The World at War

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It was, in the true sense of the word, a world war. By 1942, tens of millions of soldiers were engaged in the most destructive conflict ever. The battle storm engulfed two oceans and five continents, while filling the skies with planes sent on missions of death. For six brutal years, no corner of the globe was safe.

The war spread from the streets of Europe to the jungles of Southeast Asia, the deserts of North Africa, and the islands of the Pacific. It began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland and carved a path of death and destruction through other countries in Western Europe. By 1940, Great Britain was the only European country in Hitler's way. Italy joined the war on Germany's side, and the fighting soon spread to Greece and North Africa.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and swept through the Pacific in December 1941, the United States joined the war. Germany, Italy, and Japan formed an alliance called the Axis, and the U.S., Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union led the Allies.

In 1942, the Allies turned the tide. They stopped Axis advances in North Africa, the Soviet Union, and the Pacific. They defeated Japan in the Battle of Midway. Then, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, they landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, and drove into Germany, while the Soviet army closed in from the east. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945.

A series of battles in the Pacific brought the Allies to Japan's doorstep that same year. Then, on August 6 and 9, the U.S. unleashed a fearsome new weapon, dropping two atomic bombs on Japan. In a week, the Japanese had surrendered. The war was over, at a cost of perhaps 50 million lives, 407,000 of them American.

Adapted from Scholastic Update, March 24, 1995

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