In World War Two, the Polish armed forces were the fourth largest Allied forces in Europe, after those of the Soviet Union, United States, and Britain. Poles made substantial contributions to the Allied effort throughout the war, fighting on land, sea, and in the air.
The European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) was a Theater of Operations responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the European theatre of World War II, from 1942 to 1945. It commanded Army Ground Forces (AGF), United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), and Army Service Forces (ASF) operations north of Italy and the Mediterranean coast. It was bordered to the south by the North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA), which later became the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army (MTOUSA).
Urban warfare is warfare in urban areas such as towns and cities. Urban combat differs from combat in the open at both the operational and the tactical levels. Complicating factors in urban warfare include the presence of civilians and the complexity of the urban terrain. Urban combat operations may be conducted to capitalize on strategic or tactical advantages associated with the possession or the control of a particular urban area or to deny these advantages to the enemy.
The European theater of World War II was one of the two main theaters of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe including the German capital Berlin and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 although fighting continued elsewhere in Europe until 25 May. On 5 June 1945, the Berlin Declaration proclaiming the unconditional surrender of Germany to the four victorious powers was signed. The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts but there were other fronts varying in scale from the Italian campaign the 3rd largest campaign in Europe to the Polish Campaign as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theater.
The Italian campaign of World War II, also called the Liberation of Italy following the German occupation in September 1943, consisted of Allied and Axis operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to 1945. The joint Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) was operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the Mediterranean theatre and it planned and led the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, followed in September by the invasion of the Italian mainland and the campaign in Italy until the surrender of the German Armed Forces in Italy in May 1945.
The VI Corps was activated as VI Army Corps in August 1918 at Neufchâteau, France, serving in the Lorraine Campaign. Constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1921, it was allotted to the Regular Army in 1933 and activated on 1 August 1940 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. VI Corps took part in some of the most high-profile operations in World War II.
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theatre. The Western Front's 1944–1945 phase was officially deemed the European Theater by the United States, whereas Italy fell under the Mediterranean Theater along with North Africa. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat, which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945.
The Siegfried Line campaign was a phase in the Western European campaign of World War II, which involved actions near the German defensive Siegfried Line.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relatively few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers; the Soviet Union served 34 million men and women, Germany 18 million, the U.S 16 million, Japan 9 million, and Great Britain 6 million. It is estimated that in total, 127 million people were mobilised during the war. It is generally estimated that a total of 72 million people died, with the lowest estimate being 40 million dead and the highest estimate being 90 million dead. The leading Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Italy; while the British Empire, the United States, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the Kingdom of Italy. Its principal members by the end of 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
The Battle of Groningen took place during the penultimate month of Second World War in Europe, from April 13 to 16, 1945, in the city of Groningen between a mixture of German soldiers, Dutch and Belgian SS troops numbering 7,000 against the entire 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, though the whole division was never in combat at any given time. There were also substantial amounts of Luftwaffe units manning flak guns in the area. Groningen was also the site of the headquarters for the Sicherheitsdienst in the North of the Netherlands. The German command structure was poor and the defenders had never exercised together.
The military history of the United States during World War II covers the nation's role as one of the major Allies in their victory over the Axis Powers. The United States is generally considered to have entered the conflict with the 7 December 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan and exited it with the 2 September 1945 surrender of Japan. During the first two years of World War II, the US maintained formal neutrality, which was officially announced in the Quarantine Speech delivered by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937. While officially neutral, the US supplied Britain, the Soviet Union, and China with war materiel through the Lend-Lease Act signed into law on 11 March 1941, and deployed the US military to replace the British forces stationed in Iceland. Following the 4 September 1941 Greer incident involving a German submarine, Roosevelt publicly confirmed a "shoot on sight" order on 11 September, effectively declaring naval war on Germany and Italy in the Battle of the Atlantic. In the Pacific Theater, there was unofficial early US combat activity such as the Flying Tigers.
The U.S. VIII Corps was a corps of the United States Army that saw service during various times over a fifty-year period during the 20th century. The VIII Corps was organized 26–29 November 1918 in the Regular Army in France and demobilized on 20 April 1919. The VIII Corps was soon reactivated, being constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1921. It was allotted to the Regular Army in 1933 and activated on 14 October 1940 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The VIII Corps fought across Europe from Normandy to Czechoslovakia in World War II. After World War II, the corps was inactivated and reactivated several times, with the final inactivation occurring in 1968.
The Allied leaders of World War II listed below comprise the important political and military figures who fought for or supported the Allies during World War II. Engaged in total war, they had to adapt to new types of modern warfare, on the military, psychological and economic fronts.
The Axis leaders of World War II were important political and military figures during World War II. The Axis was established with the signing of the Tripartite Pact in 1940 and pursued a strongly militarist and nationalist ideology; with a policy of anti-communism. During the early phase of the war, puppet governments were established in their occupied nations. When the war ended, many of them faced trial for war crimes. The chief leaders were Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini of Fascist Italy, and Hirohito of Imperial Japan. Unlike what happened with the Allies, there was never a joint meeting of the main Axis heads of government, although Mussolini and Hitler met on a regular basis.
The German Army was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht, the regular Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946. During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million soldiers served in the German Army. Army personnel were made up of volunteers and conscripts.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to World War II:
The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.
The Battle of Nuremberg was a five-day battle between the forces of the United States 7th Army on one side, and Nazi Germany and Russian Liberation Army volunteers on the other during the last days of World War II. The battle saw some of the fiercest urban combat during the war and it took four days for the United States to capture the city. The battle was a blow to Nazi Germany as Nuremberg was a center of the Nazi regime. The Nuremberg Rallies took place in the city and to lose the city to the Americans took a heavy toll on already low German morale. Even though American forces heavily outnumbered the German forces, it wasn't until 20 April, that the 7th Army took the city center. The battle devastated the city.
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