99 Fun Facts About WW2

When did World War II officially begin in Europe?

September 1, 1939 was the morning German forces crossed into Poland, and the war that began then ran until 2 September 1945.

Alongside Britain, the Soviet Union and China, which country made up the Allied 'Big Four' of World War II?

The United States joined the other three Big Four powers and 22 smaller or exiled governments in issuing the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942.

What was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941?

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, which began on June 22, 1941.

What event directly led to the United States entering World War II?

The surprise Japanese raid on the Hawaii naval base prompted the United States to declare war the following day and formally enter the conflict.

In what region of France did the D-Day landings primarily take place?

Normandy's beaches, code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, were the D-Day landing sites on 6 June 1944, opening the Allied campaign to liberate Western Europe.

Which German General earned the nickname 'Desert Fox' for his leadership in North Africa?

Erwin Rommel was a German Field Marshal known for his leadership of the Afrika Korps and his innovative tactics in the North African Campaign, earning him the moniker 'Desert Fox'.

Which June 1942 naval clash is often called the turning point of the war in the Pacific?

The Battle of Midway, fought 4–7 June 1942, cost Japan four fleet carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu) and ended its offensive momentum in the Pacific.

Who was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II?

Roosevelt picked him over George Marshall for the job in December 1943.

Which February 1945 meeting of the 'Big Three' leaders discussed the post-war reorganization of Europe?

The Big Three met in the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces near Yalta in Crimea to shape the postwar peace.

What was the name of the last major German offensive on the Western Front?

The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II, launched in December 1944.

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

Douglas MacArthur served as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers from August 1945, directing Japan's occupation and its 1947 constitution, until Truman relieved him in April 1951 and Matthew Ridgway took over.

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

The photo shows six Marines raising the flag on 23 February 1945, the second of two flag-raisings on the site that day.

What did the Lend-Lease Act let the United States do, months before it entered the war?

Enacted on March 11, 1941 as bill H.R. 1776, it let the US ship war supplies to the UK, the Soviet Union, France and others before America itself was at war.

What was the systematic genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators called?

The Holocaust was the Nazi genocide in which about six million Jews, roughly two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, were murdered between 1941 and 1945.

Which British Prime Minister led the country for most of World War II?

Winston Churchill served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for most of World War II, from May 1940 to July 1945.

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

The Home Army (Armia Krajowa) launched the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944 under Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski; it fought for 63 days before capitulating on 2 October 1944.

What was the code name for the Allied invasion of north-western France on June 6, 1944?

The landings themselves were codenamed Operation Neptune and remain the largest seaborne invasion in history.

The 1943 Operation Mincemeat, a corpse planted with fake documents, disguised the invasion of which island?

Operation Mincemeat's planted letters pointed to Greece and Sardinia to mask the real target, Sicily; the corpse of Glyndwr Michael was passed off as Royal Marines Major William Martin.

Which two Japanese cities were targeted by atomic bombs in August 1945?

Hiroshima was bombed on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 August; Japan announced its surrender on 15 August, six days after the second bomb.

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

The Luftwaffe was the aerial warfare branch of the German Wehrmacht during World War II.

Which summer 1943 Eastern Front battle is often called the largest tank engagement 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 Great Britain and the Soviet Union among others.

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

Its name Vergeltungswaffe 2 means 'Vengeance Weapon 2', and the liquid-fuelled missile was also the first suborbital launch vehicle.

What was Germany's western defensive line from the Netherlands to Switzerland called?

The Siegfried Line was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line, stretching over 630 km.

Who was President when the United States entered World War II?

Roosevelt, already in his third term, obtained a declaration of war on Japan and then on Germany and Italy after the attack in Hawaii.

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

The Katyn massacre was carried out by the Soviet NKVD in April–May 1940; German forces announced the discovery of mass graves in Katyn Forest near Smolensk in April 1943.

On which date did Japanese carrier aircraft attack the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II?

December 7, 1941, a Sunday morning in Oahu, was the raid that prompted the United States to declare war on Japan the next day.

Which 1942-43 Eastern Front battle is considered a turning point of WWII, marking the start of the German retreat?

The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) was a brutal and costly engagement on the Eastern Front, widely regarded as a major turning point after which German forces never regained the initiative.

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.

Who was the Emperor of Japan during World War II?

Hirohito, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa, reigned from December 1926 until his death in January 1989.

What does V-E Day signify?

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.

What was the code name for the secret WWII project that produced the first nuclear weapons?

The Manhattan Project was a highly secretive research and development project by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons.

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.

What was the code name for the 1940 evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk?

Operation Dynamo, run from Dover by Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay, lifted 338,226 Allied troops from Dunkirk's beaches and harbour between 26 May and 4 June 1940.

Which 1942 event saw tens of thousands of American and Filipino POWs forced 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 was the Enigma machine primarily used for by the Germans during World War II?

The Enigma machine was an electro-mechanical rotor cipher machine used by Nazi Germany to encrypt and decrypt secret messages during World War II.

Which country was invaded by the Red Army on 30 November 1939, starting the Winter War?

Finland fought the Winter War from 30 November 1939 until the Moscow Peace Treaty of 12 March 1940 ceded the Karelian Isthmus and Viipuri; the League of Nations expelled the Soviet Union for the attack.

What was Germany's sustained 1940–41 bombing campaign against the United Kingdom called?

The Blitz, its name shortened from Blitzkrieg, ran for eight months from 7 September 1940 to May 1941 and killed more than 40,000 British civilians.

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

The Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, coordinated the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews; the single surviving copy of its minutes was found in Foreign Office files in 1947.

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

The surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, with Douglas MacArthur accepting for the Allies and Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signing for Japan.

Which two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter, a declaration of postwar principles, in August 1941?

Churchill and Roosevelt drafted the Atlantic Charter aboard warships in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, on 9–12 August 1941, four months before the United States entered the war.

What August 1939 pact allied Nazi Germany and the USSR, with secret protocols dividing Eastern Europe?

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, was signed on August 23, 1939, and included a secret protocol defining Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

What euphemism did the Nazis use for their plan to exterminate the Jewish population?

'Final Solution' (Endlösung der Judenfrage) was the Nazi euphemism for the genocide of Europe's Jews; Hermann Göring's letter of 31 July 1941 ordered Reinhard Heydrich to prepare it.

Japan's February 1942 capture of which British base was Britain's largest surrender in history?

Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 after a week of fighting on the island; about 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops surrendered to Tomoyuki Yamashita's roughly 30,000 men.

What was the Doolittle Raid in April 1942?

The Doolittle Raid, led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle, was the first American air raid to strike the Japanese archipelago on April 18, 1942, boosting Allied morale.

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 in all; starvation during the winter of 1941–42 alone killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Which 1945 'Big Three' meeting discussed the post-war order and terms for Japan's surrender?

The Potsdam Conference, held from July 17 to August 2, 1945, brought together leaders from the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union to discuss post-war Europe and the unconditional surrender of Japan.

What were the Nuremberg Trials?

Held by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the trials prosecuted Nazi Germany's leadership for invading much of Europe and committing atrocities against its peoples.

Which of these European countries maintained armed neutrality throughout World War II?

Switzerland maintained armed neutrality throughout World War II, a policy it has largely followed for centuries.

Which country suffered the most deaths of any nation in World War II?

The Soviet Union lost roughly 27 million people, military and civilian, in World War II, more than any other country; China's losses were the second highest.

The Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was the first major military campaign in history fought entirely by what?

Air forces alone fought it, with the RAF holding off the Luftwaffe; Britain dates the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940, overlapping the start of the Blitz.

What was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II?

The Battle of the Atlantic ran from 3 September 1939, when U-30 sank the liner Athenia, until Germany's surrender in May 1945, making it the war's longest continuous campaign.

In the Battle of the Atlantic, what did the Germans call groups of U-boats coordinated by radio to attack Allied convoys?

Wolf packs (Rudel) let U-boats mass against a convoy instead of attacking singly, which is why the tactic borrowed a predator's name.

What was the US codename for the Guadalcanal campaign in the Solomon Islands?

Operation Watchtower opened with the 1st Marine Division's landing on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942; the Marines seized the unfinished Japanese airstrip and completed it as Henderson Field.

Which British general opened the Eighth Army's offensive at the Second Battle of El Alamein?

Bernard Montgomery, given the Eighth Army in August 1942, opened the Second Battle of El Alamein on 23 October 1942; Churchill called the victory 'perhaps, the end of the beginning'.

Operation Market Garden aimed to seize bridges up to which Dutch city on the Lower Rhine?

Arnhem's road bridge over the Lower Rhine was the final objective of Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944); the British 1st Airborne Division held its north end for four days before being overwhelmed.

What nickname did the Battle of Okinawa earn for the ferocity of the fighting and kamikaze attacks?

Okinawa's 'Typhoon of Steel' (Japanese tetsu no bōfū) began with the 1 April 1945 landings, the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific war, and cost more than 12,000 American dead.

What did the Tuskegee Airmen's 332nd Fighter Group paint red, earning their famous nickname?

They were the first African-American military aviators in the US armed forces.

Which German cipher machines did Bletchley Park's codebreakers most importantly penetrate?

Bletchley Park read German Enigma traffic from 1940 and the Lorenz SZ teleprinter cipher, nicknamed 'Tunny', from 1942; the resulting intelligence was distributed under the code name Ultra.

What electromechanical machine did Alan Turing specify to find Enigma settings?

The bombe, specified by Alan Turing in 1939 and refined with Gordon Welchman's diagonal board, searched for Enigma rotor settings; it improved on the pre-war Polish bomba.

Colossus, built at Bletchley Park from 1943, is regarded as the world's first what?

Colossus was the first programmable electronic digital computer; Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers built the Mark 1 with about 1,600 valves, and it ran at Bletchley Park from February 1944 against the Lorenz cipher.

Which RAF unit carried out the 1943 Dambusters Raid with Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs?

No. 617 Squadron, led by Guy Gibson, flew Operation Chastise on 16–17 May 1943, breaching the Möhne and Eder dams with Barnes Wallis's bouncing 'Upkeep' mines.

The B-29 Enola Gay was named after whom?

Pilot Paul Tibbets named the B-29 after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, before flying it to drop the 'Little Boy' bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

The Trinity test, the first atomic bomb detonation in July 1945, lit up the Jornada del Muerto desert of which US state?

New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto desert hosted the blast, directed by Kenneth Bainbridge, three weeks before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Which SS commander crushed the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and documented it in a report?

Jürgen Stroop, SS and police leader in Warsaw, crushed the uprising between 19 April and 16 May 1943; his bound 'Stroop Report' recorded the ghetto's destruction and was used as evidence at Nuremberg.

Oskar Schindler is credited with saving about how many Jews by employing them in his factories?

His enamelware factory in Kraków employed about 1,750 workers at its 1944 peak.

In which German city was the White Rose resistance group of Hans and Sophie Scholl based?

The White Rose was based at the University of Munich, where Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught distributing their sixth leaflet on 18 February 1943 and guillotined four days later with Christoph Probst.

Where did Claus von Stauffenberg plant his briefcase bomb on 20 July 1944?

The Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze) near Rastenburg in East Prussia was Hitler's Eastern Front headquarters; Stauffenberg's bomb exploded in its briefing hut, killing four men but only injuring Hitler.

Which marshal headed the collaborationist French State based at Vichy from 1940?

Marshal Philippe Pétain, the hero of Verdun, was voted full powers on 10 July 1940 and headed the French State at Vichy until the Provisional Government restored republican rule in August 1944.

De Gaulle urged the French to keep fighting in a famous appeal broadcast on which date in 1940?

De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June 1940, broadcast on the BBC the day after Pétain announced he was seeking an armistice, called on the French to continue the fight.

Where was the deposed Mussolini being held when German commandos rescued him in September 1943?

Mussolini was held at the Campo Imperatore hotel on the Gran Sasso massif when Otto Skorzeny's glider-borne commandos freed him on 12 September 1943; he had been moved there from La Maddalena.

The Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan was signed in which city in 1940?

The Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by Ribbentrop, Ciano and Japan's ambassador Saburō Kurusu, in Hitler's presence.

Through which forest region did Germany bypass the Maginot Line in 1940?

German panzers advanced through the Belgian Ardennes, which French planners had judged impassable for tanks, and crossed the Meuse at Sedan on 13 May 1940, outflanking the Maginot Line.

The 1938 Munich Agreement, signed by Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini, let Germany annex which German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia?

The Sudetenland was home to some three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, and Chamberlain flew home promising 'peace for our time'.

The assassination of which German diplomat in Paris was the pretext for Kristallnacht?

Ernst vom Rath, a junior diplomat at the German embassy in Paris, was shot by 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan on 7 November 1938 and died two days later, the night the Kristallnacht pogrom began.

What was historically new about the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942?

Both sides attacked over the horizon using aircraft carriers.

Which British battlecruiser was sunk by Bismarck's group at the Battle of the Denmark Strait?

HMS Hood blew up and sank on 24 May 1941 after a shell from Bismarck reached her magazines; only three of her crew of about 1,418 survived.

Which US aircraft shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane near Bougainville in April 1943?

Only the P-38 had the range for Operation Vengeance.

Whom did Hitler name as his successor as head of state after his suicide on 30 April 1945?

Dönitz's Flensburg Government was dissolved by the Allies in late May.

Which Japanese submarine torpedoed USS Indianapolis on 30 July 1945?

I-58, commanded by Mochitsura Hashimoto, hit USS Indianapolis with two torpedoes shortly after midnight on 30 July 1945; the cruiser sank in 12 minutes and only about 316 of her crew survived.

What distinctive marking did the Flying Tigers paint on their fighter aircraft?

The Flying Tigers painted a shark face on the noses of their P-40 Warhawks, copying RAF No. 112 Squadron's markings; Claire Chennault's American Volunteer Group fought over Burma and China from December 1941.

Which 1943 conference produced the Allied demand for the Axis powers' unconditional surrender?

At the Casablanca Conference of 14–24 January 1943, Roosevelt announced the demand for unconditional surrender; the meeting also chose Sicily as the next Allied objective after North Africa.

Which conference first brought together all of the Big Three: Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill?

Tehran, code-named Eureka, was the first meeting of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, held at the Soviet embassy from 28 November to 1 December 1943; Stalin had stayed away from Casablanca.

Which Soviet tank was the most-produced tank of World War II?

The T-34 was the most-produced tank of the war, with more than 50,000 built by 1945; its 60-degree sloped armour and 76.2 mm gun outclassed the early German panzers it met in 1941.

On what date did Hitler indefinitely postpone Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain?

Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely on 17 September 1940, two days after the RAF's decisive 15 September victory; mounting Luftwaffe losses had made the required air superiority impossible.

The 1941 Battle of Crete, codenamed Operation Mercury, was the first mainly what kind of invasion?

Crete (20 May–1 June 1941) was the first mainly airborne invasion, with German Fallschirmjäger dropped en masse; their losses were so heavy that Hitler never again ordered a major parachute operation.

'Kamikaze' originally named typhoons that dispersed whose invasion fleets in 1274 and 1281?

Its literal meaning is 'divine wind'.

The Nanjing Massacre began after the Japanese capture of the city in which month?

Nanjing fell to the Japanese on 13 December 1937, and the massacre that followed ran for about six weeks into early 1938.

Operation Torch, launched in November 1942, was the Allied invasion of which territory?

Operation Torch landed three task forces in French North Africa on 8 November 1942, around Casablanca, Oran and Algiers, giving US forces their first large-scale fight against the European Axis.

After the 1939 Battle of the River Plate, Graf Spee was scuttled off which neutral port?

Graf Spee was scuttled in the River Plate estuary off Montevideo on 17 December 1939 after Uruguay allowed only 72 hours in port; Captain Hans Langsdorff shot himself in Buenos Aires three days later.

The November 1940 raid on Taranto was carried out by 21 of which biplane torpedo-bombers?

Twenty-one Fairey Swordfish from HMS Illustrious attacked Taranto on the night of 11–12 November 1940, crippling three Italian battleships; Japanese planners studied the raid before Pearl Harbor.

In May 1941 Rudolf Hess flew solo to Scotland hoping to hold peace talks with whom?

Hess parachuted into Scotland on 10 May 1941 seeking the Duke of Hamilton, whom he believed could broker peace; the two had never spoken, though both attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Hess got life at Nuremberg.

Which Czech village was destroyed in reprisal for Reinhard Heydrich's 1942 assassination?

Lidice, near Kladno, was razed on 10 June 1942 in reprisal for Operation Anthropoid; 173 of its men were shot that day, its women were sent to Ravensbrück and most of its children were gassed at Chełmno.

The 1943 Operation Gunnerside sabotaged a heavy-water plant in which occupied country?

Six Norwegian commandos parachuted in to wreck the Vemork plant near Rjukan, part of the Allied effort to stall a Nazi atomic bomb.

Which October 1944 clash in the Philippines was the largest naval engagement of WWII?

Leyte Gulf (23–26 October 1944) involved some 200,000 sailors and saw the first organised kamikaze attacks; its Surigao Strait action was the last battle fought between battleships.

The Soviet Bagration offensive of June 1944 shattered which German formation?

Bagration, launched on 22 June 1944, destroyed Army Group Centre, wiping out 28 divisions and inflicting about 450,000 casualties in what is often called the largest defeat in German military history.

Lacking a word for 'submarine', Navajo code talkers used which phrase instead?

Navajo code talkers said besh-lo, 'iron fish', for submarine, one of hundreds of coined terms; some 400 Navajo Marines used the code, which the Japanese never broke.

Yamato's final, one-way sortie toward Okinawa in April 1945 was part of what mission?

Operation Ten-Go sent Yamato, the heaviest battleship ever built, on a one-way run toward Okinawa; US carrier aircraft sank her on 7 April 1945 with about 3,000 of her crew, after Allied codebreakers had read the plan in advance.

Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was fuelled by which fissile material?

Little Boy's gun-type design fired one piece of uranium-235 into another; of its 64 kg of enriched uranium, less than a kilogram actually fissioned, yet it yielded about 15 kilotons.