World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers: eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities.

The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and Slovakia, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large empire in Europe. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or subdued much of continental Europe; amid Nazi-Soviet agreements, the nominally neutral Soviet Union fully or partially occupied and annexed territories of its six European neighbours. Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in North Africa and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on, was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had been at war with China since 1937, and aimed to dominate Asia, attacked the United States and European possessions in the Pacific Ocean, quickly conquering much of the region.

The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after the defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after defeats of European Axis troops in North Africa and, decisively, at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Fascist Italy, and American victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies.

The war in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops and subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. The Japanese Navy was defeated by the United States, and invasion of the Japanese Archipelago ("Home Islands") became imminent.

The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts (such as World War III). The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which would last for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline, while the decolonization of Asia and Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved toward economic recovery. Political integration emerged as an effort to stabilise postwar relations.

Chronology

The start of the war is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland; Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Other dates for the beginning of war include the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 13 September 1931; the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937;.

Others follow A. J. P. Taylor, who held that there was a simultaneous Sino-Japanese War in East Asia, and a Second European War in Europe and her colonies. The two wars merged in 1941, becoming a single global conflict, at which point the war continued until 1945. This article uses the conventional dating.

The exact date of the war's end is not universally agreed upon. It has been suggested that the war ended at the armistice of 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), rather than the formal surrender of Japan (2 September 1945); in some European histories, it ended on V-E Day (8 May 1945). The Treaty of Peace with Japan was not signed until 1951.

Background

World War I radically altered the diplomatic and political situations in Eurasia and Africa, with the defeat of the Central Powers, including Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire; and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Meanwhile, the success of the Allied Entente powers including the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Serbia, and Romania, and the creation of new states from the collapse of Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire, resulted in a major shift in the balance of power from central and eastern Europe to the Atlantic littoral. In the aftermath of the war, major unrest in Europe rose, especially irredentist and revanchist nationalism and class conflict. Irredentism and revanchism were strong in Germany because she was forced to accept significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses as part of the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all of its overseas colonies, while German annexation of other states was prohibited, massive reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of Germany's armed forces. Meanwhile, the Russian Civil War had led to the creation of the Soviet Union. After Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin seized power in the USSR and repudiated the New Economic Policy favouring the Five Year Plans instead.

In the interwar period, domestic civil conflict occurred in Germany involving nationalists and reactionaries versus communists and moderate democratic political parties. A similar scenario occurred in Italy. Although Italy as an Entente ally made some territorial gains, Italian nationalists were angered that the terms of the Treaty of London upon which Italy had agreed to wage war on the Central Powers, were not fulfilled with the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Italian Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian, and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed political forces supporting class conflict or liberalism, and pursued an aggressive foreign policy aimed at forcefully forging Italy as a world power, and promising to create a "New Roman Empire." In Germany, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler pursued establishing such a fascist government in Germany. With the onset of the Great Depression, Nazi support rose and, in 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, and in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire, Hitler created a totalitarian single-party state led by the Nazis.

The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese communist allies. In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Japanese Empire, which had long sought influence in China as the first step of its right to rule Asia, used the Mukden Incident as justification to invade Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Too weak to resist Japan, China appealed to the League of Nations for help. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several minor conflicts, in Shanghai, Rehe and Hebei, until signing the Tanggu Truce in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria, and Chahar and Suiyuan.

(left) and Adolf Hitler (right)]]

Adolf Hitler, after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. He abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of the world order, and soon began a massive rearmament campaign. Meanwhile, France, to secure its alliance, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia, which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, speeding up his rearmament programme and introducing conscription.

Hoping to contain Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy formed the Stresa Front. The Soviet Union, concerned due to Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of eastern Europe, wrote a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect though, the Franco-Soviet pact was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless. However, in June 1935, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August. In October, Italy invaded Ethiopia, with Germany the only major European nation supporting the invasion. Italy then revoked objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria.

Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno treaties by remilitarizing the Rhineland in March 1936. He received little response from other European powers. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July, Hitler and Mussolini supported fascist Generalissimo Francisco Franco's nationalist forces in his civil war against the Soviet-supported Spanish Republic. Both sides used the conflict to test new weapons and methods of warfare, and the nationalists won the war in early 1939. Mounting tensions led to several efforts to strengthen or consolidate power. In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed the Rome-Berlin Axis. A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy would join in the following year. In China, after the Xi'an Incident the Kuomintang and communist forces agreed on a ceasefire in order to present a united front to oppose Japan.

Pre-war events

Invasion of Ethiopia

The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia) and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia). The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana, or AOI); in addition, it exposed the weakness of the League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did nothing when the former clearly violated the League's own Article X.

Spanish Civil War

Germany and Italy lent support to the Nationalist insurrection led by general Francisco Franco in Spain. The Soviet Union supported the existing government, the Spanish Republic which showed leftist tendencies. Both sides used this war as an opportunity to test improved weapons and tactics. The Bombing of Guernica, a city of 5000 - 7000 inhabitants, was considered a horrifying attack at the time, with a propaganda figure of 1,654 people killed widely circulated in the west, leading to charges of "terror bombing". In reality the attack was tactical operation against a city with militarily important communications close to the front-line, and modern estimates yield no more than 300 - 400 dead at the high-end.

Japanese invasion of China

, 1937.]]

In July 1937, Japan captured the former Chinese imperial capital of Beiping after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanjing in December 1937 and committed the Nanking Massacre.

In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding the Yellow River; although this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan, the city was taken by October. Japanese military victories, however, did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve, instead the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing to continue their resistance.

Japanese invasion of the Soviet Union and Mongolia

in Mongolia, 1939.]] On 29 July 1938, the Japanese invaded the USSR and were checked at the Battle of Lake Khasan. Although the battle was a Soviet victory, the Japanese dismissed it as an inconclusive draw, and on 11 May 1939 decided to move the Japanese-Mongolian border up to the Khalkin Gol River by force. After initial successes the Japanese assault on Mongolia was checked by the Red Army that inflicted the first major defeat on the Japanese Kwantung Army.

These clashes convinced the Japanese government that they should focus on conciliating the Soviet government to avoid interference in the war against China and instead turn their military attention southward, towards the US and European holdings in the Pacific. They also prevented the sacking of experienced Soviet military leaders such as Zhukov, who would later play a vital role in the defence of Moscow.

European occupations and agreements

, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement.]] In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming bolder. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, again provoking little response from other European powers. Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population; and soon France and Britain conceded this territory to him, against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. Soon after that, however, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary and Poland. In March 1939, Germany invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the pro-German client state, the Slovak Republic.

Alarmed, and with Hitler making further demands on Danzig, France and Britain guaranteed their support for Polish independence; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to Romania and Greece. Shortly after the Franco-British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel.

In August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty with a secret protocol. The parties gave each other rights, “in the event of a territorial and political rearrangement,” to “spheres of influence” (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany, and eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia for the USSR). It also raised the question of continuing Polish independence.

Course of the war

War breaks out in Europe

of German Wehrmacht and Soviet Red Army on 23 September 1939 in Brest, Eastern Poland at the end of the Invasion of Poland. At centre is Major General Heinz Guderian and at right is Brigadier Semyon Krivoshein.]]

On 1 September 1939, Germany and Slovakiaa client state in 1939attacked Poland. On 3 September 1939 after Germany failed to withdraw in accordance with French and British demands, France and Britain, followed by the countries of the Commonwealth, declared war on Germany but provided little military support to Poland other than a small French attack into the Saarland. On 17 September 1939, after signing a nonaggression pact with Japan, the Soviets launched their own invasion of Poland. By early October, Poland was divided among Germany, the Soviet Union, Lithuania and Slovakia, although Poland never officially surrendered and continued the fight outside its borders. At the same time as the battle in Poland, Japan launched its first attack against Changsha, a strategically important Chinese city, but was repulsed by late September.

Following the invasion of Poland and a German-Soviet treaty governing Lithuania, the Soviet Union forced the Baltic countries to allow it to station Soviet troops in their countries under pacts of "mutual assistance." Finland rejected territorial demands and was invaded by the Soviet Union in November 1939. The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions. France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations. and the region of Bessarabia in Romania.

troops by the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, after the 1940 fall of France.]] In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nicknamed the Phoney War by the British and "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) by the Germans, neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940. The Soviet Union and Germany entered a trade pact in February 1940, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent a British blockade.

In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to secure shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were about to disrupt. Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months. In May 1940 Britain invaded Iceland. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940.

Axis advances

Germany invaded France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940, the same day Neville Chamberlain resigned as British Prime Minister. The Netherlands and Belgium were overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively. The French fortified Maginot Line was circumvented by a flanking movement through the thickly wooded Ardennes region, British troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning their heavy equipment by the end of the month. On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom; twelve days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime. On 3 July, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent its possible seizure by Germany.

With France neutralized, Germany began an air superiority campaign over Britain (the Battle of Britain) to prepare for an invasion. The campaign failed, and the invasion plans were canceled by September. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic. Italy began operations in the Mediterranean, initiating a siege of Malta in June, conquering British Somaliland in August, and making an incursion into British-held Egypt in September 1940. Japan increased its blockade of China in September by seizing several bases in the northern part of the now-isolated French Indochina.

ended the German advance in Western Europe.]]

Throughout this period, the neutral United States took measures to assist China and the Western Allies. In November 1939, the American Neutrality Act was amended to allow 'cash and carry' purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased and, after the Japanese incursion into Indochina, the United States embargoed iron, steel and mechanical parts against Japan. In September, the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases. Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention into the conflict well into 1941.

At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact united Japan, Italy and Germany to formalize the Axis Powers. The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country, with the exception of the Soviet Union, not in the war which attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. During this time, the United States continued to support the United Kingdom and China by introducing the Lend-Lease policy authorizing the provision of materiel and other items and creating a security zone spanning roughly half of the Atlantic Ocean where the United States Navy protected British convoys. As a result, Germany and the United States found themselves engaged in sustained naval warfare in the North and Central Atlantic by October 1941, even though the United States remained officially neutral.

The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary, Slovakia and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact. These countries participated in the subsequent invasion of the USSR, with Romania making the largest contribution to recapture territory ceded to the USSR and pursue its leader Ion Antonescu's desire to combat communism. In October 1940, Italy invaded Greece but within days was repulsed and pushed back into Albania, where a stalemate soon occurred. In December 1940, British Commonwealth forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa. By early 1941, with Italian forces having been pushed back into Libya by the Commonwealth, Churchill ordered a dispatch of troops from Africa to bolster the Greeks. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with the Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by carrier attack at Taranto, and neutralising several more warships at Cape Matapan. invading the Greek island of Crete, May 1941.]]

The Germans soon intervened to assist Italy. Hitler sent German forces to Libya in February, and by the end of March they had launched an offensive against the diminished Commonwealth forces. In under a month, Commonwealth forces were pushed back into Egypt with the exception of the besieged port of Tobruk. The Commonwealth attempted to dislodge Axis forces in May and again in June, but failed on both occasions. In early April, following Bulgaria's signing of the Tripartite Pact, the Germans intervened in the Balkans by invading Greece and Yugoslavia following a coup; here too they made rapid progress, eventually forcing the Allies to evacuate after Germany conquered the Greek island of Crete by the end of May.

The Allies did have some successes during this time. In the Middle East, Commonwealth forces first quashed a coup in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria, then, with the assistance of the Free French, invaded Syria and Lebanon to prevent further such occurrences. In the Atlantic, the British scored a much-needed public morale boost by sinking the German flagship Bismarck. Perhaps most importantly, during the Battle of Britain the Royal Air Force had successfully resisted the Luftwaffe's assault, and the German bombing campaign largely ended in May 1941.

In Asia, despite several offensives by both sides, the war between China and Japan was stalemated by 1940. In order to increase pressure on China by blocking supply routes, and to better position Japanese forces in the event of a war with the Western powers, Japan had seized military control of southern Indochina In August of that year, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted harsh measures (the Three Alls Policy) in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists. Continued antipathy between Chinese communist and nationalist forces culminated in armed clashes in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation. With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia, the two powers signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941. By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, amassing forces on the Soviet border.

The war becomes global

On 22 June 1941, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The primary targets of this surprise offensive were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with an ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, connecting the Caspian and White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space") by dispossessing the native population and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.

Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war, Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the Second Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad. The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.

, October 1941.]]

The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front prompted Britain to reconsider its grand strategy. In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany The British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oil fields. In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.

By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad and Sevastopol continuing, a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops were forced to suspend their offensive. Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.

By early December, freshly mobilised reserves allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops. This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army, allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December along a front and pushed German troops west.

German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina. The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.

Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war. To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset. On 7 December (8 December in Asian time zones), 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific. and the battle of Hong Kong.

saw 80,000 Allied soldiers captured and enslaved by the Japanese.]]

These attacks led the U.S., Britain, Australia and other Allies to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China, and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, which affirmed the Atlantic Charter. The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration; it maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan, and exempted itself from the principle of self-determination. and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. Despite a stubborn resistance in Corregidor, the Philippines was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing the government of the Philippine Commonwealth into exile. Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean, and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha in early January 1942. These easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.

Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast. Despite considerable losses, European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they achieved during the previous year. In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February, followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives.

Axis advance stalls

engage the Mikuma at the Battle of Midway, June 1942.]] In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The Allies, however, intercepted and turned back Japanese naval forces, successfully preventing the invasion. Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier bombing on Tokyo, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. In early June, Japan put its operations into action but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and force dispositions and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.

With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua. The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.

Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona. Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops. In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943. The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.

over the central plaza in Stalingrad, 1943.]]

On Germany's , the Axis defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov, and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split the Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck lower Don River while Army Group B struck south-east to the Caucasus, towards Volga River. The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad, which was in the path of the advancing German armies.

By mid-November the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously. By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Russian city of Kursk.

s moving to forward positions during the North African Campaign.]] By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made. In the West, concerns the Japanese might utilize bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942. This success was offset soon after by an Axis offensive in Libya which pushed the Allies back into Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein. On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid, demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.

In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta. A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya. This attack was followed up shortly after by an Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies. Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France; The now pincered Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.

Allies gain momentum

by the Allies.]] Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians, and soon after began major operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands. By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives, and additionally neutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies then launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.

In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defences and, for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success. This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.

On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk heralded the downfall of German superiority, giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front. The Germans attempted to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther-Wotan line, however, the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.

In early September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following an Italian armistice with the Allies. Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas, and creating a series of defensive lines. German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic. The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.

German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign. In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran. The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory, By the end of January, a major Soviet offensive expelled German forces from the Leningrad region, ending the longest and most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region. By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops. The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June Rome was captured.

The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India, and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima. In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma, The second Japanese invasion attempted to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields. By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.

Allies close in

, 6 June 1944]] On 6 June 1944 (known as D-Day), after 3 years of Soviet requests, the Western Allies invaded northern France. After reassigning several Allied divisions from Italy, they also attacked southern France. These landings were successful, and led to the defeat of the German Army units in France. Paris was liberated by the local resistance assisted by the Free French Forces on 25 August and the Western Allies continued to push back German forces in Western Europe during the latter part of the year. An attempt to advance into northern Germany spear-headed by a major airborne operation in the Netherlands ended with a failure. The Allies also continued their advance in Italy until they ran into the last major German defensive line.

On 22 June, the Soviets launched a strategic offensive in Belarus (known as "Operation Bagration") that resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre. Soon after that, another Soviet strategic offensive forced German troops from Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. The successful advance of Soviet troops prompted resistance forces in Poland to initiate several uprisings, though the largest of these, in Warsaw, as well as a Slovak Uprising in the south, were not assisted by the Soviets and were put down by German forces. The Red Army's strategic offensive in eastern Romania cut off and destroyed the considerable German troops there and triggered a successful coup d'état in Romania and in Bulgaria, followed by those countries' shift to the Allied side.

In September 1944, Soviet Red Army troops advanced into Yugoslavia and forced the rapid withdrawal of the German Army Groups E and F in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia to rescue them from being cut off. By this point, the Communist-led Partisans under Marshal Josip Broz Tito, who had led an increasingly successful guerrilla campaign against the occupation since 1941, controlled much of the territory of Yugoslavia and were engaged in delaying efforts against the German forces further south. In northern Serbia, the Red Army, with limited support from Bulgarian forces, assisted the Partisans in a joint liberation of the capital city of Belgrade on 20 October. A few days later, the Soviets launched a massive assault against German-occupied Hungary that lasted until the fall of Budapest in February 1945. In contrast with impressive Soviet victories in the Balkans, the bitter Finnish resistance to the Soviet offensive in the Karelian Isthmus denied the Soviets occupation of Finland and led to the signing of Soviet-Finnish armistice on relatively mild conditions, with a subsequent shift to the Allied side by Finland.

By the start of July, Commonwealth forces in Southeast Asia had repelled the Japanese sieges in Assam, pushing the Japanese back to the Chindwin River while the Chinese captured Myitkyina. In China, the Japanese were having greater successes, having finally captured Changsha in mid-June and the city of Hengyang by early August. Soon after, they further invaded the province of Guangxi, winning major engagements against Chinese forces at Guilin and Liuzhou by the end of November and successfully linking up their forces in China and Indochina by the middle of December.

In the Pacific, American forces continued to press back the Japanese perimeter. In mid-June 1944 they began their offensive against the Mariana and Palau islands, scoring a decisive victory against Japanese forces in the Philippine Sea within a few days. These defeats led to the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Tōjō and provided the United States with air bases to launch intensive heavy bomber attacks on the Japanese home islands. In late October, American forces invaded the Filipino island of Leyte; soon after, Allied naval forces scored another large victory during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest naval battles in history.

Axis collapse, Allied victory

and Soviet troops meet in April 1945, east of the Elbe River.]] On 16 December 1944, Germany attempted its last desperate measure for success on the Western Front by marshalling German reserves to launch a massive counter-offensive in the Ardennes to attempt to split the Western Allies, encircle large portions of Western Allied troops and capture their primary supply port at Antwerp in order to prompt a political settlement. By January, the offensive had been repulsed with no strategic objectives fulfilled. On 4 February, U.S., British, and Soviet leaders met in Yalta. They agreed on the occupation of post-war Germany, and when the Soviet Union would join the war against Japan.

In February, the Soviets invaded Silesia and Pomerania, while Western Allied forces entered Western Germany and closed to the Rhine river. In March, the Western Allies crossed the Rhine north and south of the Ruhr, encircling a large number of German troops, while the Soviets advanced to Vienna. In early April, the Western Allies finally pushed forward in Italy and swept across Western Germany, while Soviet forces stormed Berlin in late April; the two forces linked up on Elbe river on 25 April. On 30 April 1945, the Reichstag was captured, signalling the military defeat of Third Reich. , taken 3 July 1945.]]

Several changes in leadership occurred during this period. On 12 April, U.S. President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Benito Mussolini was killed by Italian partisans on 28 April. Two days later, Hitler committed suicide, and was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz.

German forces surrendered in Italy on 29 April and in Western Europe on 7 May. On the Eastern Front, Germany surrendered to the Soviets on 8 May. A German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague until 11 May.

In the Pacific theatre, American forces accompanied by the forces of the Philippine Commonwealth advanced in the Philippines, clearing Leyte by the end of April 1945. They landed on Luzon in January 1945 and seized Manila in March, leaving it in ruins. Fighting continued on Luzon, Mindanao and other islands of the Philippines until the end of the war.

at Nagasaki, 9 August 1945.]] In May 1945, Australian troops landed on Borneo, overrunning the oilfields there. British, American and Chinese forces defeated the Japanese in northern Burma in March, and the British pushed on to reach Rangoon by 3 May. American forces also moved toward Japan, taking Iwo Jima by March, and Okinawa by the end of June. American bombers destroyed Japanese cities, and American submarines cut off Japanese imports.

On 11 July, the Allied leaders met in Potsdam, Germany. They confirmed earlier agreements about Germany, and reiterated the demand for unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces by Japan, specifically stating that "the alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction". During this conference the United Kingdom held its general election, and Clement Attlee replaced Churchill as Prime Minister. When Japan continued to reject the Potsdam terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August. Between the two bombs, the Soviets, pursuant to the Yalta agreement, invaded Japanese-held Manchuria, and quickly defeated the Kwantung Army, which was the primary Japanese fighting force. The Red Army also captured Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. On 15 August 1945 Japan surrendered, with the surrender documents finally signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on 2 September 1945, ending the war. Germany lost a quarter of its pre-war (1937) territory, the eastern territories: Silesia, Neumark and most of Pomerania were taken over by Poland; East Prussia was divided between Poland and the USSR, followed by the expulsion of the 9 million Germans from these provinces, as well as of 3 million Germans from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, to Germany. By the 1950s, every fifth West German was a refugee from the east. The USSR also took over the Polish provinces east of the Curzon line, Eastern Romania, (from which 2 million Poles were expelled) and part of eastern Finland and three Baltic states. Winston Churchill gives the "Victory" sign to crowds in London on Victory in Europe Day.]] In an effort to maintain peace, the Allies formed the United Nations, which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, and adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard for all member nations. The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union had begun to deteriorate even before the war was over, Germany had been de facto divided, and two independent states, Federal Republic of Germany and German Democratic Republic were created within the borders of Allied and Soviet occupation zones, accordingly. The rest of Europe was also divided onto Western and Soviet spheres of influence. Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities. As a result, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and East Germany became Soviet Satellite states. Communist Yugoslavia conducted a fully independent policy causing tension with the USSR.

Post-war division of the world was formalised by two international military alliances, the United States-led NATO and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact; the long period of political tensions and military competition between them, the Cold War, would be accompanied by unprecedented arms race and proxy wars. ensued, leading to the creation of Israel, the often bloody Decolonization of Asia and (somewhat later) of Africa.]] In Asia, the United States occupied Japan and administrated Japan's former islands in the Western Pacific, while the Soviets annexed Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, was divided and occupied by the US in the South and the Soviet Union in the North between 1945 and 1948. Separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel in 1948, each claiming to be the legitimate government for all of Korea, which led ultimately to the Korean War. In China, nationalist and communist forces resumed the civil war in June 1946. Communist forces were victorious and established the People's Republic of China on the mainland, while nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan in 1949. In the Middle East, the Arab rejection of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and the creation of Israel marked the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. While the European colonial powers attempted to retain some or all of their colonial empires, their losses of prestige and resources during the war rendered this unsuccessful, leading to decolonisation.

The global economy suffered heavily from the war, although WWII participants were affected differently. The US emerged much richer than any other nation; it had a baby boom and by 1950 its gross domestic product per person was much higher than that of any of the other powers and it dominated the world economy. The UK and US pursued a policy of industrial disarmament in Western Germany in the years 1945 – 1948. Due to international trade interdependencies this led to European economic stagnation and delayed European recovery for several years. Recovery began with the mid 1948 currency reform in Western Germany, and was sped up by the liberalization of European economic policy that the Marshall plan (1948-1951) both directly and indirectly caused. The post 1948 West German recovery has been called the German economic miracle. Also the Italian and French economies rebounded. By contrast, the United Kingdom was in a state of economic ruin, and continued relative economic decline for decades. The Soviet Union, despite enormous human and material losses, also experienced rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era. Japan experienced incredibly rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s. China returned to its pre-war industrial production by 1952.

Impact

Casualties and war crimes

Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded. Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians. Many civilians died because of disease, starvation, massacres, bombing and deliberate genocide. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, almost half of all World War II deaths. One of every four Soviet citizens was killed or wounded in that war.

Of the total deaths in World War II approximately 85 percent—mostly Soviet and Chinese—were on the Allied side and 15 percent on the Axis side. Many of these deaths were caused by war crimes committed by German and Japanese forces in occupied territories. An estimated 11 to 17 million civilians died as a direct or indirect result of Nazi ideological policies, including the systematic genocide of around six million Jews during The Holocaust along with a further five million Roma, Slavs, homosexuals and other ethnic and minority groups. Roughly 7.5 million civilians died in China under Japanese occupation, and the Serbs were targeted by the Axis-aligned Croatian Ustaše.

The most well-known Japanese atrocity was the Nanking Massacre, in which several hundred thousand Chinese civilians were raped and murdered. Between 3 million to more than 10 million civilians, mostly Chinese, were killed by the Japanese occupation forces. Mitsuyoshi Himeta reported 2.7 million casualties occurred during the Sankō Sakusen. General Yasuji Okamura implemented the policy in Heipei and Shantung.

The Axis forces employed limited biological and chemical weapons. The Italians used mustard gas during their conquest of Abyssinia, while the Imperial Japanese Army used a variety of such weapons during their invasion and occupation of China (see Unit 731) and in early conflicts against the Soviets. Both the Germans and Japanese tested such weapons against civilians and, in some cases, on prisoners of war.

While many of the Axis's acts were brought to trial in the world's first international tribunals, incidents caused by the Allies were not. Examples of such Allied actions include population transfer in the Soviet Union and Japanese American internment in the United States; the Operation Keelhaul, expulsion of Germans after World War II, mass rape of German women by Soviet Red Army; the Soviet Union's Katyn massacre, for which Germans faced counter-accusations of responsibility. Large numbers of famine deaths can also be partially attributed to the war, such as the Bengal famine of 1943 and the Vietnamese famine of 1944–45.

It has also been suggested by some historians the mass-bombing of civilian areas in enemy territory, including Tokyo and most notably the German cities of Dresden, Hamburg, and Cologne by Western Allies, which resulted in the destruction of more than 160 cities and killing a total of more than 600.000 German civilians be considered war crimes.

Concentration camps and slave work

The Nazis were responsible for The Holocaust, the killing of approximately six million Jews (overwhelmingly Ashkenazim), as well as two million ethnic Poles and four million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Romani) as part of a programme of deliberate extermination. About 12 million, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, were employed in the German war economy as forced labourers. after liberation, possibly political prisoners or Soviet POWs]] In addition to Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet gulags (labour camps) led to the death of citizens of occupied countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as German prisoners of war (POWs) and even Soviet citizens who had been or were thought to be supporters of the Nazis. Sixty percent of Soviet POWs of the Germans died during the war. Richard Overy gives the number of 5.7 million Soviet POWs. Of those, 57 percent died or were killed, a total of 3.6 million. Soviet ex-POWs and repatriated civilians were treated with great suspect as potential Nazi collaborators, and some of them were sent to GULAG upon check by NKVD.

Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many of which were used as labour camps, also had high death rates. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East found the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1 percent (for American POWs, 37 percent), seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians. While 37,583 prisoners from the UK, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese was only 56.

According to historian Zhifen Ju, at least five million Chinese civilians from northern China and Manchukuo were enslaved between 1935 and 1941 by the East Asia Development Board, or Kōain, for work in mines and war industries. After 1942, the number reached 10 million. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha (Japanese: "manual laborers"), were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia, and only 52,000 were repatriated to Java. , Austria, 1945]]

On 19 February 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, interning thousands of Japanese, Italians, German Americans, and some emigrants from Hawaii who fled after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war. The U.S. and Canadian governments interned 150,000 Japanese-Americans, as well as nearly 11,000 German and Italian residents of the U.S. Allied use of involuntary labor occurred mainly in the East, such as in Poland, but more than a million were also put to work in the West. In Hungary's case, Hungarians were forced to work for the Soviet Union until 1955. In the West Hungarians were used as forced labor by the Allies until 1947.

Home fronts and production

In Europe, before the outbreak of the war, the Allies had significant advantages in both population and economics. In 1938, the Western Allies (United Kingdom, France, Poland and British Dominions) had a 30 percent larger population and a 30 percent higher gross domestic product than the European Axis (Germany and Italy); if colonies are included, it then gives the Allies more than a 5:1 advantage in population and nearly 2:1 advantage in GDP. In Asia at the same time, China had roughly six times the population of Japan, but only an 89 percent higher GDP; this is reduced to three times the population and only a 38 percent higher GDP if Japanese colonies are included. While the Allies' ability to out-produce the Axis is often attributed to the Allies having more access to natural resources, other factors, such as Germany and Japan's reluctance to employ women in the labour force, Allied strategic bombing, and Germany's late shift to a war economy contributed significantly. Additionally, neither Germany nor Japan planned to fight a protracted war, and were not equipped to do so. To improve their production, Germany and Japan used millions of slave labourers; Germany used about 12 million people, mostly from Eastern Europe, Thus, the income from occupied nations was over 40 percent of the income Germany collected from taxation, a figure which increased to nearly 40 percent of total German income as the war went on.

In the East, the much hoped for bounties of Lebensraum were never attained as fluctuating front-lines and Soviet scorched earth policies denied resources to the German invaders. Unlike in the West, the Nazi racial policy encouraged excessive brutality against what it considered to be the "inferior people" of Slavic descent; most German advances were thus followed by mass executions. Although resistance groups did form in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East or the West until late 1943.

In Asia, Japan termed nations under its occupation as being part of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, essentially a Japanese hegemony which it claimed was for purposes of liberating colonised peoples. Although Japanese forces were originally welcomed as liberators from European domination in many territories, their excessive brutality turned local public opinions against them within weeks.

Advances in technology and warfare

Aircraft were used for reconnaissance, as fighters, bombers and ground-support, and each role was advanced considerably. Innovation included airlift (the capability to quickly move limited high-priority supplies, equipment and personnel); and of strategic bombing (the bombing of civilian areas to destroy industry and morale). Anti-aircraft weaponry also advanced, including defences such as radar and surface-to-air artillery, such as the German 88 mm gun. The use of the jet aircraft was pioneered, and though late introduction meant it had little impact, it led to jets becoming standard in worldwide air forces. at the German navy memorial at Laboe. Between 1939 and 1945, 3,500 Allied merchant ships (gross tonnage 14.5 million) were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats.]] Advances were made in nearly every aspect of naval warfare, most notably with aircraft carriers and submarines. Although at the start of the war aeronautical warfare had relatively little success, actions at Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the South China Sea and the Coral Sea established the carrier as the dominant capital ship in place of the battleship. In the Atlantic, escort carriers proved to be a vital part of Allied convoys, increasing the effective protection radius and helping to close the Mid-Atlantic gap. Carriers were also more economical than battleships due to the relatively low cost of aircraft and their not requiring to be as heavily armoured. Submarines, which had proved to be an effective weapon during the First World War were anticipated by all sides to be important in the second. The British focused development on anti-submarine weaponry and tactics, such as sonar and convoys, while Germany focused on improving its offensive capability, with designs such as the Type VII submarine and Wolf pack tactics. Gradually, improving Allied technologies such as the Leigh light, hedgehog, squid, and homing torpedoes proved victorious.

Land warfare changed from the static front lines of World War I to increased mobility and combined arms warfare, wherein tight coordination was sought between the various elements of military forces. The tank, which had been used predominantly for infantry support in the First World War, had evolved into the primary weapon of these forces during the Second. In the late 1930s, tank design was considerably more advanced in all areas than it had been during World War I, and advances continued throughout the war in increasing speed, armour and firepower.

At the start of the war, most commanders saw that the threat of enemy tanks should be met by tanks with superior specifications. This line of thinking was challenged by the poor performance of the relatively light early tank guns against armour, and German doctrine of avoiding tank-versus-tank combat; the latter factor, along with Germany's use of combined arms, were among the key elements of their highly successful blitzkrieg tactics across Poland and France. and throughout the war, most infantry equipment was similar to that utilised in World War I.

Another advance was the spread of the portable machine gun, a notable example being the German MG42, and various submachine guns which were well suited to close-quarters combat in urban and jungle settings.

Most major belligerents attempted to solve the problems of complexity and security presented by using large codebooks for cryptography with the use of ciphering machines, the most well known being the German Enigma machine. SIGINT (signals intelligence) was the countering process of decryption, with the notable examples being the British ULTRA and the Allied breaking of Japanese naval codes. Another important aspect of military intelligence was the use of deception operations, which the Allies used on several occasions to great effect, such as operations Mincemeat and Bodyguard. Other technological and engineering feats achieved during, or as a result of, the war include the world's first programmable computers (Z3, Colossus, and ENIAC), guided missiles and modern rockets, the Manhattan Project's development of nuclear weapons, the development of artificial harbours and oil pipelines under the English Channel.

See also

Atlas of the World Battle Fronts

Battles (list)

Effects of World War II

List of World War II military operations

Declaration of war by the United Kingdom

Declaration of war by the United States

World War II in contemporary culture

Documentaries

The World at War (1974), a 26-part Thames Television series that covers most aspects of World War II from many points of view. It includes interviews with many key figures including Karl Dönitz, Albert Speer, and Anthony Eden.

Battlefield (documentary series), a television documentary series initially issued in 1994–1995 that explores many of the most important battles fought during the Second World War.

Notes

References

External links

World War II Military Situation Maps. Library of Congress

World War II Propaganda Leaflet Archive

Radio news from 1938 to 1945

The Art of War Online Exhibition at the UK National Archive

Deutsche Welle special section on World War II created by a German public broadcaster on both the war and the world 60 years after.

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Name	Walter Cronkite
Caption	Cronkite in 2004
Birthname	Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.
Birth date	November 04, 1916 was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Although he reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombing in World War II, the Nuremberg trials, combat in the Vietnam War, He had remote Dutch ancestry on his father's side, the family surname originally being Krankheyt.

A second bulletin arrived as Cronkite was reading the first one, which detailed the severity of President Kennedy's wounds:

Just before the bulletin cut out, a CBS News staffer was heard saying "Connally too," apparently having just heard the news that Texas Governor John Connally had also been shot while riding in the Presidential limousine with his wife Nellie and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy.

CBS then rejoined the telecast of ATWT during a commercial break. A commercial for Instant Nescafe coffee and a sponsor bumper (for Best Foods) for the first half of the show that had just completed were then aired, followed by a bumper for the scheduled episode of Route 66 to air that night and a twenty-second station identification break for the CBS affiliates. Just as ATWT was set to return from break, with show announcer Dan McCullough set to announce the sponsor of the second half of the program (Carnation), CBS News broke in with the bumper slide a second time. This bulletin saw Cronkite report in greater detail about the assassination attempt on the President, while also breaking the news of Governor Connally's shooting.

Cronkite then recapped the events as they had happened: that the President and Governor Connally had been shot and were in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital, and no one knew their condition as yet. He then reminded the viewers that CBS News would continue to provide updates as more information came in.

CBS then decided to return to ATWT, which was now midway through its second segment. The cast had continued to perform live while Cronkite's bulletins broke into the broadcast, unaware of events in Dallas (because the episode was also taped for delayed broadcast purposes, they were not informed of what had happened until after it ended). ATWT then took another scheduled commercial break. The segment before the break would be the last anyone would see of a CBS program - or any network's programming, for that matter- until Tuesday, November 26.

In the middle of a Friskies pet food commercial, the "CBS News Bulletin" bumper slide broke in for the third time. Once again, Cronkite filed an audio-only report:

This particular bulletin went into even more detail than the other two, as for the first time Cronkite detailed where the shooting victims were wounded (Kennedy had been shot in the head, Connally in the chest). At the conclusion of the bulletin, Cronkite told viewers to stay tuned for further details, perhaps implying that the network would be returning to regular programming. However, Cronkite remained on the air for the next ten minutes, continuing to read bulletins as they were handed to him, followed by recapping the events as they were known and interspersing the new information he had received where appropriate. He also brought up recent instances of assassination attempts against sitting Presidents (including the murder of Mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak in a botched assassination attempt on then-President-elect Franklin Roosevelt), as well as a recent attack on United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas, which had resulted in extra security measures being taken for Kennedy's visit to the city. He also received word that Congressman Albert Thomas of Texas had been told that for the moment the President and Governor were still alive, which was the first report that gave any indication of their condition.

By 2:00 EST, Cronkite was informed that the camera was ready, and he told the viewers over the air that CBS would be taking a station identification break so that affiliates could join the network. Within twenty seconds, all the CBS affiliates (with the exception of KRLD in Dallas, which was covering the tragedy locally) joined the network's coverage. Cronkite appeared on-air in shirt and tie but without his suit coat, given the urgent nature of the story, and opened with this:

However, the connection was not available at the time and the camera stayed trained on Cronkite in the newsroom. After a few seconds, Cronkite started speaking again, but shortly after he had begun, the broadcast abruptly cut into the meeting, where Barker, KRLD's news director, was reporting (a director could be heard on-air saying "Okay, go ahead. Switch it" while Cronkite was talking). Just before the feed switched to the Dallas Trade Mart meeting, Cronkite informed the viewers that the members of the Trade Mart had just been informed of the President's shooting and that Congressman Jim Wright was telling reporters that both the President and Governor were alive, but both were in serious condition.

The feed then switched to Dallas, with Barker reporting about the incident and the meeting that was to take place. A few minutes after they switched, Barker was told by a fellow reporter, Dick Wheeler, at the meeting that Kennedy was in very critical condition. The scene returned to Cronkite shortly after that, who relayed some more information, but returned to Dallas as a prayer was being said for Kennedy. After the prayer was said, Barker said that there was an unofficial report circulating that President Kennedy had in fact died from his wounds.

After several minutes, Cronkite reported that the President had been given blood transfusions and two priests had been called into the room. He also played an audio report by KRLD's Jim Underwood, recounting that someone had been arrested in the assassination attempt at the Texas School Book Depository. After Underwood's report, Cronkite was told that KRLD was reporting that that the President was dead, which had been heard in Barker's previous report. The coverage went back to Dallas, where Barker reiterated his previous report- that there was an unconfirmed statement that Kennedy was dead, but the source, a doctor at Parkland Hospital who said this to Barker directly, "would normally be a good one." Approximately three minutes later, Barker declared the assassination to be confirmed, although neither the Associated nor the United Presses had done so. Barker retracted the statement moments later, saying that there was no absolute confirmation. Shortly thereafter CBS stopped showing KRLD's coverage and returned to its own coverage of the incident, and as he had been doing Cronkite reported the events as they were known. At 2:27 EST, Cronkite reported that Father Oscar Huber, one of the priests called into the room, had administered the Last Rites to the President, but as far as anyone knew the President was still alive and no official source had confirmed the reports from Barker.

Within ten seconds of that report, word reached Cronkite of another report that had been given by Dallas-based correspondent Dan Rather to CBS Radio. At 2:22 EST, while CBS' news coverage was still focused at the Dallas Trade Mart, Rather called executive Mort Dank and said, in regards to Kennedy's condition, "I think he's dead." While this was not an official confirmation of the death of the President, which had yet to be relayed, CBS radio newscaster [[Alan Jackson (broadcaster)| Allan Jackson]] was handed a sheet of paper saying that Kennedy was in fact dead and reported as if the incident was officially confirmed. Five minutes later, after some debate over whether or not to mention it, Cronkite relayed the following information to the viewing audience:

Since Rather's report, as he had delivered it, only theorized that the President was dead, and no word to that effect had come from any wire service, Cronkite stressed that the report was not an official confirmation of the President's death and continued to report on the incident as if the President was still alive, relaying that Father Huber, who had told reporters on the scene that he had to pull back a sheet covering Kennedy's body to perform the Last Rites on him, didn't believe that the President was dead at the time he entered the room.

Less than two minutes later, Cronkite received a report that the two priests who were with Kennedy were now saying that he was dead, and declared that that was as close to official as they could get. However, he continued to stress that there was no official confirmation from the hospital of Kennedy's death, although through the tone of his voice Cronkite seemed to resign himself to that being the most likely outcome. Cronkite continued to await official word from Parkland Hospital while recapping the events, including receiving word that government sources were now saying that the President was dead. (It should be noted that the same report reached all three major networks, but only ABC took it as official word of the assassination.) After briefly speaking about what Kennedy had done earlier that day, Cronkite noted that it was now apparent that the President was dead(even though the official bulletin had, of course, not arrived yet), saying that his plane from Fort Worth "flew him to his rendezvous with death, apparently, in Dallas, Texas."

Immediately after that, at approximately 2:38 p.m. EST, Cronkite was remarking on the increased security presence in Dallas for the President's visit for fear of protests, again bringing up the assault on Adlai Stevenson. While he was speaking, one of two news editors who had been standing by the newsroom's two wire machines pulled a bulletin from the Associated Press machine and began walking toward Cronkite's desk with it.

Just as he had said that, the editor handed Cronkite the bulletin. Cronkite stopped speaking, put on his eyeglasses, looked over the bulletin sheet for a moment, took off his glasses, and made the official announcement:

After making that announcement, Cronkite paused briefly, put his glasses back on, and swallowed hard to maintain his composure. With noticeable emotion in his voice he intoned the next sentence of the news report:"

In a 2003 CBS special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Cronkite said that he was standing at the United Press wire machine when the bulletin broke and was clamoring to get on the air as fast as was possible. Recalling his reaction upon having the death confirmed to him, he said:

Vietnam War

In mid-February 1968, on the urging of his executive producer Ernest Leiser, Cronkite and Leiser journeyed to Vietnam to cover the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. They were invited to dine with General Creighton Abrams, the current commander of all forces in Vietnam who Cronkite knew from World War II. According to Leiser, Abrams told Cronkite, "we cannot win this Goddamned war, and we ought to find a dignified way out."

Upon return, Cronkite and Leiser wrote separate editorial reports based on that trip. Cronkite, an excellent writer, preferred Leiser's text over his own. Following Cronkite's editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." This account has been questioned in a recent publication on journalistic accuracy. Several weeks later, Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.

During the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Cronkite was anchoring the CBS network coverage as violence and protests occurred outside the convention, as well as scuffles inside the convention hall. When Dan Rather was punched to the floor (on camera) by security personnel, Cronkite commented, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

Other historic events

.]] The first publicly transmitted, live trans-Atlantic program, was broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23, 1962 at 3:00 p.m. EDT, and Cronkite was one of the main presenters in this multinational broadcast. The broadcast was made possible in Europe by Eurovision and in North America by NBC, CBS, ABC, and the CBC. While a videotaped report by Peter Kalischer about the apparently successful Vietnam war peace talks was being shown to the nation, Johnson's press secretary Tom Johnson (no relative of Lyndon Johnson) telephoned Cronkite to inform him of Johnson's death. CBS cut abruptly from the report at 6:38 p.m. Eastern Standard Time to Cronkite, who was still speaking to Johnson on the phone. After holding up a finger to pause and let Johnson finish, he broke the news to the nation that the former President had died, then continued to speak with Johnson (who was not patched through to the air) for a few more seconds to gather whatever remaining details he could, then hung up the phone and relayed those details to the audience. During the final ten minutes of that broadcast, Cronkite reported on the death, giving a retrospective on the life of nation's 36th president, and announced that CBS would air a special on Lyndon Johnson later that evening. This story was re-told on a 2007 CBS-TV special honoring Cronkite's 90th birthday. Tom Johnson later became president of CNN.

NBC-TV's Garrick Utley, anchoring NBC Nightly News that evening, also interrupted his newscast in order to break the story, doing so about three minutes after Cronkite on CBS. ABC, however, did not cover the story at all, since, at the time, that network fed its evening newscast to local stations at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, even though many affiliates tape-delayed the broadcast to air at 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.

In December 1963, Cronkite introduced The Beatles to the United States by airing a four-minute story on band on the CBS Evening News.

Retirement

On February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the CBS Evening News; at the time, CBS had a policy of mandatory retirement by age 65. Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a "comfortable old shoe" to his audience. His last day in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather.

Cronkite's farewell statement:

Other activities

at the White House, 1981]]

Reporting

As he had promised on his last show as anchor in 1981, Cronkite continued to broadcast occasionally as a special correspondent for CBS, CNN, and NPR into the 21st century; one such occasion was Cronkite anchoring the second space flight by John Glenn in 1998 as he had Glenn's first in 1962. In 1983, he reported on the British General Election for the ITV current affairs series World In Action, interviewing, among many others, the victorious Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Cronkite hosted the annual Vienna New Year's Concert on PBS from 1985 to 2008, succeeded by Julie Andrews in 2009. For many years, until 2002, he was also the host of the annual Kennedy Center Honors.

In 1998, Cronkite hosted the 90-minute documentary, Silicon Valley: A 100 Year Renaissance, produced by the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. The film documented Silicon Valley's rise from the origin of Stanford University to the current high-technology powerhouse. The documentary was broadcast on PBS throughout the United States and in 26 countries. Prior to 2004, he could also be seen in the opening movie 'Back to Neverland' shown in the Walt Disney World attraction, The Magic of Disney Animation, interviewing Robin Williams as if he is still on the CBS News channel, ending his on-camera time with his famous catchphrase. In the featurette, Cronkite describes the steps taken in the creation of an animated film, while Robin Williams becomes an animated character (and even becomes Walter Cronkite, impersonating his voice). He also was shown inviting Disney guests and tourists to the Disney Classics Theater.

On May 21, 1999, Walter Cronkite participated in a panel discussion on Integrity in the Media with Ben Bradlee and Mike McCurry at the Connecticut Forum in Hartford, Connecticut. Cronkite provided a particularly funny anecdote about taking a picture from a house in Houston, Texas where a newsworthy event occurred and being praised for getting a unique photograph, only to find out later that the city desk had provided him with the wrong address.

Voice-overs

Cronkite narrated the IMAX film about the Space Shuttle, The Dream is Alive, released in 1985. From May 26, 1986 to August 15, 1994, he was the narrator's voice in the EPCOT Center attraction, Spaceship Earth, at Walt Disney World. He provided the pivotal voice of Captain Neweyes in the 1993 animated film , delivering his trademark line at the end. In 1995, he made an appearance on Broadway, providing the voice of the titular book in the 1995 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Cronkite was a finalist for NASA's Journalist in Space program, which mirrored the Teacher in Space Project, an opportunity that was suspended after the Challenger disaster in 1986. He recorded voice-overs for the 1995 film Apollo 13, modifying the script he was given to make it more "Cronkitian." In 2002, Cronkite was the voice of Benjamin Franklin in all 40 episodes of the educational television cartoon Liberty's Kids, which included a news segment ending with "And that's the way it is on...[a historic date]." His distinctive voice provided the narration for the television ads of the University of Texas at Austin, his alma mater, with its 'We're Texas' ad campaign.

He held amateur radio operator license KB2GSD and narrated a 2003 American Radio Relay League documentary explaining amateur radio's role in disaster relief. Unusually, Cronkite was a Novice-class licensee—the entry level license—for his entire, and long, tenure in the hobby.

On February 15, 2005, he went into the studio at CBS to record narration for WCC Chatham Radio, a documentary about Guglielmo Marconi and his Chatham station, which became the busiest ship-to-shore wireless station in North America from 1914 to 1994. The documentary was directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films and premiered at the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center in April 2005. In 2006, Cronkite hosted the World War One Living History Project, a program honoring America's final handful of veterans from the First World War. The program was created by Treehouse Productions and aired on NPR on November 11, 2006. In May 2009, Legacy of War, produced by PBS, was released. Cronkite chronicles, over archive footage, the events following World War II that resulted in America's rise as the dominant world power.

Prior to his death, "Uncle Walter" hosted a number of TV specials and was featured in interviews about the times and events that occurred during his career as America's "most trusted" man. Cronkite was the chairman of The Interfaith Alliance. In 2006, he presented the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award to actor and activist George Clooney on behalf of his organization at its annual dinner in New York.

Cronkite was a vocal advocate for free airtime for political candidates. and Common Cause, for instance, on an unsuccessful lobbying effort to have an amendment added to the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required TV broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates. Cronkite criticized the present system of campaign finance which allows elections to "be purchased" by special interests, and he noted that all the European democracies "provide their candidates with extensive free airtime." During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime."

He was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.

In 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of limited world government on the American federalist model, writing fund-raising letters for the World Federalist Association (now Citizens for Global Solutions). In accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the ceremony at the United Nations, Cronkite said: :"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen."

Cronkite contrasted his support for accountable global government with the opposition to it by politically active Christian fundamentalists in the United States: :"Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience.They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me… I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."

In 2003, Cronkite, who owned property on Martha's Vineyard,

Cronkite spoke out against the War on Drugs in support of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing a fundraising letter and appearing in advertisements on behalf of the DPA. In the letter, Cronkite wrote: "Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure." from March 30, 1940 until her death from cancer. They had three children: Nancy Cronkite, Mary Kathleen (Kathy) Cronkite, and Walter Leland (Chip) Cronkite III (who is married to actress Deborah Rush); Peter Cronkite is currently attending Horace Mann School. Walter attends Hamilton College, having graduated from the same school.

In late 2005 Cronkite began dating opera singer Joanna Simon, Carly Simon's older sister. Of their relationship Cronkite stated in an interview for the New York Post in January 2006: "We are keeping company, as the old phrase used to be."

Cronkite was an avid sailor and a member of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, with the honorary rank of commodore.

Death

In late June 2009, Cronkite was reported to be terminally ill. He died on July 17, 2009, at his home in New York City, at the age of 92. He is believed to have died from cerebrovascular disease. Cronkite's funeral took place on July 23, 2009 at St. Bartholomew's Church in midtown Manhattan, New York City. At his funeral, his friends noted his love of music, including, recently, drumming. He was cremated and his remains buried next to his wife, Betsy, in the family plot at a cemetery in Kansas City.

Legacy

Public credibility and trustfulness

For many years, until a decade after he left his post as anchor, Cronkite was considered one of the most trusted figures in the United States. In contrast, Americans average about 165 words per minute, and fast, difficult-to-understand talkers speak close to 200 words per minute.

Awards and honors

In 1968, the faculty of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University voted to award Cronkite the Carr Van Anda Award "for enduring contributions to journalism." In 1970, Cronkite received a "Freedom of the Press" George Polk Award. Among Cronkite's numerous awards were four Peabody awards for excellence in broadcasting. Cronkite made the trip to Arizona annually to present the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to a leader in the field of media.

"The values that Mr. Cronkite embodies – excellence, integrity, accuracy, fairness, objectivity – we try to instill in our students each and every day. There is no better role model for our faculty or our students." said Dean Christopher Callahan.

The school, with approximately 1,200 majors, is widely regarded as one of the top journalism schools in the country. It is housed in a new facility in downtown Phoenix that is equipped with 14 digital newsrooms and computer labs, two TV studios, 280 digital student work stations, the Cronkite Theater, the First Amendment Forum, and new technology. The school's students regularly finish at the top of national collegiate journalism competitions, such as the Hearst Journalism Awards program and the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards. In 2009, students won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for college print reporting.

In 2008, The state-of-the-art journalism education complex in the heart of ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus was also built in his honor. The Walter Cronkite Regents Chair in Communication seats the Texas College of Communications dean. Occupying 293 linear feet (almost 90 metres) of shelf space, the papers document Cronkite's journalism career. Amongst the collected material are Cronkite's early beginnings while he still lived in Houston. They encompass his coverage of World War II as a United Press International correspondent, where he cemented his reputation by taking on hazardous overseas assignments. as he compiled an oral history to write his autobiography, A Reporter's Life, which was published in 1996.

As a newsman, Cronkite devoted his attention to the early days of the space program, and the "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration honoured Cronkite on February 28, 2006. Michael Coats, director of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, presented Cronkite with the Ambassador of Exploration Award. Cronkite was the first non-astronaut thus honoured.

NASA presented Cronkite with a moon rock sample from the early Apollo expeditions spanning 1969 to 1972. Cronkite passed on the Moon rock to Bill Powers, president of the University of Texas at Austin, and it became part of the collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Carleton said at this occasion, "We are deeply honored by Walter Cronkite’s decision to entrust this prestigious award to the Center for American History. The Center already serves as the proud steward of his professional and personal papers, which include his coverage of the space program for CBS News. It is especially fitting that the archive documenting Walter's distinguished career should also include one of the Moon rocks that the heroic astronauts of the Apollo program brought to Earth."

References

Further reading

External links

Cronkite: Eyewitness to a Century - Exhibit at The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum''

Remembering Walter Cronkite - slideshow by Life Magazine

AP Obituary in the New York Times

Walter Cronkite, Iconic Anchor, Is Dead, The New York Times, July 17, 2009

RIP Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite - Daily Telegraph obituary

Celebrating Cronkite while Ignoring what he did by Glenn Greenwald, Salon Magazine

Cronkite's 1968 Dissent on Vietnam Helped Save Thousands of Lives by Greg Mitchell

Anchorman Was Critical of Media Consolidation, Wars in Vietnam and Iraq by Democracy Now!

Web ZIne from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University

Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University

The Walter Cronkite Papers, the University of Texas at Austin

Cronkite's personal blog

Walter Cronkite Archive of American Television Interview

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