World War II History - World War II

In North Africa, British and American forces had defeated the Italians and Germans by 1943. An Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy followed, and Mussolini’s government fell in July 1943, though Allied fighting against the Germans in Italy would continue until 1945. On World War II’s Eastern Front, a Soviet counteroffensive launched in November 1942 ended the bloody Battle of Stalingrad, which had seen some of the fiercest combat of the war. On June 6, 1944–celebrated as “D-Day”–the Allied began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France.

The Holocaust - World War II Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young. The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau. From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone. Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible.

OurStory : Activities : Life in a WWII Japanese-American Internment Camp Historic time period: 1929–1945 During World War II, the United States was at war with Japan. By an executive order of President Franklin D. Since the end of the war, the Japanese American community has loaned a large collection of objects to the National Museum of American History. Baseball Saved Us is a story about a young American boy of Japanese descent named Shorty who is forced to leave his home and move to an army prison camp for the duration of the war. Read more about life in the internment camps » Read This Book You can learn more about the internment of Japanese Americans in these books. Featured Book Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki Baseball Saved Us. Recommended Book Read Baseball Saved UsMeet Shorty, who is forced to leave his home and move to an army prison camp during World War II. Activities Honoring Japanese AmericansLearn From ObjectsWhat would a medal for the kids who lived in internment camps look like?

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain was a struggle between the German Luftwaffe (commanded by Hermaan Göring) and the British Royal Air force (headed by Sir Hugh Dowding’s Fighter Command) which raged over Britain between July and October 1940. The battle, which was the first major military campaign in history to be fought entirely in the air, was the result of a German plan to win air superiority over Southern Britain and the English Channel by destroying the British air force and aircraft industry. Hitler saw victory in the battle as a prelude to the invasion of Britain (codenamed Operation Sealion). In May 1940, German forces had overrun Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France using Blitzkrieg (‘Lightening War’) tactics. The Luftwaffe’s first disadvantage was that it was neither trained nor equipped for the long range operations which became part of the battle. The climax of the battle came on 15 September, a day in which the Luftwaffe lost 56 planes and the RAF 28.