World War II
Pictorial Chronology
Phase 1:
Invasion of Poland – Battle of Britain
(September 1939 – October 1940)
Invasion of Poland (1939)
German Armies Invade Western Poland (1939)
Border Crossing
Junkers Ju 87 ‘Stuka’
Highly-effective dive bomber used in ‘Blitzkrieg’ warfare, attacking
defensive positions and tanks
Invasion of Denmark & Norway (1940)
Germany Invades Netherlands & Belgium
(May – June 1940)
Invasion of France
(June 1940)
Evacuation of Dunkirk
‘Operation Dynamo’
300,000 British & French troops rescued by over 800 ships and pleasure craft
Fall of France
(June 1940)
Vichy France
(1940 – 1944)
Battle of Britain
Spitfire Mk IV
Messerschmitt Bf109
Radar
The ‘Blitz’
(October 1940 – April 1941)
Phase II:
Operation Barbarossa – North African Campaign
(June 1941 – May 1943)
Invasion of USSR - Operation Barbarossa
(June – October 1941)
Hitler invades Russia with over 3 million
men & 4,000 tanks, supported by the
Luftwaffe
3 Army groups invade:
Army Group North: Leningrad
Army Group Centre: Moscow
Army Group South: Stalingrad
Hitler’s target was the oil-rich region of
the Caucasus
Pearl Harbour
(7th December 1941)
Operation Uranus
(19th – 22nd November 1942)
Operation Uranus
General Von Paulus in Stalingrad
Soviet troops encircle Stalingrad
Battle of the Kursk
(4th – 20th July 1943)
Between 4th & 20th July, Hitler committed over 900,000 soldiers, 10,000 artillery guns, 2,700
tanks and 2,000 aircraft, hoping to counteract the Soviet offense that was pushing gradually
westwards from 1943 on. It failed to surround the Soviet tanks and infantry which
numbered 1.3 million soldiers, 20,000 artillery pieces, 3,600 tanks and 2,400 planes
Phase III:
D-Day – Fall of Berlin
(6th June 1944 – 8th May 1945)
Nazi Europe
(6th June 1944)
Field Marshall Rommel
General Erwin Rommel inspects the
Atlantic Wall defences
(1944)
The Atlantic Wall
D-Day Landings:
Operation Overlord
(6th June 1944)
D-Day Landing Sites
Liberation of France
General deGaulle & Free French
partisans parade in Paris following
liberation by Allied troops
Liberation of France
Red Army advance on Berlin
(1943 – 1945)
Battle of the Bulge
Germany Collapses
VE Day
8th May 1945
War in the Pacific
Yalta Conference
(4th – 11th February 1945)
Hiroshima & Nagasaki
6th & 9th August 1945
Oppenheimer
Hiroshima: 1945
(Before Atomic Bomb)
Hiroshima: 1945
(After Atomic Bomb)
VJ Day
15th August 1945
Casualties of WWII
The Holocaust
By the end of WWII, after
the concentration &
extermination camps were
liberated throughout
occupied Europe, it was
estimated that over 6 million
Jews had been murdered as
part of ‘The Final Solution’;
the plan to eradicate all Jews
from Europe between 1942
& 1945.