98 Fun Facts About World War 2

Operation Weserübung, launched on 9 April 1940, was the German invasion of which two countries?

Denmark and Norway were invaded on 9 April 1940; Denmark surrendered within hours, while Norway fought on until June 1940, securing Germany's Swedish iron-ore route through Narvik.

Which of these was one of the "Big Four" Allied powers?

Together with the Big Three, China was later counted among the "Four Policemen".

Which country was annexed into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938, in the event known as the Anschluss?

Austria's Chancellor Schuschnigg had been browbeaten by Hitler at Berchtesgaden a month earlier.

Which October 1944 engagement is the largest naval clash of World War II?

The Battle of Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) involved more than 200,000 naval personnel and is by most measures the largest naval battle in history; it also saw the first organized kamikaze attacks.

Which Eastern Front clash of massive urban fighting is often called the turning point against Nazi Germany?

Fought from August 1942 to February 1943, it is considered the largest and deadliest urban battle in military history.

In what year did Germany invade Poland, generally considered the start of World War II in Europe?

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, which led to Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany two days later, marking the beginning of World War II in Europe.

Who served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during D-Day?

Dwight D. Eisenhower, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, gave the order to launch the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944; he later became NATO's first supreme commander and US president.

What was the code name for the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944?

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II.

Which country signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939?

The Soviet Union and Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow in the early hours of 24 August 1939 (dated the 23rd), with a secret protocol dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.

Midway, in June 1942, came one month after which earlier carrier-versus-carrier engagement?

The Battle of the Coral Sea (4–8 May 1942) was the first naval battle in which the opposing ships never sighted each other; Midway followed on 4–7 June 1942.

Which Prime Minister led Britain into the war in September 1939 and resigned in May 1940?

Neville Chamberlain announced Britain's declaration of war on Germany in a radio broadcast on 3 September 1939 and resigned on 10 May 1940, days after the Commons Norway Debate shattered his authority.

Which leader was known as 'Der Führer' and led Nazi Germany during World War II?

Adolf Hitler merged the offices of chancellor and president after Hindenburg's death in August 1934, taking the title Führer und Reichskanzler, and led Germany until his suicide in Berlin on 30 April 1945.

Who became US president in April 1945 and went on to authorise the atomic bombings of Japan?

Only on taking office was he briefed on the atomic bomb.

Which of these countries was NOT a major Axis power during World War II?

Franco's Spain shifted from "strict neutrality" to "non-belligerence" after the fall of France while still giving the Axis assistance.

On what date did Japan launch a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor?

The three US carriers assigned to the base were at sea, and its oil storage and repair facilities were not attacked.

Which city was the target of a sustained German bombing campaign known as 'The Blitz' from 1940-1941?

The Blitz was a prolonged German bombing campaign against British cities, primarily London, lasting from September 1940 to May 1941.

The post-war trials of Nazi war criminals were held at the Palace of Justice in which city?

Nuremberg's Palace of Justice was chosen partly because it was relatively intact and had an attached prison, though the tribunal's permanent seat was Berlin.

What was the name of the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp?

Auschwitz was the largest Nazi camp complex, with more than 40 sub-camps including Birkenau, where the gas chambers stood, and Monowitz, a labour camp for IG Farben; about 1.1 million people were murdered there.

Who was the Emperor of Japan during World War II?

Hirohito reigned from 1926 to 1989, more than 62 years, and is known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa; his radio broadcast on 15 August 1945 announced Japan's surrender.

Which British city was hit by the German air raid 'Operation Moonlight Sonata' in November 1940?

Coventry suffered a particularly devastating German air raid on the night of November 14, 1940, which the Germans code-named 'Operation Moonlight Sonata'.

The Soviet invasion of which country on 30 November 1939 began the Winter War?

Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union on 30 November 1939; the Winter War ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty, signed 12 March 1940, which ceded Karelia and Vyborg to the USSR.

Which of these was one of the "Big Three" Allied powers of World War II?

The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were the 'Big Three', supplying the great bulk of Allied manpower and materiel; the three met together at Tehran in November 1943 and Yalta in February 1945.

Which admiral commanded the Japanese strike force that attacked Pearl Harbor?

Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo commanded the Kido Butai, whose six aircraft carriers launched two waves of aircraft that struck Pearl Harbor at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time on 7 December 1941.

Which German field marshal earned the nickname 'Desert Fox' for his command of German and Italian forces in North Africa?

Erwin Rommel's leadership in the North African campaign made him one of the ablest tank commanders of the war and earned him der Wüstenfuchs, the Desert Fox.

Which mathematician reconstructed the German military Enigma machine sight-unseen in late 1932?

Marian Rejewski of the Polish Cipher Bureau deduced the Enigma's rotor wiring from intercepted traffic in December 1932; Poland shared its results with Britain and France in July 1939, before the war.

The February 1945 Yalta Conference took place on which peninsula?

Yalta lies on the southern coast of Crimea; the talks were held at the Livadia Palace, with Stalin's delegation at the Yusupov Palace and Churchill's at the Vorontsov Palace.

What was the codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941?

Operation Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941, when more than three million Axis troops crossed into the Soviet Union along a front from the Baltic to the Black Sea, opening the Eastern Front.

Which British statesman was Prime Minister for most of World War II and again from 1951 to 1955?

Winston Churchill took office on 10 May 1940, the day Germany invaded France and the Low Countries, led Britain until the July 1945 election, and returned as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1955.

Which July-August 1945 conference brought the 'Big Three' together over defeated Germany and the post-war order?

The Potsdam Conference ran from 17 July to 2 August 1945 at the Cecilienhof palace; Churchill was replaced mid-conference by Clement Attlee after losing the British general election.

Which term names Germany's doctrine of fast armoured thrusts backed by close air support?

Blitzkrieg was a highly effective tactic that allowed Germany to achieve swift victories in the early stages of the war, notably in Poland and France.

The April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo launched its B-25 bombers from which US aircraft carrier?

Sixteen B-25B Mitchells led by Lt Col James Doolittle took off from USS Hornet on 18 April 1942, some 650 miles from Japan, in the first US air raid on the Japanese home islands.

Roughly how many Allied soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo in May–June 1940?

Operation Dynamo (26 May–4 June 1940) evacuated about 338,000 Allied troops, including some 120,000 French, from Dunkirk, rescuing the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force.

What was the codename of the secret US programme that built the first atomic bombs?

The Manhattan Project, run by General Leslie Groves with Robert Oppenheimer leading Los Alamos, employed nearly 130,000 people at its peak and cost about US$2 billion, producing the Trinity test bomb in July 1945.

The RAF's success in the Battle of Britain led Hitler to shelve which planned amphibious assault?

Operation Sea Lion, ordered prepared by Hitler's Directive No. 16 of 16 July 1940, depended on air superiority over the Channel; it was postponed indefinitely on 17 September 1940.

Which Japanese city was the target of the first atomic bomb dropped in warfare?

Hiroshima was struck by the uranium bomb 'Little Boy' on 6 August 1945, the first atomic bomb used in war; a second bomb, the plutonium 'Fat Man', hit Nagasaki on 9 August.

What were France's 1930s border fortifications against Germany, largely bypassed in WWII, called?

The Maginot Line, built from 1929 along the Franco-German frontier, was meant to push any German attack through Belgium; in May 1940 the Germans instead broke through the Ardennes.

What term refers to the Nazi regime's systematic murder of six million Jews?

Around six million European Jews were murdered, roughly two-thirds of the continent's Jewish population.

Operation Torch, in November 1942, was an Allied invasion of which region?

Operation Torch landed Anglo-American forces in French North Africa before dawn on 8 November 1942, at Casablanca in Morocco and at Oran and Algiers in Algeria, against Vichy French troops.

The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 primarily allowed America to supply war materiel to which group of countries?

The Lend-Lease Act, signed on March 11, 1941, let the US supply Allied nations, chiefly Britain, the Soviet Union and China, with some $50 billion of food, oil and war materiel by September 1945.

The September 1938 Munich Agreement ceded which region of Czechoslovakia to Germany?

The Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia's German-speaking border region, was ceded under the Munich Agreement signed on 30 September 1938 by Germany, Britain, France and Italy; Chamberlain returned home promising 'peace for our time'.

What was the primary purpose of the Japanese military's "comfort women" system in World War II?

The system existed to provide sexual slavery for soldiers: tens of thousands of women, many from Korea and China, were coerced or deceived with offers of factory or nursing work into military 'comfort stations'.

The 'Phoney War' followed the invasion of Poland and ended with which major German offensive?

The Phoney War was a lull in fighting after the invasion of Poland, ending with Germany's invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940.

What was the primary goal of the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944?

The goal was to open a second front in the west, which Stalin had pressed for since 1941; the landings began the liberation of France, and Paris was freed on 25 August 1944.

Mussolini's Italy invaded which African country in October 1935, an act of aggression that exposed the League of Nations' weakness?

Ethiopia, then called Abyssinia, fell to Italy's war of aggression between October 1935 and May 1936, demonstrating the League's weakness and Mussolini's expansionist ambitions.

What was the name of the German air force during World War II?

The Luftwaffe had only two commanders-in-chief: Hermann Göring from 1935 and, for the last two weeks of the war, Robert Ritter von Greim, appointed on 26 April 1945.

In what year did World War II officially end with the formal surrender of Japan?

Japan's formal surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, just after 9 a.m., six years and a day after the war had begun in Europe.

Before it was renamed Stalingrad in 1925, the city on the Volga went by what name?

Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad on 10 April 1925; it became Volgograd in November 1961, after the 22nd Party Congress stepped up Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation campaign.

What was the term for the Japanese suicide attacks by military aviators against Allied naval vessels?

The name means "divine wind", after the typhoons credited with wrecking Mongol invasion fleets.

Whose address to Congress on 8 December 1941 opened with 'Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy'?

Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke the day after Pearl Harbor; Congress declared war on Japan within the hour, and Germany and Italy declared war on America three days later.

The Battle of the Bulge, in December 1944, was Germany's last major offensive in which theatre?

Launched in December 1944, the Battle of the Bulge was a desperate German counteroffensive in the Ardennes forest on the Western Front.

Executive Order 9066 of February 1942 authorised the internment of which group in the US?

Japanese Americans, some 120,000 people and two-thirds of them US citizens, were removed from the West Coast and confined in camps such as Manzanar after Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on 19 February 1942.

Which Normandy beach saw the heaviest Allied casualties on D-Day?

Omaha Beach, assaulted by the US 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions, cost about 2,400 casualties on 6 June 1944, far more than any other landing beach.

Who was Japan's prime minister when it attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941?

Hideki Tojo, an army general, became prime minister on 18 October 1941 and held the post until July 1944; he was hanged as a war criminal in December 1948.

Which US general's Third Army raced across France after the Normandy breakout in 1944?

George S. Patton's Third Army became operational on 1 August 1944 and drove across France to the Moselle within a month; in December it relieved Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

On which Solomon Islands island did US Marines land on 7 August 1942?

Guadalcanal was the target of the first major Allied offensive in the Pacific; the 1st Marine Division landed on 7 August 1942, and the campaign ended with the Japanese evacuation in February 1943.

At which January 1943 conference did Roosevelt announce the demand for 'unconditional surrender'?

The Casablanca Conference (14–24 January 1943) brought Roosevelt and Churchill together in Morocco; at its closing press conference Roosevelt declared the Allies would accept only the Axis powers' unconditional surrender.

Which German city was devastated by Allied firebombing raids on 13–15 February 1945?

Dresden was bombed by RAF and USAAF aircraft between 13 and 15 February 1945; the resulting firestorm destroyed the city centre and killed an estimated 25,000 people.

Who oversaw the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II?

General Douglas MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and oversaw the Allied occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951.

Joe Rosenthal's flag-raising photo on Mount Suribachi was taken during which 1945 battle?

Rosenthal's photograph, taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima on 23 February 1945, shows the second of two flag-raisings on Mount Suribachi that day; it won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography later that year.

Which US battleship lost 1,177 crew at Pearl Harbor, the most of any ship that day?

USS Arizona exploded after a bomb detonated her forward magazine on 7 December 1941, killing 1,177 of her crew; her wreck is the site of a memorial in Pearl Harbor.

What was the title of Adolf Hitler's political manifesto, first published in 1925?

Mein Kampf was dictated by Hitler in Landsberg prison after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926; it sold millions of copies under Nazi rule.

The 1944 Warsaw Uprising against German occupation was led by which Polish resistance organisation?

The Home Army (Armia Krajowa) launched the uprising on 1 August 1944 as Soviet forces neared Warsaw; it held out for 63 days before surrendering on 2 October, after which the Germans razed the city.

Who served as Nazi Germany's minister of propaganda from 1933 to 1945?

Joseph Goebbels ran the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from March 1933; he succeeded Hitler as chancellor for a single day before killing himself in the Berlin bunker on 1 May 1945.

Operation Mincemeat, a 1943 British deception, was designed to disguise the invasion of which island?

Mincemeat planted fake papers pointing to Greece and Sardinia to mask the July 1943 invasion of Sicily; the corpse of Glyndwr Michael was dressed as 'Major William Martin' of the Royal Marines.

Which July 1943 Eastern Front battle is widely called the largest tank battle in history?

Fought near Kursk in southwestern Russia during the summer of 1943, the battle ended in a decisive Soviet victory.

What was the primary alliance opposing the Axis powers during World War II?

The primary alliance opposing the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) during World War II was known as the Allies, which included nations like the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

Which German weapon, developed as Aggregat-4, was the world's first practical ballistic missile?

The V-2 rocket (Vergeltungswaffe 2, 'Vengeance Weapon 2') was a liquid-fuelled missile developed under Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde; more than 3,000 were fired at targets including London and Antwerp from September 1944.

Which First World War hero became head of state of Vichy France in July 1940?

Philippe Pétain, the victor of Verdun in 1916, was voted full powers by the National Assembly on 10 July 1940 and led the collaborationist Vichy regime until 1944; his 1945 death sentence was commuted to life.

The 1940 massacre of nearly 22,000 Polish officers is named after which forest?

The Katyn massacre: in April–May 1940 the Soviet NKVD shot some 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals; German forces announced the discovery of mass graves in Katyn Forest near Smolensk in April 1943.

Operation Mercury, in May 1941, was the German airborne invasion of which island?

Crete was seized by German paratroopers and mountain troops between 20 May and 1 June 1941, the first mainly airborne invasion in history; the heavy losses deterred Hitler from further large airborne operations.

In what city did Anne Frank and her family hide during World War II?

Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex in Amsterdam, Netherlands, for over two years.

What did the Allies celebrate on 8 May 1945?

V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day, marks the formal acceptance by the Allies of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on May 8, 1945, ending World War II in Europe.

Who led the Soviet Union during World War II?

Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Soviet Union throughout World War II, playing a critical role on the Allied side.

Which German pocket battleship was scuttled off Montevideo in December 1939?

Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled in the River Plate estuary on 17 December 1939, four days after being damaged by three British cruisers in the Battle of the River Plate; her captain, Hans Langsdorff, shot himself.

Which 1942 event forced tens of thousands of American and Filipino POWs to walk to Camp O'Donnell?

The Bataan Death March in April 1942 involved the brutal forced march of tens of thousands of American and Filipino prisoners of war by the Imperial Japanese Army.

What did Nazi Germany primarily use the Enigma machine for, across all branches of its military, during World War II?

Enciphering its own military messages was Enigma's job: the electro-mechanical rotor device protected commercial, diplomatic and military communication.

Mussolini's forces invaded which country from Albania on 28 October 1940?

Greece repelled the Italian invasion launched from Albania on 28 October 1940, a date Greeks mark as Ohi ('No') Day, and Germany had to intervene in April 1941 to conquer the country.

Which January 1942 meeting of senior Nazis in a Berlin suburb coordinated the genocide of Europe's Jews?

The Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, secured the cooperation of government departments for the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews; a single copy of its minutes survived, found in Foreign Office files in 1947.

Aboard which US battleship was Japan's formal surrender signed on 2 September 1945?

USS Missouri, an Iowa-class battleship named for President Truman's home state, hosted the ceremony in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945; advance occupation parties had landed at Atsugi airfield on 28 August.

Which two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter in August 1941?

Churchill and Roosevelt met aboard HMS Prince of Wales and USS Augusta in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, and issued the charter on 14 August 1941, four months before the United States entered the war.

What term did the Nazis use as a euphemism for exterminating the Jewish population?

'Final Solution' (Endlösung der Judenfrage) was the Nazi euphemism for the genocide of Europe's Jews; Göring's letter of 31 July 1941 ordered Heydrich to prepare a 'total solution of the Jewish question'.

The February 1942 fall of which British base to Japan was Britain's largest surrender ever?

Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 after a week of fighting on the island; Yamashita's roughly 30,000 troops took about 80,000 British, Indian and Australian prisoners in what Churchill called Britain's worst disaster.

US troops captured the intact Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine in March 1945 at which town?

Remagen's Ludendorff Bridge was seized by the US 9th Armored Division on 7 March 1945, giving the Allies their first bridgehead across the Rhine; the bridge collapsed ten days later, on 17 March.

Which Soviet city withstood an 872-day siege by German and Finnish forces without ever being captured?

Leningrad was besieged from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944, 872 days; an estimated 1.5 million people died, and the 'Road of Life' across frozen Lake Ladoga was the city's only winter supply route.

Which senior Nazi flew solo to Scotland in May 1941, hoping to negotiate peace?

Rudolf Hess parachuted into Scotland on 10 May 1941, seeking the Duke of Hamilton; he was imprisoned for the rest of his life and died in Spandau prison in 1987, aged 93.

Operation Iceberg, launched on 1 April 1945, was the invasion of which island?

Okinawa was invaded on 1 April 1945 in Operation Iceberg, the last major battle of the Pacific war; fighting lasted until 22 June and cost over 12,000 American and more than 100,000 Japanese lives.

Operation Market Garden in September 1944 failed in its key objective of securing the Rhine bridge at which Dutch city?

Airborne troops were meant to hold nine bridges for 48 hours while XXX Corps advanced 62 miles; Eindhoven and Nijmegen were taken, Arnhem was not.

Which Allied contingent launched one of the final assaults on Monte Cassino on 16 May 1944?

The Polish II Corps under General Władysław Anders launched its second assault on Monte Cassino on 16 May 1944 and raised the Polish flag over the ruined abbey on 18 May, opening the road to Rome.

Which English estate was the principal centre of Allied code-breaking in World War II?

Bletchley Park's staff, three-quarters of them women, read Enigma traffic and built Colossus, the first programmable electronic digital computer; the work stayed secret until the mid-1970s.

Who commanded the British Eighth Army at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942?

Bernard Montgomery took over the Eighth Army in August 1942 as a second choice after William Gott, the original appointee, was killed when his transport aircraft was shot down; he won at El Alamein in October–November 1942.

Oskar Schindler's enamelware factory was in which Polish city?

Schindler's Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik stood in Kraków's Zabłocie district; at its 1944 peak it employed about 1,750 workers, roughly 1,000 of them Jewish, before he moved the operation to Brünnlitz in Moravia.

Whom did Hitler name as his successor as head of state before his suicide in April 1945?

Karl Dönitz, the grand admiral commanding the Kriegsmarine, was named Reichspräsident in Hitler's testament; his Flensburg Government ordered the surrender signed at Reims on 7 May 1945 and was dissolved by the Allies on 23 May.

WWII Marine Corps code talkers are most strongly associated with which Native language?

Navajo code talkers, recruited by the Marine Corps from 1942, rendered 'submarine' as 'iron fish' because the language had no such word; the Japanese never broke the code.

Which Royal Navy battlecruiser did Bismarck sink in the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941?

HMS Hood blew up after a shell from Bismarck struck near her aft magazines, sinking within about three minutes with only three survivors from 1,418 men; Bismarck was sunk three days later.

Stauffenberg's 20 July 1944 bomb went off at which Hitler headquarters in East Prussia?

The Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze) near Rastenburg was where Colonel Heinz Brandt reportedly moved Stauffenberg's briefcase behind a heavy table leg, shielding Hitler, who escaped with singed trousers and a perforated eardrum.

Who designed the bouncing bombs used by 617 Squadron in the 1943 Dambusters Raid?

Barnes Wallis's 'Upkeep' mine, about 9,000 lb with a 500 rpm backspin, skipped over torpedo nets and sank against the dam wall before exploding; the raid of 16–17 May 1943 breached the Möhne and Eder dams.

Operation Bagration (June 1944) destroyed which German formation in Byelorussia?

Army Group Centre lost around 450,000 men after the Soviet offensive opened on 22 June 1944, sixteen days after D-Day, in what is often called the greatest defeat in German military history.

Admiral Yamamoto's plane was shot down in April 1943 near which island in the Solomons?

Yamamoto's G4M 'Betty' bomber was shot down over Bougainville on 18 April 1943 by P-38 Lightnings after US Navy cryptographers decoded his itinerary from the JN-25D naval cipher.