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Second
World War: 11 to 14 years
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Second World War Encyclopaedia: A comprehensive encyclopaedia of the Second World War. Each entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the material. So far there are sections on: Background to the War; Nazi Germany, Chronology of the War, Political Leaders, European Diplomacy, Major Offensives, British Military Leaders, USA Military Leaders, German Military Leaders, Japanese Military Leaders, The Armed Forces, The Air War, The Resistance, Scientists & Inventors, War at Sea, Resistance in Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, War Artists, Weapons and New Technology.
The Home Front: The multiple award winning Learning Curve has launched its latest piece of content. The Home Front: 1939-45 is designed to complement fully the History National Curriculum (Key Stages 2-4). Students can take a multimedia journey through seven different aspects the Second World War and make up their own mind as to why it occurred and how it was fought. Along every step of the way the student has unrivalled access to the original documentation, gaining a real experience of 'making history'.
U-boat War 1939-1945: This website contains over 12,700 pages of information on the U-boat War. This includes biographies of 1,411 U-boat commanders and profiles of 1153 U-boats. Recent articles added include U-boat Shipyards, U-boat Types, Donitz at Nuremberg, Sinking of SS Athenia, German Saboteur Teams in the USA, U-boat Songs, Men Lost from U-boats, German Torpedo Crisis, Operation Deadlight, Convoy Commodores and U-boat Computer Simulations.
George Rarey's Sketchbook Journals: George Rarey was drafted into the US Army Air Corps in 1942 and eventually became a member of the 379 Fighter Squadron. Rarey was also a commercial artist and until he was killed in France in 1944 kept a cartoon journal of the daily life of the fighter pilots. This very impressive website, produced by his son, includes George Rarey's drawings, with explanatory text contributed by surviving members of the 379th Fighter Squadron. The website also features excerpts from Rarey's letters and his wife's memoirs.
Winston S. Churchill: Maintained by the Churchill Center in Washington, this website is devoted to the life and times of Winston Churchill. The very detailed biography is organism into eight sections: Youth (1874-1900), Young Statesman (1901-1914), The Challenge of War (1914-16), The Stricken World (1917-1922), The Prophet of Truth (1923-1939), Finest Hour (1939-1941), Road to Victory (1942-1945) and Never Despair (1945-1965). Other sections include Debates about Churchill, Churchill's Life: Day by Day, Churchill Facts and Frequently Asked Questions.
Deutsches Afrika Korps: Paulo Henriques of Portugal has created this detailed website on the Deutsches Afrika Korps during the Second World War. As well as providing biographies and photographs of the leading commanders there are also articles on the War in Africa, The Italian Army, Afrika Korps History, Life in the Afrika Korps, Afrika Korps Units and Symbols, Afrika Korps Uniforms, Afrika Korps Guns and Afrika Korps Songs.
Secret Service in the Second World War: A study of the secret service during the Second World War. Biographies of forty agents and accounts of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Prosper Network. Each entry contains a narrative, illustrations and primary sources. The text within each entry is hypertexted to other relevant pages in the encyclopedia. In this way it is possible to research individual people and events in great detail. The sources are also hypertexted so the student is able to find out about the writer, artist, newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the material.
Women and the Second World War: In September 1943 the Special Operations Executive (SOE) sent Pearl Witherington into France where she became head of the Wrestler Network. Over the next few months Witherington, one of the 39 female agents sent into France during the war, helped organize over 1,500 members of the Maquis against the German Army. This website illustrates the important role played by women in the war and includes biographies of twenty secret agents, twenty women involved in the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Europe and twelve women who risked their lives as war reporters.
Violette Szabo: After hearing that her husband had been killed at El Alamein, Violette Szabo, developed a strong desire to get involved in the war effort and was recruited to join the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The violette Szabo Museum website tells the story of how she was parachuted into occupied France to help the resistance. Szabo was captured and executed by the Gestapo and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the George Cross.
Special Operations Executive: This website tells the story behind the role of the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War. There are sections on Beginnings, Facts, Missions, Tools of the Trade, Operatives, Myths and Legends, the SOE in the Far East and Picture Gallery. The website is produced by Maurice A. Christie, whose father worked at the SOE Laboratories that were to make and test some of the first James Bond type Gadgets. He was later sent on a undercover operation in Singapore.
Canadian Military Heritage Project: This website is dedicated to presenting Canadian military history - the wars, uprisings and conflicts in which Canadians participated. The goal of the project is to preserve the records and memories of Canadians who served their country, and to ensure that their sacrifices are not forgotten. The website provides historical background for each conflict, chronological timelines, statistics, battles, weaponry, uniforms & equipment, famous Canadians, biographies of soldiers, heroes and their stories, contributions of women, other countries who participated, muster rolls for conflicts before 1900, letters from soldiers at the front, music and poetry, guest authors' submissions and links to other online resources.
Women Come to the Front is a website devoted to women who worked as journalists, photographers and broadcasters during the Second World War. This includes articles such as War, Women and Opportunity and Seeds of Change and biographies of Therese Bonney, Toni Frissell, Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, Esther Bubley, Dorothea Lange and May Craig. There is also a full list of accredited women correspondents employed during the war.
Life and Times of Winston Churchill: The most comprehensive website on Winston Churchill on the Internet. There is a day by day account of his life and a complete list of books written by Churchill. Other sections include Churchill's speeches and quotes, Churchill trivia, debates about Churchill, and reviews of early books by Churchill.
Bob Baxter's Bomber Command: This website provides an overall and concise view of the role of Bomber Command in World War II. At the press of a button can be seen the memories of the men who flew in the bombers, and the men on the ground who kept them flying night after night. Three main targets in that nightmare of all bomber crews 'the Ruhr' of Germany are highlighted, along with aspects of those dark and dangerous days and more than a glimpse of the impact and dedication of Bomber Command and its crews. The web site also has a typical airfield layout as it was in WWII. The most famous and productive bomber of WWII, the Lancaster is fully illustrated with photographs and text plus a very detailed photograph of the Merlin engines that carried the bomber to and from the target on countless occasions from 1942 to 1945.
The Niztor Project: A website dedicated to the millions of Holocaust victims who suffered and died at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Subjects covered include the Holocaust Camps, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, The Nuremberg Trials, Techniques of Holocaust Denial, Trial of Adolf Eichmann and Holocaust Revisionism.
D-Day Letters: The D-day invasion began with a dangerous attack by American paratroopers. Dropped behind enemy lines to soften up the German troops and to secure needed targets, the paratroopers knew that if the accompanying assault by sea failed - there would be no rescue. Departing from Portland Bill on the English Coast, the 101st and 82nd US Airborne Divisions were dropped on the Cherbourg Peninsula. From that point, the 101st division was to secure the western end behind UTAH and head off an eastern German advance. The 82nd, landing farther inland, was to seize the bridges and halt an advance from the west. This PBS website contains a collection of letters written by the paratroopers involved in this action. The words of the soldiers relay the many emotions experienced by the men who fought on D-day.
Douglas MacArthur: No soldier in modern history has been more admired - or more reviled than Douglas MacArthur. The liberator of the Philippines, shogun of Occupied Japan, brilliant victor of the Battle of Inchon, was an admired national hero when he was suddenly relieved of his command. This PBS website concentrates on MacArthur in the Philippines during the Second World War and his conflict with Harry S. Truman in 1951.
Nazi and East German Propaganda: Propaganda was central to Nazi Germany and the postwar German Democratic Republic. The German Propaganda Archive website maintained by Randall Bytwerk, includes both propaganda itself and material produced for the guidance of propagandists. The goal is to help people understand the two great totalitarian systems of the 20th Century by giving them access to the primary material. The website includes speeches, posters, cartoons and photographs.
Battle of Midway: In a three day battle between June 3-6, 1942 United States land and carrier-based planes decisively repulsed a heavy Japanese naval and air assault. Japanese casualties included loss of 275 planes, four large carriers, two heavy cruisers, and three destroyers and damage to three battleships and four cruisers. American losses included one carrier, one destroyer and 150 planes. This website, produced by the US Department of the Navy, provides an illustrated account of this important battle.
Navajo Code Talkers: Early in 1942 Philip Johnson, met Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and suggested that the U.S. Marines used the Navajo language as a secret code. Johnson, who had grown up on an Navajo Reservation, argued that because it of its complex syntax, tonal qualities and dialect, the Japanese cryptographers would find it impossible to decipher. He also pointed out that Navajo was not a written language and less than 30 non-Navajos understood it. Vogel was convinced by Johnson's arguments and it was decided to establish a Navajo code programme at Camp Pendleton at Oceanside, California. Over the next three years over 400 Navajos agents were trained to use the code and around 300 saw action in the field. Speaking Navajo and using an additional code within that, they were able to convey information and orders among Marine units and Navy warships and aircraft. This website provides an overview of the subject plus links to other related resources including a Navajo Code Talker Lesson, a Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary, a Navajo Code Cipher Simulation and the Windtalkers film.
Evacuation: During World War II, children and those at risk were taken to places of safety to protect them from bombs and war damage. The well-known story of evacuation sees people evacuated from London to the countryside. However, this doesn't tell the whole story. Some children were evacuated to other British Dominions (countries that were part of the British Empire) such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. In this Public Record Office website students can investigate what happened to a number of children who were evacuated to Canada by examining official government documents and records.
Oradour-sur-Glane: During the D-day landings in June, 1944, the Maquis and other French Resistance groups rose up to help in the liberation of their country. These armed resistance groups were able to slow down the attempt by the SS Panzer Division to get to the Normandy beaches. The German authorities decided to carry out a revenge attack that would frighten the French people into submission. On 10th June a group of SS soldiers led by Major Adolf Diekmann entered Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in the Haute-Vienne region of France. He ordered the execution of more than 600 men, women and children before setting fire to the village. This website provides a detailed account of this terrible war crime.
War, Media and Propaganda: In 1939 Joseph Goebbels remarked: "We cannot be satisfied with just telling the people what we want. We have to keep hammering on at them until they become addicted to us." This statement is included in the Flanders Field Museum's online exhibition on war, the media and propaganda in the 20th century. The exhibition starts with stories from Belgium in 1914 about nuns were being raped by German soldiers to the claims that Kuwaiti babies were being snatched from hospital incubators by occupying Iraqi troops in 1991.
Second World War Open Directory: This comprehensive directory contains 737 websites on the Second World War: Air Forces (98), Arts and Literature (14), Atomic (56), Directories (3), Documents, Manuscripts and other Primary Sources (3), Education and Academic (3), Land Forces (36), Naval Forces (63), People (183), Regional (133), Theaters of Operations (162), War Crimes (2) and Weapons and Equipment (43).
World War II: The Homefront: This website created by Jacob Crouch, Ben Gould, and Scott Hays for ThinkQuest, an educational web site building contest for high school children world wide. It includes a timeline, an impressive artifact museum and a simulation that allows students to follow the lives of five American families during the school year of September 1943-June 1944.
Military Obituaries: A collection of obituaries of men who played a significant role in the Second World War. The obituaries originally appeared in the Daily Telegraph and The Times and includes figures such as Johnnie Johnson, Leo Marks, Patrick Porteous, Geoffrey Page, Marcus Oliphant, Charles Merritt, Vera Atkins, Thomas Ferebee, Jean Pierre Bloch, Harriet Waddy, Telford Taylor and John Howard.
Katyn Massacre: Katyn Forest is a wooded area near Gneizdovo village, a short distance from Smolensk in Russia where, in 1940 on Stalin's orders, the NKVD shot and buried over 4000 Polish service personnel that had been taken prisoner when the Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939. In 1943 the Nazis exhumed the Polish dead and blamed the Soviets. In 1944, having retaken the Katyn area from the Nazis, the Soviets exhumed the Polish dead again and blamed the Nazis. In 1989 Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet NKVD had executed the 25,700 Poles in Katyn. This website includes four articles on this terrible tragedy.
Polish Home Army: The division of Poland into two occupied zones, German and Soviet, in 1939, did not break the will of the Polish people and they continued to fight for freedom. In Warsaw, before the surrender, a secret military organization was set up with the approval of the Supreme Commander, who was already in Romania. General Michael Karszewicz-Tokarzewski took command of what became known as the Polish Home Army. This website provides a detailed account of Polish resistance during the Second World War.
Warsaw Uprising: As the Red Army advanced into Poland during the summer of 1944, Soviet contacts in Warsaw encouraged the underground Home Army, supported by the exiled Polish government in London, to stage an uprising. Polish resistance troops led by General Tadeusz Komorowski gained control of the city. However, the Soviet Army reached the suburb of the city but failed to give help to the insurgents, or allow the western Allies to use Soviet air bases to airlift supplies to the Poles. On the 2nd October the Poles were forced to surrender. This article by Tadeusz Kondracki provides a detailed account of the Warsaw Uprising.
Polish Resistance in the Second World War: The Polish Home Army was the largest underground resistance army during the Second World war. 300,000 strong at its peak it is credited with supplying the Allies with constant intelligence information about the eastern front, providing information about the V-1 rocket in Peenemunde, the sending over to Britain of the V-2 rocket, the sabotage and destruction of German supply trains and communication centres. It carried out the war’s largest uprising (the Warsaw Rising) which lasted 63 days.
45th Infantry Division: The 45th Infantry Division was one of four National Guard Divisions activated in 1940 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, foreseeing the possibility of war on the horizon. The campaigns it fought in were Sicily, Naples- Fogia, Anzio, Rome-Arno, Southern France, Central Europe, Ardennes Alsace, and Rhineland. The World War II Recreation Association in conjunction with BSA Venturing Crew 1941 have developed a website to preserve the history of the 45th Infantry Division and the individual Veterans who served in it.
Home Front: During the Second World War a school teacher in England was imprisoned for "advancing defeatist theories" to his pupils. This is one of the interesting facts included in this online simulation on the Home Front. In the lesson the students have to imagine they are living in Britain in December 1941. The students are the asked to write a report on one aspect of government policy (evacuation, rationing, refugees, etc.). Every student has to report back to the class about the topic he or she has investigated. They then provide a report on what has been happening in their assigned area since the outbreak of the war. The student then has to make proposals about the changes they would like to see in government policy. These proposals are then discussed and voted on by the rest of the class.
Sisters of Resistance: This PBS film chronicles the heroism and lifelong friendships of four young non-Jewish women who were imprisoned in concentration camps during the Second World War for their resistance to the Nazi occupation of France. On the accompanying website you can follow the lives of the four brave women highlighted in the film from just before the war until liberation. You can also go deeper into the fascinating stories of French Resistance heroes Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, Jacqueline Pery d'Alincourt, Anise Postel-Vinay and Germaine Tillion, in this untold story of the Holocaust.
Camp 198: On the night of 10th March 1945, Seventy German prisoners tunnelled to freedom from Camp 198 in Bridgend. It was the biggest escape attempt made by German P.O.W.s in Great Britain during the Second World War. This website provides an indepth look at this event and includes the actual BBC News recording reporting the escape, newspaper reports and an interview with Carl Brockmeyer, one of the German prisoners at Camp 198.
Lord Haw-Haw: On 26th August 1939 William Joyce, the former Propaganda Director of the British Union of Fascists, left for Nazi Germany. Soon after arriving in Berlin he found work with the German Radio Corporation as an English language broadcaster. Joyce joined the 'German Calling' programme and in September 1939 and as a result of a comment made in the Daily Express, he acquired the name, Lord Haw-Haw. A survey in January 1940 revealed that over a quarter of the British population admitted listening to Joyce's broadcasts. This website provides a brief biography of Joyce and contains extracts from his broadcasts.
Remembering the Blitz: For those who lived through it, the Blitz is an event that can never be forgotten. Large areas of London were entirely flattened by bombing, 20,000 people were killed, and 1.4 million were made homeless. This exclusively on-line exhibition includes photographs, memorabilia and recorded memories drawn from the Museum's Oral History Archive. In addition, for a period of 8 months, from 7 September 2000 to 11 May 2001 - exactly 60 years after the event - web visitors were invited to send us their own recollections of the Blitz. Often poignant and full of new insights, these memories now form an integral part of the exhibition itself.
Westall's War: At 11.12 pm on Saturday May 3rd 1941 the Air Raid Alert sounded over North Shields. In the East End of the town, locals hurried as usual to the air raid shelter beneath Wilkinson's lemonade factory .At midnight, a single bomb from a lone German raider scored a direct hit on the shelter. 103 people, many of them women and children were killed. It was the worst bombing incident in north east England during World War II. Robert Westall, the award-winning author of The Machine Gunners, was a North Shields schoolboy at the time. His father was an ARP warden in the town. Westall used his wartime experiences as a backdrop to many of his novels. Westall's War explores the Wilkinson's disaster using quotations from the novels to introduce archival sources.
World War II Plus 55: This award-winning web-page, hosted on the site of the battleship USS Washington's reunion group, is a day-by-day history of World War II. Begun as a weekly e-mail to entertain the US Naval Antarctic Support Unit in New Zealand for the 55th anniversary of World War II, it expanded like a fungus to its present size. Written in a day-by-day, present-tense format, it is designed to convey the war as it happened, with special emphasis placed on the experiences of those who fought in the conflict.
The People's War: A growing collection of personal accounts of the Second World War is included on this BBC website. This includes How a Russian Family Survived a German Labour Camp (Svetlana Ponkratova), Burma, 1945 (Bill Hopkins), Memories of a Black British Serviceman (Allan Wilmot), From Captivity to Freedom (Les Birch), The Royal Navy on Omaha Beach (Kevan Elsby), Germans in Blackpool (Harry Gallagher), Growing up in Wartime Essex (Christine Hacklett) and Boyhood at War (James Cameron).
The Home Guard: When the British and French armies were defeated in France by the Germans in May 1940 the future looked very bad. Britain was the last big country in Europe still fighting Hitler and faced the real threat of an invasion from the Germans across the sea from France. The British army had been badly weakened by the defeat in France so the government quickly set up a volunteer army to make Britain harder to invade. This was originally called the Local Defence Volunteers but was later known as the Home Guard. It was sometimes nicknamed 'Dad's army' because it was made up of volunteers who were too old to serve in the regular army. This excellent Public Record Office website takes a close look at the activities of the Home Guard during the Second World War.
After the Day of Infamy: On December 8, 1941 (the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), Alan Lomax, then "assistant in charge" of the Archive of American Folk Song sent a telegram to fieldworkers in ten different localities across the United States, asking them to collect "man-on-the-street" reactions of ordinary Americans to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by the United States. A second series of interviews was recorded in January and February 1942. Both collections are included on this website. They feature a wide diversity of opinion concerning the war and other social and political issues of the day, such as racial prejudice and labour disputes. The result is a portrait of everyday life in America as the United States entered World War II.
Bombing of Dresden: In 1945, Arthur Harris decided to create a firestorm in the medieval city of Dresden. He considered it a good target as it had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns. The population of the city was now far greater than the normal 650,000 due to the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. On the 13th February 1945, 773 Avro Lancasters bombed Dresden. During the next two days the USAAF sent over 527 heavy bombers to follow up the RAF attack. Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. This website uses the words of Arthur Harris and Winston Churchill to help explain why it was thought important to destroy Dresden.
Seuss and the Second World War: Theodor Seuss Geisel was a life-long cartoonist. He is mainly known for his children's books but for two years, 1941-1943, he was the chief editorial cartoonist for the New York newspaper PM, and for that journal he drew over 400 editorial cartoons. The cartoons in this website are arranged in chronological order, by year, by month, by day. These images are also browsable by subject terms such as Hitler and Japan.
D-Day: On June 6 1944, the largest armada in history launched an assault on the Normandy beaches. It was the decisive moment in the second world war. So how did it feel to be there on that tumultuous day? To mark the 60th anniversary of D-day, the Guardian has unearthed a series of letters written home by the combatants. This website also includes a dispatch from Martha Gellhorn, the American war correspondent who joined the landings and several articles by David Woodward, the Manchester Guardian war correspondent, who was one of three journalists who were landed in France from the air.
Camp X Historical Society: This organization was established in recognition of the courageous men and women who served in the British Security Coordination (BSC), Special Operations Executive (SOE), and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) - those men and women who were trained in subversive warfare and covert techniques, those who fought behind enemy lines, who lived in the shadows, or who served at Camp X. The Society, established in November 1998, is a registered not-for-profit (charitable) Historical Society within the Province of Ontario, Canada. The Society’s primary mandate is conducting research for the purpose of documenting the Camp’s history, the conservation of artifacts, and community education. The Society spends a considerable amount of time and resources working with veteran agents and former Camp X staff and instructors in an effort to document and catalogue properly their experiences for historical research purposes and to preserve the memory of the Camp for future generations.
BBC D-Day: On 6 June, 1944, the Allies began the liberation of Europe with the most daring seaborne invasion in history. Sixty years on, you can commemorate D-day with the BBC. D-day features past and present; audio/ video coverage of events. The website includes an article by Duncan Anderson where he explains how meticulous planning, good luck and sheer guts made D-day one of the greatest triumphs. There is also an interactive game to play and all the details of the radio and television programmes being broadcast to commemorate one of the most important events in history.
D-day, Normandy and Beyond: The main objective of this site is keeping the memory alive of the sacrifice these brave men and women made when liberating Europe. A feature of this site is the many personal photographs, poems, letters, maps and stories contributed by the veterans themselves to be preserved here for future generations. So far 134 unique eyewitness accounts have been added to the website. Most of these accounts are from American veterans but a growing number of soldiers from other countries are adding their stories.
Normandy 1944: This is one of the Encyclopedia Britannica's online study guides and contains a detailed account of the D-day landings by the historian, John Keegan. It also includes vivid newsreel footage of the landings and radio broadcasts such as the one made by Richard Dimbleby in a Spitfire squadron over Normandy. The audio archive also includes accounts by Ralph Crenshaw (crossing the Atlantic on LST 44) and a speech by General Bernard Montgomery. Special Exhibitions are available: The Leaders and the Generals, Training, Fortress Europa and Seven Soldiers in Normandy. There are also clips from several documentaries including D-Day Remembered and Life in London.
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Educational Websites
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