The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

SECOND WORLD WAR

The Second World War was a war between the axis forces of Germany, Italy, and Japan on one side, and the allies of Britain, the Commonwealth, France, the USA, the USSR, and China on the other. It was fought between 1939 and 1945 killing an estimated 55 million people. The war was fought in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. Germany surrendered in May 1945 but Japan fought on until the USA dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The war started through rising tensions in Europe throughout the 1930s as Nazi Germany first broke virtually all of its treaty obligations and then embarked on a programme of aggressive expansionism, including invading Poland in 1939.
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