New Zealand

The military history of New Zealand during World War II began when New Zealand entered the Second World War by declaring war on Nazi Germany with Great Britain. 

The state of war with Germany was officially held to have existed since 9:30 pm on 3 September 1939 (local time), simultaneous with that of Britain, but in fact New Zealand’s declaration of war was not made until confirmation had been received from Britain that their ultimatum to Germany had expired. 

When Neville Chamberlain broadcast Britain’s declaration of war, a group of New Zealand politicians (led by Peter Fraser as Prime Minister Michael Savage was terminally ill) listened to the shortwave radio in Carl Berendsen‘s room in the Parliament Buildings. 

Because of static on the radio they were initially not certain what Chamberlain had said until a coded telegraph message was received from London. 

This message did not arrive until just before midnight as the messenger boy with the telegram in London took shelter because of a (false) air-raid warning. 

The Cabinet acted after hearing the Admiralty’s notification to the fleet that war had broken out. 

The next day Cabinet approved nearly 30 war regulations as laid down in the War Book, and after completing the formalities with the Executive Council the Governor-General, Lord Galway, issued the Proclamation of War, backdated to 9.30 pm on 3 September.

Diplomatically, New Zealand had expressed vocal opposition to fascism in Europe and also to the appeasement of Fascist dictatorships, and national sentiment for a strong show of force met with general support. 

Economic and defensive considerations also motivated the New Zealand involvement—reliance on Britain meant that threats to Britain became threats to New Zealand too in terms of economic and defensive ties.

There was also a strong sentimental link between the former British colony and the United Kingdom, with many seeing Britain as the “mother country” or “Home”. 

The New Zealand Prime Minister of the time Michael Joseph Savage summed this up at the outbreak of war with a broadcast on 5 September (largely written by the Solicitor-General Henry Cornish) that became a popular cry in New Zealand during the war:

It is with gratitude in the past, and with confidence in the future, that we range ourselves without fear beside Britain, where she goes, we go! Where she stands, we stand!

New Zealand provided personnel for service in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and in the Royal Navy and was prepared to have New Zealanders serving under British command. 

Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) pilots, many trained in the Empire Air Training Scheme, were sent to Europe but, unlike the other Dominions, New Zealand did not insist on its aircrews serving with RNZAF squadrons, so speeding up the rate at which they entered service. 

The Long Range Desert Group was formed in North Africa in 1940 with New Zealand and Rhodesian as well as British volunteers, but included no Australians for the same reason.

The New Zealand government placed the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy at the Admiralty‘s disposal and made available to the RAF 30 new Wellington medium bombers waiting in the United Kingdom for shipping to New Zealand. The New Zealand Army contributed the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF).

Australia

Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the government’s acceptance of the United Kingdom‘s declaration of war on Nazi Germany. 

Australia later entered into a state of war with other members of the Axis powers, including the Kingdom of Italy on 11 June 1940, and the Empire of Japan on 9 December 1941. 

By the end of the war, almost a million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and the South West Pacific theatre. 

In addition, Australia came under direct attack for the first time in its post-colonial history. Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded.

Australian Army units were gradually withdrawn from the Mediterranean and Europe following the outbreak of war with Japan. 

However, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy units and personnel continued to take part in the war against Germany and Italy. 

From 1942 until early 1944, Australian forces played a key role in the Pacific War, making up the majority of Allied strength throughout much of the fighting in the South West Pacific theatre. 

While the military was largely relegated to subsidiary fronts from mid-1944, it continued offensive operations against the Japanese until the war ended.

World War II contributed to major changes in the nation’s economy, military and foreign policy. 

The war accelerated the process of industrialisation, led to the development of a larger peacetime military and began the process with which Australia shifted the focus of its foreign policy from Britain to the United States. 

The final effects of the war also contributed to the development of a more diverse and cosmopolitan Australian society.

Canada

When the United Kingdom declared war on Germany in August 1914, Canada was a Dominion of the British Empire with full control over only domestic affairs, thus automatically joining the First World War. 

After the war, the Canadian government wanted to avoid a repeat of the Conscription Crisis of 1917, which had divided the country and French and English Canadians. Stating that “Parliament will decide,” in 1922 Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King avoided participating in the Chanak Crisis as the Parliament of Canada was not in session.

The 1931 Statute of Westminster gave Canada autonomy in foreign policy. 

When Britain entered World War II in September 1939, some experts suggested that Canada was still bound by Britain’s declaration of war because it had been made in the name of their common monarch, but Prime Minister King again said that “Parliament will decide.”[10][11]:2

In 1936 King had told Parliament, “Our country is being drawn into international situations to a degree that I myself think is alarming.”[11]:2 Both the government and the public remained reluctant to participate in a European war, in part because of the Conscription Crisis of 1917. Both King and Opposition Leader Robert James Manion stated their opposition to conscripting troops for overseas service in March 1939. Nonetheless, King had not changed his view of 1923 that Canada would participate in a war by the Empire whether or not the United States did. By August 1939 his cabinet, including French Canadians, was united for war in a way that it probably would not have been during the Munich Crisis, although both cabinet members and the country based their support in part on expecting that Canada’s participation would be “limited.”[11]:5–8

It had been clear that Canada would elect to participate in the war before the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. Four days after the United Kingdom declared war on 3 September 1939, Parliament was called in special session and both King and Manion stated their support for Canada following Britain, but did not declare war immediately, partly to show that Canada was joining out of her own initiative and was not obligated to go to war. 

Unlike 1914 when war came as a surprise, the government had prepared various measures for price controls, rationing, and censorship, and the War Measures Act of 1914 was re-invoked. 

After two days of debate, the House of Commons approved an Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne on 9 September 1939 giving authority to declare war to King’s government. A small group of Quebec legislators attempted to amend the bill, and CCF party leader J. S. Woodsworth stated that some of his party opposed it. Woodsworth was the only Member of Parliament to vote against the bill and it thus passed by near-acclamation.

The Senate also passed the bill that day. 

The Cabinet drafted a proclamation of war that night, which Governor-General Lord Tweedsmuir signed on 10 September.

King George VI approved Canada’s declaration of war with Germany on Sept. 10. 

Canada later also declared war on Italy (11 June 1940), Japan (7 December 1941), and other Axis powers, enshrining the principle that the Statute of Westminster conferred these sovereign powers to Canada.


United States of America

The military history of the United States in World War II covers the war against the Axis Powers, starting with the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

During the first two years of World War II, the United States had maintained formal neutrality as a made official in the Quarantine Speech delivered by US President Franklin D.

Roosevelt in 1937, while supplying Britain, the Soviet Union, and China with war material through the Lend-Lease Act which was signed into law on 11 March 1941, as well as deploying the US military to replace the British forces stationed in Iceland.

Following the “Greer incident” Roosevelt publicly confirmed the “shoot on sight” order on 11 September 1941, effectively declaring naval war on Germany and Italy in the Battle of the Atlantic.

In the Pacific Theater, there was unofficial early US combat activity such as the Flying Tigers.

During the war, some 16,112,566 Americans served in the United States Armed Forces, with 405,399 killed and 671,278 wounded

There were also 130,201 American prisoners of war, of whom 116,129 returned home after the war. 

Key civilian advisors to President Roosevelt included Secretary of War Henry L.

Stimson, who mobilized the nation’s industries and induction centers to supply the Army, commanded by General George Marshall and the Army Air Forces under General Hap Arnold.

The Navy, led by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Admiral Ernest King, proved more autonomous. Overall priorities were set by Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired by William Leahy. 

The highest priority was the defeat of Germany in Europe, but first, the war against Japan in the Pacific was more urgent after the sinking of the main battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Admiral King put Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, based in Hawaii, in charge of the Pacific War against Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy had the advantage, taking the Philippines as well as British and Dutch possessions, and threatening Australia but in June 1942, its main carriers were sunk during the Battle of Midway, and the Americans seized the initiative.

The Pacific War became one of island hopping, so as to move air bases closer and closer to Japan. The Army, based in Australia under General Douglas MacArthur, steadily advanced across New Guinea to the Philippines, with plans to invade the Japanese home islands in late 1945.

With its merchant fleet sunk by American submarines, Japan ran short of aviation gasoline and fuel oil, as the US Navy in June 1944 captured islands within bombing range of the Japanese home islands. Strategic bombing directed by General Curtis Lemay destroyed all the major Japanese cities, as the US captured Okinawa after heavy losses in spring 1945.

With the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and an invasion of the home islands imminent, Japan surrendered.

The war in Europe involved aid to Britain, her allies, and the Soviet Union, with the US supplying munitions until it could ready an invasion force. US forces were first tested to a limited degree in the North African Campaign and then employed more significantly with British Forces in Italy in 1943–45, where US forces, representing about a third of the Allied forces deployed, bogged down after Italy surrendered and the Germans took over.

Finally, the main invasion of France took place in June 1944, under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Meanwhile, the US Army Air Forces and the British Royal Air Force engaged in the area bombardment of German cities and systematically targeted German transportation links and synthetic oil plants, as it knocked out what was left of the Luftwaffe post Battle of Britain in 1944.

Being invaded from all sides, it became clear that Germany would lose the war. Berlin fell to the Soviets in May 1945, and with Adolf Hitler dead, the Germans surrendered.

The military effort was strongly supported by civilians on the home front, who provided the military personnel, the munitions, the money, and the morale to fight the war to victory. World War II cost the United States an estimated $341 billion in 1945 dollars – equivalent to 74% of America’s GDP and expenditures during the war. In 2015 dollars, the war cost over $4.5 trillion.


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.

 

 

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

 

Great Britain

When the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939 at the start of World War II, the UK controlled to varying degrees numerous crown colonies, protectorates and the Indian Empire.

It also maintained unique political ties to four of the five independent Dominions—Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand[note 1]—as co-members (with the UK) of the then “British Commonwealth”.

In 1939 the British Empire and the Commonwealth together comprised a global power, with direct or de facto political and economic control of 25% of the world’s population, and of 30% of its land mass.

The contribution of the British Empire and Commonwealth in terms of manpower and materiel was critical to the Allied war-effort.

From September 1939 to mid-1942, the UK led Allied efforts in multiple global military theatres.

Commonwealth, Colonial and Imperial Indian forces, totalling close to 15 million serving men and women, fought the German, Italian, Japanese and other Axis armies, air-forces and navies across Europe, Africa, Asia, and in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

Commonwealth forces based in Britain operated across North western Europe in the effort to slow or stop Axis advances. Commonwealth air forces fought the Luftwaffe to a standstill over Britain, and Commonwealth armies fought and destroyed Italian forces in North and East Africa and occupied several overseas colonies of German-occupied European nations.

Following successful engagements against Axis forces, Commonwealth troops invaded and occupied Libya, Italian Somaliland, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Madagascar.

The Commonwealth defeated, held back or slowed the Axis powers for three years while mobilizing its globally-integrated economy, military, and industrial infrastructure to build what became, by 1942, the most extensive military apparatus of the war. 

These efforts came at the cost of 150,000 military deaths, 400,000 wounded, 100,000 prisoners, over 300,000 civilian deaths, and the loss of 70 major warships, 39 submarines, 3,500 aircraft, 1,100 tanks and 65,000 vehicles.

During this period the Commonwealth built an enormous military and industrial capacity.

Britain became the nucleus of the Allied war-effort in Western Europe, and hosted governments-in-exile in London to rally support in occupied Europe for the Allied cause.

Canada delivered almost $4 billion in direct financial aid to the United Kingdom, and Australia and New Zealand began shifting to domestic production to provide material aid to US forces in the Pacific.Following the US entry into the war in December 1941, the Commonwealth and the United States coordinated their military efforts and resources globally.

As the scale of the US military involvement and industrial production increased, the US undertook command in many theatres, relieving Commonwealth forces for duty elsewhere, and expanding the scope and intensity of Allied military efforts.

Co-operation with the Soviet Union also developed.

However, it proved difficult to co-ordinate the defence of far-flung colonies and Commonwealth countries from simultaneous attacks by the Axis powers.

In part this difficulty was exacerbated by disagreements over priorities and objectives, as well as over the deployment and control of joint forces.

The governments of Britain and Australia, in particular, turned to the United States for support.

Although the British Empire and the Commonwealth countries all emerged from the war as victors, and the conquered territories returned to British rule, the costs of the war and the nationalist fervour that it had stoked became a catalyst for the decolonisation which took place in the following decades.