World War II: Difference between revisions
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{{Useful Notes}}
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{{quote|''"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"''|'''Joseph Goebbels''', 1943 <ref>
The roots of humanity's greatest conflict go back centuries, but the immediate causes of the war lay in the resolution of the [[World War I|First World War]] and the Great Depression.
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Around this time, Russia is busy somehow losing (by most people's definition) a war to Finland... despite having done quite well in a border clash with Japan just a year previously at a place called Khalkhin Gol, which has lead to an informal non-aggression pact with Japan in the Far East (to be formalised next year, expiring in 1946). Despite greatly outnumbering the Finns in almost every conceivable way, the Soviets perform ''horribly''. After six months, the Russians have taken only a few miles of land beyond the border. Part of this is due to Stalin's purges of the 1930s, which left the Red Army in no position to challenge the state, but in an even worse position to wage war. The Finns had neither the population nor the economy to prosecute the war, so they eventually surrendered and gave up some territory that was mostly worthless, but only after they had inflicted incredibly disproportionate losses on their much larger opponent. On a brighter note, the campaign finally gives a name to one of the war's most eponymous improvised weapons. When the Russians started dropping cluster and incendiary bombs on Finnish towns, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov [[Blatant Lies|claimed they were actually dropping food - 'Bread Baskets' - for the starving Finnish proletariat.]]. The Finns subsequently dub their improvised petrol bombs, of the type used by desperate infantrymen trying to take out tanks in China and Spain, "Molotov cocktails". [[Don't Explain the Joke|'Cocktails', because they're a drink to go down with the 'bread'.]]
Mussolini feels left out of all this conquest, so the Italians promptly invade the Balkans and
On February 14, 1941, the newly promoted Major General [[Erwin Rommel]] (formerly commander of the 7th Panzer Division, notable for its stunning maneuvers in the Battle of France, which earned it the nickname "The Ghost Division".) arrives in Tripoli to begin supervising the offloading of his new command. Leading what is dubbed the "Deutsches Afrikakorps", Rommel finds himself both undermanned and under-equipped. But does that stop him? Nope. He orders his troops to begin moving as quickly as possible, plowing through British positions in Egypt. Only a desperate counterattack drives Rommel back, showcasing how the war in Africa will be fought for the next year. Nevertheless, the African Front will come to be known as the most humane and romanticized combat zone of the war, where Rommel becomes a well-respected commander ([[Worthy Opponent|earning praise from Winston Churchill himself]]). However, the war in Africa is only seen as a sideshow for the true campaign, where the bulk of German troops and equipment will be used (depriving Rommel of much-needed reinforcement for his offensives).
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== Germany vs. the Soviet Union ==
After failing to bring Britain down, Hitler looks east to his old
It's pretty obvious that to effectively wage war on the vast lands of USSR, one would need to avoid open hostility from the non-conscripted populace, ideally gaining their support. The "special" governing practices of Stalin and the Communist Party (which among other things included confiscating land, grain, mass arrests, exiling and executions) made that quite possible. So German propaganda prepared a number of leaflets with slogans like "beat up jew politruk" and "we're not fighting your nation, we're fighting your Communist leader scum". Initially, that kind of propaganda was met with some understanding, which factored into the early German success. However, Hitler's ultimate goal was of expanding Greater Germany into the east, not liberating oppressed peoples. In fact, he viewed the Russians as vermin, that were spoiling the farmland and 'Lebensraum' (living space) he was planning on colonizing. Of course, these "subhumans" had to be replaced with proper Aryan settlers, so whenever the local villagers come out cheering, happy to be liberated from Stalin, the Germans just [[Villain Ball|blasted them anyway]].
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the third Axis power, [[Imperial Japan]], is going nowhere fast. On paper, the Empire and its puppets control a third of China, half her population and almost all her industry. In reality occupied China teems with bandits and guerrillas, and one only has to travel twenty miles from a railroad or river to find territory beyond Imperial control. On paper, the Republic's troops outnumber those of the Empire and her allies by three-to-one; in reality, only half these troops answer to the central government led by the Guomindang, the Chinese Nationalists under Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi we mentioned earlier. The superiority of Japanese equipment, training, unit organisation and command structure - [[Death From Above|not to mention air-power]], which is being used to level Chinese towns and cities more or less with impunity (typically by [[Kill It with Fire|fire-bombing]] them) - has counted for nothing in the face of the vast size of China and her massive population. For instance, the Chinese have virtually no anti-tank weapons; but the Japanese have virtually no tanks in working order they can bring to where they are needed except in the on-and-off meat-grinder battles which rage through the hills of southern and central China. The attrition rate for the Guomindang's core armies over the past four years has been at least half. In a relatively unmolested, mountainous province of north-central China, a young Communist official is slowly offing his rivals to become the leader of the socialist commune there, the largest in the country. His name is [[Mao Zedong]].
After the fall of France, Japan takes the opportunity to effectively seize the French colony of
Rational officers like Admiral Yamamato, who understand the US's real strength - c.30% of World GDP to Japan's c.3%, and nearly 51% of the entire world's industrial capacity, albeit much of it still idled by the Great Depression - object to this [[Honor Before Reason]] line of suicidal thinking, but are [[My Country, Right or Wrong|duty-bound]] to follow the government's orders. Yamamato decides that, if this course must be taken, Japan's best chance of victory lies in making a preemptive strike at the US Pacific Fleet, then based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; hopefully, the USA will simply drop its sanctions and negotiate a peace treaty instead of going to the enormous expense and inconvenience of replacing much of its fleet and taking the offensive to Japan.
After six months of planning and training, a taskforce based around six Japanese aircraft carriers moves out under complete secrecy and on December 7, 1941, catch the Americans completely off guard, wrecking much of the American fleet. Unfortunately (for them), the US fleet's aircraft carriers are at sea and Yamamoto's subordinate Admiral Nagumo is correspondingly cautious, choosing to withdraw rather than launch a third wave of bombers against the base facilities themselves (thereby leaving the fleet vulnerable to a carrier-based counter-attack). Thus Pearl Harbor's drydocks, machine shops, naval headquarters, storehouses and fuel reserves - without which the remnants of the fleet could have been left stranded - are left intact.
The Cabinet has, however, completely misread the motivations of their enemy. Again. Not only does the US enter the war on the side of the Allies, but it begins a massive re-armament program to rebuild its fleet and take the war to Japan. Hitler promptly commits one of the greatest strategic blunders of all time by declaring war on the United States in support of his ally. Thus as 1941 comes to a close the Germans, who six months before had only faced the British Empire and its Commonwealth, are now at war with the three most powerful non-Axis nations on Earth. Econometrics - the discipline of assigning concrete figures to economic factors - tells us that at this point the defeat of the Axis is inevitable, their poor decision-making having doomed them.
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Meanwhile, Soviet command has already decided that army should launch an offensive in the Ukraine, expecting a renewal of the German assault on Moscow. However, the Germans have already persuaded Hitler to launch an offensive in the Ukraine as well, having convinced him that the bulk of Russian defenses will be concentrated around Moscow. Consequently, the two forces trip over one another; the Soviet one is encircled and almost totally wiped out, having delayed the German offensive for about two days at the most and leaving the entire front significantly weaker as a result. Advancing towards the southern reaches of the Volga River and into the Caucasus with its rich oil reserves, the panzers are on the move again. Hitler takes a lot of territory, but the Soviet armies in the sector fight a retreat all the way to an industrial city called Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga (its original name is Tsaritsyn and its current name is Volgograd, but it had been renamed Stalingrad because Stalin was the commander of Red troops there during the Russian Civil War). Hitler becomes increasingly convinced that taking the city directly by brute force will win the war - in all fairness, the city ''is'' a major transport hub through which the products of Soviet industry and Allied lend-lease material make their way to Moscow - and so the Germans and Soviets fight a bloody, titanic battle in the streets and in buildings of the city. As the Spring grinds on, it becomes clear that Germany doesn't quite have the strength to take both Stalingrad ''and'' the Caucasus oil, and may end up with neither as a consequence of trying for both.
In November
== The Pacific Conflict ==
The tide of battle has turned in the Pacific as well at the end of Japan's six month window of strategic advantage as Admiral Yamamoto warned would happen. In the mid-Pacific, a Japanese attempt to destroy the American fleet and capture the island of Midway leads to disaster. American code-breakers have managed to crack Japan's primary naval encryption and know the fleet's every move. Even better, American dive bombers just happen to catch the Imperial Japanese Navy at a moment when all its planes are being reloaded for an another
In the southern Pacific, the Japanese offensive is slowed when an Allied flotilla intercepts the Japanese landing force intended for Southern New Guinea, forcing them to turn back. An overland advance southwards through the mountains is halted by a scratch force of Australian militiamen and regulars and the Americans retake the airbase-island Guadalcanal. Much of the momentum of the southern offensive was lost due to the unanticipated effect of partisan and guerrilla resistance, particularly in the Philippines, while the Guadalcanal campaign turns into a six-month meat
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Meanwhile the Imperial Army has mobilized just shy of half a million men for a final offensive against the forces of the Nationalist Party - Operation Ichigo. High Command's reasoning is that if the IJA can defeat Jiang Jieshi's 'core armies' in the field, they can go on the offensive and capture the Nationalists' last stronghold in the Sichuan basin. If they can capture this, the last agricultural area outside nominal Japanese control, the Nationalists will be forced to either surrender or starve and the Chinese warlords nominally allied with the Nationalists will (hopefully) join the Japanese rather than be wiped out one by one. If this happens, then China will effectively be secured for Japan and up to a million veterans of the seven-year China Incident will be freed up for duties elsewhere. This is the plan is presented to the ruling clique at home; but the real plan is far more realistic, which speaks volumes about the psychosis at the heart of the Imperial Cabinet. High Command hopes to eliminate certain Nationalist pockets, improving the logistics situation by linking up all their forces and capturing or rendering unsafe - or simply unsupplyable - the American airbases in Nationalist territory in the process. Many of said airbases are fairly close to the front lines and the planes operating from them are threatening Japanese troops and supply lines all over China, forcing valuable fighters into escort duty for strategic fire-bombing missions. The suddenness and intensity of the offensive catches the Nationalists off-guard, but even as the battles rage another offensive on the other side of the world catches the world's attention.
In Europe, Germany's situation goes from bad to worse when the Western
At this point, several German officers decide they've had enough, and try to save Germany from total destruction under Hitler's rule. There had been resistance to the Nazis and Hitler ever since they came to power in 1933. However, the spectacular victories in Poland and France quelled these notions for a bit, until the Eastern Front became a massive retreat. On July 20, 1944, Colonel-Count Claus von Stauffenberg plants a bomb in Hitler's Wolf's Lair Headquarters. As part of the plan, other German officers prepare to initiate Operation Valkyrie, a contingency operation in the event of a breakdown in command and control (which they carefully reworded to allow for the arrest of SS and Nazi officials). However, Stauffenberg is interrupted and only packs half the planned amount of explosives into the bomb, which also detonates on the other side of a table leg, creating just enough of a shield for Hitler to survive with minor wounds. While they had intended to launch Valkyrie even if Hitler survived, the plotters in Berlin nonetheless wait several hours for confirmation that he had been killed. By the end of the day, the plot is in shambles and Stauffenberg is summarily executed. More than 5000 people were also executed in connection to the plot by the end of the war, including the famed Erwin Rommel, whose direct connection with the plot (like many others who died) was dubious.
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In the Pacific the Americans capture the island of Saipan after a terrible land and sea battle. The Japanese plan is desperate and mostly involves shore-based aircraft as the Americans outnumber them three to one in carriers, a sure sign that they're about to be crushed under the weight of US industrial production. The sea battle, officially known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea is quickly dubbed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot when US pilots equipped with a new generation of carrier-borne fighters shoot down nearly 500 aircraft with virtually no losses of their own, effectively exterminating the last of Japan's trained naval aviators. The US Navy in turn loses approximately 100 aircraft (most due to fuel starvation) in their own counter-strike but manage to sink one Japanese carrier and seriously damage three others. Adding injury to further injury, two further Japanese carriers go down at the hands of US submarines, though by this point the loss of their carriers matters little since the Japanese no longer have the pilots to man them. The land battle is the usual horrific slog against deeply entrenched and fanatical Imperial defenders, though Saipan is different in that it is the first island taken to contain a significant population of Japanese civilians, most of whom commit suicide, horrifying all observers.
Saipan (and nearby Tinian, captured soon after) are close enough to allow US bombers to strike the Japanese Home Islands. This is initially of limited effectiveness,as strong winds over Japan make precision bombing impossible. Once someone suggests using [[Kill It with Fire|fire-bombs]] (sound familiar?) to set the cities ablaze, the bombing becomes much more effective and the war has finally come full circle as the very nation that started out decrying Japanese "terror bombing" in China is now deliberately targeting civilians themselves. Like many contemporary Chinese buildings, most Japanese buildings of the time used a lot of flammable materials ----wood, bamboo, rattan, rice
== End of the War in Europe ==
In Europe, despite Allied control of the air, the loss of their most experienced forces, and destruction of their factories, the Germans have one advantage left: they are no longer trying to defend all of Western Europe and the Allied supply problems are at critical levels. Hitler takes a leaf out of his Eastern Ally's book and gathers what offensive strength he has left to hurl it at the Western Allies in a surprise attack. In December 1944, his legions attack through the Ardennes - the same route by which they snuck into France four and a half years before - in a desperate and ill-advised attempt to cut a wedge between the American and British forces. However, there is a huge difference between the Ardennes of
The "Battle of the Bulge" results in German gains for a few days under the cover of bad weather, then an inevitable defeat as Hitler's tanks run out of fuel and are left behind as his troops are pushed back by Allied counter-attacks, especially when the streak of cloudy days runs out and the Allies' air forces can resume operations. This defeat essentially breaks the back of Germany's power to resist in the West. Germany is now a country void of teen- and middle-aged males, who have virtually all been drafted into citizen militias to defend the Fatherland to the last. Meanwhile, the Soviets clear Poland of German forces and push all the way to the Oder river, 56 miles from Berlin, and taking the time to advance through the Balkans, Hungary, and Romania before advancing into Germany proper - so that they will be negotiating the post-war world order from a position of strength. In April
== The Bomb ==
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Even as the Empire crumbles, the government pulls every available boat, plane and tank in the Empire back to the Home Islands (though virtually nothing makes it through the blockade) and conscripts as much of the able-bodied population as can be spared into citizen militias in anticipation of the Allied invasion. What petrol remains is issued to the newly-formed kamikaze speedboat and human-piloted torpedo flotillas; the airforce has long since claimed the last of the aviation fuel for its kamikaze squadrons. On paper, the Volunteer Fighting Corps is more than capable of fending off the invasion on its own; in reality, there are few weapons and even less ammunition to go around, so the teenaged and elderly recruits are taught how to fight with knives, spears and petrol-free molotov cocktails. Others are simply handed a grenade, being told to [[You Know What to Do|make their deaths meaningful]].
Planned for October, there is no attempt to disguise the planned invasion's timing or purpose - not that the Imperial Cabinet has a great track record in accurately anticipating ''anyone'' else's actions thus far. Christened ''[[Meaningful Name|Operation Downfall]]'', [[Beyond the Impossible|it is expected to more than double the total number of Allied military casualties]]. Japanese civilian casualties are expected to surpass Chinese levels, quite a feat considering Japan has only one tenth of China's total population. The Guomindang is on the verge of launching its own offensive, the first of the war, to re-take as much of China as possible before the Soviets get there - Jiang Jieshi fears that the Soviets will turn all the land, weapons and equipment they liberate from the Japanese straight over to the Chinese Communists.
A new weapon, a bomb of immense explosive force, has been developed to support the landings. After witnessing the destructive power of the prototype, some dare to hope that the threat of its use may be enough to force Japanese surrender. In the American state of New Mexico, a multinational team of scientists headed by Robert Oppenheimer have test-detonated the [[Atomic Hate|first nuclear bomb]]. The Allies ask Japan to surrender unconditionally; unsurprisingly, they refuse. A nuclear bomb is dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 70,000-80,000 people die almost instantly, at least as many again will succumb to radiation over the months and years that follow; another dropped on the city of Nagasaki on August 9 has much the same effect. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union honours its promises to the Allies and declares war on Japan in violation of their Non-Aggression Pact of 1941, the mechanised columns of the Red Army making short work of Japan's North China Army. The Allies bargain for the half of Korea south of the 38th parallel north as they tell the Emperor Showa that there are more such atom bombs to come, as if the imminent threat of invasion weren't enough. Facing a looming unstoppable invasion from the sea on two fronts, an unassailable naval blockade that no "Divine Wind" would ever remove and total nuclear destruction from the air, the Emperor himself calls it quits and sues for peace on August 14, effectively commanding his subjects to accept his decision in his first-ever radio broadcast to the whole Empire. A formal surrender is signed on September 2.
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* [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]: Ralph Bagnold among others. Several of these bear a surprising resemblance to Indiana Jones.
** The Nazis had some of their own, too: The Ahnenerbe.
* [[All of Them]]: An [[Urban Legend]] states that on
{{quote|'''Soldier:''' Allied ships in the Channel!
'''Command:''' How many?
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** It's worth noting that one of the reasons the invasion was planned for Normandy instead of Calais was the English Channel off Calais ''wasn't wide enough to hold all of the ships''.
*** Another reason was that British intelligence believed (correctly) that the Nazi High Command was inclined to expect the attack at Calais, where the Channel is narrowest. As it is usually easiest to deceive the enemy with the appearance of what they expect, considerable efforts were made to create the illusion that the attack would occur at Calais. The deceit worked so well that Hitler and the Nazi High Command continued to believe that the Normandy landings were diversionary for long enough that they were irrevocably entrenched by the time forces began to be repositioned to try to stop them.
* [[America Wins the War]]: To this day, many Westerners do not appreciate the extent to which the war in Europe was mainly fought and mostly decided on the Eastern Front.
** The World War II monument in Washington DC states "[http://lh3.ggpht.com/_pVXrYi8s2rM/Sui2hpM0sEI/AAAAAAAACDY/0f-Pa3th1DM/DSCF2893%5B10%5D.jpg Americans came to liberate, not to conquer]", at least stating we came, we helped, we left.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: And they do.
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* [[Babies Ever After]]: Most countries experienced heightened birth rates after the war, America so much so that the generation born in the decade immdeiately following has been known as "Baby Boomers" throughout their lives.
* [[Badass]]: Lots of them on all sides.
** Quite notable were the defenders of Westerplatte, in the first days of the war. Despite being completely unprepared (due to the government's indecisiveness whether to prepare for war or not...), they held their position against overwhelming German forces, who considered them [[Worthy Opponent
* [[Badass Army]]: Every army that didn't get [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomped]] in a few months was this. And heck, maybe even those who got stomped (the Finnish and Polish armies). [[And Zoidberg|And some elements of the Italian military.]]
** Except that the Finnish army didn't get stomped. They valiantly protected their sovereignty in both the Winter War of 1939-40 and the Continuation War of 1941-1944 with far less losses than what the Soviet Union suffered.
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* [[Big Badass Wolf]]: German submarine flotillas were called ''wolf-packs''.
** [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] had some fondness for wolf-related names, especially for his military headquarters, not to mention his own name.
* [[Big Bulky Bomb]]: By the middle of the war, the Allies were dropping Blockbuster Bombs on target cities, so named because they could destroy an entire city block. The British also deployed the "Tallboy" and "Grand Slam", single high-explosive bombs that weighed in at 12,000 and ''22,000'' pounds respectively... they were essentially the over-sized and unguided predecessors of modern bunker-busters. By the end, the U.S. had
* [[The Big Guy]]: On a grand scale, the Soviet Union was this for the Allies, fighting over 80% of the German army.
* [[Black and White Morality]]: One of the few historical wars to still routinely get this treatment in fiction. The Axis were bad, the Allies were good. The reality was a lot closer to [[Black and Grey Morality]]; most of the Axis forces were most certainly bad by any sane measure, but the Allies (''[[Token Evil Teammate|especially]]'' [[Token Evil Teammate|Stalin]] {{[[[And Zoidberg]] and Jiang}}]) were no saints.
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** The codebreakers of Bletchley Park definitely fit this trope. A highly eccentric bunch (mathematicians, the odd chess player, and a man who wore a ''gasmask'' to his interview among other folks), these were highly competent yet slightly crazy folks who were charged with breaking the Enigma cipher, the supposedly unbreakable code used by the Germans. By and large, they succeeded.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: The letter V standing for "victory" in English (and assorted similarly rousing messages in other languages) was the Allied call-sign. [[La Résistance]] would draw it in graffiti, [[Winston Churchill]] would be photographed showing the V sign with his fingers and so on.
** The Morse Code for V is dot dot dot dash, hence British radio news broadcasts opened with the opening bar of Beethoven's Fifth
** There is a photo of some Chinese people after the Japanese surrendered. It gets kind of humourous when you notice they're doing the V backwards, [[Don't Explain the Joke|which is an obscene gesture in Britain]].
* [[Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys]]: The [[Trope Maker]] in the American consciousness. The actual truth behind the trope is mixed. It is true that the French generals were quite badly outwitted by the Germans in 1940. It is also true that the French installed an appeaser as Prime Minister (Petain) as soon as Paris was occupied and then signed an armistice with the Germans. Signing an armistice took the powerful French Navy and France's empire out of the war. However, the French Army actually fought very hard and took a lot of casualties in 1940, they were just badly led and lacked of modern means of communication. The troops manning the perimeter at Dunkirk while the British Expeditionary Force withdrew so it could continue the war and protect its home nation were mostly French, , and the Free French Forces led by General Charles De Gaulle kept fighting throughout the whole war . The French Resistance's bravery and daring is rightly the stuff of legend too.
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* [[Cluster F-Bomb]]: A sonuvabitch named [[Four-Star Badass|General George Patton]].
* [[The Coconut Effect]]: For want of a better term, this is in effect all over the place. The Polish cavalry did not really [[Too Dumb to Live|charge the German tanks with lances]]; they operated as mounted infantry and did not fight on horseback in most cases, and were never actually recorded as having fought a panzer unit. Similarly, the Italian army is relentlessly mocked as being [[The Load|ineffective and filled with cowards]]. While they truthfully did suffer a series of disastrous defeats, in most cases it wasn't because of cowardice, but rather [[General Failure|strategic]] and logistical mistakes and/or a lack of sound training. The British actually noted that the Italians they fought in Ethiopia put up a harder fight than just about any other force they fought in the war. Also, most of the army Rommel commanded was actually made of Italians, though he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about their performance. This is mainly because he recognized they were severely under-supported and overtaxed, his main problem was with their superiors.
* [[Cold Sniper]]: [[wikipedia:Simo
* [[Cool Car]]: The Willys Jeep and the Volkswagen Kübelwagen.
* [[Cool Horse]]: [[The Cavalry]] actually had something of a minor comeback in this era because you can buy or steal fodder from peasants, whereas fuel for tanks and other vehicles depended on supply routes. Furthermore, horses can sometimes go where tanks can't. However, they were used as scouts and mounted infantry and were not likely to make a [[Zerg Rush|charge]] unless they caught someone off guard. And even the most [[Good Old Ways|chauvinistic]] of horsemen didn't really think a saber or lance could penetrate a tank's armor.
** While you are correct that charging tanks on horseback was suicidal, there were several famous cavalry actions on the Eastern Front, including the recapture of the cities of Taganrog and Rostov by Cossacks under Kirichenko, and charges by Red Cavalry under Dovator, one at Smolensk in August 1941, and another — through the snow! — during the battle for Moscow.
*** All of which involved flanking the enemy and charging from behind. The Cossacks, being the ultimate [[Combat Pragmatist
** [[Finns With Fearsome Forests|Finland]] had laughably few men and motorised vehicles compared to Soviet Russia, but with those men and ''[[wikipedia:Finnhorse|farm horses]]'' they did rather well in the Winter War. After the war, Russia didn't want to hear about their own captured horses but did accept Finnish horses for indemnity payment.
** It's worth noting that horses were still a vital part of many armies in the form of draft animals hauling supplies and artillery.
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* [[Don't Split Us Up]]: Having learned the hard way from WWI, the European powers fielded mixed brigades composed of recruits from large mixes of villages and towns. The last war had had the bizarre effect of leaving many villages totally depopulated whilst leaving others virtually untouched. This time, the deaths were more evenly distributed. In the USA, the example of the Sullivan Brothers is held up as a justification for this practice.
** History lesson: the Sullivans were a family of five brothers who joined the Navy and insisted on being posted together. They were. The ship they were on was destroyed. In one fell swoop, the poor Sullivan parents lost every single one of their sons.
* [[Eagle Squadron]]: Many. The [[Trope Namer]] was an American unit of volunteers flying with the RAF when the USA was neutral. The Nazis used
** Known for Soviets is French Normandie-Niemen fighter squadron, that fought along with Soviet troops and in the end were permitted to keep planes they flew after their return to France.
* [[Earth Is a Battlefield]]: Also the last time in [[Real Life]] this has been done so far, thanks to the development of [[Atomic Hate|nuclear weapons]].
* [[The Empire]]: The Axis in general, with Japan even being called that.
** Germany, too, if you translate from German
* [[Elites Are More Glamorous]]: In general, this war is recognized as the first one in which major nations fielded unconventional units on a large scale. Let's break it down by country:
** Germany: Rudimentary commando tactics were utilized to [[Storming the Castle|take down a massive fortress on the Polish border]], they would later field the [[Master of Disguise|Brandenburgers]], and the SS generally served as their [[Elite Mooks]].
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* [[Heroic Neutral]]: For a given value of both 'heroic' and 'neutral', until the Japanese Cabinet [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant|ordered an attack]] [[What an Idiot!|on the US Fleet.]]
** Sums up the attitude of most US citizens, at any rate. The US government was just itching for a war with the Axis. The Japanese saw that and the Germans did as well - especially given the undeclared naval war between US naval forces in the Atlantic and the U-boats, not to mention Lend-Lease.
* [[Impossibly Cool Weapon
* [[Home Guard]]: Seen on all sides during the war, from the British [[Trope Namer|Home Guard]] to the American Civil Air Patrol to the German Volkssturm and the Japanese 'Volunteer' Defence Corps.
* [[Honor Before Reason]]: [[Winston Churchill|...We Shall Never Surrender!]]
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*** The Yugoslavians were arguably the most successful of the various resistance movements: they managed to kick the Nazis out without their country being liberated by the forces of any other country - a fact which contributed to Yugoslavia's relative independence from the Eastern Bloc in the [[Cold War]] era.
* [[Last Stand]]: Many of them.
* [[The Laws and Customs of War]]: Incredibly mixed. As a general rule, [[Nazi Germany]] treated the Western Allies as [[Worthy Opponent
** Japanese treatment of Chinese POWs was mixed. Generally they would be bayoneted upon capture or conscripted into the armies of Japanese puppet-warlords. Japanese soldiers were a law unto themselves as far as civilians were concerned, and the IJA holds the dubious honour of being the force with the most sexual assaults to its name. Their treatment of Allied POWs varied a great deal. See the treatment of POWs in the "Bataan Death March" - some got nice comfy rides in vehicles and food and chances to freshen up, others got stabbed to death, shat their pants and were forced to walk while diseased and hungry in the hot sun with no food or water. Sometimes, the Japanese would be very nice and provide food and refreshments or talk to the US soldiers - some were in the same graduation ceremonies in universities in the case of officers - and sometimes the very same people would beat other POWs to death the next day.
** In March 1941, Hitler issued what has come to be known as the ‘Commissar Order,’ which clearly spelled out the future nature of the war in Russia. The coming conflict was to be "one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be waged with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting hardness." It also instructed Hitler’s subordinates to execute commissars and exonerated his soldiers of any future excess. "Any German soldier who breaks international law will be pardoned," the Führer stated. At a subsequent gathering to explain the application of this order to senior army officers, General Edwin Reinecke, the officer responsible for the treatment of POWs, told his audience, "The war between Germany and Russia is not a war between two states or two armies, but between two ideologies — namely, the National Socialist and the Bolshevist ideology. The Red Army soldier must be looked upon not as a soldier in the sense of the word applying to our Western opponents, but as an ideological enemy. He must be regarded as the archenemy of National Socialism and must be treated accordingly."
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*** Wot, no [[Adolf Hitler|Fuehrer]]? (On a train in Austria, after the war)
* [[Music to Invade Poland To]]: Hirohito, to show solidarity with Germany, started a tradition, which continues to this day, of singing "Ode to Joy" on New Years. Never mind that Beethoven himself would've despised what the Axis Powers were doing. But, well, see [[Prophecy Twist]].
* [[Music for Courage]]: The glory days of military orchestras and [[Glamorous Wartime Singer
** All [[La Résistance|Resistance]] movements throughout Europe had songs in their native languages. Among the most famous, the French [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUZWlf_vuKg ''"Chant des Partisans"''].
* [[Neutral No Longer]]: Both the United States and the Soviet Union initially refused to take part in the conflict. [[Waking the Sleeping Giant|They both got involved when they were attacked by the Axis.]]
* [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]]: [[Casablanca|It was 1941, and all of America was asleep.]] [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant|Then Yamamoto bombed Pearl Harbor,]] [[Trope Namer|and all of America woke up.]]
** In December 1941, Hitler was simultaneously facing the United Kingdom, its Commonwealth ''and'' the Soviet Union, which together comprised a rather significant portion of the Earth's surface and population. This wasn't enough for him, however, so he decided to antagonize the one major power left on Earth that was not (actively) trying to crush him beyond hope of recognition by declaring war on the United States. Which left the share of world population and GDP actively working against him and his allies at over two thirds each, roughly, to his less than a fifth on both counts. Herr Derr indeed.
** Invading the Soviet
*** Especially noting, that Hitler said that fighting in two fronts will ruin Germany.
* [[Nightmare Fuel]]: If overall [[War Is Hell]] isn't enough, there's always Dr. Mengele, the people he worked with and the people he didn't work with - Japan's Kwantung Army Group, who did similar things and some even worse.
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* [[Proud Warrior Race]]: Of course. [[Those Wacky Nazis]] were obsessed with being this. They cared little for the [[Real Life]] Germany and only wanted to make Germany into an idealized, pure [[Utopia Justifies the Means|Utopia]].
** Japan was this as well. The whole country was ruled by a militaristic frenzy, and even generals were in danger of being "fragged" if they weren't warlike enough. Italy wanted to do this but was too lazy to quite cut it and instead became [[Chew Toy|mocked]] for years after, even though they did put up a better showing than is generally made out.
** [[The British Empire]] contained a lot of examples of a [[Proud Warrior Race]], some fairly traditional with a rather condescending [[Noble Savage]] reputation. Several were from [[The Raj]], like [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse|Nepali]],[[Church Militant|Sikhs]] and [[The Rustler|Pushtans]]. Aside from that, [[Aussies With Artillery|Australians]] might qualify very well. The [[Badass Israeli|pre-Israel "Yishuv"
*** And the most legendary fighters in the war, so effective that German soldiers feared meeting them in battle more than any other foe on the Western front: the [[Canucks With Chinooks|Canadians]]. [[Beware the Nice Ones|Seriously]].
** Given what they were fighting with, the Poles gave a pretty good account of themselves.
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{{quote|"...we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."}}
** Let's be honest. [[wikipedia:Sportpalast speech|"Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?"]]
** At
*** Levitan was radio announcer and gave plenty of them, and Nazis hated him for that, Hitler even declared him personal enemy. Germans tried hard to kill him, and there were even reports of German shooting active loudspeakers to silence him.
** Charles De Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June 1940.
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** The [[Semper Fi|US Marines]] in the Pacific campaign seemed to act like ants given the casualty rates in the first waves in some cases.
*** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] for the Marines: it is important to keep on pushing after the initial landing. This is one reason why Army casualties at Normandy were so high, they just sat there once they established a beachhead.
** Even the US Army Air Forces fit here, given their preferred strategy of sending formations of hundreds or thousands of bombers in broad daylight with orders to take no evasive action when under fire
*** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in that the Bomber Command specifically designated American bombers for daylight operations (while British bombers would be for night operations). So the only way to be effective in daylight operations is the "send lots of bombers and hope for the best" way.
* [[Wham! Line]]: After the Germans had broken through the French lines at Sedan in 1940 and had made their right wheel towards the English Channel, Winston Churchill flew to Paris to confer with the French. After assessing the situation, Churchill asked the French commander, General Gamelin, "Where is the strategic reserve?". Gamelin answered "There is none." Churchill described it as one of the most shocking moments of his life. Also, for Churchill at least, news the Surrender of the British Army at Singapore.
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* This was [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]''. In an [[Easter Egg]] during the course of the novel we learn that The Comedian saw action in his masked identity against the Japanese in the South Pacific in 1942.
* ''[[The Desert Peach]]'' is a well-researched comic you've probably never heard of based in Africa, about the Desert Fox's fictional gay younger brother.
* Snoopy from ''[[Peanuts]]'' showed up a few times; Charles Schulz (himself having been in the military in this time) had these show up around
* A time-travel story in ''[[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew]]'' had the team's speedster Fastback forcibly sent back in time to Earth-C's D-Day, where he winds up briefly helping the Allies fight the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Ratzis]] alongside [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] DC funny-animal hero, the Terrific Whatzit (who turns out to be Fastback's uncle).
* Biggles appeared in a number of comics set in [[WW 2]]
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Three-quarters of those who went out in the U-boats did not return.
* ''[[Das Boot]]''
* ''[[U-571]]''
* ''Enigma''
* ''We Dive at Dawn''
* ''Lifeboat''
* ''The Enemy Below''
The Americans carried out their own sub warfare against Japan, which ''did'' succeed in starving the Japanese.
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* ''Crash Dive''
* ''Submarine Command''
* ''[[Operation Petticoat]]''
* ''Destination Tokyo''
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* Jane Yolen's fairytale adaption ''Briar Rose'' is one of these. Definitely falls under [[True Art Is Angsty]], even if {{spoiler|it doesn't COMPLETELY manage a [[Downer Ending]].}}
** Also by Jane Yolen, "The Devil's Arithmetic" – The Holocaust, the [[Grandfather Paradox]], and sadly, a bucketload of teachable moments.
* Also, ''[[Number the Stars]]'' takes place in Denmark,
* ''Snow Treasure'' by Marie Mcswigan is based on a true story about a bunch of Norwegian kids that snuck their country's gold past Nazis in the winter of 1939-1940 and adults who got it to America.
* Anne Frank's diary, coincidentally.
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* [[The Book Thief]] is about Liesel Meminger growing up in a foster home in WWII Nazi Germany. And with a foster family that ends up {{spoiler|hiding a Jew in their basement}}, too.
* ''[[The Caine Mutiny]]''. Set on the Pacific front, but hardly features any combat.
* [[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance|The Winds of War / War and Remembrance]] is practically a grand tour of
* Douglas Reeman has written at least twenty novels of the Royal Navy in WWII, including several set on the Pacific front (both ''The Pride and the Anguish'' and ''Strike from the Sea'' focus on the fall of Singapore).
* [[Night]] by Elie Wiesel, an autobiography about his time in the concentration camps and on the way there.
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* ''Battlestations Midway'' and the sequel ''Battlestations Pacific'' both cover aerial and naval warfare in the Pacific Theatre.
** ''Battlestations Pacific'' features a new [[What If]] scenario for the Japanese; what if they'd won the Battle of Midway and proceeded on to attack the United States?
* ''[[Operation Darkness]]'' (
* [[Sierra Online]]'s "Aces" line, consisting of ''Aces of the Pacific'' (Pacific air war), ''Aces Over Europe'' (European air war), and ''Aces of the Deep'' (Battle of the Atlantic, from a U-boat viewpoint).
* A bunch of Microprose games covered various aspects of
* [[Il-2 Sturmovik]]
* ''[[War Front Turning Point]]'' puts the whole of World War 2 into a [[What If]] scenario, and mixes in a bit of [[Command & Conquer: Red Alert]].
* ''[[Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe]]''
* ''B-17 Flying Fortress''
* The ''[[1942]]'' series of [[Shoot Em Ups]]
* The Pacific campaign of ''[[Empire Earth]]: Art of Conquest''.
* ''[[Clock Tower|Clock Tower 3]]'' features the protagonist evading a serial killer during the London bombings.
* ''[[The Saboteur]]'' - one of the few games focused on the French Resistance.
* ''[[World of Tanks]]''
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[Exo Squad]]'' is
* [[Wartime Cartoon|Many theatrical cartoons made in the early half of the 1940s]] had popular characters like [[Donald Duck]], [[Looney Tunes|Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck]], and [[Popeye]] doing their part in the war effort.
* ''[[Histeria!]]'' had an episode about World War II featuring [[Franklin Roosevelt]], Winston Churchill, and [[Joseph Stalin]] as a group of superheroes fighting off an evil group led by a Satanic Adolf Hitler.
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