1.World War II Triggers

Many historians say World War II started when Germany attacked Poland in September, 1939. Others hold that the war started when Japan attacked Manchuria in September, 1931 while other scholars say the war was a continuation of World War I. The U.S. entered World War II after Congress declared war following the bombing of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941.

2.The Cost of World War II

Compared to all other wars in history, World War II was the most costly in monetary terms. It was the most destructive war; it killed the most people and damaged the most property than any other war in history.  An estimated 1.5 million children were killed during the Holocaust. At least 1.2 million of these children were Jews while tens of thousands of them were Gypsies.

 3.World War II Casualties

Russia had the largest number of casualties in World War II. Over 21 million Russians were killed; 13.6 million of these casualties were military officers. The U.S had about 500,000 casualties; all of them were military officers. The country with the least number of casualties was Britain with about 388,000. Germany had over 7 million casualties, and out of every 5 German soldiers killed in World War II, 4 were on the Eastern Front. Out of all the males born in the Soviet Union in 1923, 80% did not survive World War II.

 4.War Crimes

The Red Army and Russia were accused of various war crimes committed during World War II. These included organized mass rape and genocide. It is alleged that Red Army raped more than 2 million women of German descent aged between 13 and 70 years.

 5.Use of Bombs

Allies dropped about 3.4 million tons of bombs between the years 1939 and 1945. This was an average of 27,700 tons each month. Atomic bombs were first used during World War II. The Enola Gay became popular for dropping the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Another atomic bomb was dropped in Nagasaki, Japan.

 6.World War II Deadliest Battles

The Battle at Stalingrad fought between 1942 and 1943 is arguably the bloodiest battle ever fought in history. This battle has between 800,000 and 1,600,000 casualties and also marked the turning point for Europe during the World War II.  For U.S troops, the Battle of the Bulge was the deadliest and largest battle that claimed the lives of over 80,000 American troops.

 7.Inhuman Experiments

Most Jews were subjected to horrible medical experiments. Doctors bombarded ovaries in women and testicles in men with X-rays to see what impact different doses had on sterility. Nazi doctors are broke repeatedly to check how many times it could break before the bone could heal.  Experiments to see the impact of atmospheric pressure on the human body were done. Varying diseases and drugs were injected in prisoners, muscles cut and limps amputated for use in transplantation experiments. It is considered unethical to use Nazi research or reference it today.

8.The Nazi Flag

The Nazi flag was designed by Hitler. The color red symbolized Nazism’s social idea, the black swastika symbolized the struggle of Aryan man and white stood for nationalism.

 9.World War II Nick Names

Men in the U.S Marine nicknamed their women counter parts BAMs which stood for Broad Assed Marines while women called men HAMs meaning Hairy Assed Marines.

 10.Renamed Hamburgers

In the U.S., the term “Liberty Steaks” was used to refer to hamburgers during World War II to keep off the German sounding word, “hamburgers”