THE FACT AND THE TRUTH BOUT WW2. part3

The war becomes global

On 22 June 1941, Germany, along with other European Axis members and Finland, invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The primary targets of this surprise offensive^[96] were the Baltic region, Moscow and Ukraine, with an ultimate goal of ending the 1941 campaign near the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, connecting the Caspian and White Seas. Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space")^[97] by dispossessing the native population^[98] and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals.^[99]
Although the Red Army was preparing for strategic counter-offensives before the war,^[100] Barbarossa forced the Soviet supreme command to adopt a strategic defence. During the summer, the Axis made significant gains into Soviet territory, inflicting immense losses in both personnel and materiel. By the middle of August, however, the German Army High Command decided to suspend the offensive of a considerably depleted Army Group Centre, and to divert the Second Panzer Group to reinforce troops advancing toward central Ukraine and Leningrad.^[101] The Kiev offensive was overwhelmingly successful, resulting in encirclement and elimination of four Soviet armies, and made further advance into Crimea and industrially developed Eastern Ukraine (the First Battle of Kharkov) possible.^[102]

A German soldier inspecting the remains of destroyed Soviet forces in June 1941

The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front^[103][104] prompted Britain to reconsider its grand strategy.^[105] In July, the UK and the Soviet Union formed a military alliance against Germany^[106] The British and Soviets invaded Iran to secure the Persian Corridor and Iran's oil fields.^[107] In August, the United Kingdom and the United States jointly issued the Atlantic Charter.^[108]
By October, when Axis operational objectives in Ukraine and the Baltic region were achieved, with only the sieges of Leningrad^[109] and Sevastopol continuing,^[110] a major offensive against Moscow had been renewed. After two months of fierce battles, the German army almost reached the outer suburbs of Moscow, where the exhausted troops^[111] were forced to suspend their offensive.^[112] Large territorial gains were made by Axis forces, but their campaign had failed to achieve its main objectives: two key cities remained in Soviet hands, the Soviet capability to resist was not broken, and the Soviet Union retained a considerable part of its military potential. The blitzkrieg phase of the war in Europe had ended.^[113]

German infantry and armoured vehicles battle the Soviet defenders on the streets of Kharkov, October 1941.

By early December, freshly mobilised reserves^[114] allowed the Soviets to achieve numerical parity with Axis troops.^[115] This, as well as intelligence data that established a minimal number of Soviet troops in the East sufficient to prevent any attack by the Japanese Kwantung Army,^[116] allowed the Soviets to begin a massive counter-offensive that started on 5 December along a 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) front and pushed German troops 100–250 kilometres (62–160 mi) west.^[117]
German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina.^[118] The United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil^[119]) responded by placing a complete oil embargo.^[120] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.^[121]
Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.^[122] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset.^[123] On 7 December (8 December in Asian time zones), 1941, Japan attacked British and American holdings with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific.^[124] These included an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, landings in Thailand and Malaya^[124] and the battle of Hong Kong.

The Axis controlled territory in Europe at the time of its maximal expansion (1941–42).

These attacks led the U.S., Britain, Australia and other Allies to formally declare war on Japan. Germany and the other members of the Tripartite Pact responded by declaring war on the United States. In January, the United States, Britain, Soviet Union, China, and 22 smaller or exiled governments issued the Declaration by United Nations, which affirmed the Atlantic Charter.^[125] The Soviet Union did not adhere to the declaration; it maintained a neutrality agreement with Japan,^[126][127] and exempted itself from the principle of self-determination.^[108]
Meanwhile, by the end of April 1942, Japan and her ally Thailand had almost fully conquered Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore,^[128] and Rabaul, inflicting severe losses on Allied troops and taking a large number of prisoners. Despite a stubborn resistance in Corregidor, the Philippines was eventually captured in May 1942, forcing the government of the Philippine Commonwealth into exile.^[129] Japanese forces also achieved naval victories in the South China Sea, Java Sea and Indian Ocean,^[130] and bombed the Allied naval base at Darwin, Australia. The only real Allied success against Japan was a Chinese victory at Changsha in early January 1942.^[131] These easy victories over unprepared opponents left Japan overconfident, as well as overextended.^[132]
Germany retained the initiative as well. Exploiting dubious American naval command decisions, the German navy ravaged Allied shipping off the American Atlantic coast.^[133] Despite considerable losses, European Axis members stopped a major Soviet offensive in Central and Southern Russia, keeping most territorial gains they achieved during the previous year.^[134] In North Africa, the Germans launched an offensive in January, pushing the British back to positions at the Gazala Line by early February,^[135] followed by a temporary lull in combat which Germany used to prepare for their upcoming offensives

The February 1942 Fall of Singapore saw 80,000 Allied soldiers captured and enslaved by the Japanese.

Axis advance stalls

In early May 1942, Japan initiated operations to capture Port Moresby by amphibious assault and thus sever communications and supply lines between the United States and Australia. The Allies, however, intercepted and turned back Japanese naval forces, successfully preventing the invasion.^[137] Japan's next plan, motivated by the earlier bombing on Tokyo, was to seize Midway Atoll and lure American carriers into battle to be eliminated; as a diversion, Japan would also send forces to occupy the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.^[138] In early June, Japan put its operations into action but the Americans, having broken Japanese naval codes in late May, were fully aware of the plans and force dispositions and used this knowledge to achieve a decisive victory at Midway over the Imperial Japanese Navy.^[139]
With its capacity for aggressive action greatly diminished as a result of the Midway battle, Japan chose to focus on a belated attempt to capture Port Moresby by an overland campaign in the Territory of Papua.^[140] The Americans planned a counter-attack against Japanese positions in the southern Solomon Islands, primarily Guadalcanal, as a first step towards capturing Rabaul, the main Japanese base in Southeast Asia.[1

American dive bombers engage the Mikuma at the Battle of Midway, June 1942

Both plans started in July, but by mid-September, the battle for Guadalcanal took priority for the Japanese, and troops in New Guinea were ordered to withdraw from the Port Moresby area to the northern part of the island, where they faced Australian and United States troops in the Battle of Buna-Gona.^[142] Guadalcanal soon became a focal point for both sides with heavy commitments of troops and ships in the battle for Guadalcanal. By the start of 1943, the Japanese were defeated on the island and withdrew their troops.^[143] In Burma, Commonwealth forces mounted two operations. The first, an offensive into the Arakan region in late 1942, went disastrously, forcing a retreat back to India by May 1943.^[144] The second was the insertion of irregular forces behind Japanese front-lines in February which, by the end of April, had achieved dubious results.^[145]

A Soviet soldier waving the Red Banner over the central plaza in Stalingrad, 1943

On Germany's eastern front, the Axis defeated Soviet offensives in the Kerch Peninsula and at Kharkov^[146], and then launched their main summer offensive against southern Russia in June 1942, to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and occupy Kuban steppe, while maintaining positions on the northern and central areas of the front. The Germans split the Army Group South into two groups: Army Group A struck lower Don River while Army Group B struck south-east to the Caucasus, towards Volga River.^[147] The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad, which was in the path of the advancing German armies.
By mid-November the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad^[148] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.^[149] By early February 1943, the German Army had taken tremendous losses; German troops at Stalingrad had been forced to surrender^[150] and the front-line had been pushed back beyond its position before the summer offensive. In mid-February, after the Soviet push had tapered off, the Germans launched another attack on Kharkov, creating a salient in their front line around the Russian city of Kursk.^[151]

By November 1941, Commonwealth forces had launched a counter-offensive, Operation Crusader, in North Africa, and reclaimed all the gains the Germans and Italians had made.^[152] In the West, concerns the Japanese might utilize bases in Vichy-held Madagascar caused the British to invade the island in early May 1942.^[153] This success was offset soon after by an Axis offensive in Libya which pushed the Allies back into Egypt until Axis forces were stopped at El Alamein.^[154] On the Continent, raids of Allied commandos on strategic targets, culminating in the disastrous Dieppe Raid,^[155] demonstrated the Western Allies' inability to launch an invasion of continental Europe without much better preparation, equipment, and operational security.^[156]
In August 1942, the Allies succeeded in repelling a second attack against El Alamein and, at a high cost, managed to deliver desperately needed supplies to the besieged Malta.^[157] A few months later, the Allies commenced an attack of their own in Egypt, dislodging the Axis forces and beginning a drive west across Libya.^[158] This attack was followed up shortly after by an Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, which resulted in the region joining the Allies.^[159] Hitler responded to the French colony's defection by ordering the occupation of Vichy France;^[159] although Vichy forces did not resist this violation of the armistice, they managed to scuttle their fleet to prevent its capture by German forces.^[160] The now pincered Axis forces in Africa withdrew into Tunisia, which was conquered by the Allies in May 1943.^[161]

British Crusader tanks moving to forward positions during the North African Campaign.

Allies gain momentum

Following the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Allies initiated several operations against Japan in the Pacific. In May 1943, Allied forces were sent to eliminate Japanese forces from the Aleutians,^[162] and soon after began major operations to isolate Rabaul by capturing surrounding islands, and to breach the Japanese Central Pacific perimeter at the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.^[163] By the end of March 1944, the Allies had completed both of these objectives, and additionally neutralised the major Japanese base at Truk in the Caroline Islands. In April, the Allies then launched an operation to retake Western New Guinea.^[164]
In the Soviet Union, both the Germans and the Soviets spent the spring and early summer of 1943 making preparations for large offensives in Central Russia. On 4 July 1943, Germany attacked Soviet forces around the Kursk Bulge. Within a week, German forces had exhausted themselves against the Soviets' deeply echeloned and well-constructed defences^[165][166] and, for the first time in the war, Hitler cancelled the operation before it had achieved tactical or operational success.^[167] This decision was partially affected by the Western Allies' invasion of Sicily launched on 9 July which, combined with previous Italian failures, resulted in the ousting and arrest of Mussolini later that month.^[168]
On 12 July 1943, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensives, thereby dispelling any hopes of the German Army for victory or even stalemate in the east. The Soviet victory at Kursk heralded the downfall of German superiority,^[169] giving the Soviet Union the initiative on the Eastern Front.^[170][171] The Germans attempted to stabilise their eastern front along the hastily fortified Panther-Wotan line, however, the Soviets broke through it at Smolensk and by the Lower Dnieper Offensives.[17

In early September 1943, the Western Allies invaded the Italian mainland, following an Italian armistice with the Allies.^[173] Germany responded by disarming Italian forces, seizing military control of Italian areas,^[174] and creating a series of defensive lines.^[175] German special forces then rescued Mussolini, who then soon established a new client state in German occupied Italy named the Italian Social Republic.^[176] The Western Allies fought through several lines until reaching the main German defensive line in mid-November.^[177]
German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.^[178] In November 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo^[179] and then with Joseph Stalin in Tehran.^[180] The former conference determined the post-war return of Japanese territory,^[179] while the latter included agreement that the Western Allies would invade Europe in 1944 and that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan within three months of Germany's defeat.^[180]

In January 1944, the Allies launched a series of attacks in Italy against the line at Monte Cassino and attempted to outflank it with landings at Anzio.^[181] By the end of January, a major Soviet offensive expelled German forces from the Leningrad region,^[182] ending the longest and most lethal siege in history. The following Soviet offensive was halted on the pre-war Estonian border by the German Army Group North aided by Estonians hoping to re-establish national independence. This delay slowed subsequent Soviet operations in the Baltic Sea region.^[183] By late May 1944, the Soviets had liberated Crimea, largely expelled Axis forces from Ukraine, and made incursions into Romania, which were repulsed by the Axis troops.^[184] The Allied offensives in Italy had succeeded and, at the expense of allowing several German divisions to retreat, on 4 June Rome was captured.^[185]
The Allies experienced mixed fortunes in mainland Asia. In March 1944, the Japanese launched the first of two invasions, an operation against British positions in Assam, India,^[186] and soon besieged Commonwealth positions at Imphal and Kohima.^[187] In May 1944, British forces mounted a counter-offensive that drove Japanese troops back to Burma,^[187] and Chinese forces that had invaded northern Burma in late 1943 besieged Japanese troops in Myitkyina.^[188] The second Japanese invasion attempted to destroy China's main fighting forces, secure railways between Japanese-held territory and capture Allied airfields.^[189] By June, the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.^[190]