Pruzhany, June 1941

Desert Foxes and the Mediterranean: The North African Campaign

The fire of war had also spread to the African deserts. Italy, entering the war in 1940, launched an offensive to capture British-controlled Egypt (and the Suez Canal) but suffered a severe defeat. Wanting to save his ally, Hitler sent the famous commander Erwin Rommel to Africa. Although the Axis powers advanced close to Cairo, the legendary British resistance and the victory at El Alamein changed the course of the war. German and Italian armies were forced to retreat across the Western Desert. Italy's attack on Greece to descend into the Aegean also ended in frustration.

The Japanese Storm in the Pacific

In the Far East, Japan was destroying everything in its path with the motto “Asia for Asians.” The day that changed the fate of the war was December 7, 1941, when Japanese warplanes launched a devastating surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. The aircraft carriers survived because they were not at the base at the time, but this raid officially awakened a sleeping giant.

The Japanese did not stop at Pearl Harbour; they attacked the Philippines on the very same day. Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma fell to Japanese occupation one after another. US and Philippine forces under the command of General MacArthur suffered heavy losses and retreated. Japan had established a massive Pacific empire threatening India and Australia.