Timeline of Events During World War Two

1939

1st Sep - Hitler invades Poland on 1 September.
3rd Sep -Britain and France declare war on Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain makes a BBC radio broadcast to the nation. Hours later the German U-Boat U-30 sank the SS Athenia, beginning the Battle of Atlantic that would last the whole of the war resulting in 30,264 Allied deaths, 3,675 vessels and 28,000 Axis deaths, 783 U-boat submarines.
9th Sept - Advanced troops of the British Expeditionary Force B.E.F arrive in France. Within 5 weeks, 158,000 are in France.
17th Sept - Soviet Union move into Poland, and occupy areas of the country.

1940

8th Jan - Food rationing introduced in the UK.
April - Denmark and Norway invaded by Germany. British armed forces help Norwegians in an attempt to hold off the invasion.
10th May - Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, after discontentment with the Norway campaign.
10th May - German 'Blitzkrieg' of the low countries- Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg and also France begins.
May 26th - Operation Dynamo. British Expeditionary Force and part of the French Army evacuated from Dunkirk. 338,226 men in total rescued by 860 boats ranging from large battleships to the smallest a 15 seater pleasure boat. Evacuation completed in 9 days.
22nd Jun - France surrenders.
10th Jul - Battle of Britain begins as Germany launches an air superiority campaign, as a step towards invasion.
31st Oct - Battle of Britain comes to an end. Britain victorious. 544 RAF pilots and air crew killed. 2,500 Luftwaffe pilots and aircrew killed. RAF lost 1,547 planes, the Luftwaffe 1,887.

1941

22nd Jun - Operation Barbarossa - The German invasion of Russia begins.
The Blitz continues against Britain's major cities.
Allies take Tobruk in North Africa, and resist German attacks.
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and the US enters the war.

1942

Germany suffers setbacks at Stalingrad and El Alamein.
Singapore falls to the Japanese in February - around 25,000 prisoners taken.
American naval victory at Battle of Midway, in June, marks turning point in Pacific War.

1943

Surrender at Stalingrad marks Germany's first major defeat.
Allied victory in North Africa enables invasion of Italy to be launched.
Italy surrenders, but Germany takes over the battle.
British and Indian forces fight Japanese in Burma.

1944

Allies land at Anzio and bomb monastery at Monte Cassino.
Soviet offensive gathers pace in Eastern Europe.
D Day: The Allied invasion of France. Paris is liberated in August.
Guam liberated by the US Okinawa, and Iwo Jima bombed.

1945

Auschwitz liberated by Soviet troops.
Russians reach Berlin: Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders on 7 May.
Truman becomes President of the US on Roosevelt's death, and Attlee replaces Churchill.
After atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrenders on 14 August.

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