The World War II Multimedia Database

As a result of the first Sino-Japanese War (1895) that also made Korea a part of Japan, troops had been garrisoned along a railroad from the rich resources of Manchuria to Korean ports-of-trade. Raw materials and finished goods would roll down this railway to docks in Korea to be shipped to Japan.

The destruction of Panzer Armee Afrika left the United Kingdom Eighth Army and the American Seventh Army without a mission.

The 1943 plan for the defensive perimeter around the Japanese Home Islands stopped at Saipan in the Marianas. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who had been leading the cabinet since 1941, was optimistic in his hopes for a successful defense of the island.

As part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, a secret protocol was enacted that gave the Nazis Romania as within their sphere of influence. Earlier in the year, Britain and France had tried to guarantee Romania's borders, but Romania's refusal to allow the Red Army to cross its borders kept Russia out of the pact, and the guarantee fell apart.

After the Battle of the Bulge, Germany herself was the next target. It was clear to everyone but the most fanatical Nazis, including Hitler, that Germany was finished. The war was over except for the final body count.

From the time of Hitler's appointment to Chancellor, men and women lived and died resisting German occupation. Resistance groups sprang up in every occupied country, and several organizations in Germany herself. Their members succeeded and failed in all sorts of activities against the Third Reich.

Europe was in chaos after the First World War. Tens of millions were dead. Large parts of France and Germany were completely destroyed, including France's major source of coal and much of their farmland. The Total War that consumed so many lives had also consumed the combatants' thirst for war.

France suffered in World War I more than any other Western combatant. Most of the fighting on the Western Front took place on her soil, and she lost millions of men in trench warfare.

The prospect of Communist Russia terrified the Western democracies in 1918. Britain, France and America sent troops to occupy Russian ports and remained until the defeat of the White Russians in 1920. They left a country that was forming a government that many leftists hailed around the world.

The end of the Second World War brought many photo opportunities for the victors. The Soviets and the Western Allies had promoted the concept of an antifascist brotherhood during the war, and photos were taken all over the world of the Allies embracing and celebrating their victory.