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Show V WORLD WAR II CHRONOLOGY 1939 September 1 Germany invades Poland, annexes Danzig. September 3 Britain and France declare war on Germany. September 4 Fighting begins in front of Maginot line. September 10 Canada declares war on Germany. September 17 Russian troops strike into eastern Poland. September 27 Warsaw surrenders. sur-renders. September 28 Germany, Russia partition Poland. November 30 'Russia invades Finland. December 17 Graf Spee scuttled scut-tled outside Montevideo harbor after battle with three British cruisers. 1940 March 12 (Russo-Finnish war ends. April 9 'Germany invades Norway Nor-way and Denmark. May 10 Hitler invades lowlands. low-lands. Churchill succeeds Chamberlain Cham-berlain as British prime minister. May 14 Dutch capitulate. May 28 Belgians surrender. May 29 400,000 British soldiers begin escape from Dunkerqtfe. June 10 Britain evacuates Norway. Nor-way. Italy declares war on Britain Brit-ain and France. June 17 Marshal Henri Petain announces French surrender. August 4 German air force begins be-gins heavy attack on Britain. August 31 RAF bombs heart of Berlin for first time. September 7 Heavy night raids on London begin. September 16 Roosevelt signs selective service law. September 27 Japan joins the axis, signing 10-year tri-partite pact in Berlin. October 16 First selective service ser-vice registration (for 21- to 35-year 35-year olds). A total of 5S0 men registered in Beaver county. October 27 Italy invades Greece. 1941 January 10 -Germany and Russia Rus-sia sign friendship pact. May 10 .Rudolph Hess parachutes para-chutes into Scotland. May 20 Germans attack Crete in first air-borne action. June 22 Germany, Italy and July 1 Second selective service registration (for Oiose who had become 21 since October registra- tion). Total of 26 registered in Beaver county. Romania declare war on Russia. July 7 Americans land in Iceland. Ice-land. July 26 Roosevelt calls Philippine Philip-pine military forces into U. S. service. ser-vice. August 14 Roosevelt-Churchill sea conference drafts Atlantic charter. August 25 British and Russians invade Iran. December 7 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. December 8 U. S. declares war. Japanese attack Midway. December 11 Germany and Italy declare war on United States. December 12 Guam occupied by Japs. December 24 Wake falls after 14-day defense. December 24 Hongkong falls. December 27 Manila bombed by Japs despite open city declared. 1942 January 2( Japanese occupy1 Manila. January 26 F i r s t American troops arrive in Ireland. February 15 Singapore surrenders. sur-renders. February 16 Third selective service registration (for those 20 to 40 years of age not previously registered). Total of 218 registered register-ed in county. February 27 Great naval battle bat-tle begins off Java; U. S. loses cruiser Houston, destroyer Pope. March 17 General MacArthur reaches Australia from Philippines. March 31 Japanese begin heavy attacks on P.ataan. April 9 Fighting ends 0n Ba-taan. Ba-taan. April IS Poolittie bombers raid Tokyo. April 27 Fourth or "Granddad" selective service registration (for those 45 to 65 years of age). Total of 423 registered in county. May 4-S Japanese lose- 'Coral sea battle. May 6 Corrcgidor falls. May 30 More than 1000 RAF planes bomb Cologne. . June 5 U. S. nan1 routs Japa- WORLD WAR II CHRONOLOGYj (Continued from first page j nese at Midway, Nimitz announces. I June 11 U. S. and Russia sign; mutual aid pact. June 12 Japanese land in Aleutians. Aleu-tians. June 21 Tobruk falls to Nazis. June 30 Fifth selective service registration (for IS- to 20-yeav olds r.ot previous registered). Total of 102 registered in Beaver county. July 4 U. S. fliers bomb western west-ern Europe first time. July 17 Japanese occupy three islands in Aleutians. August 7 Americans land on Guadalcanal. August 19 Commandos and Rangers raid Dieppe. September 17 Nazi penetrate Stalingrad. October 23 General Bernard L. Montgomery breaks Axis El Ala-mein Ala-mein line. November 8 Americans and British invade North Africa. November 11 Germans occupy all France. Americans capture Casablanca and Oran, ending French resistance. November 12 U. S. wins three-day three-day naval battle in Solomons. November 13 British take Tobruk. To-bruk. November 27 Most of French fleet scuttled at Toulon. December 24 Admiral Darlan assassinated. 1943 January 18 Reds break siege of Stalingrad. January 24 Tripoli, capital of Italy's last colony in Africa, falls. January 26 Jtoosevelt and Churchill vow "unconditional surrender" sur-render" at Casablanca. January 27 Heavy bombers make first all-Ameriean assault on Germany. February 9 Guadalcanal completely com-pletely taken. February 25 Americans retake Kasserine pass, after German advance. ad-vance. March 1-4 Japanese defeated in battle of Bismarck sea. May 14 Yanks land on Attu. May 30 Japanese o n Attu wiped out. July 10 Yanks invade Sicily. July 19 Allies bomb Rome. July 25 Mussolini resigns; Ba-doglio Ba-doglio becomes prime minister. August 24 Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Quebec. September 8 Iltalyf invaded across Messina strait. September 8 Italy surrenders unconditionally. September 8 Italy invaded at Salerno. October 1 Allies take Naples. October 13 Italy declares war on Germany. November 1 Americans land on Bougainville. November 21 U. S. forces land on Tarawa. December 4 Roosevelt-Church-ili-Stalin meet at Teheran. 1944 January 22 Allies land behind nazi lines at Ansio, 20 miles south of Rome. February 17 Americans land on Eniwetok, consolidate hold on the Marshall and Gilbert islands. March 4 .First daylight raid over Berlin by American heavy bombers, weather forcing some back; followed, March 6, by first all-out daylight bombing, in which 68 heavy bombers were lost. April 3 Russians invade Romania. Ro-mania. April 11 Heavy bomber attack northwestern and central Germany, Ger-many, in which 64 heavy bombers and 16 fighters are lost. May 14 (Gigantic allied aerial offensive- against Europe completes com-pletes 29 consecutive days before interruption by 'bad weather. May 18 Cassino falls. June 4 Allies take Rome. June 6 Allies invade Norman-dy- June 14 Yanks land on Saipan. June 16 First robot bombs strike Britain. June 27 Americans capture Cherbourg. June 28 U. S. bombers from Britain and Italy slash at France, Romania and Bulgaria in shuttle assault. July 4 5000 allied planes raid France from dawn to dusk. July 7 B-29s bomb Japan. July 18 -Americans take St. Lo, France. July 20 German generals attempt at-tempt to assassinate Hitler. August 8 Eight German officers offi-cers hanged for Hitler revolt. August 10 Guam conquered. August 23 Romania ends war against allies; fights Germany. August 25 Paris liberated. September 11 'U. S. invades Germany. September 16 Roosevelt meets Churchill at Quebec. October 5 British invade Greece. October 19 MacArthur invades Philippines; General Stilwell recalled re-called from China. October 29 Second Battle of Philippine sea. a crushing defeat for Japanese. November 16 Eisenhower opens mass drive on Germany. November 24 Superforts bomb Tokyo. December 16 German counter-offensive counter-offensive opens in north. December 20 Von Rundstedt breaches allied lines with 15 nazi divisions, smashes toward Liege; encircled Yanks at Bastogne, reply re-ply "Nuts" to German demand for surrender. December 27 -Bastogne garrison garri-son in "the bulge" is relieved. 1945 January 11- -Nazis retreat from western tip of "bulge". January 12 Massive new Russian Rus-sian winter offensive starts. January 18 Churchill urges Germany to surrender. January 20 Hungary signs armistice. February 2 "Big three" meet at Yalta. February 12 Russia to get eastern Poland, "big three" Yalta announcement reveals; Germany to be disarmed "forever". February 16 - U. S. carriers send 1200 planes over Tokyo. February 19 Yanks invade Iwo Jima. February 24 Manila liberated. March 6 U. S. First captures Cologne. Third opens sweeping drive toward Coblenz. March 7 U. S. Third reaches the Rhine. March 8 Yanks smash across the Rhine on captured bridge at Remagen. . March 10300 B-29s set Tokyo ablaze in war's greatest raid. March 17 Iwo Jima falls to Americans. March 29 Frankf urt-on-the Main falls to Patton. April 2 New U. S. 10th army lands on Okinawa island, 325 miles south of Japan, under command of General Simon B. Buckner. April 5 Russia denounces neutrality neu-trality pact with Japan; Premier Kaniaki Koiso's cabinet falls in Japan; Admiral Baron Kanyaro Suzuki forms new cabinet. April 7 U. S. Third army finds German gold bullion reserve and millions in U. S. and foreign currency cur-rency in Thuringen Forest salt mine. April 11 Spain severs relations with Japan. April 12 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 63, dies at Warm Springs, Georgia. Harry S. Truman Tru-man becomes 33rd U. S. president. April 13 Vienna falls to Russians; Rus-sians; more than 130,000 Nazis captured. April 19 Ruhr pocket is wiped out; allies net 316,930 prisoners; Leipzig falls to U. S. First army. April 21 Russians enter Berlin -Goebbels demands citizens fight to death to defend the capital. April 25 iSan Francisco conference confer-ence for postwar world security opens. April 28 'Benito Mussolini, infamous in-famous onetime premier of Italy, executed by Italian partisans. April 30 'Munich, birthplace of the Nazi movement and third greatest city of Germany, falls to U. S. Seventh army. May 1 Adolph Hitler reported dead by. Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander of the German fleet, in a radio broadcast from Hamburg Ham-burg in which he announced him self as Hitler's successor and urged Germans to continue to ! fight against bolshevism. May 2 Marshal Stalin an- nounces fall 0f Berlin; Nazi armies j in Italy give up. May 4 German forces in Holland, Hol-land, northwestern Germany and j Denmark, including Helgoland of i the Frisian islands, surrender to Marshal Montgomery's 21st army I group. I May 7 Germany surrenders unconditionally. un-conditionally. May 24 and May 26 'Superfortresses 'Superfor-tresses devastate Tokyo with fire and bombs. June 10 Australians land at Brunei Bay, Borneo. June 29 Okinawa conquered. Defense cost Japs 111,351 killed, few captured. Americans suffer 46,000 casualties, including 11,897 killed and missing. July 2 Six hundred Superfortresses Super-fortresses raid Kure, Shiminosiki, Ufoe and Kumamoto. July 4 -Five hundred Superfortresses Super-fortresses hit Kochi, Tokushima, Takamatsu and Himeji. July 5 'MacArthur announces Philippines freed, except for mopping mop-ping up pockets. Four hundred and fifty thousand Japs killed in campaign by 17 Yank divisions. July 9 U. S. 3rd Fleet, with British units, moves against Japan in actions that are almost continuous until end of war. Japan's coasts are bombarded by everything from 45,000-ton. battleships battle-ships to destroyers. Carrier planes destroy the remnants of the Japanese Japan-ese fleet and military installations throughout the Japanese islands. , Hundreds of ships and thousands of planes destroyed. July 25 Japan's last battleship sunk in course of continuing 3rd Fleet action. July 26 Tokyo radio asks for liberal peace terms and shortly after an ultimatum is issued to Japan from Potsdam, where the Big Three are meeting. It demands de-mands unconditional surrender: occupation zones in Japan; punishment punish-ment of war criminals; elimination of war-making classes; release of all territories gained by conquest since 1895; restriction of Japanese sovereignty to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku and designated designat-ed smaller islands of the Japanese Archipelago. August 2 Eight hundred and twenty Superfortresses make the greatest raid of the war, in Europe Eu-rope or Asia, dropping 6632 tons of bombs on four Jap cities. August 6 First atomic bomb dropped on Japan by a Superfortress, Super-fortress, destroying 60 per cent of Hiroshima on Honshu. Japs say all 330,000 inhabitants of city are dead. Five hundred and eighty j Superfortresses hit four cities, j August 8 Russia declares war 1 on Japan. August 9 Russia attacks Manchuria. Man-churia. Second atomic bomb hits Nagasaki. August 10 Japan offers to surrender sur-render if Hirohito retains powers. August 11 Allies tell Japan they will give Hirohito orders. August 14 Japan accepts surrender sur-render terms. |