Table Of Content75 YEARS
= b — ay “sow newenslibl
Siege of EASTERN FRONT CARNAGE
Leningrad BATTLE FOR THE ATLANTIC
Thousaddaeenn NORTH AFRICAN TANK WAR
under Nazi
blockade
Ooo
lear y
l@@e, yee) Oy
ee j
Sa ao
Bletchley Park
The winter of 1941 froze heroes cracked the Surprise attack drew
Nazi advance in its tracks unbreakable code America into the war
SEGREGATED & CONFINED: EUROPE’S JE\v> FORCED TO CROWD INTO WALLED GHETTOS
The whole world in flames
It is 03.14 on 22nd June 1941. Along
a 1,800 kilometre front line that
stretches from the Baltic Sea in the
north to Romania in the south,
German soldiers are ready for battle.
A minute later, all hell breaks loose.
The Luftwaffe begins attacking
targets behind the Red Army’s front
line, and the artillery opens fire.
Germany’s dreaded Panzer tanks
follow — the spearhead of Operation
Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of the
Soviet Union. With 3.7 million
soldiers, it’s the largest invasion to
date. The first few weeks seem to
confirm the supremacy of
Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics as city
after city falls.
This issue follows the advancement
of the Axis forces in the conflict
that, during 1941, turns into an
all-out world war.
12 1 frika Korps saves the Italians
| Rommel forces the Allies out of Libya.
20° Blitzkrieg in the Balkans
nl under a month, the Axis powers capture the entire peninsula.
30 Enigma codes are headache for British
Secret mission helps crack the Germans’ encrypted messages.
36 Bismarck is hunted in the Atlantic
The German battleship Bismarck threatens the Allies’ convoys.
46 Net tightens around the Jews
in German-occupied Europe, Jews are forced into ghettos.
itler mumpne over Red Army
3.7 million German soldiers storm into the Soviet Union.
8 German ring of steel chokes Leningrad
Hq Hit! el ‘demands the city’s inhabitants are starved to death.
An entire world at war
a. ta Battlefields stretch from Arctic islands to East Africa’s jungle.
The Blitzkrieg freezes
War on the Eastern Front halts a few kilometres from Moscow.
94 U-boats force Britain to its knees
Hitler's most feared weapon sinks thousands of supply ships.
104 Home front comforts keep morale high
German civilians celebrate the military’s many victories.
hs 112 Death comes from the skies
“4 oa attacks the US naval base at Pearl Harbor.
gibi
, ODE 0 IPIec d
control the Atlantic, and Hitler attacks
oo “the Soviets. With Japan’s attack on the
: US, the conflict becomes a world war.
mo _ Read how the war spreads, page 6
[War spans the globe
7
TOTAL WAR
_ Pearl Harbor.
2ND JANUARY: All Dutch Jews
are told to register with the
country’s authorities.
4TH JANUARY: Symphonic
Dances, Sergei Rachmaninov’s
last major work, premieres in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
10TH JANUARY: Arsenic and Old
Lace opens on Broadway.
16TH JANUARY: US Rear
Admiral Patrick Bellinger warns
of a possible Japanese attack on
launch an offensive against the
Italians in Eritrea in East Africa.
21ST JANUARY: The British
Communist Party’s Daily Worker
newspaper is banned.
22ND JANUARY: First case of
Jews being murdered en masse
takes place in Romania.
24TH JANUARY: British troops
enter Abyssinia, present-day
Ethiopia, in an attempt to drive
out the Italians.
‘Italians get German help
Fighter wins again
31ST JANUARY: Joe Louis
knocks out Red Burman in
the fifth round to retain his
world championship.
/ SPa Gg German Lieutenant General
Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli to provide aid to
the Italians in the Desert War against the British.
Rommel quickly adopts a new tactic.
Read about the Desert War on page 12
>>> >> > D> >> >> D> DD D> >> D> >>
23RD FEBRUARY: Plutonium is
isolated and produced for the
first time by American scientist
Glenn T Seaborg.
27TH FEBRUARY: Rebecca,
starring Laurence Olivier and
Joan Fontaine, wins the
Academy Award for Best Picture.
7TH MARCH: 50,000 British
soldiers arrive in Greece to help
the country defend itself from an
expected invasion from Germany
in support of Italy.
22ND MARCH: After several
rejections, actor James Stewart
finally succeeds in enlisting in
the US Army.
The Balkans are
overrun
GUN) German
troops roll over the
border to invade
Yugoslavia before
carrying on to bring
much-needed aid to the
Italians in Greece.
Read about the Balkan
campaign on page 20
11TH APRIL: The British city of
Coventry in Warwickshire is
subject to one of the worst
bombing raids during the Blitz.
13TH APRIL: The Soviet Union
and Japan sign a non-aggression
pact in Moscow.
Iconic movie released
1ST MAY: Citizen Kane opens
in New York. The movie,
sare ang Wee Tg Pe tH
Welles, is
considered by
many to be
the best film
ever made.
january
Senior Nazi bails out
10TH MAY: Rudolf Hess
takes it upon himself to fly to
Scotland without consulting
Hitler, dropping by parachute
to start peace talks.
12TH MAY: Martin Bormann
succeeds Hess in a newly
created role (Head of the Party
Chancellery), officially becoming
Adolf Hitler’s deputy.
-may
Enigma falls into
British hands
12TH MAY: In Berlin, German
civil engineer Konrad Zuse
presents the Z3, a pioneering
programmable computer. It is
one of the precursors to the
modern computer.
15TH MAY: Baseball player Joe
DiMaggio begins a sequence of
56 consecutive games in which
he scores at least a single hit.
The record still stands.
15TH MAY: The first British
turbo jet, Gloster E.28/39, takes
to the skies.
16TH MAY: The Luftwaffe bombs
Birmingham in what is the last
major air raid over Britain.
20TH MAY: Germany invades the
Greek island of Crete, primarily
with paratroopers.
22ND MAY: British forces attack
the lraqi capital Baghdad.
British sailors
discover a model of the
Enigma machine aboard
an abandoned U-boat.
‘The haul allows experts
to break the Germans’
" encryption codes
- enabling the Allies to
“tead enemy communications
» for the rest of the war.
23RD MAY: Herbert Austin,
founder of the Austin Motor
Company, dies aged 74.
24TH MAY: Singer Bob Dylan is
born in Duluth, Minnesota.
Read about the Enigma machine on page 30
24TH MAY: HMS Hood, pride of
the Royal Navy, is sunk by the
battleship Bismarck.
25TH MAY: 5,000 drown ina
storm in India.
German pride is sunk by British
After an intense hunt in the North Atlantic,
the Royal Navy succeeds in sinking the Bismarck, Nazi
Germany’s largest battleship. After several hits from
aircraft, the Bismarck is no longer able to steer, making
her easy prey for British battleships the King George V
and Rodney. Over 2,000 German sailors perish.
Read about the Bismarck’s end on page 36
ee, =
he
D>) DED D> D> ED ED ED ED) ED ED DED D> Dam»
TOTAL WAR
6TH JUNE: USS Terror is
launched in Philadelphia. The
ship is the only one built by the
US Navy during the war solely for
the purpose of laying mines.
Ghettos are filled
| JUNE | In Eastern Europe, many
large Jewish populations are
rounded up and housed in
inhumane and crowded
7TH JUNE: American Craig Wood
neighbourhoods. Some escape wins the US Open golf Siar Saay
the ghettos, but there are few tournament, the last to be held > on Thiamine vranse se
places to flee to. during the war. ‘ Waning da
us 13%, |
a On
1 about the ghettos on page 46
8TH JUNE: Free French and
British forces invade Syria to
1ST JUNE: All Catholic writings 2ND JUNE: Future Rolling Stones depose its French Vichy-
are banned in Nazi Germany. drummer Charlie Watts is born. controlled government.
“Breakfast cereal launch
19TH JUNE: The Cheerios
puffed oats cereal is
introduced for the first time.
1ST JUNE: Crete finally comes 3RD JUNE: Jewish passports in 18TH JUNE: Turkey and Germany
under Axis control. occupied territories are marked. conclude a non-aggression pact.
Hitler wants Lebensraum in the east
P2TDFMT Afier several years’ planning, Hitler is ready to realise a
key ideological aim: the expulsion of Slavic peoples from the Soviet
Union. By midsummer, countless panzer divisions roll east. The
German dictator expects the invasion to be over within a few weeks.
Read about the invasion of
. the Soviet Union on page 54
‘ \
. >> >>> >>> >>>) D>) > >) >> D> >>>) D> >>> LD >>> a> >>> >>> > D>
—_
june
Finnish forces
attack the Soviet Union over
control of the Karelian Isthmus.
Turco-Mongol
warlord Timur Lenk is exhumed
by Soviet archaeologist Mikhail
Gerasimov.
Fascist pro-German
groups declare Ukrainian
independence.
US troops arrive in
Iceland to prevent a German
occupation.
Beirut is occupied by
British and Free French forces.
Jewish physicist
Abraham Pais receives his PhD
from Utrecht University; just five
days later, a German ban on
awarding academic degrees to
Jewish people comes into effect
in the Netherlands.
British leader
Winston Churchill launches his
‘V for Victory’ campaign.
Heinrich Himmler
orders the construction of the
Majdanek concentration camp.
Open-top vehicle debuts
The first jeep is
demonstrated. They’re used
for many different purposes
during the war and become a
symbol of Allied soldiers.
German spy
Josef Jakobs is executed by firing
squad after court martial in
Britain. Jakobs is the last person
Winston Churchill
sails across the Atlantic to the
United States to meet with
President Franklin D Roosevelt.
executed in the Tower of London.
Zyklon B is
used for the first time in
Auschwitz, Poland.
Building
begins on the Pentagon, the new
US Department of Defense HQ.
The US Navy
is given authorisation to fire on
German ships in US waters.
DD D> D> D> D> D> D> ED >>>
starved to death
}
«4
i
The Iranian
shah is forced to abdicate over
allegations of having German
sympathies as Soviet and British
forces invade the country.
Kiev, the
capital of Ukraine, is surrounded
by the Axis Powers.
New
Zealand abolishes the death
penalty for almost all crimes.
Charles de
Gaulle forms a French
government in exile in London.
German forces
encircle Leningrad, beginning a
hellish three-year siege. Hitler
doesn’t want to capture the city;
he wants to starve the trapped
population to death so that
Aryans can move in.
Germans
murder 34,000 Jews in Kiev.
The first
Liberty-class ship, Patrick Henry,
is launched. About 2,700 Liberty
ships sail supplies from the US
to Europe during the war.
A world in
flames
Fighting rages
in the jungles of Africa
while the Japanese
occupy uninhabited
islands in Alaska. The
war has gone global.
=
~
NE
Germans advance on
0S
cow
Deep inside the Soviet Union, Hitler’s generals make a final
strike towards Moscow. The capital must be taken to mark German
superiority, but the winter is far worse than the Germans expect, and
Operation Typhoon is halted just a few kilometres from the city’s outskirts.
Read about Moscow’s struggle for survival on page 86
15TH OCTOBER: The Russian
government is evacuated from
Moscow as the Axis powers
approach. Stalin remains.
8TH OCTOBER: Construction of
Birkenau, a major expansion of
the Auschwitz extermination
camp, begins.
Dumbo flies
23RD OCTOBER:
Disney’s animated
feature Dumbo,
featuring a flying
elephant, receives
its premiere. It
becomes Disney’s
biggest commercial
success of the
entire decade.
31ST OCTOBER: US destroyer
USS Reuben James is sunk by a
German U-boat despite the fact
that the two countries are not at
war. Only 44 out of 150 survive.
31ST OCTOBER: Work on the
four US presidential sculptures
at Mount Rushmore is
completed after 14 years.
8TH NOVEMBER: The Albanian
Communist Party is founded. Its
first leader is future Prime
Minister Enver Hoxha.
10TH NOVEMBER: Germany’s
attempt to capture Moscow is
slowly grinding to a halt.
13TH NOVEMBER: Alma Heflin
becomes the first American
female test pilot while working
for the Piper Corporation.
Battle rages
under the sea
13TH NOVEMBER EN
German U-boat sinks
British aircraft carrier
HMS Ark Royal as
increased submarine
attacks threaten Britain’s
very survival.
Read more on page 94
>>> D> D> D> D> ED) ED >>> ED >> ED) ED >>> ED >>> IED >>> D> >> D> >>>
october
