SCHOOLS PAGE: A short history of World War Two

5 - The Blitz and Pearl Harbor

In London, people in the centre of the city who could not afford to build their own shelters spent the night inside underground railway stations, camping on the platforms.

Some homesick children who had previously been evacuated had come back home again, so the government insisted that they should return to the countryside.  Some children did not go back, stayed with their parents in the cities and were sometimes killed by the bombing.

Although it had been feared that this war would see gas bombs dropped on cities to poison people - and everyone was issued with their own gas mask - no gas was ever dropped.

Left: A German pilot, whose bomber plane has been shot down, is arrested by British soldiers.

1941: Japan and Pearl Harbor

In December 1941, the war became even bigger when, on the other side of the planet, Japan decided to attack America. 

The first battle took place at Pearl Harbor in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where the Japanese bombed the American naval fleet.  As a result, America joined the war to become one of the "Allies" - or friends.  This included countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many others.  The Japanese, Germans and Italians became known as the "Axis" forces.

1942: Failure at Dieppe/The Invasion of Russia

In 1942, the Allies made an attempt to land troops on the beach at Dieppe in France to try to start fighting the German forces.  However, the attempt failed and many brave Canadian soldiers who took part in the raid were killed or captured.

One country Hitler wanted to conquer was Russia, which had large supplies of oil that Germany needed to drive tanks and other vehicles. Unfortunately for Hitler, he chose the wrong time of year to try to invade Russia - late autumn. His soldiers became bogged down in mud and then winter snow - until the Army stopped long before it could reach the Russian capital city of Moscow.

In the city of Stalingrad, the Germans were defeated and many thousands of soldiers died or were taken prisoners by the Russians. This gave the Russian Army courage to begin pushing the Germans back out of their country. 

The German Army had their first major defeats in Russia.

Map of Europe in 1942/3 - showing how many countries had either joined Germany or been invaded by it (North Africa is not shown here - the Germans invaded part of that too!)

1943: North Africa, Burma & the Pacific

In North Africa, British troops fought many battles in the desert against the German forces.  Apart from the heat, dust and sand, all soldiers had to fight in terrible conditions with very little water to drink, and constant problems keeping their tanks and vehicles moving because of the shortage of fuel.

Meanwhile, British soldiers were also sent to Asia to help the Americans and Australians drive the Japanese out of Burma and other countries which the Japanese had invaded, including Singapore where many British colonists had been imprisoned. The Americans also had to fight Japanese troops who had invaded thousands of small islands across the Pacific Ocean.  Young Japanese soldiers were dedicated to their Emperor, and lived by a code of honour which regarded defeat as the ultimate shame.  As a result of this, they did not treat prisoners of war very kindly, and many allied prisoners died in Japanese prison camps whilst working like slaves to build railways and other projects.