World War II

The Second World War engulfed the world in bloody conflict from 1939 to 1945, resulting in more than 70,000,000 dead military personnel and civilians, including 6,000,000 European Jews during the Holocaust, making it the deadliest and most destructive war in history. More than 50 nations were involved, with the main Allied powers including the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, while the main Axis powers included Japan, Germany, and Italy. Japan's invasion of China in 1937 and Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of the war. The United States entered the war on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Navy base in Hawaii, killing 2,008 U.S. Navy sailors, 108 U.S. Marines, 208 U.S. Army soldiers, and 68 civilians, while wounding 1,178 military personnel and civilians and severely damaging the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet with several battleships sunk and damaged. The next day President Franklin D. Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a date that will live in infamy" as he requested and Congress granted a declaration of war against Japan, and Germany and Italy followed with declarations of war against the U.S. on December 11. U.S. forces, along with others from Canada, the British Commonwealth, and other Allied countries, stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, in Operation OVERLORD, landing 133,000 troops on D-day, after which these troops and others fought on the western front. The U.S. suffered early setbacks in the Pacific, including the surrender of the Philippines and Wake Island, and U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war endured brutality and deaths at the hands of the Japanese, including the Bataan Death March. The war involved land, air, and sea forces and saw many technological advances, particularly in military aircraft, radar, and sonar, which helped bring the war to an end and led to the jet age. The battles of Guadalcanal, Coral Sea, Midway, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa in the Pacific, and the Invasion of Normandy and Battle of the Bulge in Europe, remained prominent in national memory. The Manhattan Project's atomic bomb development led to Japan's surrender, ending the war in the Pacific. The war ended with VE Day on May 8, 1945, and VJ Day on September 2, 1945. About 130,000 Americans were held as prisoners of war by Japan and Germany by the war's end, and between 33 and 40 percent of American prisoners of war died in Japanese captivity. In all, 407,300 U.S. service members died and 671,801 returned home with visible wounds, while many others carried invisible wounds such as PTSD.

East Glenville, New York · United States