Greece

The military history of Greece during World War II began on 28 October 1940, when the Italian Army invaded from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War. 

The Greek Army was able to halt the invasion temporarily and was able to push the Italians back into Albania. 

The Greek successes forced Nazi Germany to intervene. 

The Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941, and overran both countries within a month, despite British aid to Greece in the form of an expeditionary corps. 

The conquest of Greece was completed in May with the capture of Crete from the air, although the Fallschirmjäger (German paratroopers) suffered such extensive casualties in this operation that the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (German High Command) abandoned large-scale airborne operations for the remainder of the war. 

The German diversion of resources in the Balkans is also considered by some historians to have delayed the launch of the invasion of the Soviet Union by a critical month, which proved disastrous when the German Army failed to take Moscow.

Greece itself was occupied and divided between Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria, while the King and the government fled into exile in Egypt. 

First attempts at armed resistance in summer 1941 were crushed by the Axis powers, but the Resistance movement began again in 1942 and grew enormously in 1943 and 1944, liberating large parts of the country’s mountainous interior and tying down considerable Axis forces. 

However, political tensions between the Resistance groups resulted in the outbreak of a civil conflict among them in late 1943, which continued until the spring of 1944. The exiled Greek government also formed armed forces of its own, which served and fought alongside the British in the Middle East, North Africa, and Italy. 

The contribution of the Greek Navy and merchant marine, in particular, was of special importance to the Allied cause

Mainland Greece was liberated in October 1944 with the German withdrawal in the face of the advancing Red Army, while German garrisons continued to hold out in the Aegean Islands until after the war’s end. 

The country was devastated by war and occupation, and its economy and infrastructure lay in ruins. 

Greece suffered more than 400,000 casualties during the occupation, and the country’s Jewish community was almost completely exterminated in the Holocaust. 

By 1946, however, a civil war erupted between the foreign-sponsored conservative government and leftist guerrillas, which would last until 1949.

Brazil

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force (Portuguese: Força Expedicionária Brasileira, FEB) consisted of about 25,900 men arranged by the army and air force to fight alongside the Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II. This air–land force consisted of (replacements included) a complete infantry division, a liaison flight, and a fighter squadron.

It fought in Italy from September 1944 to May 1945, while the Brazilian Navy as well as the Air Force also acted in the Battle of the Atlantic from the middle of 1942 until the end of the war. 

During the almost eight months of its campaign, fighting at the Gothic Line and in the 1945 final offensive, the FEB took 20,573 Axis prisoners, consisting of two generals, 892 officers, and 19,679 other ranks. 

Brazil was the only independent South American country to send ground troops to fight overseas during the Second World War, losing 948 men killed in action across all three services

Belgium

Despite being neutral at the start of World War II, Belgium and its colonial possessions found themselves at war after the country was invaded by German forces on 10 May 1940. 

After 18 days of fighting in which Belgian forces were pushed back into a small pocket in the north-east of the country, the Belgian military surrendered to the Germans, beginning an occupation that would endure until 1944. 

The surrender of 28 May was ordered by King Leopold III without the consultation of his government and sparked a political crisis after the war. 

Despite the capitulation, many Belgians managed to escape to the United Kingdom where they formed a government and army-in-exile on the Allied side.

The Belgian Congo remained loyal to the Belgian government in London and contributed significant material and human resources to the Allied cause. 

Many Belgians were involved in both armed and passive resistance to German forces, although some chose to collaborate with the German forces. 

Support from far right political factions and sections of the Belgian population allowed the German army to recruit two divisions of the Waffen-SS from Belgium and also facilitated the Nazi persecution of Belgian Jews in which nearly 25,000 were killed.

Most of the country was liberated by the Allies between September and October 1944, though areas to the far east of the country remained occupied until early 1945. 

In total, approximately 88,000 Belgians died during the conflict, a figure representing 1.05 percent of the country’s pre-war population, and around 8 percent of the country’s GDP was destroyed.

 

 

Serbia

During World War II, several provinces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia corresponding to the modern-day state of Serbia were occupied by the Axis Powers from 1941 to 1944. 

Most of the area was occupied by the Wehrmacht and was organized as separate territory under control of the German Military Administration in Serbia. 

Other parts of modern Serbia that were not included in the German-administered territory were occupied and annexed by neighboring Axis countries: Syrmia was occupied and annexed by the Independent State of Croatia, Bačka was occupied and annexed by Hungary, southeastern Serbia was occupied and annexed by Bulgaria, and southwestern Serbia was occupied and annexed by Italy and included in the Italian protectorates of Albania and Montenegro.

The area under control of the German Military Administration in Serbia was initially occupied by the Germans. 

It was later occupied mostly by Bulgarian troops, but remained under German military authority. 

On stamps and coins this territory was referred to as Serbia,non-primary ] and, according to Professor Paul N. Hehn, its official name was the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. 

This territory had two successive Serbian puppet governments which were under the control of the German military authorities. 

The first short-lived puppet government was known as the Commissioner Government and was led by Milan Aćimović. The second puppet government was known as the Government of National Salvation and was led by Milan Nedić.

Of the Jewish population of about 12,500 in Serbia, under German occupation controlled by Hungary or the Independent State of Croatia, approximately 11,000 Jews were murdered.


Kingdom of Italy

The participation of Italy in the Second World War was characterized by a complex framework of ideology, politics, and diplomacy, while its military actions were often heavily influenced by external factors.

Italy joined the war as one of the Axis Powers in 1940, as the French Third Republic surrendered, with a plan to concentrate Italian forces on a major offensive against the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the “parallel war”, while expecting the collapse of British forces in the European theatre.

The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. However, German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the Soviet Union and United States, respectively, into the war, thus ruining the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement.

The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was aware that Italy (whose resources were reduced by successful pre-WWII military interventions in Spain, Ethiopia and Albania) was not ready for a long conflict.

He opted to remain in the war as the imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean (the Mare Nostrum), were partially met by late 1942.

By this point, Italian influence extended throughout the Mediterranean.

Libya had been pacified under the fascists and was undergoing Italian settlement. A friendly military nationalist regime had been installed in Spain, and a puppet regime installed in Croatia following the German-Italian Invasion of Yugoslavia. Albania, Ljubljana, coastal Dalmatia, and Montenegro had been directly annexed by the Italian state.

Most of Greece had been occupied by Italy following the Greco-Italian War and Battle of Greece, as had the French territories of Corsica and Tunisia following Vichy France’s collapse and occupation by German forces. Italo-German forces had also achieved victories against insurgents in Yugoslavia, and had occupied parts of British-held Egypt on their push to El-Alamein after their victory at Gazala.

However, Italy’s conquests were always heavily contested, both by various insurgencies (most prominently the Greek resistance and Yugoslav partisans) and Allied military forces, which waged the Battle of the Mediterranean throughout and beyond Italy’s participation.

Ultimately the Italian empire collapsed after disastrous defeats in the Eastern European and North African campaigns.

In July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini was arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, provoking a civil war.

Italy’s military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed territories falling under German control.

Italy capitulated to the Allies on 3 September 1943.

The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists, and became a collaborationist puppet state (with more than 500,000 soldiers recruited for the Axis), while the south was officially controlled by monarchist forces, which fought for the Allied cause as the Italian Co-Belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), as well as around 350,000 Italian resistance movement partisans (mostly former Royal Italian Army soldiers) of disparate political ideologies that operated all over Italy.

On 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans, two days before Adolf Hitler’s suicide.


Japan

By the time World War II was in full swing, Japan had the most interest in using biological warfare. Japan’s Air Force dropped massive amounts of ceramic bombs filled with bubonic plague-infested fleas in Ningbo, China. These attacks would eventually lead to thousands of deaths years after the war would end.

In Japan’s relentless and indiscriminate research methods on biological warfare, they poisoned more than 1,000 Chinese village wells to study cholera and typhus outbreaks. These diseases are caused by bacteria that with today’s technology could potentially be weaponised.

A map of the Canterbury in New Zealand prepared by the Japanese Military following the attack on Pearl Harbour
South-East Asia
Main articles: South-East Asian theatre of World War II and South West Pacific theatre of World War II
The South-East Asian campaign was preceded by years of propaganda and espionage activities carried out in the region by the Japanese Empire. 

The Japanese espoused their vision of a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and an Asia for Asians to the people of Southeast Asia, who had lived under European rule for generations. As a result, many inhabitants in some of the colonies (particularly Indonesia) actually sided with the Japanese invaders for anti-colonial reasons. 

However, the ethnic Chinese, who had witnessed the effects of Japanese occupation in their homeland, did not side with the Japanese.

Japanese troops march through the streets of Labuan, Borneo on January 14, 1942.
Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese on December 25.

In Malaya the Japanese overwhelmed an Allied army composed of British, Indian, Australian and Malay forces. The Japanese were quickly able to advance down the Malayan Peninsula, forcing the Allied forces to retreat towards Singapore. The Allies lacked air cover and tanks; the Japanese had air supremacy. 

The sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse on December 10, 1941, led to the east coast of Malaya being exposed to Japanese landings and the elimination of British naval power in the area. By the end of January 1942, the last Allied forces crossed the strait of Johore and into Singapore. In the Philippines, the Japanese pushed the combined Filipino-American force towards the Bataan Peninsula and later the island of Corregidor. By January 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and President Manuel L. 

Quezon were forced to flee in the face of Japanese advance. This marked one of the worst defeats suffered by the Americans, leaving over 70,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war in the custody of the Japanese.

Battle of Singapore, February 1942.

On February 15, 1942, Singapore, due to the overwhelming superiority of Japanese forces and encirclement tactics, fell to the Japanese, causing the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. An estimated 80,000 Indian, Australian and British troops were taken as prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken in the Japanese invasion of Malaya (modern day Malaysia). Many were later used as forced labour constructing the Burma Railway, the site of the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai. 

Immediately following their invasion of British Malaya, the Japanese military carried out a purge of the Chinese population in Malaya and Singapore.

The Japanese then seized the key oil production zones of Borneo, Central Java, Malang, Cepu, Sumatra, and Dutch New Guinea of the late Dutch East Indies, defeating the Dutch forces. 

However, Allied sabotage had made it difficult for the Japanese to restore oil production to its pre-war peak. 

The Japanese then consolidated their lines of supply through capturing key islands of the Pacific, including Guadalcanal.

Tide turns (1942–45)

Battle of Midway. 

The attack by dive bombers from USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise on the Japanese aircraft carriers Soryu, Akagi and Kaga in the morning of 4 June 1942.
Japanese military strategists were keenly aware of the unfavorable discrepancy between the industrial potential of the Japanese Empire and that of the United States. 

Because of this they reasoned that Japanese success hinged on their ability to extend the strategic advantage gained at Pearl Harbor with additional rapid strategic victories. 

The Japanese Command reasoned that only decisive destruction of the United States’ Pacific Fleet and conquest of its remote outposts would ensure that the Japanese Empire would not be overwhelmed by America’s industrial might. 

In April 1942, Japan was bombed for the first time in the Doolittle Raid. In May 1942, failure to decisively defeat the Allies at the Battle of the Coral Sea, in spite of Japanese numerical superiority, equated to a strategic defeat for Imperial Japan.

This setback was followed in June 1942 by the catastrophic loss of four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway, the first decisive defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy.

It proved to be the turning point of the war as the Navy lost its offensive strategic capability and never managed to reconstruct the “‘critical mass’ of both large numbers of carriers and well-trained air groups”.

Australian land forces defeated Japanese Marines in New Guinea at the Battle of Milne Bay in September 1942, which was the first land defeat suffered by the Japanese in the Pacific.

Further victories by the Allies at Guadalcanal in September 1942, and New Guinea in 1943 put the Empire of Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war, with Guadalcanal in particular sapping their already-limited oil supplies.

During 1943 and 1944, Allied forces, backed by the industrial might and vast raw material resources of the United States, advanced steadily towards Japan.

The Sixth United States Army, led by General MacArthur, landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944. In the subsequent months, during the Philippines Campaign (1944–45), the combined United States forces, together with the native guerrilla units, liberated the Philippines. By 1944,

the Allies had seized or bypassed and neutralized many of Japan’s strategic bases through amphibious landings and bombardment.

This, coupled with the losses inflicted by Allied submarines on Japanese shipping routes began to strangle Japan’s economy and undermine its ability to supply its army.

By early 1945, the U.S. Marines had wrested control of the Ogasawara Islands in several hard-fought battles such as the Battle of Iwo Jima, marking the beginning of the fall of the islands of Japan

Russia

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. 

It was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some of its successor states, while everywhere else it was called the Eastern Front.

The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. 

They were characterised by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. 

Of the estimated 70–85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front, including 9 million children.


The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations.

The two principal belligerent powers were Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in military action in the Eastern Front, the United States and the United Kingdom both provided substantial material aid to the Soviet Union in the form of the Lend-Lease program. 

The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front. 

In addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War is generally also considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front.

France

France was the largest military power to come under occupation as part of the Western Front in World War II. 

The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. 

The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations.

The first phase saw the capitulation of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain.

After capitulation, France was governed as Vichy France headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain. From 1940 to 1942, while the Vichy regime was the nominal government of all of France except for Alsace-Lorraine, the Germans and Italians militarily occupied northern and south-eastern France.

   

Albania

In Albania, World War II began with its invasion by Italy in April 1939. 

Fascist Italy set up Albania as its protectorate or puppet state. 

The resistance was largely carried out by Communist groups against the Italian (until 1943) and then German occupation in Albania. 

At first independent, the Communist groups united in the beginning of 1942, which ultimately led to the successful liberation of the country in 1944.

The Center for Relief to Civilian Populations (Geneva) reported that Albania was one of the most devastated countries in Europe. 

60,000 houses were destroyed and about 10% of the population was left homeless.

In spite of Albania’s long-standing protection and alliance with Italy, on 7 April 1939 Italian troops invaded Albania, five months before the start of the Second World War. 

The Albanian armed resistance proved ineffective against the Italians and, after a short defense, the country was occupied. On 9 April 1939 the Albanian king, Zog I fled to Greece.

In an effort to win Albanian support for Italian rule, Ciano and the Fascist regime encouraged Albanian irredentism in the directions of Kosovo and Chameria. 

Despite Jacomoni’s assurances of Albanian support in view of the promised “liberation” of Chameria, Albanian enthusiasm for the war was distinctly lacking. 

The few Albanian units raised to fight during the developments of the Greco-Italian War (1940–1941) alongside the Italian Army mostly “either deserted or fled in droves”. 

Albanian agents recruited before the war, are reported to have operated behind Greek lines and engaged in acts of sabotage but these were few in number. 

Support for the Greeks, although of limited nature, came primarily from the local Greek populations who warmly welcomed the arrival of the Greek forces in the southern districts