Through 1944 and 1945, the final two years of World War II, both sides still desired victory. However, by this point, the course of the war was clearly unfavorable for the Axis countries.
The Allies continued to push onward, with air, sea and land units fighting battles in a wide number of locales. A major Allied concern was the much-needed liberation of France, which had been occupied since July 1940 by the Vichy regime (largely, a German puppet government.) The initial Allied plans for the invasion of France and the tentative subsequent plans for the liberation of Western Europe were complete by spring 1944, shortly before the beginning of one of the most well-know battles in the timeline for WWII.
June 6, 1944, more commonly known as D-Day, is still the largest seaborne invasion in history. It began with 17,000 airborne troops being dropped in Normandy, along with air attacks and naval landings. Within two months of fighting, the Battle of Normandy resulted in an Allied advance across France of more than 1000 km, which forced Axis troops to retreat back into Northern France, Holland and Belgium.
German forces continued their occupation of Italy in spite of the Armistice, and they developed and fortified a number of defenses and barricades to hinder the Allies' progress in re-securing the country. The Allied fight to get through the Winter Line ? multiple lines of defense, each with gun pits, concrete bunkers, turreted machine-gun emplacements, barbed-wire and minefields ? was one of the largest and most significant battles that occurred in Italy. They fought from mid-November 1943 to late May 1944 to make it through the various elements of the Winter Line, and American Allied forces finally secured Rome on June 4, 1944. Even after this, Italy saw skirmishes in some areas until May 1945, just a few days before the overall German surrender.
The Soviets too continued to have overall success against the German army, and their actions were what ultimately led to European victory for the Allies. The Red Army's earlier victories at Kursk and Kharkov kept the Russians moving forward; they began a new series of attacks in January 1944 that cost the Germans a lot of ground over the course of the next year and a half. The Soviet Union was successful in clearing the Balkans and most of Hungary of the German army, and over the winter of 1944 - 1945, they moved further and secured Poland.
By the end of April 1945, the Soviets had moved through and occupied Austria and Vienna, and were still advancing, aiming for the heart of Berlin. Finally admitting defeat, Hitler and his wife killed themselves in Berlin on April 30, 1945. As it took a few days for this news to spread, some German units fought until May 11th or 12th, though most of them had surrendered unconditionally by May 8th.
Even with the American capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa (February, and April June 1945, respectively), and the defeat of Hitler, the Japanese continued to fight with no intention of surrendering. Because of this, the United States made the final decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Only because of the widespread, terrible destruction - and the Soviet invasion of Manchuko - did the Japanese officially surrender on August 15, 1945, bringing an end to the events of the timeline for World War II.
Please visit Timeline For World War 2
Source: www.articlecity.com
