WWII 

World War II, or the Second World War

... was a global military conflict, the joining of what had initially been two separate conflicts. The first began in Asia in 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War; the other began in Europe in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.

This global conflict split the majority of the world's nations into opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. It involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, and placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resources. This resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort. Over 70 million people, the majority of them civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. The financial cost of the war is estimated at about a trillion 1944 U.S. dollars worldwidemaking it the most costly war in capital as well as lives.

The Allies were victorious, and, as a result, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the world's leading superpowers. This set the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 45 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict.

NA14599 - Helldivers-SV2C planes from the USS Ticonderoga CV-14 shown on the way back from the last strike on Japan. 

       N-3199B  BB-55 Running to Battle Stations. 

                 D23183 - Gen. George Patton N. Africa. 

M241- Secretary of the Navy, James V. Forrestal and General Holland M. Smith at Iwo Jima with Marines during his tour March 26, 1941.

B23568A - Capsized USS Oklahoma BB-37 and the USS Maryland BB-46 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 08, 1941.

   N3192 - Attack on Pearl Harbor, USS W. Virginia BB-48 & USS Tennessee BB-34 burning. December 08, 1941 

 The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.