About

World War II Today presents what happened on the day, seventy years ago. It focuses on individual incidents and experiences, rather than attempting a complete narrative history. So the history of the Second World War emerges with the progress of time. Wherever possible links are provided where a proper context can be found, either on another site or to a related book. I have not provided individual links to topics on the most obvious sites such as Wikipedia, or the BBC, where you can find a fuller historical context.

Copyright
I have sought only to make ‘fair use’ of illustrative quotations from copyright material, never using more than a small part of the whole work and always linking to where the whole work may be obtained. My purpose is to bring the whole work to a wider audience. More extensive extracts have been used with prior permission.

All images used are believed to be in the public domain. Most British images are Crown Copyright expired, being created for the Crown before 1st June 1957. Images shown as from the Bundesarchiv are from the Commons:Bundesarchiv under a Creative Commons license. Other images are from the United States National Archive. Any copyright holder who believes I have erred should contact me and I will swiftly rectify the situation.

Video material is hosted by YouTube, these can be viewed directly in YouTube by clicking in the bottom right hand corner of the frame. There are several people posting contemporaneous Newsreel from World War II – I am especially a fan of A Newsreel History of the Second World War, which you can visit if you want to jump ahead of the story.

Suggestions
Suggestions for relevant material relating to individual events on particular days are also most welcome, as are any other comments you may have about the site.

Acknowledgments
This site would not be possible without the the wonderful people at WordPress.

Martin Cherrett
Editor
World War II Today

If you leave a message here I will invariably respond, and I try to do so fairly quickly. Please check you email mailboxes, including those that take junk or spam, if you have not found my response within 48 hours. Search for mail ending @ww2today.com.

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Follow the war as it happened …
Updated seventy years after the event.
New Featured Extracts

The Bombing of Malta

Burma - The Longest Campaign
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Current events

Live World War II Diaries on the web.
LAST YEAR IN THE WAR …
Low level air attack in Iraq
In any case, a really low cross-country flight is a wonderful experience. It is the only time one can get the feeling of an aeroplane’s terrific speed. The ground streaks past under the wings unbelievably fast. Different coloured patches of sand flow by; it’s like running your hand across a patchwork quilt. You lift your machine gently upwards to clear hummocks, and then ease her down again the other side to stay low, low, low. As one approaches the target, the adrenalin starts to pump, giving a tingling sensation between the shoulder-blades, and maybe some sweat trickles down.

U.S. Navy attacks U-Boat
The Captain yelled down for even more revolutions and the diesels began to hammer furiously, plunging the bows deeply into each wave; then the alarm bells rang and the watch came tumbling down to land in a heap on the control room grating. Fischer slammed the tower hatch lid shut as the submarine went down at a steep angle. Through the loudspeakers the calm voice of the boatswain, Maureschat, ordered the bow caps closed and stated the trim depth as 180 feet.

Relief of Tobruk attempted
The operations in the Tobruk area took the form of an advance by our fighting patrols and tanks in the Medawar salient, the western extremity of the defensive perimeter, a position which was recently occupied by the enemy. The enemy counter-attacked vigorously during the following night and recovered some of the ground which he had lost, but by the 16th of May our position in the salient had been consolidated with an average gain of about 600 yards.

About

Follow the war as it happened …

Updated seventy years after the event.

New Featured Extracts

The Bombing of Malta

Burma - The Longest Campaign

Tags

Current events

LAST YEAR IN THE WAR …

Low level air attack in Iraq

U.S. Navy attacks U-Boat

Relief of Tobruk attempted